“The story takes place in Russia at the secret plant called “Object E7” or “Black Star” at the same time as the unexpected consequences at Black Mesa. G-Man was planning to organize three incidents of portal opening originally.
First one – at Black Mesa Complex. Second one – at Black Star plant. The third place is unfortunately unknown. But thanks to the fact that the cascade resonator at Black Star was out of order, the planned incident didn’t take place there.
Object E7 is a laboratory complex researching anomalous materials and organisms. Its academic adviser is Dr.Victor Shmurghe. He has connected directly with G-Man. The protagonist is a political prisoner who was moved from a jail to Object E7. His main purpose was to test a prototype of the new protection suit H.E.V.5000. But he could escape during usual testing by chance.”
- Title: E7 Black Star
- File Name: hl1-sp-e7-black-star-clean.7z
- Size : 84.4MB
- Author: Igor Knyazev AKA Knazev33
- Date Released: 19 June 2012
Please Note: This “clean” version removes any file related to the “bloom mod”.
- Copy the Black_Star folder into your Half-Life folder.
- Restart or start Steam.
- Black Star should now be listed in your Library tab.
If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.
The video below was made by the author.
The playthrough below is provided by Podcast 17 Let’s Play. See more of the playthroughs on this site: VP: Podcast 17
Click on the thumbnails below to open a 1024 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
-
6,717Overall
-
0Today
-
0Last 7 days
-
19Last 30 days
-
236365 days
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 14 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 12 Hours, 10 Mins
Shortest: 2 Hours by Friedell
Longest: 100 Hours, 39 Mins by
Total Time Played: 182 Hours, 34 Mins
If you believe this release is missing important tags, please suggest them in a comment?
This is without doubt a great piece of work and deserves a lot of attention. It also suffers from some issues that could have easily been fixed.
To my mind it’s too long. Many mods fall into the trap of thinking ,longer is better, but it’s not, not unless you have a proper story that is well told. This one doesn’t. It has a setting with events but that’s not the same.
Fix those issues, add some voice acting and make it a little prettier and you have an all time classic.
As it stands it’s just a very good mod that you should definitely play.
I don’t want you to think I didn’t enjoy this, because I did. I just felt it won’t stick in my mind for very long. Why? Because it is good but not fantastic. I would have cut it down by a third, polished it more, thought more about how it flows.
Reviewers keep coming back to the great Antoine de Saint-Exupery who once said — “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
As I mentioned in the overview, there are some really good aspects to this mod. Firstly, the general architecture. Putting aside the “too many corridors” issue, each area has plenty of detail and little touches. Yes, sometime the larger areas, especially indoors, seem a little bland, but just take a moment to look around and you’ll see them. They range from how the steps are in a “V” (image 137) to the alcove areas near the lifts (image 51).
There’s a section underwater, a Xen section, Tentacles, 2 endings, hidden areas, Easter eggs. All going to show that the author has put a lot of effort into this mod.
I feel there’s too much colour. A quick scan through the screenshots shows lots of greens, blues, reds and yellows. Often there’s no obvious reason for this, beside the toxic materials in the greens!
Next comes the text on the screen. I’m sorry but there is no excuse for having bad English. There are plenty of people who would help. I have never refused to help somebody correct English. There are plenty of people who would help. I accept that English is not the author native language, but that’s no excuse.
Textures also caused me to pause a few times. They range from high quality to low quality (some crates) and I just don’t think you can do that. Consistency is very important.
Some proportions seem a little strange. For example image 45 shows the worlds large filing cabinets!
I also didn’t like the chains across some doors. I understand that the author wanted to add something extra but it goes back to the point about consistent textures.
The Xen area needed more testing, as I manged to find a shortcut out of the map. But this comes back to the mod being too big. Keep it smaller but get the quality higher.
Any estimate as to how long it took you to complete this?
I must admit that I didn’t keep a record. I played over a week for about an hour a day. I would say at least 6 hours, maybe up to 8 if you play all the hidden areas.
Also take into account that when I play I tend to rush so I can post the mod and if you take your time and look around really carefully, it will obviously take longer.
Cool, was just curious. Still doesn’t come close to G-String! I wonder if/when a mod will ever top that in terms of length…
Just started playing this as I was having trouble replaying Half-Life, kind of got bored with it. Maybe I’ve replayed too often too soon!
This is a very interesting mod with some great new texturing, HL with a coat of Russian paint. It also seems more like HL2 than 1 at times.
Puzzles make you think at bit and now I’m lost in the old tunnels.
Loved those giant file cabinets!
