“Jim Fletcher is a curious, young, local journalist looking to make a name for himself by landing an exciting story on the ever-burning Centralia.
He will travel from his town to Centralia, where a coal mine fire has been burning for half a century. The town has been abandoned for decades, leaving the eerie shell of a community behind. What will Jim uncover on his quest to make that all important good story?
- Title: Centralia
- File Name: hl2-ep2-sp-centralia-part-1-v1.2.7z
- Size : 217.77MB
- Author: Andrew Furniss & Oliver Davies
- Date Released: 04 June 2012
Download to your HDD [217.8MB]
- Copy the centralia folder into your SourceMods folder.
- Restart or start Steam.
- Centralia should now be listed in your Library tab.
If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.
The playthrough below is provided by Custom Gamer. See more of his playthroughs on this site: VP: Custom Gamer
Click on the thumbnails below to open a 1024 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
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Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 1 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 30 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 30 Mins by Larry
Longest: 0 Hours, 30 Mins by Larry
Total Time Played: 0 Hours, 30 Mins
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I was intrigued by this release and was eagerly looking forward to playing it. Unfortunately, it started off badly when the second video wouldn’t play. The problem was that this second video was actually the setting intro and quite important. A quick restarted failed to fix it, so I just watched the video in VLC.
I then started poking around the mod folder and found a lot of stuff that just shouldn’t be there. I’ve not released the perfect mod packaging but since this is version 1.2 these things should have been sorted.
Anyway, unto the actual mod.
I started to get a little worried when the background map too such a long time to load. In fact, it took longer to load the play the first map – not a good sign.
It’s clear that Andrew and Oliver have added certain aspects purely because it is their final year project. Things like text on the screen highlighting movement and other interaction keys. Personally, I don’t really like this as nearly everybody I know hcnages those anyway.
What I did like was the setting. There is actually a town called Centralia that was closed down due to underground fires. It’s always nice when modders take time to create something realistic.
So, eventually I started playing and was a little disappointed. NEVER should a playing character be voiced unless the character has been clearly defined, and then only after careful thought. I found my character talking to himself silly and distracting. don’t need him to tell me what to do and what to think. I can only assume that this was part of their project, that required the mod to be played by new players, but even then I felt it was a mistake.
I encounter a few invisible walls almost immediately, making me question the beta testers.
The main outside area is quite well done but the colour overall just doesn’t feel right. I got the feeling they added it because they didn’t want the mod to look like EP2. it didn’t ruin it but things were stacking up against it.
I entered the little hut and found the two doors completely white. I found the keys and started the generator. I was disappointed (again!) by the loss of control when reaching the lift – but that’s not the end of the world.
The mod started to come to life underground and the mood was nicely set by the soundscape and music, although it was a little heavy.
There were some really nice touches and some down-right cheat ones.
I was once again “advised” to crouch when getting close to a tunnel, which is a little annoying, but hey, I can live with that.
I won’t spoil the mod for you by describing what happens after I started exploring the tunnels, but suffice to say the mod is incredibly short, especially since it’s nearly 220MB. Terrible value for bandwidth.
All in all I was disappointed but feel with a little more direction and guidance this could be something more playing.
my unzipped is almost 500 mega, but for the time played shud’ve been like 50 max, and could’ve been if not for all the customs
I totally agree with phillip.
what is well done is the atmosphere, but the rest is …..hmmm…. mediocre at best.
apart from phillips criticisms I want to add that they tried to swap as many textures from the original Hlaf-Life with new self-made ones… unfortunately that was no good choice as the new textures aren’t done very well and are at low resolution in general.
In its actual state it manages to be a “Maybe?” or even just a “Think twice”… a lot of work is needed to make it an appealing mod. There is potential as it seems like theres only a short fraction of the full mod done yet. I hope they continue with it….
This gets a Maybe from me too unfortunately. I actually quite liked the visual style of the outdoor area but there’s really not much game-play going on here.
For me, I was initially reluctant to even download this given the whopping size of the mod. Crazy!
