This is a beta/demo of Combine Combat, which is approximately 40 minutes long. It features some new content, including:
- New levels in the Half-Life universe
- New weapons, including Manhacks.
- A new vehicle
- Full support of HDR
- A reworked HUD
Basic Details
- Title: Combine Combat
- File Name: hl2-sp-combine-combat-0.1.7z
- Original File Name: CombineCombat.0.1.beta.rar
- Size : 80.45MB
- Author: RedPuma
- Date Released: 17 March 2009
Download Options
Installation Instructions
- Extract the Combine Combat folder into your SourceMods folder.
- Restart or start Steam.
- Combine Combat should now be listed in your Library tab.
Videos
Screenshots
Click on the thumbnails below to open a 1024 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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22,646Overall
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2Today
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13Last 7 days
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73Last 30 days
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694365 days
Meta Review Data
Statistics based on 4 comment(s) with meta review data.
Installed:
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 4 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 2 Hours, 15 Mins
Shortest: 1 Hours by JellyBeanDude27
Longest: 4 Hours by Sethy3030
Total Time Played: 9 Hours
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 4 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 2 Hours, 15 Mins
Shortest: 1 Hours by JellyBeanDude27
Longest: 4 Hours by Sethy3030
Total Time Played: 9 Hours
Collections (?)
If you believe this release is missing important tags, please suggest them in a comment?
Jump to a review
The intro is a little overlong but at least the author is trying to “set the scene”. Once the play takes control of the character, things start to move along nicely.
Overall I really enjoyed this mod but I felt that once again the author changed location and environments too much. I am sure that modders are worried that if they leave a player in a particualr type of environment for too long they will get bored, and this is probably right but often the changes between setting is just either too abrupt or not realistic.
In one particualr example, you are playing in a rainy night and then ten minutes later it’s day time and the sun is shinning.
That said, these are things that don’t effect the gameplay. This might be another mod where “players” and “modders” have different views!
There is plenty of driving which makes a change, although there is one section that I found too hard to play. I had to use GOD mode to pass it and I think that’s wrong.
The new vehicles is ok, although you couldn’t add health, ammo or weapons to it, which was frustrating. The addition of the Manhack is brilliant and it’s incredible that it hs taken over four years since the release of HL2 for it to be done!
So to recap. The environments are generally quite good, although it’s the joins that need some changes. The gameplay is fun, although the airboat sections were sometimes too plain.
No doubt you should play this one, just makes sure your driving skills are good enough!
5 Words Or Less Review
Citadel, canals, Ravenholm, City17, End
This is a great mod. There is lot of action in this mod I love it
Can one of you mappers explain the obsession with dark maps? This might be a worthwhile map but when I run into long stretches of total darkness I just get frustrated and quit.
I think that’s not a question just for mappers, but for other types of artists like painters and film makers. Darkness creates a certain mood of tension, fear of the unknown, that can be useful for certain situations.
Also, it’s much easier to highlight relevant areas of a room with focused lights and make navigation in the maps more meaningful and intuitive. Contrast between shadows and lights is also perfect eye candy for even the most standard places that don’t necessarily excel in architecture or textures.
Still, the levels should always remain functional. Total darkness isn’t probably most people’s idea of fun.
Question, is this the full version of the game?
The answer is no. It’s being promoted as the demo/beta.
When is the full version coming out?
I thoroughly enjoyed that. Great fun! No problems with getting stuck etc.
Thank you RedPuma.
I will go and play on hard now.
Okay, this was a damn good mod. Too short, despite it taking me well longer than 40 minutes (I’m a very slow, deliberate player–I prefer to sneak around the corners instead of careening into death). I only wish it was longer, I hope they continue the story.I’ll be keeping an eye on this one…
genial
This one is like a bride’s outfit:
Something old (lots of well-used stuff from HL2, including the oddly-familiar story line)
Something new (player-usable manhacks, a sniper rifle [my favourite!], a drivable jeep, etc.)
Something borrowed (see Something old above)
Something blue (the prelim options and the HUD, all a bit weird).
Don’t get me wrong, the gameplay is lots of fun; but the whole thing is too derivative of HL2–at times it felt like I was playing some rejected Valve maps. But it’s still better than most of the recent amateurish maps. Give it a try!
I enjoyed this mod from the beginning to the end, like a good book I could not put it down. Not sure what others are saying about this mod, I have deliberately not read any reviews before putting my thoughts down. No doubt some are saying the intro was too long, but for me it was fine just to sit and admire the opening architecture and being immersed in the surrounds and activity on all quarters, great stuff.
