You find yourself in Combine base.
Explore the areas you can reach but be aware that the Combine will quickly learn of your presence.
How far can you reach?
Basic Details
- Title: Big Bang
- File Name: hl2-sp-big-bang.7z
- Size : 3.49MB
- Author: Gregory Walek
- Date Released: 06 September 2005
Download Options
Manual Installation Instructions
- Copy the AL_BigBang.bsp file into your …\Steam\SteamApps\common\Half-Life 2\hl2\maps\ folder.
- Launch Half-Life 2
- Open the console and type map AL_BigBang and press ENTER.
If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.
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Screenshots
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
Reader Recommendations
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Meta Review Data
Statistics based on 11 comment(s) with meta review data.
Installed:
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 8 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 15 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 8 Mins by FYFA
Longest: 0 Hours, 22 Mins by
Total Time Played: 2 Hours, 45 Mins
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 8 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 15 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 8 Mins by FYFA
Longest: 0 Hours, 22 Mins by
Total Time Played: 2 Hours, 45 Mins
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Architecture: Interesting for the most part but quite bland in others.
Layout: Well thought out and good execution.
Lighting: Too dark for my taste, though fitting with the theme.
Atmosphere: Great at the start but seemed to die off slightly from the mid onwards.
Difficulty: Quite difficult, nearly impossible to complete on a first run.
Other notes: Good use of music, good deployment of enemies, interesting battles, good effects such as the bridge exploding, good brush work on the first set of walkways, fairly short but worth playing.
Major fight sequence? Pull the other one, this one’s got bells on!
Almost impossible is the real term. Bloody rockets keep dodging the gunboat.
Anybody succeded yet?
Are you not guiding the rockets or something? I found it a pretty standard airship battle, albeit slightly more interesting due to the windows making guidance more difficult. That was the main noteworthy fight in this level, health is a little rare, but with the infinite rocket crate from that battle (it may have worked better if that was closed off somehow after you won) and the Combine’s fetish for placing explosive barrels everywhere the rest was pretty simple (I think this level went a bit overboard with them, although the carnage afterwards was fun to see).
While there could have been a little more background detail (it’s a bit cubic), I really like the concept of the main area in this map; it’s very memorable, as well as letting the level link up well and giving a sense of progress.
The music use was a bit dodgy, it seemed to swap between action tracks too much, and I had about four tracks at once playing by the end. That was the only real bug I encountered. Beyond the original concept for the main area it’s relatively basic, but it’s executed well (which, in the case of HL2 mods, seems to be rare in itself).
how the heck you pass the area with the broken bridge at the very beginning ?
There’s a ladder to your left outside, it did seem a bit shaded. I had no problem, but when I saw it I thought it might be an issue for people with darker brightness (it could do with some sort of hightlight). I think I was going to mention that in the review but forgot.
Play it last week…it’s another from the Guildhall. Even if it was pretty short and finished abruptly it was certainly enjoyable enough for 15-20 min what I really like it’s the way to combat with the flying boat was produced the fact that new need to shoot through walls make it quite difficult… for the rest mostly linear with good combat places
Short and sweet|! Hade no trouble at all with the airboat, took me 5 rockets to get the sucker down. I always like the way they explode in mid-air, raining down deadly debris. After that the level was rather linear and easy because of the many exploding barrels. Kinda obvious, isn’t it: werever there are lots of barrels there must be lots of enemies (Freeman’s Law) To bad it ends all of a sudden, trapped in a room. Perhaps the author had a sequel in mind. Let’s hope so.
If theirs a 2nd release it should have a health & armor charger units within rocket crate room after defeating the combine chopper with 7 rockets (meduim skill) I had only 15 health left & nothing to recharge on except 10 point health containers the combine guards sometimes drop.
