This is an updated and extended version of Slums.
You are disorientated and lost. You regain full awareness in what looks to be a storage room in an apartment block.
Work your way through a variety of environments to find your way to freedom.
Basic Details
- Title: Slums 2
- File Name: hl2-ep2-sp-slums-2.1.exe
- Size : 76.64Mb
- Author: Diolator and IceFox
- Date Released: 02 August 2009
Download Options
Installation Instructions
- Run the executable file.
- Select the correct path to your SourceMods folder
- Sit back and relax and the installer do its thing.
- Slums 2 should now be listed in your Library tab.
Screenshots
Click on the thumbnails below to open a 800 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots may contain spoilers.
Reader Recommendations
Total Downloads
Please note: These statistics are valid from December 2010
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1,871Overall
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0Today
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2Last 7 days
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5Last 30 days
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97365 days
Meta Review Data
Statistics based on 3 comment(s) with meta review data.
Installed:
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 3 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 2 Hours, 15 Mins
Shortest: 1 Hours, 45 Mins by geekofalltrades
Longest: 3 Hours by beanz / milkmanbeanz
Total Time Played: 6 Hours, 45 Mins
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 3 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 2 Hours, 15 Mins
Shortest: 1 Hours, 45 Mins by geekofalltrades
Longest: 3 Hours by beanz / milkmanbeanz
Total Time Played: 6 Hours, 45 Mins
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Jump to a review
Firstlly, I’d like to thank Diolator for allow me to release this mod earlier than other websites.
As the brief descriptions says this is an updated and extended version of slums, which was released back in 2007.
I considered this for a Hall Of Fame but finally decided against it, for reasons I’ll explain later in this review.
Visuals and Sound
I don’t particularly remember any ambient sounds, so that could indicate three things; 1 I was too stupid to notice them, 2 the author didn’t use them much or 3 they were perfectly used and everything seemed natural.
I would have liked to have heard some new music in this mod but what I heard seemed fine. I do think there was one instance where I thought the music was too fast for the situation but being too lazy I didn’t note it down – sorry.
Certain areas of the mod had fantastic lighting and it’s clear that the author took his time getting this right but then, in some cases within the same area, the lighting was almost terrible.
What I am really talking about is a contrast between too bright and too dark. I know and accept that the areas where the mod is set is underground etc, but it just didn’t feel right. Some of the stair wells also have this feeling. One floor is bright and then suddenly you go down or up and are in almost complete darkness.
Putting that aside, the mod looks great and there are some really nice large underground sections.
Gameplay
It’s strange how sometimes we all miss the huge and obvious things but notice the smaller things. Case in point; Metrocops with machine guns. This really bothered me for some silly reason because I have probably encountered it lots of times before but because the initial gameplay was going from room to room shooting human enemies I not only noticed it but became frustrated with it.
All in all I felt that the mod needed more work on the enemy placement and types of attacks. I especially felt that there should have been more vertical gameplay beside the simple stair well areas.
The two Antlion Guards were perhaps a little overkill or maybe I suck at these types of encounters. On a positive note I really enjoyed the sniper section and wish this could have been made a little longer.
Layout and Design
My biggest grievance with this mod was the repetition at the beginning. I felt as though I was going from room to room to corridor to room etc etc. You get the idea. I am glad I persevered though because after that initial repetitiveness things varied and improved.
I still had the feeling that I was going from one interesting section to another via lots of corridors though. Now this maybe true of other mods but somehow this mod didn’t disguise the fact.
Summary
There’s no doubt that Diolator has lots of talent but I feel that he needs to focus less on mapping and more on creating something that is fun to play and provides more emotion. This is the reason why I didn’t make this a Hall Of Fame, it lacks that certain something that makes me excited when playing. I enjoyed this mod a lot but at no point did I get excited.
Making a great mod requires more than just level design, it requires story telling, which was completely absent in this mod (Remember story telling is not just screen text or voice acting), flow control/balance (Types of gameplay sections etc) and a satisfying finale. This review ends on that note; the ending. It really didn’t leave me wanting more, and that’s gotta be a good sign of any mod. When you think about your favourite mods I bet they had great endings.