Unlike some I could mention, I enjoy the rides which I thought were admirably constructed in this mod, packed full of action and meaningfully layouts the rider gets a chance to hit the pedal, just loved that rusty old jeep which I though was a fine piece of modeling.
The degree of detail in places was amazing; did others notice the two rebels piloting the Helicopter gunship? I swear when I hit one of the abounded vehicles on the road the glass in the exterior side mirrors” checked.
it’s nice to get a mod that varies the environmental settings and whilst some will say that these settings followed a too similar path to the original HL2 story, it was nevertheless refreshing to move from one surround to the next with the flow of the game.
I am trying to think of any negatives to the average player that may deter in any way from enjoying the mod, just can’t recall any.
very good mod! not happy with airboat part but after liked the challenge. I tend to get lazy with play. liked the plot ,no
awsome plot! ended this frustated, but wanting more felt like playing hl or hl 2 for the first time,kind of knowing what to do but not getting it done. played this on normal and liked it, sometimes like hot sauces, ones normal is anothers easy, or hard ,or to dammmm hot. but this stung in all the right places.polish this and charge me $10 via steam i’m in
Mel-I’m with ya all the way on this one. It was nearly impossible to put down and that’s the true mark of a great mod. When it’s that good, and I will keep after it until it’s done, then it’s a mod well done for sure imo.Really good to be back into the fantastic Half Life universe again with alot of the familiar faces and enemies. I like everything about the way this flowed and had no errors at all. I did get stuck once though and had to noclip through the hole in the wall. I could not figure how to blow a hole in it. The gas was on and coming from the radiator and took some explosives down from the room upstairs but I could not get the thing to blow up and punch a hole through the wall.
I really liked the fact that the fighting was never overkill on either side and the odds were even. I never felt like there was too many bad guys coming at me all at once. Very well balanced. It seems like a trend now on most mods to make them as hard as possible to beat. It should never take a really long time to beat a group of enemies and when the game is set to easy, it should not be hard at all, yet alot of the mods now are spawning too many of this or that to defeat the player. This one doesen’t play it that way. It’s a fair,fight all the way through and I could actually have played it a little higher then easy. That setting is a little too easy to play imo.
I never like playing against the Rebels but in this one, it’s such a well constructed mod that it really dosen’t matter. It was great being able to be on the winning side of the manhacks! We get to launch them instead of dodging them in this one. Very cool!
Bottom line, I’ve been looking for a good mod to play since Strider Mountain and this one is just right. It has everything I like in a mod. Hard to believe it’s only 100mb. Seems much longer. Great, well balanced action, beautiful scenery,doors and elevators that actually work every time,, some good puzzles that don’t take a rocket scientist to figure out, (even though I got stuck at the wall)-This one is just a whole lotta fun and was well tested. I had no errors-I’ll play it again easy!-This time on a harder setting. Please make more!
I just saw on another site that the author of this mod, RedPuma is an 18 year old male from Germany. I’d say this young man has a really good future in game making ahead of him. Anyone with this much talent at 18 has alot to offer in the years ahead. Hopefully he will come on here and tell us about any other mods he’s made or working on.I want to be sure to play his mods.Well done!
Its a candybox of hl2 treats for its size. The start requires a little patience, reminded me of Minerva initially, but its worth the wait. Moves along at a good pace and there is also opportunity to explore the different locations.
Got stuck in some places and needed to experiment with how to progress which I find added to the enjoyment.
Only one glitch, the first time I got to the Helicopter gunship sequence it was missing – just two rebels sitting in mid air. Very funny. Tried shooting but they wouldn’t die of course. The gunship was there after I reloaded an earlier save – no idea why.
I particularly liked the night sequence on the coast and the use of the sniper scope also enjoyed trying different strategies in the end battle. The manhacks idea seems obvious when its put there.
Good creative thinking throughout. It took a couple of enjoyable hours for me to complete.
“Combine!”
Here’s an entertaining mod that puts you in control of a Combine Soldier with a suit similar to Freeman’s, apparently on a quest to find and kill the good doctor. The mod starts you off in the Citadel, where you get armed and head out via train to the outside world to fight off the rebel forces. Along the way, you’ll pass through all sorts of environments, mostly areas resembling the Route Kanal regions, but with some Ravenholm tossed in for good measure. You’ll also encounter not one but two vehicles: the infamous airboat and the new jeep.