I’m still trying to work out what on earth took up all that space. I’m assuming it’s the videos?
I think this does feel like an assignment project more than a developed mod. There’s some nice touches here and there but it feels like they’ve been added to demonstrate what the modders could do rather than actually serving a purpose to the game itself.
Overall I think this shows lots of potential and I really hope the modders jump back in and develop a proper mod for HL2 EP2 in future. Now they appear to have the toolset under their belt.
Investigated mod folder:
181MB of new textures
164MB of custom sounds
24MB of new models
34MB of videos
60MB of maps
So the main offenders here are the new textures and sounds.
I can’t say the sounds really stood out as being custom for the most part and the textures were mostly pretty bland.
In my opinion, if you’re going to add in something custom, make it something worthwhile. I think the 24MB of new models was worth while…
The 34MB of videos could have been avoided really and just done them in game.
What you didn’t know was that I removed the screenshots and saves before compressing this. In the version available on other sites, they are still there. Not very well managed really.
Well as I said, it’s a learning process.
Fingers crossed for next time.
i was actually very impressed with this mod… apart from some missing textures ( the 2 doors in the mine shed ) this is beautifully crafted and has a nice atmosphere….
im not a fan of “player bobbing” however its not too exaggerated so it didnt become a problem…. and what about our freind “g-man” … he made 2 appearences in this short mod… is he after a oscar … ” WE,LL SEE ABOUT THAT ! ”
that said theres no doubt alot of work has gone into this and like many final year projects they are unique mods and not the normal run of the mill mods and maps ( remember the hl2 physx mod created by those 2 guys )
and the lighting was excellent both inside and outside…. the coal truck with the rock holding it back was good and reminded me of a similar area in episode 2 ….. ( just before alyx gets injured )
in summary a good attempt and well worth the PIN recommendation…. just hope its continued and the few texture probs are cleared up in the next installment
not bad at all !
First level has nice ambient sounds and spirit of exploration. However, new models flash with LODs, and new terrain textures are too tiny. And what’s that big thing which flies in front of the screen when I swing an axe? Looks like the player’s arm model is messed up. And why the doors in the end of the first map became white? They weren’t white in the previous version that I played.
What is a good progress is that v1.0 had ~591 Mbytes of sounds, and this v1.2 has only ~172. A lot smaller download.
Second level has nice building of tension with scary events, but then it just ends with “To be continued”.
While it looks promising and enjoyable as it is, it might be wise to wait for better version to appear.
Well, thought I’d take a look, despite only currently having a dongle as Bulgarian broadband via Vivacom is a joke here…anyway, 3 hours later, finished downloading and fired up steam…I got the opening text…then….nothing, absolutely nothing, I did give it half an hour, just in case….but no… 🙁
That sucks: the broadband AND the nothingness.
Try loading the first map manually. Let us know if you need help with that.
yep, no idea how to do that…I assume it’s consul…map…something ?
hold that…reloaded steam and it worked this time. I liked it !! Ok, short and sweet, but yeah, it has potential if it ever gets finished. Nice to get a different feel from a map, reminded me a bit of that old wild west HL1 mod (whose name I can’t immediately recall, but still have somewhere)…
Story tells us of ever burning fires, but that’s so Silent Hill imo. First level betrays first attempt level designers, as there’s lots of repetitive textures and low fps.
Moving on, I felt I had to build cubemaps like I recently need to for every single ep2 map I play, dunno what’s up with that. But those 2 doors in the generator area were still shiny and reflective and I see others had same issue.
Now most custom xhairs aren’t centered, this one is no exception. I get the custom hud, textures, intro, sound etc but don’t mess with my xhair 😀 even tho I didn’t need it much to wield an axe.
Lol at the door in the middle of the mine which can’t be used once we get on the other side of it.. But nice custom sound when being hurt by fire, that’s a first for me. Hung fella gave me a scare, and the bloody face on my screen, what a cheap shot.