I have no hesitation in recommending this mod but be prepared for the cloudy start, sunny middle section and slighty damp ending.
So close, yet so far.
I took the liberty of writing my own 5 word review.
Hallway, vent, sewer, vent, repeat.
While the mods visuals are quite good, the gameplay and environments suffered heavly from repeatitive elements.
There is almost no variation and the enemy placement is too predictable. (minus the sniper and antlionguards). Sometimes I even had deja-vu’s … hey, didn’t I pass this same corridor 2 maps ago?!
This mod is borderline mediocre.
For the first half an hour or so I didn’t feel sick to the stomach, but then as time went by, and the mod glided by, the temptation of alt + f4ing out of this mod grew more and more.
Alas, my OCD and lack of other things to do forced me to dribble on through this tribulation.
Phil, you’ve listed a great number of things I agree with, like the music, and how it really does suit the moment, and the level repetition. But I really don’t agree with your overall score. I mean, I could certainly see you giving this less than 4 stars if it wasn’t “featured” on your site, I see how you were pressured to go easy on it — of course it would be just tactless to be honest, what with the author’s generosity.
I don’t expect every mod to be another Minerva/R&D/etc, but I do expect some imagination put into it. I mean, if you’re going to go ahead and make something a ‘mod” rather than an assortment of HL2 singleplayer maps then you’re going to need SOME sort of story or some sort of feature that stands out from other mods/maps, otherwise, why bother making it a mod? It’s not a mod. They’re simply maps. Nothing more.
The mod is based on the episode 2 engine, yet in terms of beauty, it feels like a plain old Half Life 2 mod. The world in feels ugly, blocky and hard to connect with. Though, on the plus side, it does make good use of the fog particle effects of the engine. Other than that, the upgrade to the EP2 engine seemed superflous.
In the first half of the mod, which I presume is ‘slums 1″ i.e : the first half an hour, I was sort of impressed. The ammo seemed very well placed. And so did the enemies. Alas, as the mod grew on the ammo placement seemed to come along like London Buses (all at once) and at inconvenient intervals.
Conclusion : I do not recommend this mod. If you have time to kill, literally nothing else to do in the world and you have played every other mention-worthy HL2SP mod out there, then go ahead and play this. Enjoy this assortment of monotonous HL2 SP maps.
PS : If you happen to be the author of this mod, and you have found yourself reading this comment. Please don’t be disheartened. As Phil said, you do seem to have a lot of talent with Hammer. And if you ever happen to start another on project/mod I can only hope you give your project more room to breathe, flap your wings a bit more and allow yourself to be more creative than you have been with this mod.
I agree with everything “pants” said. Read his review if you wanna know what I think.
Favourite 😀 No doubt
I thought that Slums 2 will be better than Slums 1 review, but for some strange reasons, it`s not. Sadly.
Maybe HL2 players tired from Source and the style of HL2. I noticed that myself. HL2 is old game even if you have episode 1 or 2 or 3.
Some mods have just new maps and this is good anyway. It`s better to do what you can do better. I make maps. The story, new models and some other stuff are great things, but it can`t be made by only one man. Only if he is a genuis.
hey I personaly enjoyed the mod, especialy the parts with the zombies in the apartment section and the easter egg(s) but I really didn’t like the combine parts because of how many npc’s you put in the same are, I once went through almost an entire map with below 10 health because of all the shotgun carrying combine there were, the beginning was great scared me more then fear 2
ps whats with all the cat pictures?
diolator,
For what it’s worth, I thought your mod was pretty good and appreciate the time and effort you put into it. thanks
the problem some people seem to have is they unconsciously compare every mod with very innovative ones like Offshore, Metastasis or the recent one R&D.
one thing that might have changed the mood playing Slums is if you had more outdoor areas to go through–the present environment feels too claustrophobic. just a thought.
I enjoyed it, though can sympathise with the previous comments. If anything my main gripe was that it could have been half as long and still fitted in everything that it did.
Still, it played smoothly, the music worked for me, the combat could have been a bit more varied perhaps, but was made more challenging by the distinct shortage of available ammo & health.