While the intro was a bit on the long side, it wasn’t without interesting things to look at. Having more scripted things happening around your pod wouldn’t hurt. The idea of taking the train out of the Citadel was nicely done. Once you disembark, the real gameplay begins. For the most part, the flow of the maps is pretty good. I never found myself lost and objectives were clearly communicated. As one of a precious few mods that offer the Gravity Gun (hint hint), the mod makes great use of it with some minor physics puzzles to overcome. Enemies were logically placed and never overwhelming. Throughout most of the mod, expect the kind of gameplay flow from Route Kanal or Highway 17 – the whole drive, get out of your car, explore an area, get back into your car deal. I personally enjoy that gameplay, even though the mod unfortunately reminds me how much I hate driving the airboat.
Visually, the mod is above average. Where it’s good, it’s really good. It’s clear the author took his time with the “hero pieces” of the set. Ravenholm, the warehouse before the canals, the city areas, are all very well done. The transitions between them less so. They certainly function as suitable gameplay spaces, but they are often a bit too boxy and underdetailed. I do agree with Phillip that the settings changed abruptly. Again, perhaps chalk it up to being a demo/beta.
The only thing that stood out in this demo as needing big improvement, other than the sudden ending, is the area with the helicopter. Like another recent mod, Joutomaa, the “boss” is sprung too early, allowing the player to safely destroy it from the safety of a canal pipe and ruining the impact the scene could have. The same area contains perhaps the only slightly frustrating part of the mod – a winding dock you have to navigate with the airboat. The author should be a bit more forgiving here, since the airboat handles as well as a bathtub on an ice rink. Fortunately, the vehicle areas are scaled appropriately, so you aren’t constantly bumping into things.
The mod might arguably be too enamored with its own dynamic lighting. I was getting pretty sluggish performance until I disabled the dynamic muzzle flashes. Don’t get me wrong – they look great – but it could tax older PCs to the point where the SMG fires at the rate of the pistol! Later, during the scene with the rain and the highway, there was way too much going on. Muzzle flashes, thunder flashes, sparks from broken street lamps – it was just visual overkill.
But all that said, it’s an impressive and fun piece of work. I look forward to the final product and you should too.
P.S. I gawked at the 40 minute gameplay estimate. I got at least an hour of two out of this. 🙂
What a great Mod.
I agree with everyone who have rated it Play it Now!” Loved the architecture, well paced, hard but not too hard, playing as a combine soldier was fun, great new story line leaving the author to build his own area of the overall Half Life Experience.
I think a good mod provokes emotions in the player. If there is too much frustration finding the way forward they stop playing. So while certain areas were hard, they were not unbeatable giving a feeling of satisfaction.
I had to laugh when killed by a rebel and he says “I got one” Humour is a great motivator.
I experienced one prob when the game froze up during the section where you have to go downstairs a few levels to start the generator to enable the power to open the gate during the Airboat run. The radiation kept killing me after I got back up to hit the switch and the graphics were…. furry?? It restared ok tho from a save point and I continued to the end with no probs.
I spent 3 sessions of about 35 minutes each to cop it playing on normal. Definitely finished it wanting more.
Well Done RedPuma
The new weapons and radiation mechanic were a nice touch, but we didn’t get to play with them much. My only gripe was that my sniper rifle’s scope never worked, but it was effective enough without it. I was too busy having fun to notice the jarring transitions, so that wasn’t a real factor for me. I particularly liked the open air driving… we don’t get nearly enough of that in mods. I’ll be sure to watch for the full “Kill Gordon” experience!
I had a similar problem, it seems to be caused by the fact that I was running in dx8.1 mode instead of dx9.0 mode. This really is something that should have been caught early on.
I really hate it when mod creators don’t take the time to check their mod using the lowest settings, such as writing not being visible on low resolutions, or illegible when textures are set to low, or when textures don’t show on dx8 mode.
Yeah, I forgot the sniper rifle in the original post… THAT THANG WAS SO DAMN COOL!!! I hope they can integrate it into future versions of the game!
(One of these days someone’s gonna do some fan art of Gordon literally BRISTLING with all the weapons he can carry!!)
And it worked fine in mine, and was damned useful.
Ok, the beginning of this mod is already putting it up as a favoritee, was a bit slow but the way you are dropped at the end of the ride was beautiful.
So far just part way in and at what I can only assume was a lift for the airboat but when the load started the lift disappeared, and when the load was complete the lift did nothing. Just before screenshot 36. May be my system, I got issues with memory/running tasks that I am putting off fixing, I’ll update later after trying this again.
I’m liking the sniper rifle over all other weapons in all the mods that have one. They are the only weapon that really gives a player the actual feeling of shooting a real live weapon and not just pulling the trigger a dlivering a burst of scattered gun shot all over the place. With the sniper, a player uses skill to determine when to pull the trigger at just the right moment so as not to scare off the “prey”.In this game and all through the new Strider Mountain, I used the sniper rifle on about 90% of all the shots I tok. And the accuracy rate was probably right around the 90& as well. The rifle in SM is very accurate and deadly..
