This is a single player map made for SMC Mapping Competition 4. The theme was Mars.
In this map you find yourself in a laboratory where something has gone horribly wrong.
Find Eli and do what he tells you to do.
Basic Details
- Title: Phantom Of Mars
- File Name: hl2-ep2-sp-phantom-of-mars.7z
- Size : 3.26MB
- Author: Zwieracz
- Date Released: 11 July 2009
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Download Options
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Installation Instructions
- Copy phantom_of_mars.bsp into your Half-Life 2: Episode Two Maps folder.
- Launch Half-Life 2: Episode Two
- Open the console and type map phantom_of_mars.
- Press enter/return or click the Submit button.
- Play and Enjoy.
Screenshots
Click on the thumbnails below to open a 800 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots may contain spoilers.
Reader Recommendations
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Meta Review Data
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Manually: 1 Users
Time Taken:
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Shortest: 0 Hours, 15 Mins by JellyBeanDude27
Longest: 0 Hours, 15 Mins by JellyBeanDude27
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Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 1 Users
Time Taken:
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Shortest: 0 Hours, 15 Mins by JellyBeanDude27
Longest: 0 Hours, 15 Mins by JellyBeanDude27
Total Time Played: 0 Hours, 15 Mins
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I hope I am not going too soft. I have no doubt that most readers won’t agree with my choice of Hall Of Fame but I put it there because it’s the perfect length for me, it Loved the inventiveness of it and I really enjoy the corridors with Zombies and saw blades.
Visuals
You move around to a few different locations but the laboratory section seems to be fairly well built, the weird area is not so cool, the Antlion Guard just very plain and the tiled corridors fun but visually boring.
Gameplay
There probably could have been more actual action but I thoroughly enjoyed what there was, except for the white-line-walking (You’ll know what I mean after you play it).
Basically you try to destroy the monolith and move to different areas after each attempt.
Layout/Design
The lab was really well done and I almost wish that I had just stayed instead that area because it has a Black Mesa feel about it, and that is without doubt my favourite location.
Summary
You”l enjoy it but won’t agree with the HOF. SO what, as long as you actually enjoy playing what there is that’s fine. This was created in ten days from scratch and imagine 3 of these connected into one mod and having one mod to play every month – that would be great.
Zombies + sawblades = Fun
Definitely not bad. Visuals are soft and feels right enough. Gameplay is cool. Enemies are not too many or too few, meaning we have enough fight there. There are no puzzles, but considering map is short, it is understandable to choose only fights over only puzzles. I usually don’t like action maps but this one quite fun.
I don’t think this worth to be in Hall of Fame, but still very good.
I thought it was good and the end made me laugh
Agreed. I forget to mention it. Ending was very funny indeed 🙂
Not Mars-ish enough.
Nice design, in he beginning there are a loooooooot of details (thats pretty good). The final is pretty … surprising. DOOOOOOOOOCTOOOOR FREEEEMAAANNN!!
There’s no reason not to play this map. There are technically no puzzles, but there are some unusual mechanics at work here.
There’s a lot of great and varied gameplay stuffed into this one little map, and while there are more zombies that I’d like to normally see in a map, there’s a plentiful supply of ammo and deadly objects. Health? not so much. I suppose it’s possible to defeat an ant lion guard with 2 health, but I’m not quite that good.
The ending will send chills down your spine, guaranteed!
I enjoyed it!
PP, please get some throat linctus. You keep HOFfing all the time!
Nice map, good game playand enjoyable. Thank you.
I really enjoyed the beginning of this map, but once it got to the room with the monolith-like thing, it became less impressive. At that point, the whole thing became disjointed and felt like not as much effort was put into it as the first half.
Crawling through the air ducts gave me a great Black Mesa vibe. I never really felt like I was on Mars though.. When I think of Mars I think of the stereotypical metal Doom corridors. HL2’s textures don’t really fit a Mars-ish environment in my opinion. Everything’s ruinous with garbage everywhere.
Eli looked very robotic right before collapsing on the floor. I actually laughed out loud when I saw it. I can’t decide if this was supposed to be a humorous map (the ending kind of supports that) but the Eli thing just looked awful.
Now let’s get to the room with the monolith. I couldn’t figure out what to do at first. “Ohh, shooting that large black rectangle makes a doorway show up? Why didn’t I think of that before?” The gravity gun part was fun at first, but got repetative, and by the end, I was ready to get back to the map. Well not quite, because after that I had to go through another doorway that took me to a long line that I had to follow without falling off. The purpose of walking this line is to make sure Gordon is sober before taking on EVIL BOSS ANT LION GUARD. He lives in the beautiful land of a ground texture and some floating crates. This was kind of the last straw for me before deciding that the mod wasn’t very good. The second half of the map just seems really lazy, which is a shame because I was impressed with the mapping thus far.
