“Dark Interval is a mod project that aims at restoring certain parts of older drafts of Half-Life 2 – namely, various original locations, characters and plot points that didn’t make it to the retail version.
This mod is intended to provide a complete game experience; rather than restoring disparate bits and pieces, the team instead aims at building a complete and stylistically coherent world by drawing inspiration from many original concepts and drafts provided by Valve in their book Raising the Bar.
This naturally involves filling some blanks and discarding some failed or played out designs. Dark Interval doesn’t include original levels found in the “leaked” version of Half-Life 2, and instead features brand new maps which were built from the ground up – it was decided that this was the only way to make them both stand out and be actually modern and not just modernised fix-ups.”
Text taken from the ModDB page.
- Title: Dark Interval: Part 1
- Filename: hl2-ep2-sp-dark-interval-part-1-inc-patch-1.1.7z
- Size : 746MB
- Author: Cvoxalury and A-Shift
- Date Released: 19 October 2017
I have named the file with the prefix “hl2-ep2” to ensure it works with Gauge, but it DOES NOT require Episode Two.
You Must enable ‘-upcoming’ beta option for Source SDK Base 2013 Singleplayer. This can be done via Tools->Source SDK Base 2013 Singleplayer->Settings.
This file is too large to use with Gauge directly. I limit the file size to around 25MB.
Download to your HDD [746MB]
You can still use it with Gauge once you have downloaded it.
Download the 1.1 patch to your HDD [222MB]
If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.
- Copy the darkinterval-release folder into your …\Steam\SteamApps\sourcemods\ folder.
- You Must enable ‘-upcoming’ beta option for Source SDK Base 2013 Singleplayer. This can be done via Tools->Source SDK Base 2013 Singleplayer->Settings.
- Start or Restart Steam.
- Dark Interval | Part 1 should now be listed in your Library tab.
Coming Soon.
Coming Soon.
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2,730Overall
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114365 days
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 10 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 1 Hours, 49 Mins
Shortest: 1 Hours by Winterman
Longest: 2 Hours, 30 Mins by DarkShift
Total Time Played: 18 Hours, 10 Mins
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If you believe this release is missing important tags, please suggest them in a comment?
Before anyone asks – there is no lipsync yet, for all of scenes. There will be.
And release overall is not 100% polished, expect further patches.
Ok, patch 1.1 is out, lipsync is there, along with other fixes. On moddb, you can either download an entire patched build, or get only patch itself if you already have original Part 1 release.
Phillip will you still post teleportville in the future?
Next weekend.
Ok, thanks for answering me mate.
So yes, The DARK INTERVAL…
But ALSO…
1) Missing Information
2) Project 9
3) Old Story
4) Vertigo
5) Conscript
6) The Origin
7) Dark Interval
8) Insolence
9) Raising The Bar
10) Cremation
11) Depot
12) Town 17
13) Dark Skies
14) Alpha Retaliation
15) 2’02
16) Rainfall
17) Depot
18) Build 2046
19) WC mappack V2 mod
Yes. These are all the HL2 Beta mod’s projects I’ve seen sprouting in a decade, so far.
But, having followed all of them, the DARK INTERVAL mod seemed to be one of the most serious, one of the most interesting…
After Missing Information got “missing” since 2011, and so many others just disappeared because the project was too ambitious,
I even saw this one, sadly, “near-death”, when some files were lost, etc… and the developer, a russian guy called cvolaxury was cool and patient, and moved on to help some other beta projects.
Well, in the end, he managed to find some help to resurrect and even release his work – even if only episodic for the moment.
But, it had to be said, releasing a BetaHL2-themed mod is already an achievement in its on way.
The rainfall mod is only remaking HL1Beta and there`s also Der Shwartze Nabel(Moddb) and BETA:Build2003(Gamebanana) that`s trying to remake HL2Beta.
Sad it dont run under Linux very well.
It Start, but there are no zombies or other enemys.
The Persons are not talking, and some doors dont open. So its not realy playable. You have to noclip often to progress in the game.