I agree with other comments, this was a nice piece of work. enjoyed it from beginning to end. nice mix, hard in places but not frustrating. a little thought in what to do was very nice. I too got a couple hours of play from this Mod. as stated above nice placement of enemies never overpowering. a well built mod, fun enjoyable and fair in game play.
I rarely played a so good mod, this is great work !
I just started playing this mod and so far it is great! I do have one problem. When I was driving the Jet ski/boat I saw white lines on the ground. Then when I place the bomb next to the radiator the bomb was checkered color in black and pink. Then when I got the jeep and sniper rifle they were checkered also can’t even see the road.
Anybody know what the problem might be?
Windows XP
8800 GT Nivida
2 GB Ram
Q6600 @2.40GHz
Here is an picture of what I’m talking about. Using the scope is useless.
[IMG]http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w68/Red_Dog57/CombineCombat.jpg[/IMG]
koodoo’s to the makers what a great mod. but I have one complaint I got shelved, their I was poised to get freeman, well ok I didnt actually see him, but I was ready. hehe. looking forward to the next installment
black dog,i cant get your photo bucket to show up. the w68 does not show a pic nor does red dog57 show up. sory, I can only suggest that you check your graphics card driver and get the newest. I have the same card, running vista and more memorie but dont think thats any real differences. I played it through with out any trouble. good luck you will love it.
p.s. woof. hehe
To: john,
Just type in or copy ” http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w68/Red_Dog57/CombineCombat.jpg ” without the quotation marks to see the picture. It work for me. I don’t think it’s my video card or driver. I have the latest update. Thanks anyway!
What happen to the edit button?
Anyway, now you can click on the link to see the picture. I’m inside the tunnel with the jeep and the scope rifle.
wow what a freaky pic. I have no idea why that is doing that. sorry I cant be any more help. I can say that if your able to play it even with the psychedelic truck the next part you are about to go to is very cool. good luck.
This is surprisingly long and polished for a supposed beta release. I’d say it’s the best mod released this month.
The introduction is pretty and a few interesting things happen while you’re being dragged around by a scanner, but it really does drag on for too long. I got bored fairly quickly (and I have no doubt that I have a longer attention span than most FPS gamers). Once you’re let loose, though, things move fairly rapidly.
The combat is well orchestrated and paced, with the occasional bit of exploration or puzzle to break up the action, with a few new gameplay mechanics sprinkled here and there for variety. In addition to utilizing new mechanics, in some areas the mod combines familiar mechanics in unusual combinations, for example, driving the airboat through dark, zombie infested tunnels. Just so you know, trying to run over a group of four poison zombies with the airboat is a bad idea. 😛
The atmosphere, in most places, is excellent, and the outdoor driving section in the rainstorm shows the best use of weather effects I’ve seen yet in a Source engine mod. That said, the atmosphere, as well as the premise (what little there is) requires some suspension of disbelief: you go from locale to radically different locale in what seems to be the blink of an eye with little sense of realistic progression. As phillip mentioned in his review, at one point you’re out driving along a coastal road at night in the middle of a rainstorm, and ten minutes later you emerge into bright daylight with not a cloud or droplet of water in sight. It’s a jarring transition, to say the least.
One thing that’s rarely mentioned in reviews that’s important to me is presentation. Not just map design and such, but aesthetics, like the menu screen, or like changes to any game UI elements or weapon skins. While the quality of these elements have little effect on gameplay, they’re an important part of a polished mod so I consider them an important factor. Overall, this mod is very well presented. At the frontend it has an icon for the Steam games list (hey, I think it’s important), and a short intro video. In-game, the HUD is completely redone but still very functional, with quite a few interesting nuances (zooming in shows a range estimation, aiming at a friendly soldier displays their name, for two examples).
The two new weapons are a sniper rifle, the M24, and deployable manhacks. The manhacks are fun, but I have to say it’s the M24 that really impresses me. Normally I get irritated at the CS tards who rave on and on about how Half-Life should have a sniper rifle instead of the crossbow (I love the crossbow), but I have to say the rifle in this mod is superb and is probably the best custom weapon to be included in a mod like this so far. It’s clear a lot of attention was paid to the details during its creation. It looks very nice and true to life, yet with a distinctly Combine look about it; functionally, it’s no crossbow dressed up as a sniper rifle (I’m looking at you, Strider Mountain >:/), but a completely new weapon that works just like it should and has its own ammunition type – it’s precise, and satisfying to use, and the scope view has just enough sway to make lining up accurate shots exactly as challenging as it should be. And that’s not all, the creators even included *two separate animations* for dry and tactical reloads. Just… wow.
