ETC finished with Freeman heading into the teleporter. Where it took him was not revealed.
ETC 2 continues from this point.
So, where did Freeman go?
The military weren’t there just to clean out the creatures. They weren’t there to remove Freeman. They weren’t there to silence the innocents.
The military were there in need of information. ‘Xen’ was news to them. They had to know more. The teleportation unit they uncovered was merely an accessory allowing them to gain access to the facility. And Gordon went the wrong way. But Gordon was not prepared for this. You couldn’t be.
The military were far from stupid. If these teleporters work one way, they work the other too. Gordon led himself back into the hands of the military.
So, the military have found their way to Xen – the creatures of Xen aren’t keen on that. They have to stop the invasion – and you’re stuck right in the middle.
ETC 2 begins days after Gordon was caught. The creatures of a small suburb of Xen are prepared to invade. And so they begin. It’s just as well the military are as willing to air-strike wherever the creatures end up…
This was June 2017’s Classic of the Month mod.
- Title: ETC 2
- File Name: hl1-sp-etc-2.7z
- Original File Name: djetc2.exe
- Size : 9.36MB
- Author: Dave Johnston
- Date Released: 15 February 2002
Download to your HDD [3.75MB]
You can still use it with Gauge once you have downloaded it.
- Copy the ETC2 folder into your Half-Life folder.
- Restart or start Steam.
- ETC2 should now be listed in your Library tab.
If you require more help, please visit the Help page.
The playthrough below is part of the Classic of the Month Event, run by Don AKA Unq.
Click on the thumbnails below to open a 1024 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
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5,309Overall
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0Today
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10Last 7 days
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27Last 30 days
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288365 days
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 6 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 1 Hours, 45 Mins
Shortest: 1 Hours by Avantgarde95
Longest: 2 Hours, 45 Mins by fleetlord
Total Time Played: 10 Hours, 30 Mins
If you believe this release is missing important tags, please suggest them in a comment?
Source Files for ETC 2 maps
http://www.fileplanet.com/dl/dl.asp?/planethalflife/davej/etc2src.zip
Rating: 5/5 + Excellence Award
Good: Great texture usage; nice architecture; well combined Earth and Xen storylines.
Bad: Somewhat confusing in Xen; some scripted sequences didn’t ‘script.’
Review:
Both of these campaigns are linked together, as you can tell by the ending of the first one, and the beginning of the second. There wasn’t a real ‘storyline” spelled out on the webpage, but don’t worry, it explains itself during the game. If however, you get lost, and can’t understand, here is the story. The military wasn’t at BMRF to silence anyone, they were there for the exploitation of Xen. Xen was a new place to explore and possibly gain new information, and you must stop them. That’s the story.
Anyway, the maps are terrific. I mean the architecture on these is outstanding, as is the use of textures. Nothing is out-of-place or lined-up incorrectly. As for bugs, I found a few. First, I got confused in Xen. I just couldn’t figure out where to go, and Xenizens were coming out of the wall! Second, I came across what I believe were two scripted sequences that didn’t ‘script,” or run. The alien was in a weird position, and so was the grunt. But thats about it. Really a good modification, so go get it!
There’s a walkthrough available at the author’s website.
ETC was good, this is better. Requires a fair bit of thinking. The Xen part is well planned for the player to have a challenging time.
Excellent middle sized mod. Definitly better than its prequel.
A must play for every HL1-SP Fan. Sadly nothing SP since
from the mapper.
7/10 many great moments.
i like half life very much..
great mods dave.. 😉
Well-done but short, also some instances where the game was unbalanced and unfair. The architecture is fine and it follows a somewhat less-linear path than others, which is a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, no custom textures or models, and I cant remember any really memorable maps/set pieces. The Xen level was also very tedious. In short, it can be fun and will keep those already inclined playing, but if you need a review to make up your mind, you might want to give it second thoughts.
I’m played this mod two times, and I think it has a cool gameplay and great mapping. This is enough for me to place it in my personal favourites.