So only Windows for now…
Same for Mac, sadly
It seems a bit… crashy right now. I did enable the Source SDK 2013 in -upcoming mode and the game ran fine in and of itself… until it crashed for no reason. Source usually has at least some kind of error messaging for crashes but I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ll try again soon.
Don’t pick up healthkits, walk over them. Crash can also happen if you bring a prop into autosave trigger, but from all bug reports it’s usually healthkits.
It’s caused by an engine error that is in HL2 too (crash caused by game deleting an item in player’s hands), but under more specific conditions, so we think we can solve it. It popped up only recently, so we couldn’t find the cause before release.
Wow brilliant attention to detail. Managed to get to the square outside the Terminal Hotel, and now I’m stuck. No idea where to go or what to do.
Overall, this is definitely a mod I’m going to be following very closely.
Did have the odd stutter or two, but that’s simply due to me running on a lower spec machine for the graphics detail level. Mainly where I entered the factory, and was looking out over the complex machinery area.
Yes, the mouth syncing was problem there, but hey, this IS an in-development mod, so it’s not a problem for me, guess as it has more development it will be fixed.
Dark and brooding,, reminded me in parts to the later parts of the expanded Station 51 Mod. I spent a LOT of time just wandering round, looking over all the areas and generally just being nosy LOL.
I think this mod has a LOT of potential, and look forwards to seeing just how it will progress. I am surprised that for the level of detail in the levels, and the size of some of the areas, the initial download is so small.
I would rate this a solid 9.5 out of 10. (I only give it this, because its not fully finished yet, and the mouth sync glitch). Afraid I’m not a registered member (I did try to register, but don’t think I ever got the e-mail back) and this is the first time I have really attempted to review a mod , so I cannot use a ‘Play It Now’ banner, would if I could tho he he.
Anyone know how to continue past the square would be a big help, so I can find out what the rest of this mod has to offer.
When you enter Plaza, there is trainstation building on your right (with glass roof). Go there and inside there’s a “Security” door.
Yesterday we got lipsync working perfectly, so expect it in 1.1 patch. Can’t say when it comes, since crashes and sequences breaking (in inconsistent way) are more difficult to fix.
Panic over, found the way in, I missed a door he he.
Another quick observation, was the mod developer influenced by the movie 1984? I see subtle references to it, such as the round ‘portal’ type tv’s in some of the rooms, and the overall look of the built up areas and decor. There were areas that I approached the combine when they were guarding certain areas, where they just stood and let you get right up to them. I feel that they should have tried to push you back away from those areas, such as the area where they was inspecting the area behind a barrier that had dead bodies stacked up in body bags? Maybe this could be looked into, as I think it might make it feel more ‘get back, nothing to see here’ thing., and make it more of a challenge, just saying, not criticizing. Those big bugs that you saw when the troops where marching past, definitely reminded me of the big bugs in the tunnels from Opposing Force. I can also see hints of other games in this mod, Hard Reset is one, hints of Sin and even Painkiller also spring to mind. PS I’m writing these posts as i work my way through the mod, so excuse the dis-jointedness of them.
“the area where they was inspecting the area behind a barrier that had dead bodies stacked up in body bags”
If you trespass (you can jump over that barrier) they will gladly shoot you to pieces. If you manage to escape, all other metrocops will shoot you on sight, and there’s one more surprise after that.
We hope to have more additional dialogs/interactions for npcs some day.
Had to stop, the bit with the manhacks at the ‘versus’ stage, too much for my system, caused the engine to crash out and lock up. Wayyyy to many all at once, must admit after losing count of how many times i died during this part, I had to cheat and turn on god mode, but it still killed it. I will try and continue, but looks like I might have hit my limit.
Did the game crash during “stand by” part? And I’m not sure if I get this right, did it crash to desktop?
By the way, this part is “unwinnable”, you are supposed to get killed and thrown back into arcade hall. We hoped that glitchy appearance was enough of a hint that something’s wrong.
