There doesn’t seem to be a story but the objective is fairly clear. Get the HEV suit, find more batteries and use the elevator.
There are two puzzles and plenty of action, which should leave you wanting more.
Reach the vortigaunt for a mini-speech and the map ends.
Basic Details
- Title: Craig’s World
- File Name: hl2-ep2-sp-craigs-world.rar
- Size : 1.92Mb
- Author: Craig Simon
- Date Released: 14 August 2009
PlanetPhillip Download Servers
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Installation Instructions
- Copy craigs_world_final_6_26_09.bsp into your Half-Life 2: Episode Two Maps folder.
- Launch Half-Life 2: Episode Two
- Open the console and type map craigs_world_final_6_26_09.
- Press enter/return or click the Submit button.
- Play and Enjoy.
Please see the Technical Help section if you need help.
Screenshots
Click on the thumbnails below to open a 800 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots may contain spoilers.
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Reader Recommendations
Total Downloads
Please note: These statistics are valid from December 2010
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1,983Overall
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2Today
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2Last 7 days
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12Last 30 days
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126365 days
Meta Review Data
Statistics based on 2 comment(s) with meta review data.
Installed:
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 2 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 21 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 20 Mins by Daken50
Longest: 0 Hours, 22 Mins by ArctixSnowPup
Total Time Played: 0 Hours, 42 Mins
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 2 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 21 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 20 Mins by Daken50
Longest: 0 Hours, 22 Mins by ArctixSnowPup
Total Time Played: 0 Hours, 42 Mins
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Jump to a review
I cheated! I have to admit it. I’m sorry.
I enjoyed this map and recommend you play it. I was pointed to it by Jasper who found it on Map Factory.org, which is a great site, that covers mostly MP releases.
The mini-review contains spoilers.
Visuals
The map contains a few winding corridors, some open roof areas, which I don’t think you were suppose to get to but I did, and a large open area, all looking a little bland. It seems the author added some crates and rocks to fill the area but they don’t seem to appear natural.
Gameplay
As I said, I cheated. I cheated on the second battery. I couldn’t find a way t get back to the area where I entered the water. I am hoping it as a little bug but I doubt it, more likely I missed something obvious.
The solution to the first puzzle, wasn’t hard but not very “realistic”, something I seem to focus on more and more recently.
Layout and Design
Besides looking like a level made to be a level or a puzzle, the layout is quite interesting. The large open area, I mentioned earlier, was great fun to play. I think I am getting to enjoy areas where the enemy attacks from lots of different directions, especially above you.
It was a shame you could see the elevator shaft through one of the roof areas, but it didn’t spoil the whole level.
Summary
An interesting release that would have benefited from more attention to the details. The action was fun and challenging, although maybe the Metrocops were grouped together too much.
5 Words Or Less Review
Action and puzzles = great fun.
Okay, I uncheated and found what I was missing. It’s to do with the energy balls and a forcefield walkway.
Once I had Mrs Jasper work out the first puzzle – plain sailing!
Well, nearly. In it’s way it’s quite clever.
Nice game with some quite demanding Combat.
Unless something major turns up, worth the download and play.
Jasper, please ask Mrs Jasper for the solution to the first puzzle, thanks.
Mel, watch what Dog is doing and notice what he is doing it on and how it relates to opening the door to the HEV suit.
Phillip beat me to it – at 7.25am!!
Nice little map and all puzzles have a solution.
Thanks Phillip, I managed to sort the first puzzle out, it came to me in a dream.
@Phillip: At the time of writing this game has one “Play it now” rating and one “Play it later” yet the Lambda symbol is half-way between “Play it now” and “Personal Favourite’, could this be a bug?
I short and self-contained romp through some building of unknown purpose or origin, for some unknown purpose.
My first observations was that the map was too dark to be able to see alot of the enemies, atleast until you got the flashlight which meant the fast zombie torsos had clawed off my face before I had even noticed they were there. The dog puzzle was nicely done although the battle before it annoyed me (I can’t stand battles against swarms of fast moving, impossible to hit enemies, be it manhacks or headcrabs), you could it down to personal preference on my part though.
As I played on I started noticing major stuttering on the map, although I don’t know if this was down to abysmal optimisation or my copy of Firefox chewing its way through 250,000K of my RAM.