HOW CAN I FINISH THE XEN LEVEL I DON’t KNOW 🙁
It’s hard to be specific without more information. If you don’t know what to do next, describe in greater detail where you are in the game.
Following on ETC, ETC 2 continues proper where its prequel left off story-wise and gameplay-wise. The story moves right along without bothering to presume that you’ve played the original. It’s a good thing too since ETC 2 should really stand on its own, not as a sequel.
ETC 2 packs in most of what we’ve come to expect from modern HLSP releases. Nonlinearity, good attention to detail, neat construction, intelligent thinking gameplay, puzzles in disguise, challenging but fair combat, interesting set-pieces, liberal use of scripted sequences & events, and CD music. It’s obvious that a lot of time went into level design here because the quality of it is consistent throughout.
A fine worthwhile play indeed (so for all those still wondering, start downloading!), but it could have been a lot more. Impressive architecture (the kind that catches the eye) is lacking and certain set-pieces could have been beefed up some more to make them compelling. More important, though, is the inconsistent direction – gameplay ends up feeling like a mishmash of ideas strewn together. Then there’s the story promising in itself but like in so many other maps, promptly gets ignored and later gets run over by the ideas truck. Thus while ETC 2’s level design exceeds that of its prequel, the gameplay hasn’t changed much and can actually end up being a disappointment in this day and age when more is expected from HLSP releases. Solid & satisfying as long as you don’t play expecting to be “quaked.”
Notes
This review is republished here by permission and was originally published Sunday, 10th March 2002 by Calyst.
This review was originally posted on the Ten Four Website, which is now offline. Permission has been granted to republish the full review and more details can be found on the About page.
Well, two years later and we find a more polished and rounded mod from Dave. He was still only 18/19, which is not unusual now, but for nearly ten years ago it was a fine piece of work.
For me, the best part of the mod is the Gargantua section. It’s very clear that a lot of planning went into that section, which is spread over 2 levels I think.
I could go on about the details and the layout, but really all you need to know is that you should play it and play it now.
Maybe what I said about ETC2 yesterday was a bit harsh, as once you get into it, it is in fact better than ETC!
Like ETC, ETC2 looks and feels like classic BM but this time without the annoyingly over long back track. The combat in this somewhat better and a bit more fun than ETC but again nothing special. I have played this in the past and I seem to remember you could lure the Garg to the explosives, but this time he got trapped behind a barrier of some kind so I couldn’t blast him (oh well!).
Usually I don’t like Xen sequences but this was short enough to be bearable. Luckily this time the authors moustache fetish didn’t materialise but there was the rubbish Australian accent that had me thinking “Can you guess what it is yet?”.
Overall the bit I played yesterday had me thinking OH NO more of the same, however it was better than ETC.
I couldn’t finish this because I quicksaved in a position where I kept crashing. I could have loaded my autosave but it was a while back and I couldn’t really be bothered. I must have gotten at least half way (screenshot 37), and it would have been a “Play it Now” from me because it was fun and well designed, but I preferred ETC.
Still it’s worth playing both of the ETC mods.
Now THIS is definitely worthy of a PIN from me.
What a huge difference a couple years makes in terms of development ability! The maps were cleverly planned, the puzzle elements were extremely good (the fan turbines, nice!) and the placement of enemies was very well done.
The voices were funny and terrible at the same time. 🙂 I did catch one or two spots where the textures didn’t connect, but that happens in the best, most professional maps too.
Excellent work, this was a very fun conclusion to Etc, much better overall.
ETC 2 follows right where ETC left off. It’s bigger than its predecessor, and is pretty much in the same vein of gameplay with the addition of a couple of “boss” encounters (the Garg is pretty well done).
Level design is superb here. Dave does a great job of letting us see areas before we get to them, and the level design loops back on itself but not in an annoying backtracking fashion. Game balance and flow are very well done as well – you’re never really wandering around wondering what to do (in the one case that I was, a scientist tipped me off as to my next move). And I thought the Xen finale was the best looking Xen I’ve seen since the original Half-Life.