Ahhh thank you for the info. No, it didn’t crash out to the desktop, it just locked up, but as I said before, I am running on a system with lower resources than I should have, so I think it was just an overload on my systems part. Now I know that you are actually supposed to die when all those manhacks are coming for you, then I should be able to continue this mod, keep up the good work. And I guess that I missed the ‘glitchy’ hint lol.
It crashes to desktop instantaneously for me :C
“You Must enable ‘-upcoming’ beta option for Source SDK Base 2013 Singleplayer. This can be done via Tools->Source SDK Base 2013 Singleplayer->Settings”
Because this mod is not polished yet so I’m not gonna be too harsh about this one. Dark Interval really did well at remaking the scenes from cut Half-Life 2 storyline. Even though I’ve noticed the author took some liberties for the intro. You begin on the Borealis rather than the train station.
The voice acting was well done, except the Vortigaunts which were kinda off.
I like the visual, it was great. Especially the raining City 17. I also like the Cremator, the flare gun, the Cremator’s gun and the Wasteland Scanner being remade.
There are a couple of bugs though. If you pick up a medkit to heal yourself with E, it crashes instantly, sometimes the NPCs will refuse to talk (such as Barney talking about the turrets) so you will have to reload the saves.
Also, I’m kinda disappointed we didn’t get to see the dreaded Manhack Arcade from the original storyline.
This mod is kinda buggy but you must try it!
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
But there is Manhack Arcade. It’s the 3rd chapter. And it has two game modes, though in prototype stage. To play as a manhack, use one of game machines near columns (active ones have a green screen)
I see great improvement from earlier version. Now you can beat all maps without asking yourself, wtf should I do 🙂 You know where to go and what to do. I like lighting and use of color. Great atmosphere.
Also very good voice acting!
It crashes every time…this sucks…don’t ask if I made the source sdk settings…this is bad coded…
To the modder…pls fix that crashing bug!
It’s almost impossible for modders to fix crashes like this when it works for most people.
Have you tried running the SDK Base 2013 singleplayer first? I’m not talking about installing it, but actually running it. It’s in the tools section of your Library.
I tried that, too. Crashing again, this is the only mod that crashes on my computer, so I am really disappointed with it.
It makes me sad, because I love playing HL and HL² mods…
After the crash there is always a window saying “engine error”……
Am I missing something here? As far as I can see this is just a lot of walking around with hardly any combat. Is that the way it’s supposed to be? I’m at the part where Barney is sending me through the tunnels and he’s just given me a gun. Not a lot of fun so far!
I wanted to review this with a PF as this mod has the story, depth of environment and wandering exploration I so love. I know this is an early release but so far I’m really impressed by its quality. The dark cloudy gloom of City 17 in the rain is some of the best visual and aural experience I have seen in a mod. The sound was perfect, easing as you found shelter and the rain effects, with they’re ground splash, mirroring that also.
The start from the mysterious ship rising from a watery grave was the best intro ever. Starting on the Borealis instead of that train, mentioned later in game, was ingenious. The dock was huge and over detailed, a bonus always! And the ship was magnificent in the dark with all the running lights on.
Barney was a pleasant surprise among the new cityscape presented for City 17.
The Vortigaunt release was very nice, even if the factory was a touch laggy on my Jurassic PC and I remembered how to use a sedative concrete building block!
The city was dark and brooding, more like Gstring, which I love and had a better feel than the somewhat cleaner original HL2 cities.
Witnessing that Combine parade was a very nice surprise and, for once, you could see who was in charge.
It looks brilliant, well gloomy actually, plays well, has a detailed environment and active atmosphere and is so rewarding to explore and it is still unfinished!
So many “Kodak Moments”…
Give this a go and await the finished article, this is a rem gem of a mod. You know it’s good when the end seems sudden and disappointing!
Barney was really tight lipped! 😀
Manually
Easy
2 Hours, 5 Minutes
Here is my review about DARK INTERVAL.
I’m amazed, in fact Cvolaxury and A-Shift “twisted” the HL2 Beta concept as we’ve seen it on Missing Info 1.6 or other (unreleased) mod’s, they took the scrapped concept and compiled back into their own perception of the beta story.