I do hope Diolator doesn’t get disheartened by the comments, as has already been said a lot of work has obviously gone into this and it’s very good, just there’s been a lot of stiff competition lately….
I’ll give it a Play it Now as I did as soon as I saw it, and don’t regret doing so!
There is nothing to worry about for Diolator if you ask me. I didn’t finish the mod yet, so I’m not writing a review, but his mapping is awesome and his mod plays quite nice. Yes there is no story but well, I prefer no story to a bad story really. I like the visuals and gameplay. This mod will definitely have its own crowd.
Well done -thanks-I thought it was one of the better ones to come along for quite a while. It had good firefights and the overall look was really good. It did get a little repetitive and I did get lost for a while in the maze of hallways but that seems to happen with these mods from time to time. The author allows the player to stay in one building too long and everything starts looking identical.
Other then that. I thought it was fine. Had fun with it.
Diolator, thanks for a good effort on your mod! 😉 Being an old man (63) with,(I think) some playtime experance, I enjoyed your mod very much! The winding hallways and close combat are just the thing to keep you guessing as to “what’s next?”. The backtracking was not to hard to figure out, I had plenty of that in the US Army! Could have been a bit more music and as suggested some more open spaces, other than that, it played very well on my rig!! BTW, I play my games on HARD!!! 🙂 Again thanks!!
This author has alot of talent. This mod was a lot better than most and only slightly inferior to the top 10. Given more time, this could have become a HOF canidate. It had lots of great fighting with a great variety of enemies to choose from. I played on normal with all settings maxed and it looked great and it was never too hard, but hard enough that I died many times. But not so tough that I had to cheat. For me that makes a good game.
Good balance and the only thing he may have improved on is perhaps having the player outside more or maybe break up the inside fighting with an airboat ride or transporter. Somewhere in the middle it could use a change. But other then that, this for me, was the best one so far this summer. Thanks to the author and to Phillip for the find-good work guys!
I’m having a problem with this mod, in that is crashed out to desktop in the street area with the rebels…
Please, send me your PC config, so I can find a solve of this error, which you have got.
Hi diolator
As per your request, my system is a Dell Xps M1330 laptop with the following:
Core2Duo T9500
nVidia 8600M – 176.44 @1280*800
4Gb DDr2-667
SigmaTel HD audio – 6.10.0.5614
Vista Sp2 upto date.
Steam upto date
What other info do you require..?
Thx. Some guys didn`t get any crashes during playing the mod, but some guys like you did. It is because everybody have different machines.
The game didn’t crash on me, but I did detect some issues in the same area that Bikerdude said ( my system smokes his ) So, its obvious that there are some flaw’s with the MOD. I know you worked hard on this project, but the area(s)that I’m talking about has issues, it seems to be for the most part, out door’s ( street’s & court yards )
“( my system smokes his ) I know you worked hard on this project, but the area(s)that I’m talking about has issues, it seems to be for the most part, out door’s ( street’s & court yards )
LOL smokes mine huh…this is just my backup machine, my main machine is a C2Q9650-oc, GTX280-oc, DDR2-1066, 1.28Tb raid-0, XFi – but its out of action because the PSU died 🙁
Regarding the outside areas, is there a work around for this, that you can think off…?
well I found a work around of sorts… I nocliped around the back and turned the forcefield off and killed all the combine…. The rebels didnt come out either and the mod continued as normal…
bikerdude, you should just go upstairs of building and unplug a cable, so the energy wall will open and kill a sniper if nessesary. Cheats are sucks.
I had no choice, as sson as the rebeles engaged the combine and got to that same point the mod would crash….
Probably just to many so it overwhelms the pc.Some take it and some dont.Just use the notarget cheat and kill some and then tuen it back on.
Very enjoyable but repetitive in quite a few areas but this does lengthen the game which is good.
Combat gameplay. what there is was OK but not enough of it. Long walks exploring and solving with little or no combat to relieve the tedium..
One area had a hitch. Slums 4 in the area where you have to go underwater through broken grills – the door into this area opened to blue skies as did both the underwater grills. Easy to work out so did not detract.