The final battle with the Combine-Elites proved to be a fun exercise in disintegrating multiple targets, although if I remember correctly the corridor leading to the upper levels was a bit low on cover (having the enemy use cover always makes for more interesting battles in my opinion).
If the crates could be gravity-gunned fully, a little more attention was put on the setting and why Gordon is there in the first place and aforementioned lack of light was fixed then this map would be worthy or a “Play it later” but in its current form the experience just feels a little bit empty to me.
Personal Favorites count as the same score as Play It Now recommendations(at least last time I calculated it) so it’s not so much a bug as a less than intuitive segmentation.
Once you sort out the first puzzle the map settles into typical exchange of short-sharp encounters against headcrabs and Combine troops. Before this you may find yourselves wandering around in dimly light corridors wondering what to do next, if this happens then read Phillips response above or ask Mrs. Jasper for help.
There are no visuals of note with only enclosed corridors and large rooms” sparsely adorned with incidental content surrounded with uninspiring textures and basic set designs. However, what we have is adequate for the gameplay and not having any trace of a story the mod is designed around a couple of puzzles and set pieces staged for ambush.
I enjoyed the mod and having played it through a couple of times I now understand all the triggers, with the first play through I was not sure what was triggering what and to some extent I stumbled through the game. The balance between puzzles and action was right for me, and the author should be encouraged, it would be nice to see a mod twice the duration with 4 major puzzles linked to a story-line.
The only real problem that I had was that the keypad at the very beginning didn’t give proper “failure” feedback when you punched in the wrong code. As a result it gave the impression that the keypad wasn’t triggering right or that the controls were broken or something.
As soon as I saw Dog I realized what he was doing. I just wish you didn’t have to trigger the headcrabs before you could get him to show up. It would be one thing if the headcrabs started spawning as soon as you came in the room, but they waited for you to pick up the smg, which I found annoying as I would have rather used the crowbar to deal with them.
After that it went pretty quickly. Worth a play through, even if it’s only once.
Nothing startling on the visuals and combat relatively easy but if you like puzzle maps as I do then it’s good.
I would like to review this map but I’m stuck at screen shot 08. I tried restarting and reinstalling but I can’t figure out how to get out of this area. Can ya help a brother out?
Use your gravity gun to pull the battery out under the little gap between the floor and the ground. That should then allow you to continue
Wow my eyes are getting bad. I thought that was a light fixture! Thanks Phillip I would have never figured that one out. I’ll review when finished.
Thanks to Phillips hint I was able to finish without cheating, sort of…I think. I’m still not clear on what was happening with the 3rd. battery. I got it and myself back to the generator room but I doubt it was the way the author intended. Had to rate it a maybe because it just wasn’t clicking for my rapidly deteriorating 50 year old brain. Way too dark and bland in spots also. On the plus side, the combat was enjoyable and the puzzle with Dog was very nicely done. Play it if you are caught up on all the other great maps & mods that have been released this year.
I’m glad I could help. I can’t see your recommendation image. You did click it before or after typing your comment, didn’t you?
sorry had to re-register-password issue
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Hello Phillip and everyone,
Thank you very much for posting and playing my map and leaving so much valuable feedback. I was very excited when I saw this via a Google search.
This is my first fully functioning single player Half-Life 2 map. My primary focus was on Level Design in order to create an action packed map that has some mentally challenging puzzels. I tried to stay away from environmental art as much as possible.
As many times as I have played through this map, I still enjoy it a great deal (I recomend that it is played through on the hardest difficulty). I am currently working on a Left 4 Dead Campaign, but all this positive and constructive feedback makes me want to work on another HL2 map as well.
Thanks to everyone who took the time to play through my World. I hope you enjoyed it and did not find it too challenging. It is definately not a walk in the park. I am looking forward to reading more comments about what people really liked and what can be improved.
Thank you,
Craig Simon
Play It!
Thanks for building and releasing the map. Thanks also for visiting and commenting on the site.
For me the biggest two issues were putting crates in an area that you didn’t want player to reach. The area with the metrocops on the ledge. I was able to push crates and reach those areas. Image 5, show you. That spoiled the immersion a little.
The second one was the forcefield walkway. When I put the battery in the required area I couldn’t see the walkway and kept looking in the wrong place. I then removed the battery and tried other things. The moment I put the battery in I should have seen the walkway and knew where to go. Of course, I seem to be the only person complaining about this, so perhaps I wasn’t looking hard enough!