I think there’s 2 Xen areas 😀
as soon as I saw the screenshoots I tought: VERY LONG!!, and it is!
to be honest ive never been a fan of the original half life… I prefered the hl2 series,probally due to the superior graphics and textures
however I have to thank phillip for bringing half life back to the forefront and I actually finished the game yesterday and I must admit” it was good fun ”
anyway “E7 Black Star” is a excellent mod and deserves high acclaim .. I thoroughly enjoyed playing this and recommend it highly… so a PIN recommendation is given on this occassion
so thanks to phillip and igor for giving me something other than hl2 to play…… well done guys !
Very solid, balanced and interesting gameplay, quality mapping and scripting. Great using of soundtrack. And some more fun if you can understand russian and feel great parodistic post-soviet atmosphere of the mod. Mod has some lacks, but for the work of one author it’s incredible, in my opinion.
P. S. Also, any mod can’t be too long for me, if I like it 🙂 .
Yes, you are right. The posters are very parodistic for now and realistic for the eighties(1980). In addition, they awake a nostalgia for a lost atmosphere of the USSR.
Very nice, and I mean everything on this mod. Graphics too good to be real. Won’t do a recommend yet though, since I’m not finished playing. but this is awesome. Don’t want it to end…Thanks Igor Knyazev (Knazev33), and Phillip for posting this HL mod. Installs like a breeze on WON with .bat file (local).
“You haven’t won, until you’ve WON”:)
Being at screenshot #188 at the moment, will try to finish it as soon as possible, it’s indeed long playtime (already 2 hours for me) but I can’t say I like it much or will give a high rating (reasons will be announced in review).
It’s not that bad, but lacks of many things in my eyes to make it somehting better than just “good”…
Okay, it’s late and I have no patience to play around with this anymore. So how do I distract that guard in the corridor to move on…
Go back to a room with some buttons. The room is at one end of a corridor. Make sure that once you have pressed the buttons you run towards the area you just left and hide in one of the labs until the guard passes.
So is there any info on that pressing the buttons will get the guard moving or did you found this out per accident?
I ran into the freezer, waited there and carefully opened the door of it to check whether or not he passed me finally and quicksaved often.
As soon as passed my sight I could proceed without any alarm.
(Don’t attack any scientists too!)
I hid in the toilets, waited for him to go into the room with the contols, then shut the door on him and carried on…easy enough…
similar, I just ran back past the corridor though, then waited until he’d walked into the “button room”, then snuck in behind him & “relieved” him of his gun 🙂
Is this a sequel to Dopusk 31? It’s from the same author.
Yes, it’s by the same author, but not a sequel. At least I don’t believe it is.
though, wouldn’t it be more the “prequel” to Dopusk 31??? it’s a few years since I played it (& enjoyed massively), but wasn’t it’s plot set after the base was closed off, the char being on a trip into old tunnels & then accidentally stumbling upon the older military tunnels full of zombies etc. that have been closed off after such events as in E7 Black Star.
Long and quite difficult in places (on medium)…I had to noclip a few times as I’d lost momentum and couldn’t work out where I should be heading. Some interesting bits…but also a lot of boring bits too. The end seemed abrupt. I’d have said it was more Opposing Force than Half Life…but hey, what do I know…worth a go none the less…took me 9 hours. Got the Easter eggs and a hidden area, but no alternative ending. Cest la Vie….(or the Half Vie as it happens)
If you don’t want to use Noclip you should previously find all hidden areas.
There are powerfull guns and ammo on those levels.
>>The end seemed abrupt.
You must be found only a “bad” end.
I don’t know, but it was the one I got, couldn’t be assed to go through all THAT again to try and get a different one….
You just need to load your last save and try to search another way, it’s near the “bad” room (that room is on the screenshot #224).
The only good thing I can say about this is the graphics. By the way, the mod comes with the bloom mod. It can get you VAC banned if you play Half-Life online on secure servers.
pros:
.visuals
cons:
.pretty much everything
.poorly balanced. no health, no ammo
.boring, repeative gameplay
.random rooms with dead ends
.dark rooms
.bonus levels
conclusion: it’s not worth playing
>>.poorly balanced. no health, no ammo
Yes, it’s a scientific facility, not a military base. So until you contact with grunts, you can feel some lack of ammo and weapons. Level design is realistic enough, so yes, there are “random rooms with dead ends” and “dark rooms” too. And you need to search supplies in crates and sometimes in hidden places, because it’s not a multiplayer map where you can get all from the floor. If you want to play this mod on Hard, you should be prepared to all of this. For me there is no problem, I played much more hard HL mods. Aim for the head, save your ammo and use quick saving, or play it on Easy 😉 .
P. S. Also can’t agree that mod has “repeative gameplay”.
how is “bonus levels” a con?!
I have now updated the file to be “clean”. This means any reference to the “bloom mod” has been removed.