I did not think I could take out 2 antlion guards in a confined space with nowhere to hide but the area is excellently planned so that you can – bravo.
I shall be playing this again.
Diolator & colleague have obviously put in a lot of work on this and it shows. If they were to let their imaginations roam free and include more combat gameplay, they could soon sit at the same table as the better known & more experienced modders.
Good luck to you and look forward to more (Please!).
On second play, the hitch with slums 4 has gone! I do not know why.
No bugs, no crashes. Great.
One of the best mods I have played in a long time… can’t wait for Slums 3!!!!!!
The only trouble I had was with the 2 antlion guards. I had to go from regular play to easy. It is always stressful when there’s no ammo and you are running low.
I enjoyed this mod very much!
You don’t have to fight the antguards at all. In the doorway of the big room, run quickly (fast) past the 2 zombies directly to the turning handle, crouch and start turning until open. The guards will be busy killing the 2 zombies first – just enough time for you to get out of the room.
Nice try, h2-fan! those who think not much will fight with Antlions and those who think better will avoid it just like that. It was added to mod specially. I`m glad that you found that.
O-I did have to add more ammo to beat those nasty antlions. Also, if you cross the room and stand on the pile of metal bars or whatever they were, the antlions won’t get you. They stop there. Error? Score 1 for the player!
It’s an ok mod. Game play wise, it’s the average hl2-esqe shooter. Rather bland and nothing too special. Level design was good in some parts, but there were also some parts with minor (but glaring) flaws or just general bad design. Worth a try if you’re just bored enough or you actually like the same old hl2 stuff.
hmm, never played slums, but I downloaded both now.
What should I play first, slums or slums2?
Is slums even worthable to play when I already have slums2?
You only need to play Slums 2; it contains slums 1 already but in an updated form.
Version 2.1 is now available
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I liked it at first, but then it became way to repetitive! And most of the map I needed the flash light. Not enough action and way to dark…
Bland maps, no gameplay/story. This is probably the worst SP experience I’ve been through since Rock 24 (which was awful).
As I started this mod, I was quite excited about it, from the name Slums, as I ever wanted to see more rodden parts of City 17. As much dissappointed was I when I played the mod, it should better be called Underground or something. Because I simply didn’t felt like I was walking through slums. Yes, yes, it looks all like a dump and so on, but you are walking far more in rooms or in canals than in Slums. I wanted more of the part were you are walking between the streets, not only rooms and rooms and rooms. Also I didn’t like that there were so less humans, wtf, we are in the slums! Normally there should be the biggest amount of humans, and combines sure would do hard by searching the slums and so, people would do easy by hiding there. That two pars were the biggest problems and made the mod sometimes quite boring.
Now to the positive things:
Tactical combat!
Yes, most of the combines ambush you as soon as you open a door, but the simple but yet good connectivity betweent he rooms makes nice fights.
There was also a good difference between zombie and combine fights.
The antlion fight was really awesome, the music fit perfectly and gave me a bunch of adrenaline, so I could kick the ass of those suckers with a lot o joy!
Also I liked the difficult of the mod, I was nearly never at 100 health, but also died not that much, it was good playable but still challenging.
The story was pretty senseless, but the dream at the beginning an the end were nicely made.
Also the rooms were quite well made, the lightning is sometimes really awesome! Only at the beginning the rooms were all looking like the same.
Conclusion: A download worth, but next time I read slums, I also wanna have real slums!
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The following comments may contain Spoilers; however I will keep these to a minimum.
If you are looking for a story based mod with unique settings and plenty of new stuff then you should start looking else where. If you prefer tons of encounters with hard hitting Combine set amidst the apartments and streets of a ravage City 17, then this one is for you.
Personally I am ok with either providing they are well constructed, what we have with Slums 2 is a hard hitting in your face mod without any sense of purpose, hence the lack of story line. This in its self need not be a drawback, most of us like a bit of pointless mayhem, but this on the long side mod, relies too much on a sole element with much of it content set within confound surrounds of small rooms and passage ways.