I highly recommend dumping the L4D campaign and starting a new HL2: EP2 one! 🙂
Hey, craig, any chance you could put some script in so that little passcode input will display “incorrect code” if your sequence of 4 button presses is wrong? and also make it so that if you press the wrong button, it’ll still give a “beep” noise of feedback that you pressed a button, even if it was the wrong one? Since there was no feedback from it I was wondering if the thing was even working properly at all.
The other part that confused this issue is that in order to get the clue that told you the passcode, you seemed to need to grab the gun that set the headcrabs coming at you. I wouldn’t have minded this, but without the HEV suit, it makes it impossible to switch your weapons, so I was stuck battling the headcrabs with the smg, despite the fact that I wanted to use my crowbar. Because of this I figured that I was supposed to find the clue for the passcode BEFORE I got to that area, because it gave the impression that the HEV suit was supposed to be obtained before you got to a point where you’d be using another weapon and ever notice this bug.
Nice map Craig. It took a bit of thought and was satisfying when I worked out the puzzles. I liked the way you revealled the combination for the lock.
Cheers
I liked this after a confusing start. Nice fight once you get to the open area.
Particularly fond of the scary bits, speed zombies are lovely
That sentence worries me. Anybody who likes fast zombies is strange in my book.
They bound along towards you screaming with delight. They do get a bit too upfront and personal I’ll admit.
This was more or less a find the batteries puzzle mod with lots of head crabs and combine to get in your way of completing it. After battling tons of headcrabs, the author cleverly throws in some head crab distraction when dog is laying out the combination to the suit room. Kudos the the author for one of the more challenging puzzle mods I’ve played. Got killed a few times getting to the battery across the forcefield. Need better cover there. Map was not visually appealing, but I enjoyed it alot anyway.
Personally, I found this map to be a fairly decent play. I did enjoy the ” convoluted ” thought that went into the puzzles, making them a decent challenge for a change. plenty of gun play – I could have used more – and a fair sized map overall in itself. As previously mentioned, I would have a much higher rating for it had more time gone into detailing and polishing, but as it stands, it ranks a ” rainy day play ” with me.
This was fun. After I got the suit. 🙂
The beginning was a little confusing. You see the room with the suit, but you can’t open the door. I suppose I should next think, “What can I do? I can go THAT way.” But “that way” was kind of dark. It worked well with the enemies you placed, but I didn’t want to go that way…
I also didn’t want to pick up the SMG without the suit (ability to switch weapons), but since there was nothing else to do I was forced to. Maybe there’s a way to make that an attractive option aside from showing us enough ammo (which you do). Or maybe I’m in the minority.
At the end, I decided to run for the elevator and left my squad mate behind. When I heard the vort’s speech, I decided to reload and see if I could kill off that bunch of enemies and bring my squad mate with me. The vort’s speech was the same…
Didn’t care for it. Once I got to the room with respawning headcrabs I got board.
Manually
Easy
20 Minutes
This map is very blocky and very unfinished. It’s not polished at all. Here’s why I didn’t like it.
Usage of space and world brushes: 2/10
Long square corridors with nothing to look at but a few locked doors.
Visuals 2/10
Not eye-candy at all. Far from perfect and it’s dark most of the time.
Gameplay: 4/10
The HEV puzzle was pretty easy to figure out AFTER I realized I needed to pick up the SMG. Do modders not realize that you can’t switch weapons without the HEV suit? I didn’t want to pick up the SMG because I didn’t want to loose the crowbar. I didn’t want to not be able to oneshot the headcrabs. I’ve played enough HL2 to know that when I see a zombie, there are going to be headcrabs too.
Final Score: 8/30 – 26%
Final Comments: It’s a very short mod that I easily cheesed to get to the elevator faster. Just grenade over to the battery and back with the SMG grenade.
Manually
Medium
22 Minutes
Map design, layout, and visuals look okay but not too appealing. Combat is fair at times, puzzles are quite easy especially the first one. The first one involves HEV suit and a passcode. Tbh, it’s just trial and error puzzle. My cons there is nothing but the elevator part. First off, why is there a citizen in the first place? I could’ve made through without an ally. The citizen can get stuck at the elevator which can be annoying too.