Rather taking on the classic FPS path where Gordon starts almost “naked” and gradually gets stronger to fight enemies, here – at least for the four chapters -,
Gordon stays as a feeble character, weaponless – or near – , like a mouse trapped in a house full of cats.
Indeed, there are virtually no fights beside some headcrabs, and the greatest battles are fought in a virtual simulation of manhacks “arcade”, which are “bonus” and don’t affect the rest of the story.
In fact, it reminds me a lot of GSTRING, that HL2 mod which evolved into “cult classic” – a status I think Dark Interval can also quickly gain.
Like GSTRING, DI also has – and it’s the main point of interest – insanely HUGE map’s… City 17 never felt so opressing, mind-crushing, like it is here, it has many “wow” moments, from the beginning in the docks with the Borealis, to the glimpses of the ever-present Citadel and also the Skyscraper.
Dark Interval isn’t dark just in its title, it’s also a “dark” feeling/ambiance you get throughout the mod, that eerie sensation we can feel, as a lonely guy lost against an enemy too much powerful to handle…
even thought the dev’s managed to make it feel “alive” with many scripted sequences and newly recorded dialogue, which felt very VALVe-like!!! , but the “life” felt also in some scenes like the factory with all those workers, an abandoned bar, etc etc…
Clearly a huge piece of work.
Finally, the mod managed to resurrect and put back in place some “cut content” in the likes of the Cremator (and you’ll get to use his FlameGun – a nod to the heat/ice gameplay intended for Ep3???), the Vort-Cells, etc…
Well, amazing, indeed, a great mod destined, when it’ll be complete, to be remembered perhaps in the top 10 greatest Source mod’s.
For now, it’s a very interesting and promising first part, which will surely gets better and better in the future.
For example, there are still “flaws” like no lipsync (will be added later), the Consul is still Dr Breen, etc… But it’s very minor problems.
I will finish the review with the HIGHLIGHT of this first part : the amazing Combine “Imperial March” just before the Combine Arcade. Full of promises of future threats! 🙂
Manually
Medium
2 Hours, 30 Minutes
For some years now, we’ve seen lots of Half-life² beta mods growing on ModDb, yet, dying few years or even month later their creations.
However, this one is the mod you need if you like Half-life² beta games! And, the game is beautiful! I need to check, but I’m 75% sure, the author set the light grid to 8/4/2 in lots of places. For sure, it looks really great with high-resolution grid, but you FPS may be hurt!
And, when you look at some places, you will also have some FPS drop, but you can continue playing normally, you’ll just lose 10 or 20 FPS for the worst case.
So maybe it needs a little bit of optimization in some places, and I don’t check .BSP files to see and my computer is not really young, but it’s not a big deal. From 120 FPS to 30 FPS for some couples of seconds, you won’t die!
We’ve finally got fully functionnal cremator. Furthermore, The part where you got to play with a cremator’s flamethrower, WOW! Moreover, we see lots of creatures, I think there is this little monster I hate from opposing force. There are big insects like monsters, walking with combines. Although, we don’t have to fight against them… Maybe in part 2? I hope! And there is those little annoying gas launcher at the end, I hate them already!
And what would be a Half-life² beta mod without a flare launcher? I really like, how you made the player equipped with just 1 weapons, and the only weapon he needs in this situation! A bit strange in some places, but really good, and more realistic than 1 guy equipped with dozens of weapons, and a rocket launcher!
The new models for zombies are great, in the way it’s not ugly with low textures. I don’t know if it’s me or if the code as change, but I found them really easy to kill.
The voice lines are really good! The microphone is not the best, but the voice sounds normal, not like a bored person who read a text by force!
In general, GG to the creator! When you play it, you got the feeling of oppression and desolation. Always in that foggy/ cloudy day or night, the sentiment of poison air. People living in the street, under the rain. I think, you really got the atmosphere of the original Half-life², like it used to be!
And in every level, lots and lots of details everywhere. Good lighting, you really get the use of sprites with them, without being ugly. I would love to map like you and make amazing levels like you!
It’s just the beginning of the game I don’t really like, just the intro. Why are we on this little boat, and the Borealis, I presume, is popping from nowhere? Are we in gman’s world?