Just finished playing this level. I thought the layout was quite memorable. I enjoyed how the author created the map in such a way that you would find yourself in areas that were originally seen but not accessible. It took me awhile to realize that there was a ladder in the corner when you first enter the main part of the map. I thought at first that you had to jump across the steel structures sticking out of the water and succeeded at killing myself twice in the attempt. I enjoyed the use of music, and the battles were well choreographed. I especially liked how the airship would be shooting through the glass as you rushed to replenish your supply of rockets. After that combat sequence, I was down to three health, but with the help of the rockets, it was easy to take out the combine that were present by shooting the explosive barrels. Although very short (I played through it in about 15 minutes), I greatly enjoyed it. There were no bugs present or FPS drops that I detected.
Not half bad, I didn’t have any trouble with the difficulty but it was certainly weird fighting combine mainly with exploding barrels.
Ok as far as it went, which was not far enough. Interesting if different structured set designs which I would have liked to have seen more of. The readme file state that this is just one of a set of maps, even so it’s still too short to progress into a meaningful and balanced play.
What content there was being admirably put together with a few short sharp encounters and a well constructed gunship sequence. A sudden and disappointing ending to a map with so much promise.
This was fun. Slightly frustrating at first, since I didn’t see the ladder ’til I finished and then looked at the screen shots here… So I played it again–it sure was a lot easier this time, with suit armor (and being the second time).
It was short, so it would be nice if the author added to it.
The Filefront download looks like it’s been removed.
The Link to the Author “Gregory Walek” is still live Click on ‘vALVE” when you arrive at his site.
The download does not zip along at around 80kb/s. Mix yourself a long gin and tonic whie you wait.
It’s worth it – the map too!
A magnificent map
Hard Combat. Very enjoyable.
The main area was excellently conceived and mapped.
Taking the Gunship down was a bit awkward but added to the fun for me
After the Gunship, a bit on the easy side as you can run back for more RPG ammo.
A must play but not quite a PIN.
Apart from gameplay, what I look for most in mods/maps is interesting environments. This certainly has that, I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s set in an industrial area, kind of like Das Roboss at nighttime. It’s also very atmospheric. The lighting is perfect, apart from the start with the flashing lights.
The gameplay is a bit too easy for my taste. Yes, there are a lot of Combine, but there are even more explosive barrels, the latter placed right in the way of the former. I would have had more fun if there weren’t explosive barrels. There is a battle with a Hunter-Chopper, which are always fun. However, right after that, the wall explodes and I just could not find a way to dodge that, much like the trap in Pyramid. In Pyramid, I found a way, but I had to godmode my way through this one.
Overall I would certainly recommend you play this.
Manually
Medium
9 Minutes
I can’t put my finger on exactly why I have given this a MAYBE instead of a PLAY IT, but there’s something that didn’t feel right. I quite enjoyed the feel of the outside area but it wasn’t that much fun to play.
I kept dying after destroying the Combine Chopper and even jumped out the window but finally found the corner near the rocket ammo storage.
All in all, it doesn’t really flow for me.
Manually
Medium
16 Minutes
as the last few map releases have been significantly below standard its nice to see a half decent map which was pretty good overall …..
theres alot of combat in this map but you need to watch out for explosive barrels as these are scattered in many locations … and allthough these can actually help kill npc,s in some situations it can also kill you aswell
with some fine tuning this could of been amazing …. but even so its a delight to play and the best map release this week .. well done gregory !
Manually
Easy
15 Minutes
I liked the layout of the map, and the navigation that you had to take to complete it. Combat was relatively easy including having a large number of fuel barrels around to shoot. But I had a couple issues when playing. I was able to jump from the window with all of the boxes down to the wharf area but was trapped from there. I think that should either have been prevented or I should have been able to proceed through the map. Also, sometimes after I blew up the gunship there was an explosion around me and I died for no reason. I am not sure why that happened. I managed to finish the map despite this. I also would really have liked to have the gravity gun to take advantage of the exploding barrels everywhere. All in all it’s pretty good and worth playing.