If you want to do this manually then delete the following files and folders:
opengl32.dll, cgGL.dll, cg.dll
cgprograms folder
and from within the Black_Star folder:
cgGL.dll, cg.dll
Oh, so that’s why the download doesn’t work, I guess. I’ll wait a day or two to try again.
No, that’s because I made a mistake in the link. I just corrected it and tested it. Everything is fine now.
FYI, download link still doesn’t seem to be working. I tried with Chrome, FF and JDownloader. Is it me? IS IT MEEE?!!! 😛
I just tested it in Chrome and it works for me. I download the file and copied the folder to another folder. I can only suggest refreshing the page in case it somehow got saved in your cache.
It works now, thanks Phillip!
Well, I found it on another site. Not the clean version so I did that myself as per the above instructions. But it looks like I’m stuck very early in the game; the room from screenshots 26 – 28 is a dead end for me 🙁
Oh well, good I always use “bind n noclip” in the console.
You need to go to the bottom and around the corner. Destroy the column and watch the toxic waste rise. Then you need to go back to the top and jump on the moving crates.
It’s actually a fun sequence and would be a shame to miss.
I just climbed on the boxes and along the wall to get to the vent.
So I missed out?
I’ve reach images 65/66 but the Power button here activates nothing. How can I go further, or what am I missing?
Thanks in advance!
You need to bring a crate down from the top and use it to reach somewhere. Let me know if you need more help.
Thanks for the tip, Phillip. The crate, the jump, and the crowbar helped…
Even without knowing it, it’s pretty clear this a Russian mod, don’t ask me why.
Maybe cause of the textures and how the gameplay starts rolling.
I guess some textures were taking from other Russian mods and/or from Igor’s “Dopusk 31”.
However, there are very nice graphics and lighting, but as Phillip said, it’s a bit too colorful sometimes. Architecture any layouts are nice too, but not always.
There’s many new stuff like textures, sounds, edited models and so on.
Weapons are also different from the original HL game.
The gameplay itself is usually running, searching and solving more or less good puzzles.
Compared to the playtime of around 3 hours, there’s less but tough combat as there are less healing possibilities and less ammo / weapons (at first).
What’s cool are cutscenes, the design, some puzzles and hard combat.
But what’s not that good are the integration of the story and the long walkways without action.
It just felt boring at all times to me, there weren’t any WOW moments, sorry…
Also, it can be confusing at many spots as some areas look the same but aren’t.
And sometimes it’s not that clear what to do. At least sometimes there are cutscenes showing what happens when you hit an important switch or something like that.
All in all, as mentioned, I’m not that fascinated about the mod as others seem to be, according to their high rating. So I just can’t give it something higher than a “maybe?”, my advice is indeed to “check the (other) reviews” first..
To be honest I just expected more, don’t get me wrong again, it’s not bad, but not my taste.
“Dopusk 31” was also weird to me, it is somehow very similar to “E7”, therefore I seriously didn’t enjoy both of them, what a pity as they both have nice visuals and long playtime..
That’s the realism touch of the author, again. In a real building complex, you think every floor has different layout and textures?
Even the big tram area is seen twice and I actually appreciated that cus I saw his point.
Of course not, but that’s not what I meant.
What I meant is that it can be confusing when you encounter a different but same-looking crossing for example due to the large amount of playtime and many areas in this mod this can happen more than once.
Whatever, nice to see your screenshots as I didn’t found any Easter Eggs or secret levels, maybe because I just was looking for a way to proceed and not inspecting every corner.
There’s great leveldesign here but that just couldn’t save it from a higher rating to me, unfortunately…
This is a good mod, a strange but cool mix between Dopusk31 mod some Ispiliatel mod touches also, and a bit of Paranoia mod also.
As any other HL1 russian mod, this feels pretty east european, is actually interesting how HL1 mods developed into russian or east european environments feels like you are actually in there, I mean in russia not in the weast side at all!, That’s actually really cool and I like the whole environment of this mod.
The new weaponery is definitely a superb plus for me and I loved the AK47 and the RPG.
And well, the main shborfalls of this mod came in matter of some void areas where u found too few ennemys and well more xenian ennemys are missed, the hardcore zombie is really cool, but it felt quite repetitive, i’d love to see some normal zombies and vortigaunts. Also some parts are a little bit darkened but overall the lights of the textures are great and is just a well ballance of lights.
Exploring in this mod is esential and is very fun, you will found some “surprises” along the way, please be advise u have to active “noclip” in order to find some of those “surprises” or “little secrets”, this mod has.
Overall and in conclussion a great mod you have to PLAY NOW, and well for me it felt like if this would have been the sadly lost Ispiliatel3 mod, also another russian title. ok so go on and play it!