I’ve certainly missed lots of points in this review, but there are too much to say in one post!
So, if you want to know what point I miss, install this mod now, and play it, you won’t be
disappointed!
Manually
Easy
2 Hours, 15 Minutes
Man, I don’t know others but I love this kind of mods. Especially if they’re well crafted like in this case.
I think I really like this kind of mods because they actually deliver cool and new content INSIDE the Half-Life Universe. I also was one of those who thought Missing Information was going to be a mind bowing mod, sadly it was never finished because evidently, it was too ambitious.
But in this case, with Dark Interval we actually have the most polished and advanced mod which aim is to replicate some spirit of the original HL2 Beta. And if we talk about environment and dark atmosphere, this mod definitely achieve it.
I really had many WOW moments at least visually. I think for example that having delusions inside the Borealis like the ones Mark Laidlaw envisioned in the Ep3 was just a brilliant and nostalgic touch that by the way is pretty well done in this mod.
Also, the huge Citadel and the overall dark environment and new models were pretty cool and well done in here. Maybe some beta helicopters would have been great. But I have to confess that seeing those huge mechanized crabs in the CMB military parade was pretty damn well worth it.
About the time of gameplay was just great and amazing to see how the original HL2 Beta had a huge atmospheric intro, and I dare to say that maybe if it were released that way could be even bigger than the original HL2. Although I am a hard-core combat gamer, in this case, I won’t complain at all about the scarce combat. I also think using the cremator weapon against head crabs, and seeing some xenian plants in the tunnels was just pretty sweet! totally and absolutely worth it.
In conclusion, I hope this positive feedback encourage the developer team to keep hard working in deliver part 2. As would be just great to play it entirely and if it keeps that quality standard then it will be a definitely great classic mod of all times.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour, 35 Minutes
Thank you, I was a bit surprised to see word “polished” here.
Before Part 2, we’ll be working on Patch 1.1, since so many big publications shone a spotlight on our small contained mod riddled with yet-to-be-fixed issues. We have around 70 positions in our changelog.
I’ve got very mixed feelings about this mod, and the quality of the mod itself varies a lot.
I’ll phrase it this way – there’s potential here. Lots and lots of potential. I’m not one of the lucky ones to have read Raising the Bar and I never took the time to read up on Beta-HL2, so I have no idea how close Dark Interval P1 is to what could have been Half-Life², but what I’ve seen in this mod was – after my imagination filled in some gaps – very impressive. If it wouldn’t have been for the technical flaws (lots of them) and the mixed quality of the maps, this could easily have been a Personal Favourite.
The start is rather weird. I’ll keep this as spoiler-free as possible, but lemme just say that a knee-deep ocean and ships rising up straight through water (and solid ice) look very weird, to put it nice.
It gets better quickly, though. For a while, the map design is top-notch in terms of visuals and the effects are extremely pretty. Rain, reflections, hallucinations – you name it, Dark Interval delivers. This is where the first technical issues start to surface, though. Missing lip sync is a bit annoying, and stairs not playerclipped or invisible walls are a huge “turn-off” as it is very bad mapdesign practice. I figure consumer-only players wouldn’t even notice this or wouldn’t spend much thought on it, but it’s very noticeable to me and not something I can overlook.
Then, City 17 happened. I guess style-wise, it’s best described as cyberpunk, but as dirty and rundown as the universe of the original Star Wars trilogy. And I dare say that, all technical flaws aside, I like this beta(?) City 17 way better than the retail version. It just conveys the sense of living under the Combine regime more authentic.
Sadly, bugs soon overshadowed the fun of walking through the lower levels of Coruscant (excuse the Star Wars metaphors). More often than not, I ran into game-breaking bugs that forced me to save and reload every few minutes. One time, I read the subtitles faster than the NPC could speak and broke the game when I tried to follow his orders. Another time a trigger didn’t work, forcing me to play through the last five minutes again. When I got the pistol, I emptied the magazine into an unbreakable window because I thought I had to break it and the pistol viewmodel suddenly disappeared and refused to appear even when I got ammo again. Icons on screen (picked up items etc.) were missing the lower half of the graphics and the lack of a HUD for the better part of the game was extremely annoying.
