Half-Life 2: Calamity Released

[nub]

YAY!

Downloading now. Playing as soon as it's done.

[nub]

I played for about 30 minutes. So far it seems decent, and I was laughing really hard when I heard my old-ass song play in the first action scene near the beginning of the mod. It really went with it though, got me pumped up and ready to kick some Combine ass.

As for the aesthetic aspect of the mod, it was a bit of a let-down. I've seen your work Spas, and it's fucking brilliant. Some of your battle submissions really made me piss myself. Now, I can understand that this being a mod, you want to get it out the door as soon as possible, and you can rush at times. This shit will happen regardless.

Some of the mapping seemed blocky, bland, and dodgy. Now there was some pretty nice-looking parts, but the lighting didn't accompany this well enough to make it memorable. Some of the architecture was a bit awkward, but for the most part, the structures were believable. It's indeed true that some effects would not render. I believe this is caused by an error with cubemaps. I definitely noticed the lack of proper cubemapping in certain areas, as some props were lit awkwardly. It just seems like the entire thing might have been rushed, GRAPHICALLY.

As for the gameplay. There were a few surprise moments that got me killed, but I save like crazy, because I knew it might occur. So it didn't really get on my nerves that much. Some parts could be a bit more balanced, like the following of which I won't spoil for anyone:

The first strider encounter--ssuming there's another one afterward, I never got to another one before taking a break--was REALLY hard for me, because I was surrounded by soldiers with smgs and AR2's that were constantly firing at me, and the only way I could get ammo for the RPG was to run into the direction of the strider, while taking on fire from all the soldiers and the strider itself. It was really frustrating, but I eventually managed to take out the soldiers whilst avoiding fire from the strider, then I managed to run to the supply crate and get more RPG ammo and take the fucker out. I think there should be more cover, like a collapsed building possibly with big mounds of debri that create a little pathway that the player can maneuver through somewhat safely to get more ammo.

The gameplay was otherwise very enjoyable. It was very HL2, but the plot is cheesy so far, to be honest.

PS: The guy on the radio needs to stop repeating the first word of each line he says.

[Mephasto]

ill give it a try, good to see you finaly released it.

(40 days left in army, hurray)

[Absurdistof]

Sorry for bump.

I thought the mod was good, but a v2 or something along those lines would be nice

1) LOTS of enemies... Did you design this to be beatable on hard? There are some parts that are literally impossible to beat...

2) A little hard to believe in some parts... such as the massive combine antichambers they only started building 5 minutes ago?

3) Game bugs or am I impatient... a few times there were places that either I couldn't figure it out, or were impossible. Also, I would get blocked off by the combine barricades, only to wait 5 minutes, and then decide to noclip b/c nothing was happening.

All that aside, there was a good artistic feel to it. It seemed very early morning to midday bright unpopulated, unwelcome, and alleyway to me...

[joe_rogers_11155]

Played the mod, left a short unscathing review on moddb.com.

I recommend you make a v2 sometime in the future, and call this a very strong BETA or something. Because you really need to apply the same high attention to detail to the second half of your maps. The combine architecture really lacks the detail of your earlier maps and feels amateurish. Please put a different texture on your train rather than that one metal color. I also recommend you redesign the rotating puzzle and make it more eye-candy. snap some glowing shit onto it and make it emit some awesome noises.

Overall, re-work all your combine architecture, and release again in the future. Take a break and feel good at your release, and then get back at it and put out an updated release. You will feel even better when people are saying, "Looks even better than before, spas!!"

Your gameplay is good, don't listen to these tossers. The only parts where the difficulty curve is too steep is during your boss battles, gunship, strider, and final battle. I would love it if you put in a crossbow ammo crate somewhere in those battles so we get to snipe dudes off the roof.

Have fun with your next mods man. Good job.

[joe_rogers_11155]

ad_hominem, your review of this mod is good. And funny.

He writes, "If you’re a bit fussy about which free mods you play, well first of all you’re probably a bit of a dick..."

Awesome.