I think a propper label for this kind of russian mods would be: HL GO EAST.
This mod also makes you think in a more real world into the HL universe, I mean, thinking outside the box.
Thinking a world in the bipolarity cold war gave us, I mean its absolutely possible that the red Soviet Union would noticed Black Mesa and Aperture Science as well, So why not they would have developed their own “rusky” BM and AS, labs, (play the cube mod in order to see what I mean),. This mod really made me think about those possibilities, I mean yeah HL world is allabout BM and AS universes, but with so litle relevance about the real world we know or once they knew IN the HL universe.
I think there’s a mod called “This is Russia” and is set in HL2 I don’t know what has happened with it hope is not dead…
I don’t think you need noclip to get the secrets/secret areas.. I once did so and managed to break a trigger.. so getting there the normal way is what’s recommended.
I’m stuck at screen shot 73, where your in the area by opening the crack in the poster. Can’t get to next area. If I go in the corner where the crystals are I move off the map and have to noclip my way back. The narrator said that was a secret area or the oasis. Can some one help?
Well it supposed u must be in the secret area if u go trough that way, I don’t know maybe ur mod is buggy, I get there and go back again to where I found the secret pasage
Well, I really don’t know what your talking about, but I did find the way out of that area. Yes, you do go back but there is a movable crate in the room with to radioactive stuff and crates. Just take the crate and go back in the hall. Go right and at the end of the hall where the big door with writing on it and a roof turrent. Kill the turrent and look left at the ceiling you’ll see a ladder coming down out of the ceiling. Move the crate under it and go up. Break the grate and there you go.
I really enjoyed this one all the way trough.
no denying that its a Big if not Huge mod but the quality stays pretty much at the same level this being a good thing.
The puzzels where worked out rather fine even though there’s some “cheap tricks” every now and then which might be anoying if you fall pray to them.
The combat is not bad but not great either its rather mediocre in my opinion.
The pacing starts of rather slow and take’s a while to ramp up if your not to keen on this and come to expect a straight on firefight this might not be your thing.
The story line is mediocre aswell but its beter then a lott of the story’s you come to expect from a modification this long.
Play it now!
And expect to take a while.
Right, reserved a Saturday for this so here we go. In-game opinions:
-was actually wondering why there’s so few real time waiting in this game, when the author gives us just that as an intro. I remember playing a similar mod where you waited for like 28 real minutes (the author tells you “go get a cup of coffee.. really”) til a train arrives at the station 😀
-why do I make footsteps sound when I crouch
– I can walk through the O2 tank in the cafeteria and maaany other props
– crowbar with a scope, reminds me of Jaykin Bacon mod (I couldn’t find Easter Egg #2 out of 3 tho)
– wooden bench sounds metal when hit
– after grabbing red card, if I noclip and get the secret satchel I can’t get into Xen no more, now that’s a nice anti cheat protection 🙂
– the new Gauss Gun is too big, takes up a lot of the screen when it’s doing its idle animation
– I can get stuck in the huge ass elevator near the lava area.. I simply press a button, go in, doors close behind me and I can never get out
– not enough autosaves.. I cannot stress this enough, the mod is long as it is, it shouldn’t add at least one third because I keep repeating entire scenes.. there should be 1 like after important level change
– I didn’t realize I could break the chain on the control room so instead of distracting the guard, I shot his arm from behind the wall and killed him without any alarm going off
– I think I’ve seen the new zombies in another mod, too bad they didn’t make any sound in the beginning (SV_StartSound: gonome/gonome_pain4.wav not precached); picking up certain ammo also has missing sound
– other sound messages: Warning: Unable to open sound/gonome/gonome_eat.wav for transfer; Error: server failed to transmit file
– but later on in a secret area they started “crying” and it fixed it from then on
– found a hom, see this screenshot
– my face literally hurts from squinting, so so tired of dark places
– why is there a green drape window leading out of map and death lol (later I saw 3 more of these with a window in front that stopped me from walking through them)
– after placing the 2 containers I had so little to no ammo, I had to crowbar 2 houndeyes and kept thinking I was going to die, but then found a healing pool, yay! (I noticed in the teaser it is in fact the author’s intention to starve the player of ammo)
– wow I got stuck in some houndeye’s bowl of water (was trying to see if I could heal)
– secret level #5 crashed game, I think (later on as I went into steam community and came back in-game, there would be no sound and even crowbaring was slow at like 1 fps, but reloading a save fixed this); also I had constant switches to Desktop and had to alt+tab after loading some saves, but I think it’s common with HL1 mods
– a reload of that same secret level got me stuck.. once spawned in it, I couldn’t move and the scripted sequence wouldn’t play either
– I noticed it takes a medium of 11 seconds for 4 turrets to kill a snark hah
– found secret level #3 but after jumping on 3 invisible platforms with no hint where to go next, I just noclipped to the end
– and I even saw G-Man, but I guess he’s kinda hard to miss since he hangs around for a while til you start shooting him
I had to noclip 2 times to move on in the real levels, since those doors seemed like the way to go but I couldn’t open them.. one was after the cafeteria, after a room that has loose electric wiring that hurts you. That big door kept saying na-ah every time I tried opening it, even after going back like 5 times to see if I missed something.