The quality of the maps varied extremely. While the first part up until City 17 was beautiful to look at, City 17 itself was a funny mix of top-notch visuals and square, empty rooms with misaligned textures and without details. Throughout the maps, few NPCs spoke a word – not even the default citizen answers of City 17 played. Due to the lack of lip sync, it was extremely hard to see who was actually speaking. This artificial feeling somewhat ruined the mood set by impressive scripted events such as a military parade.
The voice acting was pretty alright (the quality was good enough to seem lively but for the lack of lips moving) and I really liked the new Barney voice, but it was too obvious that Kleiner was voiced by the same guy. I don’t think it would have been that hard to find someone a bit closer to Kleiner’s age to speak the lines. Also, often enough I encountered situations when the subtitles would appear but no sound was played. Similar to this issue, some sounds were missing altogether, such as the stunstick hit sound.
The teleport sequence seemed extremely simple (although I liked the re-designed lab, despite its lack of details), as opposed to the impressive effects used in the first part of the mod. I can’t help but think that two or more map designer with extremely different levels of skill worked on this, or that some maps were created extremely early in development and not re-worked later (which would also explain the lack of transitions between some parts).
So all in all, this mod has the potential to be a very cool beta mod, but in its current state, it’s a weird mixture between top-notch maps and a beginner mapper’s work (and I know what I’m talking about because I am a beginner mapper). I’d love to see a “finished” version of this, as this one feels like a beta version rather than something ready to release.
Oh, and don’t ever use dashes to underline titles. It just looks amateurish. I’m talking about this:
——————————–
Dark Interval: Part 1
——————————–
(PS: Thanks to Hec for suggesting I review this. Despite the various flaws, I still liked playing it and I probably wouldn’t have tried it any time soon if you had not said so.)
Manually
Medium
1 Hour, 30 Minutes
Looks like you were expecting that this mod is finished in some sense, but this is not the case, unfortunately. Dark Interval is way too far from its final state. So, in most parts your comment is right, though I would like to address a couple of things.
>>I’ll keep this as spoiler-free as possible, but lemme just say that a knee-deep ocean and ships rising up straight through water (and solid ice) look very weird, to put it nice.
It is just a dream. That’s why it’s so surrealistic.
>>invisible walls are a huge “turn-off”
Well, at least, that’s much better than previous “demo”, where player could easily leave playable area or get stuck… Probably, they still have to find some balance. Personally, I don’t feel it enough critical to bother about.
>>More often than not, I ran into game-breaking bugs that forced me to save and reload every few minutes.
Player experience varies… I haven’t had game-breaking glitches while playing the first time, though I faced some bugs and difficulties…
>>City 17 itself was a funny mix of top-notch visuals and square, empty rooms with misaligned textures and without details
I cannot agree with this. Can you be more specific?
Also, intention to put props everywhere possible is wrong too. You know, in real life there could be empty room too. It is not absolutely unrealistic.
It’s all about balance: don’t make large empty spaces (though, even that could be reasonable), but don’t overpopulate small rooms too.
>>I liked the re-designed lab, despite its lack of details
This feeling probably arose because this lab much bigger than retail one. Retail lab is very small and cramped.
>>I can’t help but think that two or more map designer with extremely different levels of skill worked on this
There is only one level designer (and some time ago he was the only person actually working on this project!), all involved people are listed in final credits after the mod ends.
>>and I know what I’m talking about because I am a beginner mapper
I am (well, was…) a mapper too, and I don’t understand what you’re talking about. There are some mistakes (couple of misproportioned fake doors, a few interpenetrative brushes and one badly misaligned texture in dead end noone would go to see), but these aren’t so awful. I think, the scripting bugs here are much disturbing and serious, than pure level-design issues.