Nothing critical except that it ended. Loved it, waiting for more!
No comments, can’t wait for the complete. It’s simple perfect. Play it. You won’t regret it.
Play it now, because it has stuff you haven’t used before. Manhacks for example. However, it felt a bit as if a player has been waiting for Combine Destiny 2 and decided to make his own mod with stuff that was supposed to be featured in CD2.
I was really surprised to hear my father language, when the *ahem spoiler*-man showed up. 🙂
However, you didn’t feel like a combine. Combine are always in groups, unless there is some specific background story. “You alone are going to kill the man, that everyone is looking for, that’s your job!” I don’t think a serious game/mod would be organized this way. But a lot of effort was put into this, so play it later!!
Great map, however I’m having a problem when driving the airboat. After I drive over the bridge and go into the open area with the big gate on the left. I don’t know where to go. I can’t seem to jump the concete wall on the right and there is no ladder to climb up and go into the building where to big gate is. Point me in the right direction, pls. Other than that I;m really enjoying the ride.
Disregard last post from me I see the ladder.
OK, new problem. How do you make the dynamite explode in the kitchen??
I loved it.
By far the most enjoyable mod I have ever played. I read all the other reviews who rated personal favorite, and some of the PLAY IT NOW! reviews, and they pretty much explain it all, I particularly like the hud and motion blur/Muzzleflash thing…. And you against the rebels I liked since it was well balanced out etc.
Pretty much a perfect mod for me.
Oh, and on a side note, every single review was personal favorite or play it now, I think this deserves hall of fame out of user choice.
Timothy, the Hall Of Fame is a collection of “my” favourite maps and mods, rather than a reader generated list. I do hope to re-introduce a reader generated “Highest Rated Maps and Mods” page in the near future. In this particular case, I rated the mod as a “Play It” so I didn’t add it to the HOF.
REALLY enjoyed this, always wanted to explore the combine more.
I absolutely loved this mod. I really enjoyed the change-up point of view. Great visuals and mapping ! A must play once !!
I didn’t enjoy this one.
The scenery is terrific, but putting us in the position of killing resistance members and murdering Freeman?? That’s a very, very bad concept. Also, in spite of the well done scenery most of the gameplay is extremely pedestrian. In nearly every area where the airboat is available you can simply put it in first gear, putter along, and destroy everything without being challenged. In other areas the resistance huddles in packs to be shot down or stands almost immobile with the same result. There’s very little challenge in these parts. Another very poor idea is creating a reachable ledge in one section and putting the player to the trouble of carrying and stacking barrels and boxes to reach what seems an area clearly meant to be reached–except you can’t access it. A lot of wasted effort because the designers overlooked an obvious possibility.
I’d like to see a better plot and much improved gameplay. It would be a shame to waste so much engaging scenery.
This mod is full of interesting ideas and unique features but few of the ideas are really fleshed out in a friendly manner.
Awesome new features such as employable man hacks and a totally SWEET bolt-action sniper rifle are made to feel like last-minute additions and not related to the gameplay at all. If I were involved in this mod, I would have stressed to the team that these features should be central to the mod’s gameplay. The same goes for radiation poisoning, Combine allies, and distance finding.
Gameplay elements such as total darkness are interesting but I think flares would have been useful for walking sections. I think the Ravenholm area was poorly mapped and it also felt very short and haphazard in general.
Finally, the mod ended just as it was getting interesting. And as a slap in the face, the G-Man put us back into stasis even though he was the guy who woke us up to kill Freeman in the first place.
Again, this mod is neat and stuff, and the length and fairly satisfying gun play is something to be proud of. But it doesn’t feel like it was worth all the time spent…not by any means. It needs lots of polish and more purposeful, innovative use of all the special features.
I really enjoyed this, although is was very short.
What I really like about this mod is that it is styled to the max, everything seems finished, from the models to weapons to the environments.
Also this mod had the best boat scene I’ve ever played, I think I can admit that it was even better than the half life 2 ones!
Some good ideas were there too, the last new weapon you face it really interesting, but the fight could have been more interesting.
And not to forget I got a bug at the beginning were the flying thing (what was it name?) came to get you out of your chamber it got stuck at those yellow pipes and couldn’t move forwards, so I waited like 10 minutes without anything happening.
I would really enjoy a full mod of this !
This mod was fun, though the ending seemed kind of abrupt.