But quite an immersive mod overall, I found myself checkin over my shoulder in-game a few times. I’d also like to find out in part 2 who that F(ire)-Man was, quite a nice touch to successfully reproduce a repetitive and mysterious figure such as the famous G-Man.
Almost a PIL..
I will recommend this good effort with a Play it Later, and is exactly that. I mean no rush at all for play this right away, because the mod is actually too short indeed, and for my point of view that’s precisely the main shortfall in this job, it feels like ur playing a game design school project, more than a uncompromised or free mod develop.
I love the context of the whole mod, the whole real centrralia disaster is a perfect scenario to develop a great suspense-action and horror mod whole in one, I think is the first pure “mistery-suspense-semihorror” mod i’ve ever play, because or is a “survival horror”- or an “action mod”, this is kind of in the middle.
The lightnig in the first map is really impressive and I love the new textures there, even if the doors in that generator room weren’t propperly done, then in the mine caverns suspense really starts, I almost poop my pants when I got really scared in there…….. But I also felt the end came really soon there, and there was when I felt this more like a uncovered demo,more than a propper mod.
Anyway, I hope this guys keep on developing this because centralia is a really great place that deserves a great mod in its honour, oh and by the way those mine tunels kind of remind me to the great classic THE GATE1 HL1 mod, that was a nostalgia shoot.
I insist this is perfect to turn into a survival-horror-suspense great mod. here I let some links that explain wierd real storys told by many people that visit the place. http://www.squidoo.com/real-life-horror-story
http://www.offroaders.com/album/centralia/haunted.htm
This is a decent mod, but I agree completely with Phillip. The first-person narration is kind of silly here. I found the movement of the character jerky at times, and the door to the generator room was either missing textures or was a strange design choice. I did like the setting in the mine shafts but the mod ended so quickly I was surprised. Such a big download for a very short playing time
On a complete side note not relevant to a review, I have been in and driven passed Centralia 2 or 3 times.
Excellent. 10/10
Creepy, but very fun. Has few bugs, but what map doesn’t ? Very short (And I mean it.) But fun all in all. It does have a single scare that is unexpected, but it’s also lighting fast. A fun experience all in all. 5/5
Too many hints. Not challenging.
No, I did not like this at all.
The description on moddb claims that it is an “artistic” presentation. With all the new models, textures, and sound data, I expected something a little better.
In the screen shots pictured above, you can see the ground textures repeating in rows and columns everywhere. This, to me, looked worse than Return to Castle Wolfenstein. When I played it, it appeared that the sun was rising in any direction I looked. The underground textures were not much better.
My advice would be better world textures, maybe a map or scene showing some of the fires/smoke in Centralia, and getting rid of the main character’s voice. When in first person, I don’t sound like a kid.
I’m sorry, but much more effort is needed if this is going to be presented as “Our focus is on the artistic side of the game…”. It would have looked better with the HL2ep2 textures and skyboxes.
Just my 2 cents,
could that be the HDR effect? play hl2: lost coast and see
nope, lost coast looks fine, plays fine.
Short video report on the town itself on today’s BBC page
I was looking forward to playing this since the story sounded good. Quite a good base for a horror experience.
Was it good? Well, for such a huge mod (more than 200 MB) it sure had very little to offer. While visually nice (except for a few things like repeating texture of grass or shining white doors), the whole thing was way too short. What I liked about it was the fact that it lacked fighting. That is good because many mods get spoiled by unnecessary action. That tends to ruin the atmosphere.
Back to the mod though. The first map was just walking through some pretty well-made environment – evening in the hills where the abandoned mine is. The second map was the mine itself. That’s where the scares started. Well, not that many scares, but a handful of suspensive situations. And one jump scare. The ending was a disappointment though – black screen with “To be continued…”.
I was waiting about half an hour for the download to finish, expecting at least two hours of fun. I can tell somebody put a lot of effort into this but due to its huge size and short duration I sadly can’t recommend it.
Manually
Medium
30 Minutes