This sort of things actually not very much tight to experience. You can easily overlook minor issues like misaligned texture or intersecting brushes, or leave empty room only because you’re human, and all your experience will not save you from making “novice” mistakes. Also, finding and fixing such little bugs is a very time-consuming and ungrateful thing. Most players even won’t notice them (you can see examples of wrong and lazy texturing, and empty rooms even in Half-Life 2 and other commercial games, so what could you expect from amateur designers?). It is way too better to put your time and effort on improving more serious problems, which definitely would be addressed by players.
I’ll disagree on “at least it’s much better than demo” because there was little good about it and all of that good is in Part 1, not a real argument.
It also doesn’t matter if game-breaking bugs only happen for some people – if they happen, they happen, and that’s not right. Thing is, those bugs are indeed inconsistent – we knew about some of them weeks before release, took numerous attempts to fix (I’m looking at you, foreman) and they still surfaced again. But I think yesterday we found what was wrong with foreman.
Now, for “I don’t think it would have been that hard to find someone a bit closer to Kleiner’s age to speak the lines”. Yes, it was that hard. Still is.
I assumed given the fact that the people who played Half-Life when it was new are now in their 30s to 40s, there’d be someone to act the Kleiner part but then again, I can only guess.
I mean, if we find someone with good mic and fitting voice, we’ll gladly re-record anything. Everything about mod is subject to change and further development.
I’d volunteer for the mic part, but I think I’m about 50 years too young.
For instance, the arcade looks absolutely stunning, right? Reflections on metal surfaces, impressive lighting, everything. Then you leave it and the room where Barney tells you to follow him (in his cop disguise) is all but empty, big, square-ish and seems to have no function other than that to have Barney in it. I don’t mind empty rooms as long as they look convincing (like an empty closet, empty office, etc.), but if they seem to be without a purpose in the fictional world, they’re just off-putting.
A little update: I decompiled the first map because I was curious how they did the first boat ride and phew, there’s some sloppy work in there. I mean stuff such as entities in the void, not enclosed with brushes, which is bound to be leaking six ways to Sunday. Or complex walls (ship, hint-hint) that are just brushes instead of func_details (the proper way to do complex brushwork to keep the visleafs nice and clean).
“I decompiled the map”
So you *decompiled* the map and complain about missing brushes and leaks or wrong brush entities? I can’t believe you’re being serious.
In case you are being serious, I’ll have to remind you that decompiling is NEVER perfect, and it always breaks and destroys many, many, many things. And since prologue map is huge, no way it’d decompile any good.
I’m not sure why I have to tell any of this to a mapper.
The only thing I know about decompiling maps is “press this button then that one and you get a VMF”, so I wouldn’t know ^^
Well, vmf gets all messed up on decompile, because compilation to bsp removes lots of excess information and things like VisGroups. So you still can see how entities are set up, but brushwork tends to break completely.
Apologies, I didn’t know that.
I explained so that you would know 🙂
Apology accepted.
A wonderful mod worthy playing right now! I found a few small map issues and got stuck two times with sequences not triggering until I restarted from an autosave, but other than that quite perfect including new weapons and amazing visuals. Only I think these guys shouldn’t make a beta HL2 version that probably is very far away from whatever Valve originally planned, but rather tackle Laidlaws HL2:EP3 instead :)!
walk.look.reboot.yawn.
Nice looking mod but…Where’s the action?
I’ve probably played just about every beta-based mod out there, and while there are plenty of great ones that give you glimpes into what the story could have been, most of them fall apart (development-wise) when they intend to recreate it completely by using the existing beta maps. It seems that when most of them get to the point where making
a large amount of new content is needed, they fall apart, and the beta maps themselves aren’t always the most conducive to a traditionally playable experience.