I’m not sure if I had a bug or not–I could not kill the chopper (I didn’t know the rebels had any air vehicles–at first I assumed it was my friend!). If you’re not supposed to be able to kill it, the only issue I really had was the airboat ramp/jump section. It was hard to do that with the chopper shooting at me.
I couldn’t use the scope for the sniper rifle, either. But I’m on DX8.
When I got the RPG, I was expecting something I needed to use it against. Don’t know if I had a glitch or if it was just, perhaps, misplaced?
Well, it really takes 2 hours to complete 🙂
It is a great mod from the beginning to the end, the “task assignement” is really cool, and the design of the power and health meter put really you in the Combine ambiance… The vehicles” sequences are cool and very dynamic, destroying plenty zombies at high speed…
However, sometimes the aspect “HL2 version Combine” is a little disturbing, because entire sequences of Route Kanal are the same as HL2, with Resistance in the place of the Combine soldiers…
But, overall, the ambiance is greatly worked, but this is ONLY a beta and the end is abrupt, so it is encouraging for the future of this mod.
One question: when I try to download this mod, I get page not found, how should I remedy this?
Link fixed.
Im going with PIN instead of PF, only because of the large areas of darkness in the game, plus the opening of the game (though well intentioned), takes a little too long. Other than that, the mod was great! (spoilers) What a concept to play a Combine, and evidentley the Combine’s best at that. To me it looks as if the G-man chose the Combine’s very best (number 42), to go after Freeman. It’s nice to be on the side of power for a change. Love the manhacks and the sniper rifle! Love the driving sections too, although I am bias as most of you know, as Water Hazard was my favorite HL2 chapter.
As for the enviroment change-up’s, I get what Phillip is saying…too much of a good thing can be bad. But I didn’t mind because of the fun I was having, and anyway the author did (barley) connect the enviroments in a way that can be justified…if you use your imagination 😉
The chapters read like a mini-version of HL2…”Route Kanal”, then “Water Hazard”, then “Ravenholm”, then “Highway 17”. I was expecting “Sandtraps” next, but didnt get it. 😉
All in all a fun mod and worth playing for sure. Grab it!
Let me add a few things to my above post. I now wish I had made it a PF, after playing it again. The replay factor is defenatley there!
The author set’s it up in the very long beggining that you are number 42, a special Combine soldier…perhaps the best of the best. Your meant to go after after Freeman. In the beggining your moving through the Citidel where there is no danger but a lot of scenery, and I really had the feeling of being a Combine! The author was clever here: I walked passed other Combine, they didnt even flinch. I got to board a Combine train. I get access through most doors which is a HUGE plus of being a Combine! 🙂 In other words, I felt like part of the Combine team!
In one of the earlier combat campaigns you are charged with defending a room along with other Combine, against attacking rebels. If you play hard and smart, you can save some of your fellow Combine! Using all the skills that I could muster, I was able to defeat the rebels and save 3 Combine. Appearently you can name them, but I never figured out how(??). This is yet another of many suprises that the author has in store for the player! The saved Combine will follow you to the next big area and help you if needed against those rebels, but after that your into a teleport to the lower sewer areas by yourself.
There is much more to say about this great mod, but most of it has been said by others. Using the airboat but in a different sub-enviroment than ever seen before was brilliant really, as was the beautifully done water hazard sections outdoors with great combat, and more suprises from the author in the form of radiation and even dynamyte. The Ravenholm section was smallish, but captured Ravenholms atmosphere to a tee…from the crazy puzzels, to the ambient sounds, to the combat, to the wacky sawblades. Highway 17’s road section’s use of the sniper rifle…was amazing. And later at the beach area town, I personally loved the manhacks…you can choose how to throw them which is very cool, and makes the player feel like they have options…which they do all of the time in this game.
FUN is the word I think of with this mod. This game’s author is very creative. I really hope to see more from him/them in the future!
This is a great Combine mod, with the player as simply N0.42, (Now that is an important number!), on a mission to kill the peoples champion, G. Freeman.
The start is nicely epic, (a Combine theme ride for the kids at Disney?), as we see number 42 processed.
His combat suit is not like the other units, so we know he is a special Combine agent.
Base layout and combat is great fun and a bit of a challenge at times, especially when the familiar rebels shout, “Combine!” and I realise that’s me!
Having to fight your way out of your own Citadel is a bit rich but there was a pleasant airboat ride in those lovely, zombie infested sewers to follow! I chose slow and gunning the second time around as my health suffered in a couple of them dark room puzzles if I was fast and reckless!
A disguised Combine chopper in enemy hands was at the start of a frustrating jump, which I failed to make continuously the first time around. The later attempt was successful at the third try!
