10 Comments

1. shawn

   7th June 2007 at 6:21 am

   Unplayable. Your own weapons are not accessible as you want them, leaving you to face a squad with shotguns with only your trusty crowbar. Pity, since there are several good set pieces in the first few minutes.

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2. piledriver

   23rd November 2007 at 11:49 pm

   

   Playable.
   Shawn, you must have a problem installation, works fine for me.Single map. Difficult battles against aggressive soldiers in several rooms. Rooms contain buttons that allow acess to more rooms and more soldiers. Find the exit.

   Textures are a bit grey and plain, but that adds to the grim “fight to survive” nature of this map. A “battle of attrition” I think they call it.
   No bugs. Serious stuff.

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3. poisonheadcrab

   3rd July 2008 at 12:53 am

   

   Just a bunch of rooms full of grunts, not rely worth it

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4. Matthew

   31st August 2008 at 4:40 pm

   

   I don’t know where Poisonheadcrab got that idea from. It is an area full of grunts, but it’s fun! They’re well placed and you’ve got lots of places to duck and cover which means you have to play tactically to win. The maps are fairly detailed though nothing extraordinary. You get around 10-15 minutes gameplay.
   Overall, I’d say it’s great!

   Reply
5. Ade

   23rd September 2008 at 8:35 pm

   

   I’ve played half a map without hev suit and not being able to switch between weapons.. until I realized I haven’t entered a certain room (which is quite obvious, but shawn and I didn’t notice it) in which there’s the hev suit.
   It’s a challenge, all right. Until a point where I’ve pushed every button I could find and still couldn’t get in the room with the scientist and 2 buttons, so I noclipped. Perhaps it was a bug, since I’ve looked around a little while noclipping and couldn’t find anything else to use.
   Piledriver describes it pretty well. And this one, unlike others, lets you know when you’ve finished, so two thumbs up!
   Worth a play.

   Reply
6. mcrip

   26th November 2008 at 4:06 pm

   

   Dark, hard and not so exciting rooms but well done. Worth a download.

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7. Technic

   30th January 2012 at 6:59 pm

   

   Sweet lil gruntfest map with plenty of action but poor, unfinished design..

   Pro’s:
   -Gruntaction par excellence 😉
   -Quite much weapons+ammo for such a tiny map
   -A few scripts

   Con’s:
   -Unfinished, even though it’s an old map
   -Less enemy+weapon types
   -Poor level design, but some nice lighting (okay it’s very old but still..)

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8. Ten Four Reviews

   1st August 2012 at 1:27 am

   Yet another first release from a Half-Life author. Jes says in the textfile that he designed the map “for people who like tactical firefights.” I really can’t say I agree… Personally, I think this map is rather more suited to people who like quicksaving every two steps because it is ridiculously difficult. Not just a bit tricky but bordering on impossible. He hasn’t even included difficulty levels for weaker players.

   The looks were fairly uninspired in the level but, frankly, you won’t really live long enough to take them in. Rooms are filled to bursting with grunts reducing the map to the simple tactic of “enter the room and fire a few shots, run out of the room and save, repeat until all grunts are dead. Then do the same again for every other room.”

   It’s not just the immense challenge that spoils the map either. The path you have to take is very difficult to find in places, with vital switches more concealed than a lot of secrets are. Those buttons that you’re supposed to be finding are also badly designed; I only figured out what they did when I restarted the level and wandered around using noclip. I always dislike hitting a switch without having a clue what’s going to happen when I do and that’s the main gameplay feature in this release.

   Aside from the aimless wandering and the farcical difficulty level, this map does have some good points. The enemy placement is actually quite good and the design of the rooms would have made for some good combat – if they weren’t so packed with bad guys, of course.

   No matter what positive points this level might have had, the relentless waves of grunts would have overcome them. If your favourite part of Half-life was when you got killed then you’ll love this map, but I’d recommend you give it a miss otherwise.

   Notes
   This review is republished here by permission and was originally published Thursday, 18th February, 1999 by Morgan.

   This review was originally posted on the Ten Four Website, which is now offline. Permission has been granted to republish the full review and more details can be found on the About page.

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9. Sheajay

   16th December 2020 at 12:27 am

   

   Area Assault ignores the finer aspects of Half-Life, such as immersion, atmosphere, and exploration, and decides to be fully combat. I have no issues with mappers that take this route, however this is not done well at all.

   The mapper presents this mod in the readme as being difficult, and that the player will require patience and a cautious approach to do well, however in practice the mod is not really that difficult and due to the close proximity of enemies you can easily alert one and grab some of his buddies and funnel them into a chokepoint allowing you to easily pick them off one by one. This is not cautious gameplay, this is the result of poor enemy placement and map design.

   So the main selling point of this mod isn’t very good, what else does it have? The rooms are fairly standard and blocky, a few of them have a bit of detail in them (e.g. a room with beds and lockers presumably for soldiers) but overall there’s nothing of value here at all. The way forward is sometimes very obtuse, there’s one section where you have to shoot a small section of a wall in a big room that looks no different to anywhere else on the wall.

   This mod relies on the combat and the difficulty at it, but fails to be fun or especially challenging. It has nothing else to offer, so I recommend avoiding this one.

   Installed:
   Manually

   Difficulty Played At:
   Medium

   Playtime:
   11 Minutes

   Reply
10. Dmitry

    5th February 2024 at 11:39 am

    

    Don’t play it on Hard cause it’s impossible. Grunts has higher health, you’re exposed more time to their fire, you don’t kill them on time and lose your Balanace in battle. It’s recommended play it on Easy and if possible peeking out and eliminate them one by one is the best approach. Never get into the room or you’ll be surrounded. Maybe the idea of the creration was to avoid rushing into trap circunstances. If you see any switch use it, many of the switches are mysterious and has no effect. They are like decoration of the christmas tree. It’s possible to get access into the room with the scientist and two switches, just shoot the wall from the left big room. Still no idea what so many switches does. It’s like the more you explore, the more grunts you have to kill.

    Installed:
    Manually

    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium

    Playtime:
    12 Minutes

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