Dark Interval, then, I feel has the right idea for creating something you can play start to finish. While smaller mods such as Depot and Cremation are fantastic for getting an idea of how the original maps were like, Dark Interval gives the best idea of how it would have felt as a polished game. Every map is made from scratch, using the beta’s art assets and ideas, plus several new art assets to recreate the 2001 story in the form of a polished, complete game. The maps are beautiful, the artwork is of Triple-A quality, and the voice acting is surprisingly good. Barney in particular had me initially thinking that they were using cut lines from the actual game until I realized it was a very good impression. The scripting and animation all feel like a proper, polished game,
There are glitches and issues here and there, but this is an early demo and for there to be this much content is impressive. One Vortigaunt who was supposed to follow me in one level didn’t seem to come for me, and I couldn’t move on after the Borealis rose from the water/ I also found it odd to play combat sections without an HUD, since the HEV suit gives you that, but even with these hiccups Dark Interval is unquestionably a must-play. The development team has clearly demonstrated not only their talent with the source engine, but a knack for creating a compelling experience. Dark Interval feels like it has an interesting story and world in it’s own right and isn’t just a novelty attempt at playing “What if?”. This is an exceptional mod and I think it’s going to be fantastic when it’s done.
Manually
Hard
2 Hours
There’s a lot to like here. This mod pulls off the Half-Life 2 beta feeling much better than Missing Information ever did, in my personal opinion. City 17 feels extremely grungy and run-down. It brings to mind the Detroit city streets from Deus Ex: Human Revolution. There are familiar faces and familiar places for those who know the Half-Life 2 beta: cremators, the manhack arcade, elite metrocops, crab synths.
As good as the city street levels feel, they’re often not designed particularly well. They can be sprawling and open, lacking good signposting telling the player where to head next, and they can be too large and too empty. You’ll notice the difference immediately if you compare them to retail Half-Life 2’s City 17 levels. Those levels are actually quite small and constrained, but are designed to feel like they’re part of the larger city.
There’s also a sewer section with areas so ridiculously large that it beggars belief.
The Citadel is front and center in many vistas. You’ll emerge from a building or from underground and there it is, filling the screen. This happened so frequently that it started to feel overplayed.
One thing I was consistently impressed with was the sound design. Above ground in particular, the soundscape is constantly noisy and oppressive, with Dr. Breen’s monologues; the female announcer also heard in the retail game; helicopters, striders, APCs, and marching infantry in the distance; and a new, unique set of alien mechanical noises. I do wish that the mod had decided to use silence a bit more frequently; it seemed like every environment was crammed full of noises,
Unlike other players, I experienced very few bugs. I had some minor texture flickering in a few places, and I had some follower NPCs path poorly and get stuck in parts of the levels.
It’s definitely worth playing to experience, especially if you like the Half-Life 2 beta. It’s quite different from any other HL2 mod I’ve played. It’s not the most polished, level-design or gameplay-wise.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour, 30 Minutes
Can somebody tell me how to get out of the boat in the prologue, besides using noclip? I have been playing half-life for over 20 years, and have played many mods. This is driving me nuts.
You have to “use” the boat. Press the your use key. Mine is set to “e”.
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This mod is incredible! it feels like it was the real game, the work in this thing it just feels like Valve, the atmosphere is amazing, have detail, the sound design was amazing, the models are well polish, the only thing that we can say is “bad” is the voice sound on some characters but ignoring that is amazing, I have to say thanks for doing this with this level of love
BOLD: One of the best (Personally) Beta mods out there, I just want this to be finish
Manually
Medium
1 Hour, 30 Minutes
Need to leave caption on or you won’t know what to do. It looks great. Not really a fan of the game play. First area was difficult. Maybe I missed a weapon or ammo for the one weapon I had. Kinda spooky PTSD.
A dream come true for those who crave in Half-Life 2 Beta. Visuals really do look perfect unlike witnessing old beta maps where it looked so bland and goldsrc. Nothing much to say about the map layout or level design because they’re basically the same as the ones Valve made. Now as for the gameplay, it is really fun but you gotta be very careful with carrying items. Believe me, you can also kill random people by throwing props at them. To make things more hilarious, killing a metrocop would drop a weapon for you and this is where the game breaking part begins. You can pick their dropped weapon and wreak havoc the entire map with barely having any consequences other than killing a major character or softlocking the game. While doing that in maps, DO NOT KILL A CREMATOR and I’ve done it for real. Voice acting other than Barney’s and Kleiner’s are pretty decent at least. Now can someone tell me how to submit images here?