2nd time noclipping was after an explosion behind a tiny door somehow gave birth to the tentacles.. again, that door which should’ve probably been destroyed by that explosion did not want to open. Had no idea what to do with the tentacles, either, since they’re almost impossible to kill even with full arsenal. Again, went back several times looking for missed buttons and what not, but to no avail.
I really didn’t appreciate the huge amount of backtracking and alternate routing in this >8 hr mod (it’s probably longer than HL1 itself, awesome how it uses its soundtrack almost in its entirety), because some of the backtracking I did really didn’t help me progress. If there was always a button I had to push and then go back somewhere to proceed to next level, fine. But most of the times it’s just secret areas or some alternate fighting going on so I had to lose health in order to gain a battery or something along those lines. Reaching an area and seeing 2 or 3 ways to go just drove me crazy trying to decide which way to go first, then saving the spot, then exploring the routes, then saving after each one, not to mention the extra time if you did something wrong and no autosave was present..
Despite all that, surprisingly I highly enjoyed the mod. Had almost no mapping bugs compared to the game and to any other mod and that makes it a high quality one. Not to mention it’s visually stunning in places, that I had to pull out my camera several times.
Image, Image, Image, love that water look, private aquarium, private universe!, Image, Image, Image, trippy, pipes to the moon, Image, Image
The amount of custom textures, models, sounds, skins, weapons etc is so large, yet it is all combined pretty good. Nothing felt out of place, if you can believe that, and in 8 hours you’d think there’s plenty of room for failure. And the layouts were never that confusing, and the architecture.. Man, I kept saying to myself where do they come up with this, it’s so different than other mods and somehow new in each level of the mod itself! The lighting was top notch (except the 2 pitch black occasions), very atmospheric and placed very well on some structures in order to underline their bestest features.
It’s got a lot of good combat (certainly not on same level as HL1, but still) and interesting puzzles, it’s never boring. I managed to play it in 2 sittings cus I got hungry half way through. I wonder if anyone will do a playthrough of it! If I didn’t need to noclip I would’ve done it or maybe a walkthrough..
Some might say it’s too long, even I would say that if I hadn’t played it. Hell, I said it during the actual game. But in the final area even though it took me a long time to figure out how to disable that turret. I didn’t use notarget. My point is, if I had the patience to finish this, then so can you. I’ll probably replay it in a few months if I don’t forget about it. So yeah, go Play It Now!
Wery nice mod !
I put 10 hrs because I played it a bit here and a bit their. This mod is long and good. I liked the trick ending and the final battle was very challenging.
One glitch was when I went to the oasis and could not get the door open. I looked at the video and saw what was needed and no clipped out. I played it all the way through without any further “cheats”.
I like the old half life 1 long story based mods. I hope to see more and keep the game alive. Thanks to all who put in all the hard work.
Manually
Medium
10 Hours
I am on map an_gen, just passed the electrified water hazard, which I had to “noclip” due to not being able to jump up on the first large box from the table, and I am out of ammo.
I need to use the console to get more ammo but all I know is “impulse 101” but this does not work.
I am playing on “easy” but am still running short of ammo. Any ideas?
to make cheats work in hl1, u need to enable them then reload the map/save and then type in ur actual cheat
Thanks for that info. It clears up my hapzard cheat attempts so far!
I’ll be able to finish this outstanding HL1 mod.
but you can do it without cheats 😛 can you point to the screenshot where you’re stuck? maybe a reader can hint your way out.