Okay, beat him. finally, back to the map. DOCTOR FREEEEMAN. Okay, I admit I got a chuckle out of this, but I really wanted to continue the awesomeness of the map, and then it ended.
My verdict? Play it. But only play up to the room with the helicopter in it, then imagine the rest was more like Deserted Countdown.
With no Combine to fight, I can’t see this one making the HOF but it really is good. The zombie/maze fight was great. Just enough weapons laying around to get the job done. I just love the saw blade slinging. I could have done that all night it was so much fun. Normally, I think decapitation is a pretty ugly thing , but it just seems so right when there’s zombies involved. The airship looked good sitting there but too bad thats all it did. I was hoping to fly the thing. Maybe in the next one . This is short but well done with no bugs and lots of action.
Great!
The monolith, though is the only connection to Mars I can see – think “2001: A Space Odyssey”.
And why didn’t I get to kill the big bug? Or did I miss that?
Phil
When I go through the second portal (the one at the top of the stairs), all I see is bright grey fog, and two of my crowbar. Is this an error or was it meant to happen? I can’t figure what I’m supposed o be doing if it’s deliberate!
Okay, I looked at the screenshots and saw I was supposed to be seeing a white line against a dark background. I had to follow a white line on a white background! And the AI was disabled too. At least I saw the ending. Quite funny.
The beginning was very interesting. The labyrinth with zombies was rather boring, in my oppinion. But, despite of this, the map is rather impressive))
Is it possible to kill the antlion guard with just a crowbar? Answer is Yes. (but with godmode only). More ammo and health would be great. Also the monolith-type thing was rather plain and after destroying it, one would at least expect some effect (explosion?) instead of it just disappearing.
At the end – was it the phantom? 😀
I thought it was a pretty good map, enjoyable and glad I downloaded and played it. I gave it a 7 out of 10, not fantastic in any way and a fairly short map too.
Pingback: Phantom of Mars (SP, Ep2) « zwieracz
not for me:
kind of a stupid mod:
as short as it was their was even a vent which was not working, I used Noclip to get into the vent.
I do not consider with all of the realism of video games today for it to be chalenging to get into a vent I just use noclip when it seems broken.
I thought this was fun.
At first I was confused in the monolith room, until I figured out what to do.
After all these mods with antlion guards I no longer have the fear of them I once had. Just give me a shotgun, enough ammo and room to run (though the RPG or crossbow from a distance is fine, too).
The only “problem” with the map I had was in the monolith room–when I was figuring out what to do I bashed the large crates you can’t pick up (I always leave the movable ones in case I need them). The crates on top of them stayed floating in the air.
Out of words xD
This was a good map… short, dynamic, and not too difficult.
I prefer largely “zombies maps” like that, with new content, than another Ravenholm-like… It gets pretty boring, those ghost villages…
The labyrinth was a good challenge. And the ending was a good laugh 😀
I think this should be developed with other parallel things like Chtulhu environments, Lovecraft-like…
Ya, this was fun, but I didn’t like that Kleiner and Eli die. Its very disappointing and sad. But everything else was fun! It was a great gameplay! Whoever reads this, GET THIS!
I don’t know if this was the competition winner or not but this was a really fun and clever entry
I loved this map! It takes place in a mostly destroyed base on Mars and is simply amazing. The gameplay is awesome and seems actually much like the original Half-Life. Enemy placement is great, map design is great and the atmosphere is creepy and awesome. One part even kind of reminded me of Penumbra. Once you make your way through the destroyed mars base, you must destroy a monolith so you can escape. There are three things you must do first, navigate a maze filled with zombies (and sawblades), walk across a small white line and defeat an Antlion Guard. I liked the zombie maze, especially since it gives you the Grav Gun. I did not like the white line thing, it was like those annoying thin tightrope levels from Monkey Ball (that might be the strangest comparison I’ll ever make, HL2 and Monkey Ball). The Antlion fight was really just a fight with an Antlion using a shotgun, it’s fun but I can’t really say anything else about it. There’s also an interesting use of the Crab Synth (as seen in the pictures). Without spoilers, the ending was hilarious. I love this map and suggest everyone play it now.
Review in Five Words or Less
What Doom 3 should’ve been.
Manually
Medium
15 Minutes
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