I didn’t really run into any bugs or annoyances. I thought the feel of the game was just about right, although I think at least the large ramp room underground was an underutilized setpiece – it could have been the scene of a great battle but instead you get a couple of aliens and a couple of grunts only, and you only spend about 30 seconds in there. The progression is pretty standard, and you get the standard mid-level Half-Life weapons to play with, plus eventually the RPG. The progression may be somewhat by-the-book, but this pack is a lot of fun. Keep an eye out for the G-man, he makes a lot of appearances in ETC 2.
I thought this was better all around than ETC. Just about the same amount of polish, with a bit of a story added and the annoyance of major backtracking removed. Recommended.
Previously in ETC: our journey through the Earthquake Test Centre led us to the hidden teleportation laboratory. We didn’t see any other way out, so we jumped into the teleporter.
But the teleporter was under the soldiers” control.
Fortunately, soon we will be saved, and will continue our run through the Centre, through the storages, underground roads, maintenance areas. Everything is destroying, but this time the airstrikes are the cause.
Like in ETC1, there are nice little details: when we pick up an access card, we see its icon in the HUD, when we see G-Man for the second time, code input panel will hang on wires. The writing on the wall “Freeman=history” fits the theme very well. There are some recoloured textures. It’s the simplest way to achieve original look, but it works.
The alien invasion continues. They noticed that the headcrabs turn people into zombies and started to teleport zombies around to gain tactical advantage.
The design became distinctive, it doesn’t look like Black Mesa anymore. We will encounter the lab similar to it once, but we won’t spend much time there.
There is a story development. The questions arise (what are those empty portals? What is the device that one of them teleported and why was it teleported?), and we will find out the answers in the end of the game.
The battles are mostly easier than in ETC1, but they become as intense as there from time to time. There are some simple pleasing puzzles.
In the end there will be an interesting Xen landscape, and that’s great: I like to explore this alien world. My only complaint is that the texturing is monotonous.
Excellent mod.
Ok so this it was way too enhanced thatn the first ETC1, here I can feel we have smarter maps and also funnier gameplay plues better combat and action, that garagantua part was cool and was a environment trap the way you must get rid of it, so that’s what I call a smart gameplay, and this is a perfect show of how it can be doine for HL, the train part was cool and it felt just like a classy BM moment, the story is not much beyond interesting but is well told INTO the mod, so that’s another cool point.
Maybe the only bad issue I experimented was about few minutes just before the mod end’s alredy when u have set the bomb on: I quicksaved that part, I take a jump with the xeninan trampolin there, then I twist my anckle when I fell which left me with 19 of health, what an ugly number for health I tought, I didn’t like that, so I recharged it the game to start the jump from 0 again and the mod crashed, I did it again after that with the auto save and I finished the mod ok, but that strange bug I had.
Despite that this is a great playable mod and u should play it, and if u are a fan of CS stuff well here we have one of their map designers, shariing us their personal SP stuff, so u should play this one for sure.
There’s a bug in my copy of the mod:
In the area with the Gargantuan where I have to lead the scientist to the door lock, upon opening the big door where he is trapped, the said scientist only walks instead of running, and gets hit by the Gargantuan’s flames as soon as it gets there, but the scientist doesn’t die and just keeps walking. When he gets to the door lock (the door by the way is already open) and uses it, he runs in, but the game ends with the post mortem: “Failed to effectively utilize human assets.”
What’s going on here?
To make it short: this mod has everything to make it an outstanding experience, such as a nice story, continuing from “ETC”, excellent leveldesign, puzzles, atmosphere, combat etc. etc.
PLAY IT NOW, THAT’s AN ORDER! 😉
Pro’s:
-Continuing where “ETC” ended – good story
-Impressive design, architecture and lighting incl. outdoor areas, tram ride etc.
-Very nice combat action
-Very good balancing
-Nice atmosphere at all times
-Some neat scripts, often surprising – great!
-Also some very good puzzles
-Long playtime (90-180 mins)
-Almost no bugs
Con’s:
-Bugs, like triggering events or doors get locked suddenly etc.
-Sometimes stupid AI
Conclusion: MILESTONE!