A quick bit of “Ravenholm” style trouble led to a new, but decrepit, jeep to drive and a shiny sniper rifle. The highlight of this game was this driving and sniping road trip in a very effective storm. Great sound and visuals made it very atmospheric and the sniper scopes view was just right for taking out those pesky rebels.
Ending at the seaside the next day, because it was now sunny, I let loose some manhacks and had a ball with that Combine gun emplacement. Rebels blowing up and flying all over the place!
Then I was shelved by the G-man!
A mod of good length and great fun, I’d play just for the storm section!
Manually
Easy
3 Hours
The download dosen’t work. soo. can’t review :/
ModDB
If needed English patch.
Thanks!
I know I’ve been giving a lot of things Personal Favourite but this truly deserves it. Combine Combat is a russian mod where you play as Number 42 (the answer to the universe), a Combine tasked with killing Gordon Freeman because G-Man says so. I don’t know why G-Man would want Gordon dead but the story doesn’t really matter. I do have a few complaints with this mod, so let’s get those out of the way first. The enemy placement isn’t that great, they’re kind of just put together in clumps. The rebel’s helicopter was unkillable, which I don’t assume was intentional. At one point in the Ravenholm level you can stack boxes to look above the limits and see the empty space outside the map. Lastly, the sniper rifle was really glitchy. I loaded a save while holding it and the scope was still there. I had to get out the sniper rifle then unzoom it. Also when I zoomed and shot people, I had to save and reload because when I unzoomed there was a weird glassy looking circle in the center of the screen. Without spoiling anything, the game ended abruptly without explanation. But now that the negatives are out of the way, let’s talk about the positives. I LOVE THIS MOD. First thing that happens is you get to tour the Citadel, which is very cool. The map design is really good as well, seeming much like something that would appear in the actual game. This mod is also very custom, having two custom weapons, a custom vehicle, custom enemies and a very snazzy custom HUD. Hands down my favourite part of the mod was the airboat part. That was the most fun I’ve ever had with the airboat, splashing around, rushing through tunnels and running over zombies. There was one rather irritating jump to do with the airboat, but that’s only a minor setback. The Ravenholm part was very fun but short-lived. Then there’s the part that’s like Highway 17 but at night with rain. This is one of the most atmospheric parts in any mod I’ve played, the outside actually feeling like a rainy road and the rebel bases feeling very rustic and comfy (apart from the dead bodies). The final part has a new mounted gun that shoots explosions, which is a blast to use (pun intended). This mod shows all the stuff a Combine has to go through just to get to the place he’s doing his job at. What I also love about it is that it roughly follows the HL2 story. City 17, canals, outskirts, Ravenholm, highway. No Nova Prospekt though.
If you haven’t played this mod, play it now. It’s a ton of fun.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
I’m sincerely sorry, but I can’t recommend this mod to anyone. Before you discard my review as a hater, hear me out – I’ve got arguments.
First of all: this mod has some really pretty features in it, and a cool idea. I’m always thrilled when a mod offers me to play as a combine, but the disappointment is even bigger if it can’t live up to what it promises.
Second: why does this run on Source SDK Base 2006 instead of Half-Life²? This way, not only I had to install yet another tool, but some features are missing (such as the bloom effect option or selecting “Very High” texture quality).
Spoilers start here!
The intro is really cool and quite impressive, showcasing just how big and mighty the Combine empire is by giving the player a ride through their citadel. Gunships fly by, dropships start, ready to deploy Striders, and busy soldiers run through the citadel to battle emergencies (or get to the cantina in time, who knows). The ride feels very natural, with lots of shakes, non-straight paths and sloppily flown curves, far from the sterile and artificial feeling of straight, linear paths. A couple of times, the map lacks detail (such as when using the same texture for floor and ceiling of rooms), but overall, it is very impressive.
However, as soon as the player meets their superior, the disappointments begin. And many of them are just sloppy work that could have been avoided easily.
The re-designed HEV suit would have looked better with a custom model (not hard, since it’s just a static model), but the new HUD is quite impressive (although the health and energy levels are hard to read, lacking numbers). Giving the player a stun stick is quite cool, as is the fact that the player’s movement noises are those of a combine soldier.
The first big mistake is that the player can take out his commanding officer with a simple bunch of hits from the stunstick. I imagine a real combine soldier would be executed on the spot for this, but nothing happens. This could have been prevented either by making the cop invincible – via damage filter that only allows drowning, for example – or by making him a vital ally, ending the game upon his death. Unfortunately, this ruins the mood for much of the following events, as they aren’t much better.