Manually
Easy
15 Minutes
This was overall a pretty poor map, given the lighting (not nearly enough of it), the extremely bad musical interactions (two, sometimes three pieces continue to play on loading the map – what is up with that?) and just overall brutality of the location. The first open area we see actually looked good from one angle, but made very little sense to me. At first I thought, oh, a jumping puzzle? Which it was not. Geometry that simply didn’t support anything (fall through those support structures standing in the water – why even have them there if you can’t jump on them?).
Some parts of the maps were a bit odd, in that you couldn’t actually lift or move the barrels? But the pallet that some of them sat on got kicked away easily by gunfire, leaving 3 gas barrels hovering in the air. The final fight with the chopper was… um, I don’t even know what to say about it: can’t see a damn thing of black on black sky, no health in the room, no good place to hide, and on top of that, apparently shooting the rocket launcher kills you if you’re aiming even slightly outside of a broken area of the windows.
Not fond of this one at all, not terrible, but definitely not a great map.
Manually
Medium
15 Minutes
This was not bad at all. In fact, I quite enjoyed the whole industrial mapping scenario and the HL2 combat, and although it was not very challenging and the pace of the mod was quite slow between battles I guess is the best mappack I’ve played recently via MapTap.
The climax of this map is when you find the chopper, which by the way has the same feature of get rid of the RPG’S like the Gunship. The Helicopter crashed and I died twice, so that was strange, but then I hide at the back of the RPG ammo box and I survived.
The end came quick and probably is the only thing I’d change in this map.
So yeah I think I quite enjoyed this, maybe because recently I’ve been played some other pretty awful HL2 maps.
Using Gauge
Medium
20 Minutes
Yeah, this is what I want from map/mod makers! This map was really cool, putting you arleady in fight and, believe me, this was really tough in hard difficulty!
8/10 becouse the boss battle was pretty glitchy
Using Gauge
Hard
22 Minutes
Damn good map! I really like the fights, (even the buggy/glitchy chopper fight, but no one cares right?) the map, the musics (the end music can mix with the fight one if you save/load there)
8.5/10 would die becouse the rocket hit a window particle again
P.S: I played this map some days ago but I forgot to review it. Ops
Using Gauge
Hard
19 Minutes
I have to agree with Phillip here. This just doesn’t flow. It’s too dark (black chopper in a black sky), there are playing several pieces of music at the same time, and each quickload sees an irritating “The Big Bang” placed in the middle of the screen, which is really stupid and amateurish. There are too many exploding barrels and the ending is sudden and disappointing. Nice architecture in some places and some standard chopper fight, but that’s it.
Manually
Medium
16 Minutes
Died 3 times) Once due to the fact that a helicopter exploded. There are few enemies for me. Meanwhile, the battles were quite dynamic.
Manually
Easy
8 Minutes
So you get a RPG but you can’t shoot through the windows or the doorway.
An enjoyable short map with some good variety in combat and some decent level design.
Story
Not much of one, just need to escape a Combine facility while being hunted by soldiers, manhacks, and a chopper. Your bog-standard HL2 custom map affair.
Presentation
I do really like how the map looks. It has almost a Nova Prospek feel to it, in the way that the level looks and feels, and especially in how the lighting is. It’s pretty dark throughout, but almost never pitch-black, just with enough lights to guide you. It definitely has the feel of a location run by the Combine.
The music usage is also pretty good, utilizing the HL2 soundtrack effectively to help drive the combat forward.
Gameplay
The gameplay is pretty standard for one of these. Just going from area to area, shooting soldiers that obstruct your path forward. You do have also small moments where you have a bunch of manhacks you have to deal with, and there’s one part where you have to shoot down a chopper. It’s a little harder to do given that the map is set at night, so the dark chopper is a bit harder to see, but I do appreciate the usage of the chopper instead of a Gunship like maps typically do, even if in this case it functions exactly the same; there’s no dodging mines or anything like that.
The level is also designed decently. It’s fully linear, but it’s also wide, so you have plenty of room to dodge enemies and not get overwhelmed at all. Explosive barrels are also smartly used to make the combat more fun.
Conclusion
An enjoyable combat map, worth a play through.
Manually
Easy
10 Minutes