Hello,
i would like this. I have played hard that it is great level design. “I-LIKE”
I have tried completed play game. It is very great. 🙂
That is a developer from australia? I don’t think because mod sees like “Mod was developed by Russian Developer” – I am sorry. It is ok. 🙂
Using Gauge
Hard
10 Hours
Stuck between screenshots 88-89…Found 2nd ‘secret Area’, but in no way have enough ammo to engage…No shotgun, but keep coming up with shotgun ammo…
Told me to “Find Explosives”, but evidently grenades and a bomb pack are not good enough to proceed…
Found laser trip mine in Secret Area #2, and that won’t blow the hatch above the stairs either…
So far not impressed…
i think you can find this solution in the video playthrough
I’ve never been much for watching other people play, but thanks for that…
I need to apologize…
Though there are indeed long drawn out slow sequences that could easily be shortened, this is a very good mod…By midway, I was “impressed’…
Never did find the 1st ‘secret area” (or maybe it had no text to indicate it), and though I believe I could ‘see” the 3rd “Easter Egg’, I could not locate the way to get close to it…
I expect there is much more to find on a third time through…
Loved the “abrupt’, and the “other” endings…
6h30m total, but only found 3 secret levels, arena, oasis & cyber, all cool though (also only found 2 easter eggs, so might have to play through again sometime). I didn’t realize it was by the same creator as Dopusk 31 until reading these posts just now, but had noticed how similar they are in design. Totally an Awesome mod, I played about half of it the other day, then finished it this afternoon, no cheats (i really don’t see the point, i’v never found a mod that needs them & they seem to me to defeat the whole point of the games), my only “downer” with this mod is that I only found the sniper rifle at the very end, & i’d already killed everyone, apart from that, I give it 13 out of 10, massive. 🙂
ps, if anything I thought there was too much health, armor charges & ammo, I spent most of the game on between 60hp & armor & full or near on both, & by the time I “completed the mission” I still had near full ammo on all weapons, plus 9 grenades, 2 launchables, 2 satchels, & 3 trips. (& an unused sniper 🙁 ), & 97 health, 74 hev, I just “stealthed” lots, & used the magnum & the crossbow heaps, & shotgun/machine gun for occasional amusement (mainly “zombie surprises”, always good for the reflexes in those darker areas 🙂
Manually
Hard
6 Hours, 30 Minutes
It’s long. It’s also very obtuse in some places. Towards the beginning of the mod, it’s not always clear what you’re supposed to do in order to progress, although I did manage to blunder my way through while only consulting a walkthrough once. Unfortunately, that’s one time too many.
It’s very pretty. Lots of custom textures and assets push GoldSource up to the very limits of what it’s capable of.
I managed to get myself stuck in the world several times, and once even gibbed when I got caught behind a lamp.
Play also if you want a challenge, because health and suit batteries (and, in some parts, ammo) are very difficult to come across in this mod.
Manually
Medium
3 Hours
It’s a piece of cake.
Pros:
– New models, sounds, textures…
– Really cool puzzles and events.
– Interesting storyline.
– Reaaaaaaally long.
– Multiple bonus levels.
– 3 easter eggs.
– Bugless.
Cons:
– The start it’s a bit slow.
– At first it’s easy to run out of ammo, but past the middle of the game you’ll have to live tons of weapons.
– The “unstable quality”: some things look like HL2 graphics and others just look like the first Doom game.
Neutral:
– Some of the bonus levels from Dopusk-31 are part of (but not exactly yhe same) the storyline of E7, or viceversa (play some of the Dopusk-31 levels).
– Dopusk-31’s bugs are fixed in this game.
– Many auto-turrets: I personally hate them, but they are almost powerless against you and may even help you.
– 2 different endings.
– There’s no monotony, just when you it might be repetitive, the game gives you many surprises to keep you playing (I don’t wanna spoil anything).
Briefing: The “big brother” of Dopusk-31 game, this game it’s long and interesting, but it would be better if it was shorter bith more “stable graphics”.
I hope to see more games from this dev, at least it seems like he heard the reviews from his first game.
Manually
Hard
8 Hours
Well,actually im playing this mod and liking it so far. Just one little bit that annoys me is
that it provides not enough ammo,despite beeing careful and using the crowbar if possible.
Now im in a room with maybe five or six autoturrets and cant kill them all. Game end.
Manually
Medium
2 Hours
Yes, this mod is very pretty. Unfortunately it looks like a professional game, but it plays like a demo. This mod is much too long. You’re endlessly running around and the sparse gunfights and riddles are quite mediocre and really nothing to get excited about. The secret levels feel a bit out of place and they are stretching the game even more. There are really too many mods with more exciting gameplay out there to give this a better rating than a “Maybe?”.
Manually
Medium
6 Hours, 40 Minutes
I know it’s funny to ask a question about a mod that is released 4 years ago. Anyway, when I got out the water(screenshot 218&219), my game crashed and showed some message.