On the way to the “landing place” (which turns out to be a train station), the player encounters a combine scanner – which can be killed just like the metrocop. Having arrived at the train station, the same procedure happens again – the player witnesses a metrocop pushing a citizen onto the tracks, and can kill the cop – unlike the surrounding Combine soldiers. The following train ride seems quite short, but that is just a minor detail.
The so-called “outpost” is suffering from the use of textures that don’t fit the theme as well as poor architecture. Many non-Combine textures are used that would fit the wastelands theme much better than a Combine outpost, at times in the same room as obviously Combine-made technology or architecture. This ruins the illusion of actually being a Combine soldier.
Enemies are thrown at the player in rather big numbers, but deal much less damage than expected. Combine soldiers aren’t known for their survival skills, yet the player can take damage from five to seven rebels without dying on the spot. Fewer but stronger enemies would have made much more sense here. “Viel Feind, viel Ehr'” (much enemy, much honour) is a saying from Germany, but it doesn’t apply ingame when it becomes a chore to kill rebels one by one without feeling a challenge – especially when no cover is provided.
Arriving with a few combine soldiers, the player fights a brief battle consisting of rebels coming through a door (which leads into a wall, making no sense at all) before “solving” a “puzzle” which consists of aligning energy beams by pushing two buttons. The point of this machinery is not explained, neither are players given any hint as to how to solve it – it isn’t even indicated that there is a puzzle to solve at all.
The next room is a textbook example of poor architecture. The room – a boring cube filled with a “metal panel” texture not meant for large walls and ceilings – is filled with APCs – which have no purpose in an underground base, and for which no means to enter or exit the room exist. Have they been teleported underground to rot? They merely serve as cover for the subsequent gunfight. Shortly afterwards, a teleport (without any teleport-effects or sounds like the ones in Kleiner’s lab, but instead with a change of location lacking any transition) occurs. A text spells out – quite slow, I might add – before the player is give the airboat (with added headlights), once again without explanations. Lots of zombies can be run over in sewers (which make no sense in an underground combine base), before the player falls into a room with toxic but harmless slime, with a dysfunctional ladder and no visible exit. At this point, I quit, after trying to make sense of the map for half an hour.
Some more flaws became obvious through the entirety of what I played.
First of all: voice acting!
The modders did quite a poor job voice acting, not sounding lively or interested at all. They didn’t make the effort to translate the audio to English either but only added subtitles. I understand German, so I could at least make sense of the words. However, the dialogues were useless as well. For example, no Combine soldier would ever tell a comrade it’d “be nice if you could help us” – rather grunt something along the lines of “take cover”, “defend” or “fall back and regroup”. All in all, no voice acting at all would have been much better.
Rooms designed purely for gameplay, with no meaning behind them.
Several rooms didn’t make sense, such as a giant abyss with sewers opening under the ceiling, or an APC hangar without gates for the vehicles to exit. These rooms might work gameplay-wise, as in “they provide enemies and cover”, but it isn’t much fun to run through unlikely rooms that would never ever exist in the fictional reality of the game. The sewers filled with zombies, for example, were obviously only implemented to give players the satisfactory experience of running over hundreds of zombies, with no plot or fictional universe meaning behind them.
Little effort to balance battles
Battles usually consisted of many enemies that were annoying to deal with, like a huge pack, but were no tactical challenge to take on, making gunfights a mere run-gun-and-fall-back without any fun. Even antlions are more challenging, I’m sorry to say this.
Unbalanced skill set within the team
This is basically the mother of all issues with this mod. From what I’ve seen, I guess the team had someone who has quite talented with scripted logic and perhaps programming, but no experienced architecture mapper. The mod would really benefit from someone with experience in detailing maps and adding realism to working gameplay. I know the issue of lacking skills in detail first-hand, as I’m more of a script-logic guy as well, so I know it can be tough. Still, releasing a demo that is hardly more than a gameplay prototype and calling it a beta (usually indicating something is close to complete) is quite bold.
I apologise if this review seems harsh, but it is my honest opinion. I wouldn’t recommend this mod to anyone, and since the latest release is from 2009, I doubt there will be any improvement.
P.S: also, it should be noted that I spent an hour playing the mod and didn’t get very far. Quite disappointing.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
Oh, and while the custom voice acting is German, the default NPC sounds (like rebels) are in the user’s selected language, which is just plain weird.
A fantastic mod. An excellent environment, challenging fights, everything was great. Unfortunately, the game ends suddenly and unexpectedly. Where is the sequel? 🙂
Manually
Medium
4 Hours
It’s ok.
Recommendation was removed, you have to at least write a reaction or basic thoughts on the experience.
Mod Combine Combate não abre só aparece engine error. Tenho todos os Source SDK Singleplayer instalados.