Without any new structures, textures, innovation or variable gameplay the mod begins to falter with duration; here the chosen format is better suited to a smaller length mod.
What the mod lack in uniqueness it sure makes up with in the combat department, much of which is on the tough side needing constant awareness of both health and ammo count and a requirement to seek out all available stores.
I enjoyed this mod to a points, however it did pass it’s sell by date and I believe that many players are now looking for more then just the old formula of plenty of Combine, zombies and headcrabs in your face.
I have no trouble in recommend you play this mod, it will not suit the mappers among us, nor those that dislike longish mods, but that still leaves the big majority of HL2 FPS fans who will have fun with this one.
I hope the author having given us what in many respects is a faultless if uninspiring mod turns their mapping skills to something more unique and ambitious.
If you liked slums 1, You’ll love this mod!
It’s intense, creepy, immersive. There is too little ammunition on hard imho. Despite that, it’s a must play.
Congrats to the author!
Had a blast! Good bug free game play all around (keep in mind though that HL2 Episodes 1 and 2 are more demanding on resources and if you’re running an older
or lower end system ,the game can crash often unless you’re running it bare bones).This mod runs pretty solid on it’s own though.
A lot of hard work went into this mod and it showed.
Aside from a so-so story line ,the level designs, mapping,textures and lighting were all great.The atmosphere was held well by the overall rundown feel of everything( scum covered floors,walls and plenty
of garbage all over do the job.The great lighting really
finishes it).
The combat was well balanced in that it wasn’t so difficult that I couldn’t defeat enemies,but I did get my ass kicked plenty.A decent sound track helped too.Given the length of the mod,there was ample opportunity to practice “tried and true” and try out some new tactics.
Although it would have done well as a shorter mod,it was still a great play with plenty of great looking action
and plenty of asses to kick.Had good time and would recommend that anyone else load this up and do the same.
Kudos to Diolator and IceFox.What have you got coming next?
Not much to add to the previous comments. Gave it an 8 out of 10. Lots of gameplay, sure it was repetitious however not bad. The antlion concept didn’t work in practice because of a design problem. I was allowed, before leaving the tunnel, to kill all the things they would otherwise have been distracted by. Switched to easy which finally allowed me to proceed. Eventually. Lots of swearing at the mod and nearly quit there.
I am voting for the mod Slums 2. It wasn’t on the list, but I wanted you to know that it gave me the most satisfaction because I really like large maps, and there were many. I may be somewhat claustrophobic, and large places make me feel more “free”. Thanks, Diolator, for a very enjoyable experience… and to PP for hosting it. 😀
it’s good.
the game was just fine and fun to play;
EXCELLENT MOD!
I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. Lot’s of thought and detail went into this. My only complaint…and it’s a small one…is that there did not seem to be enough of the med kits. But that might have been because I may have been less skillful than I needed to be. Thanks so much for contributing.
Unless you like painful redundancy, keep away. The mod just seems to be a repeat of itself at every corner. The game-play is pretty much just constant shootouts in uninteresting, and usually confusing conditions. Chances are, if you die it was enragingly cheap. The mapping is well done, but this doesn’t make up for the MASSIVE disappointment factor(s). The biggest problem is that you expect something completely different from half life 2. You expect gang-like conditions and such, but you end up with antlion guards, zombies, and just another combine invasion. There is also- NO. STORYLINE. You have a nightmare of some…train…hitting you for some reason. You wake up, kill everything, and return to the dream with OMFG 100% MORE DEAD BODIES, but this time…you guessed it, a stalker kills you. Why? Just why? What caused that to happen? The best part of the game was when I killed 2 zombies in one AR2 pulse, note that the PLAYER had to make that happen, not the game.—And one small note, if you use weapon reskins and redesigns ( IE The AR2 M4M203 Reskin ) AVOID THIS EVEN MORE. I installed all of my downloaded reskins correctly, and no enemies dropped weapons, meaning that I had to go through 3/4 of the game with little or no ammo in at least one weapon, and the last quarter Impulse101’ing.—Deceiving with its grunge fonts and slums concept, its just another half life mod. No replay value, No first play value, and a giant waste of time.
no question the author has a great deal of talent. While I like long mods this one was too long only because of the repetitive nature of it. The gameplay in general was very good, there is alot here to offer with combat and some puzzles to get force-fields disabled etc. I just got bored. This is definately worth playing but it would have held my interest more if there was a story line linked to it. I can understand the “mood” in certain areas but the lighting was bad in alot of areas, just too dark which had me using the flashlight for long periods of time until it burned out and made me wait for it to recharge, just messed up any flow of the game. Credit to the author for his talent I had no gamplay issues, bugs or crashes within this large mod.