SZ_GetSpace: overflow without FSB_ALLOWOVERFLOW set on Server Datagram
Anyone knows how to solve it?
good
Manually
Hard
10 Hours
E7 Black Star shows how would Black Mesa look in Soviet Union. This mod adds a lot of new models and textures that look AMAZING , specially weapon models. Only thing that i didn’t like about models is Boris’s (Russian Barney xD) retexture because it had Black Mesa logo on it (Barney is not the only one with that logo) but that is really minor problem. Story is good , but little confusing later. Reason why it’s confusing (THIS IS ASKING FOR SOMEONE TO HELP ME ABOUT STORY , IF YOU DIDN’T PLAYED IT , DON’T READ THIS!!!) for me is: Some time before i entered sealed area , i heard that unknown biological forms are in vents. First time i encountered Headcrab was next to sealed area. It fell from ventilation system. After that things start to be confusing because i don’t know if i was whole time in sealed area because i saw some dead Scientists and Borises. So i didn’t know if i was anymore in sealed part or i leaved it long time ago and Headcrabs attacked the facility. Later i get teleported in part of facility where Headcrabs didn’t went to, but later protagonist says that they are trying to make super-soldiers and i encounter Mutant-Zombies Point is i don’t know what happened to the facility , did it got attacked my Xen creatures , did E7 Black Star modified Headcrabs to get stronger zombies , if y Also it’s weird that some things are on English , but some are on Russian. Example: There are some panels that on top says Closed and Open on Russian , but i saw twice same panels where it says Closed and Open on English. Also there are 3 Easter Eggs and several secret levels. I found 1st , “The Oasis” and 5th “Arena” , also 2nd Easter Egg. CONCLUSION: Play this mod , it has some minor problems , but it’s really GREAT at details and models. PLAY IT NOW!!!
Manually
Medium
3 Hours, 20 Minutes
Here’s what I understand about the story: the scientist you had to kill and whose data you had to destroy was the one creating the HGrunts, and the Gonomes were the results of his experimentations made on the Humans using the captured Xen creatures (hence the creature pens and the aquarium in the facility).
The research facility was already in a pretty bad state. It’s no surprise if the monsters escaped from the sealed area and then started attacking the rest of the facility. The other monsters could also have been specimens set free by the evil doctor to attack you (like the Gonomes).
This is a mod mainly focused on hallway combat against Gonomes and other Xen creatures, which ends up with some challenging bits with HGrunts/Assassins. The mod comes with a rather long play time, which I attribute largely to the mapping style: liberal use of jumbo-sized environments with more wide spaces than is actually required.
The maps themselves are detailed, not too exceptional, just detailed enough. They are just enough to convey the theme of the dilapidated Cold War-era Russia architecture, mixed with the usual Black Mesa themes such as research labs, storage areas and railways. I did not see anything that wowed me necessarily throughout my playthrough to be quite honest, since most of the game has you navigating hallways and lab rooms that seem to be copy-pasted from each other. It’s either one of those, or large storage rooms and railways.
The early game has you scrounging for every bit and piece of usable ammo, and has a sort of survival-horror theme to it in its early levels… You spend the first third of the game avoiding security guards in a stealth-like section, to being sent into a Xen-infested tunnel lacking in supplies and then left to wander the abandoned parts of the Soviet research labs avoiding Gonomes in the tunnel mazes. The gameplay takes an interesting twist as you have to decide when to flee or fight and making the best use of your limited supplies. Your crowbar skills will definitely be tested here.
That said, this tense “Metro 2033”-like theme… I wished it was kept throughout the game. By the time you find the shotgun at around the game’s mid-point, ammo will start to become plentiful as in every other mod, and the Gonomes and Bullsquids that gave you such a hard-time earlier essentially become target practice, with only the Human enemies left remaining to pose any significant threat to you.
Still, Hard difficulty is certainly harder here… Ammo and battery pick-ups have incurred a severe nerf in this mod, and barely restore 10 points. Your main source of health/armor will be from dispensers and what happens to be vodka bottles, which can restore you nearly to full health. The author of this mod is quite relentless with his use of the Assassins, and those gals can really bring you down right quick unless you make judicious use of your explosive weapons/traps, or manage to get the jump on them with your higher-DPS weapons. The Magnum and Crossbow are largely unavailable for most of this mod, so if you run out of demolition supplies against the Black Ops fights, be prepared to lose some health in the process trying to take them out with just your Makarov (the 9mm Glock replacement for this mod).
This mod seems bug-free enough, except for the weird Gonome hitboxes that seem to be smaller than they actually are (sometimes shooting at their heads isn’t going to register). The Magnum Revolver also uses two completely different gunshot sounds, and the RGD5 grenades that replace the default hand grenade model also seems to play a random gunfire sound during its throwing animation, which looks absolutely haggard and makes me question what kind of beta-testing they did to completely miss that.
In any case, the mod itself is a rather run-of-the-mill experience in my opinion, with challenging fights involving ambushing the player whenever and wherever possible – usually from higher ground – using the HGrunts. Which is a shame, because I thought for sure it had something for it going on when I was running away from Gonomes like the prison escapee that I was, while frantically searching the infested tunnels for valuable bullets and supplies to use in case I ran into an HGrunt patrol, just like in S.T.A.L.K.E.R or Metro 2033. Instead, what I got was a general “run & gun” style of mod that is little more than a “clear this room of Grunts, hit the switch and proceed to the next map”. A real shame.
