General brush construction, particularly
on the first level, is very Quake2-esque,
since the author has made levels for quake
previously. Whether this is a good or a
bad thing is for you to decide, but personally,
I think that the texture set of Half-Life
does not exactly compliment this kind of
architecture. The “palace” section
of the map looks almost cartoon-like. I
prefer my Half-Life levels to mimic real
places, but again, that’s just my
opinion. Fans of the q2 style will probably
like this.
R_speeds here are bad in some spots, but
not because of physical brush construction.
In some places the epolys go up around 9500.
Not good, as even in GL you’ll notice
some framerate drops. Software-mode folks
might experience sound stuttering as well.
However, the architecture, by itself, would
make this map stand out from the rest. There
are some different-looking environments;
they are definitely not representative of
most HL maps.
When I cracked open the ZIP for this set,
I read that there would be no (live) human
grunts in this set. I thought to myself,
“Good. Not just another mindless gruntfest.”
Well, I was not exactly right. This is not
just another gruntfest; instead it is an
alien-slave-and-alien-gruntfest. The author
has simply reinvented the wheel, except
having aliens replace the grunts. Unfortunately,
the gameplay becomes very repetitive by
the end of this set.
There are a grand total of 5 kinds of monsters
in this set, if you count one lone zombie
and a couple bullsquids in that number.
Other than that you will face hordes of
aliens slaves, many alien grunts, and enough
xen masters to annoy the hell out of me.
Now this many enemies would normally create
a formidable challenge, but the author has
made a critical error in his entity placement:
there seem to be no nodes, ground or air,
anywhere in the set. None of the monsters
will come after you; they will sit right
where they are. In the first battle of the
level, I opened a door to 4 alien slaves.
Always a pleasant surprise. Anyway, I dispatched
one with the shotgun, and dashed around
the corner before the others could shock
me. And I waited. And waited. And waited.
Hmmmm… I recommend playing a skill
level higher than you normally do, as the
fights are insanely easy when you can stick
your head around the corner, shotgun a monster,
and then wait for everyone to calm down.
Rinse and repeat.
Weapon selection in this level consists
of the shotgun, the 357, and a late appearance
by the crossbow, mainly for taking out the
alien grunts before they get a shot off.
You’ll never be low on ammo unless
you have no aim, and health is really not
a major issue, as there’s 1 or 2 dead
grunts with 2 or 3 medkits ever 3 or 4 minutes
in this level. (whew, that’s a mouthful!)
Fun for a while; gets repetitive fast. The
gameplay here sadly cancels out any chance
the architecture had to make this map stand
out from the mainstream of HL maps. Still,
d/l it for a gameplay fix. Oh, and by the
way, according to the author you are "required
by law" to email him and tell him what
you thought of the level... take that into
consideration when you download this level
set. :P
-
90% of the time doors have at least
3 enemies behind them. Be prepared before
you enter a room.
-
Since a lot of the monsters in this
set are spawned by monstermaker entities,
they sometimes respawn after you’ve
killed them. There’s no fanfaire about
it either; they make no noise and there’s
no sprite associated with the respawns.
-
Always be on the “lookout”, ironically,
for monsters that spawn behind you in
areas that seem safe.
-
Your best strategy is to take the monsters
one at a time. Don’t rush into a room
with 4 alien slaves and an alien grunt
and start duking it out; you won’t survive.
Take them from around corners when possible.
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