Play it, play it now:
I have a question for the developers of this mod…
!WARNING! !CONTAINS SPOILERS! [/spoiler]
After you pass the door with the skull and crossbones on it and then go outside to the two (2) Combine talking over the barrel fire, then you go into the control room and activate the button, what do you do next? I’m completely stuck. I’ve tried going through the unlocked door, but I can’t find anything in there to do. Please help!
Other than that I absoloutley love the mod and I personally didn’t even notice the lack of a story. It is one of the rare cases in a game when you don’t need one, and I say congratulations for that, that is not an easy task to pull off. Oh, and one last thing, have you ever thought of applying to make your mods for Valve officially? Kind of like Lost Coast, I think you could do it.
Yours Sincerely,
Rivenscry The Halfian.
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“Work your way through a variety of environments to find your way to freedom.”
Work your way through a variety of environments to find your-
through a variety of environments-
variety of environments-
variety
…please.
If there’s a single thing that Slums 2 lacks, it’s variety. Fight some Combine in a cramped apartment block. Then, fight some zombies in a cramped basement. Then, fight some Combine in a cramped apartment block. Then, fight some zombies in a cramped sewer. Very occasionally, you get to pop outside for a breath of fresh air and a wide open space, but you invariably end up fighting a few Combine and then going right back inside.
Want to fight a gunship? Of course not, why would you want that? A strider? Ha, striders are so yesterday. Hunters? But you already get to fight Combine!
Want to solve some puzzles? No you don’t. Puzzles are for nerds. Have your Combine, have your zombies, and shut your mouth.
Slums 2 was one of those mods that I got about halfway through, and then couldn’t wait to have end. There’s no break at all in the combat: clear out a bunch of zombies and zombines, then turn a corner, and a Combine soldier on a mounted gun starts firing down your throat. You become combat-fatigued rapidly, and there’s simply no time to breathe… ever.
Now, there was some good here. On normal difficulty, there’s just the right amount of ammo lying around most of the time to where you have enough, but you’re forced to improvise. You’ll find yourself rationing your ammo carefully, conserving the right types for the right encounters. No double-barrel blasting at medium range: if you do that, you won’t have any shotgun ammo left for when things get truly cramped. No unloading into enemies at close-range with the MP7 just because it was the weapon you had out when you rounded that corner: you’d better back up and pull out your shotgun, because you’re going to need that MP7 ammo later. This type of gameplay is pretty hard to pull off, and Slums does it well.
Slums also does a terrific job of rewarding you for exploring. The levels are labyrinthine, and you’ll find supply crates tucked into almost every corner.
Overall, if you like running-and-gunning, you’ll like Slums 2. If you couldn’t run-and-gun through nearly copy-pasted levels for two straight hours with no rest, though, then give it a pass.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour, 45 Minutes
Simple run’n’gun mod with awesome level design and atmosphere. Also have some simpliest puzzles.
10/10 Must have.
Manually
Medium
2 Hours
I played the first Slums mod so I got kind of spoiled, there is no real reason to play the first one as this includes it but makes it better. There is not any story, but it makes up for that in amazing graphics when it comes to source, I found myself taking screenshots like every two minutes because of how cool I thought some stuff looked. The enemy placement is a bit weird in some places, like it just feels a bit off sometimes, but the odd enemy placement is not too bad. The sound effect choice is great, the music choice is great, and the lighting and settings are definitely the best part. If you like a little shooting mod you put some thought into but not too much, definitely give this one a try.
Manually
Medium
3 Hours