I would’ve certainly liked to see more of that weird parasitic infection that turns scientists into shambling zombies being developed further, and possibly turned this mod into more of a horror game, helping it to make it more memorable.
Manually
Hard
3 Hours, 30 Minutes
Hi,
Thanks to all for reasonable to the critic in my address thank you that play mine of fashion of 🙂
Into the account of a sound of the RGD5 (РГД5) grenades, any person doing military service knows how there is a throw of a fighting grenade, the throw sounds quite so! it is not a bug! I in army personally threw the fighting RGD5 grenade and I know how it occurs (after a throw falls off the check and there is a heat of a cap pass explosion), in real life it at all not as in video games, is life …
Best regards: Knazev33
Wow, I never knew that concerning the RGD5 grenades… I swear none of the grenades in S.T.A.L.K.E.R ever produced a sound when you threw them.
I appreciate the reply. Thanks! 🙂
E7 Black Star takes place in a Russian Black Mesa with the same name. Instead of Gordon, you are a political prisoner stuffed into HEV suit. (If this was a gulag, this is very high-tech for one.)
Graphics of the GoldSrc are pushed to the limit and some models are noticeably higher quality than usual models. The scientists even got moving eyes. Because it is set in Russia, your MP5 becomes an AK, the pistol turned into a Makarov. Strangely, the shotgun remains as SPAS-12.
The story is weird and doesn’t click much to me. When the protagonist confronts this evil doctor guy, it just appeared out of nowhere because I don’t recall the mod focusing on him that much. Texts on the screen are really grammatically bad, so the story is even harder to be taken seriously. The ending is also a bit anti-climactic.
As for gameplay, this mod is hard. Very, very hard. If this is your first playthrough and you are not thorough on finding secrets, you will get screwed over pretty hard. You will almost always have only a few bullets and shells to spare for your weapons. I mean, even on Normal the batteries and medkits barely refill your health and armor. There’s this thing that heals you to full health, but I only saw it once in my playthrough. Oh, and Black Star is very relentless on using the assassins.
I’m not sure if the mod really relies on secret to make the gameplay not hard. Because I saw multiple Uranium boxes for the laser gun (Tau Canon) and the Gluon Gun way much earlier in the game, and then the revolver ammo appeared multiple time before I got to the revolver itself. (Not finding the secret) The mod also heavily lacks any checkpoints.
Throughout the mod, there really wasn’t any high point for me and I didn’t enjoy this.
Manually
Medium
5 Hours
It’s classic half life, if you enjoy this you’ll love it, if you want something more original you should look for something else.
Manually
Easy
3 Hours
Pretty decent mod, I had fun with this one! However, I must say I was kinda expecting a bit more, in sense that it’s a total conversion mod.
No new enemies or weapons were added, all of them were reskins of their vanilla HL counterparts, but I must say that for some of the weapons it really didn’t feel like it was the case. Also levels (especially in later parts of the game) were pretty well done, although I didn’t like quality inconsistency some models were giving off compared to their surroundings (the same reason I avoid using even default HD models).
And try exploring the levels a bit more, as you may stumble upon secret levels which are really fun to go through and can help a lot in finding additional supplies. This was probably my favorite addition to the mod!
Basically, it’s Half-Life Russian reskin (it’s even noticable in the mod’s name) that actually succeeds in giving it a whole different feeling from one original game has, but other than that, it brings nothing new to the table.
So, if you are seeking something a bit more different from standard Half-Life, better go looking somewhere else.
Manually
Hard
6 Hours, 15 Minutes
Pretty decent mod, I had fun with this one! However, I must say I was kinda expecting a bit more, in sense that it’s a total conversion mod.
No new enemies or weapons were added, all of them were reskins of their vanilla HL counterparts, but I must say that for some of the weapons it really didn’t feel like it was the case. Also levels (especially in later parts of the game) were pretty well done, although I didn’t like quality inconsistency some models were giving off compared to their surroundings (the same reason I avoid using even default HD models).
And try exploring the levels a bit more, as you may stumble upon secret levels which are really fun to go through and can help a lot in finding additional supplies. This was probably my favorite addition to the mod!
Basically, it’s Half-Life Russian reskin (it’s even noticable in the mod’s name) that actually succeeds in giving it a whole different vibe from one original game has, while still maintaining that “vanilliness” you’d expect in a mod.
Overall, a nice refreshment! Highly recommended, especially for beginners looking for more of the vanilla gameplay!
Manually
Hard
4 Hours, 40 Minutes