Wow! This mod was amazing and had me hooked from start to end! So much better than the original ETC. Some points about this mod:
-The variety in weapon and enemy placements was really good. I didn’t really like enemies spawning behind you though, but it wasn’t constant and kept me on my toes!
-The parkour scenes were really good fun. Perhaps more use of the long jump module could have been better, it just seemed thrown on at the end
-The scenes where it felt like you were chasing the G-Man were really really cool! They gave me a sense of purpose and also made it clear where I was supposed to go
-Direction and clarity was much better than the original ETC. Whenever I pressed a button, I knew what it did and what I had to do next.
-The custom voice acting was good to see. It was funnily bad accents at times, but I don’t mind that. It’s not good incorporating it with the stock dialogue on the same character though, especially since they sounded really different. Stock lines should have been removed from the custom scientists entirely.
-The ending on Xen seemed a bit abrupt, and the whole Xen scene seemed really short. A boss fight and a more satisfying conclusion to the gameplay would have been great
Overall, the mod was really great; I recommend everyone give it a go right now!
Very well made game; easy level is actually easy. This mod was much bigger and better made than the first ETC.
Toward the end there were a major goof. A scientist stating I was the only one w/ an HEV suit…i had just re-armed & recharged, there were other suits lying on a table each!
Manually
Easy
2 Hours, 45 Minutes
If you thought the original was simply awesome, then try this.
The story starts at the end of the original ETC where Freeman went to a portal that helped him escape. OR DID IT? The portal transports Freeman to soldiers unfortunately. They capture him, but of course you escape and so you need to really escape that time.
The combat was better than the first one. There wasn’t a moment in the game where I felt annoyed or bored.
I really liked the section with the Gargantua. It really felt scary when his was chasing you.
Overall, this is one of the best mods I’ve ever played. Recommended to everyone!
Incredible! Definitely a good mod, still not the best, but I would play it again
Manually
Medium
2 Hours
Really good, it was better than etc I but etc I was still really good too but this was was better in my opinion, fun mod and I would really like if there would come a etc III.
Manually
Easy
2 Hours, 20 Minutes
Very nice mod like the previous mod. I still like the linear design and easy combats.
But in the part that I have to use Gargantua to blow up the laser & bomb trap, Gargantua was stuck BEHIND the fallen rocks instead of AFTER them. (Maybe that’s because I ran too fast when being chased from Gargantua.) I tried to blow up the trap using godmode. But since Gargantua was still alive, so the script for the scientist didn’t start and the scientist did nothing. The mod was very fun but I had to stop playing at that part.
Except for that bug, I like everything about the mod.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
Really enjoyed it. A lot better than its predecessor (which is already remarkable). Some of its level design is worthy of study.
It’s better than the first one! It still has good design, the voice acting is from serviceable to good, and now it has a story!
However it’s Black Mesa stuff, it’s pretty much more Half-Life, so if you want a new experience and not the same, unfortunately avert from this; but if you want it more, definitely take this one for a spin or dozen.
Also, for hells sake, man, don’t try to give someone a seizure with the teleporter green screen flashing, two to four flashes are enough, not eight :/-
Manually
Medium
1 Hour, 20 Minutes
Cool, the level design is good, great pace,scripting, good enemy encounters. There are some simple good puzzles and this was released in 2002, very impressive. it’s very old mod but still looks greats, I’d even say some areas come close to being valve quality. I also forgot good use of hl1 tracks as well. So, it’s enjoyable, top-notch mod which is a must-play for HL1 fans.
it’s obvious the author of this mod had improved a lot since his last mod and knew what he was doing. Plus the attention to detail is high for an old mod like this with limited resources.
Earthquake Test Center. I would like to see at least one great earthquake in-game where all of the scientists are buried inside the earth. Sadly, the name doesn’t mean there’s an earthquake in-game, there’s a big bomb instead which is used to blow Xen. that’s what earthquake means. It also means human are living alone in the universe, that’s sad. Just only you and no one else.
Manually
Hard
1 Hour, 5 Minutes