Jose Reynolds (a journalist for the “Santa Fe Times” in New Mexico) obtains interesting information from his sources that a few hours ago, not far from “Route 66”, strange animals were found dead.
Without hesitation he left the office and hit the road, riding the highway, and after some time came across one of these creatures…
Basic Details
- Title: En Route 66
- File Name: hl1-sp-en-route-66.7z
- Original File Name: enroute66_single.rar
- Size : 44.33MB
- Author: Anikes
- Date Released: 23 May 2011
- Source: cs-mapping.com.ua
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Installation Instructions
- Copy the valve folder into your Half-Life folder.
- Don’t worry, it won’t overwrite anything.
- Go to your Steam Library page. Right click Half-Life and choose “Properties”. In the Genral tab, click “SET LAUNCH OPTIONS” and paste “-num_edicts 4096”. Click “OK” and then “Close”.
- Launch Half-Life 1
- Open the console and type map enroute66.
- Press enter/return or click the Submit button.
- Play and Enjoy.
If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.
Screenshots
Click on the thumbnails below to open a 1024 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
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Right, let me tell you the things I didn’t quite like. There are a few times you jump from room to room as if you are in some sort of black portal and that’s a real shame because otherwise this could have been a personal favourite for me.
The new textures and lighting are generally very good and the gameplay was tough. I found some shotgun ammo but couldn’t get a shotgun – maybe I was being stupid.
I managed to beta it without cheating, which was pleasing, although I had to stop and go back to it.
Some of the mapping is lacking polish, like the black areas but it’s fairly well done.
Anyway, there’s a few nice touches, like the drawer and wardrobe but overall it’s functional.
Defintiely worth playing but the setting and story are a little weak.
For thos needing help…
[spoiler]Yes, you do need to go into the detox area![/spoiler]
Good example of a great level design ruined by mediocre gameplay, and puzzles. This is possibly one of the most frustrating mods I’ve ever played for Half-Life. There’s traps in every corner, waiting to kill you without any warning. I didn’t find anything to defend myself during my first playthrough. Your first weapon, the crowbar, isn’t good enough to kill the female assassins. There’s a pistol hidden on the top of the elevator. You can go back to the canyon, and kill grunts to get more ammo (recommended).
-The steam tunnel puzzle forces you to take damage.
-Cutscenes, cameras, keycard puzzles, and annoying doors.
-The grunts in the final fight are poorly placed. The entire squad killed themselves while trying to hunt me down.
-The final scene is also the worst area in the game.
-Great visuals, and texture work.
My first weapon was the pistol. I killed the assassin with the trip mine.
EDIT: Sorry, that wasn’t meant to sound rude or abrupt.
I didn’t really enjoy this at all. Too many death traps with no warning, strange transitions with the elevators, and very little ammo or health to help you. I also found it difficult to know what to do since I don’t speak Spanish.
This time we play as a journalist who investigates rumours about strange animals. And this investigation will lead us through a very interesting journey, where we will see Black Mesa Disaster from another point of view.
The map is done in unusual style: there are elements of Japanese computer games – the gameplay space is split into isolated “rooms”. I think that the moment where we fall into rubbish chute is an allusion to Resident Evil 4.
There are some nice “easter eggs”: [spoiler]”collectable” smilies, hand-drawn pictures which are the map design documents and Castlevania it one of the computers.[/spoiler]
The graphics were improved. New design with new textures is very beautiful, original and various, but the Black Mesa feel is still there. New music and ambient sounds decorate the mod greatly. There are interesting and challenging puzzles everywhere: sometimes we search for a way to advance, sometimes we search for a way to survive. The picturesque landscape in the desert is very stunning. Planks squeaking under the feet is a great touch.
Overall this mod is a masterpiece, a great expansion pack for Half-Life. Definitely worth playing, because such beautiful works of art appear very rarely.
So emo do u have any idea why those[spoiler] collective smiles and numbers [/spoiler]are in there for?????, I mean why what are their purpose?????
I didn’t look much into them, I’ve just noticed one or two and noted. I think they are for those players who would accept the challenge to find them all. Maybe a secret will open if you use all of them, maybe there’s no such secret, don’t know.
Anyone else getting a Fatal Error msg when trying to launch this? I get —
Cache_TryAlloc:1224816 is greater then free hunk
Little help, please!
Have you added the parameter I mentioned in the installation instructions? It might not be related, but it’s good to know.
Thanks for replying, Phillip. I did add that parameter.
I also tried removing the parameter and got another Fatal Error —
ED_Alloc: no free edicts
Okay, try adding this to the parameters too: -heapsize 120000
If you have 2GB of RAM you may wish to increase this to 512MB (a heapsize of 524288).
I’m not sure if this works in Half-Life 1 but it’s worth a try.
Hmm… no luck yet, but I’ll keep at it. Thanks anyway!
Are you playing on a WON version ? I have the “free edict error” too and as 23-down said it could be the problem. For short, incompatibility between Steam and Won version of HL1 maps
No length tag in the Categories?
You mean in the tags. I just forgot to add it. I’ll add it now.
Ahh yeah for some reason because it wasn’t there I thought it was supposed to go in Categories. Thanks for adding it.
this mod is unplayable in hl1 WON.. hate mods which are exclusively working for & with steam. Call me old and nostalgic but I still play hl1 mods exclusively with the original WON version as this goes simply faster than with stupid steam log ins etc.
Anyway guess I will have to copy several 100 of megabytes of my SD models now to my steam folder in order to get a chance to play it. Bah. 🙂
I know about this mod for some weeks now it definitely looks great on the pictures looking forward to play it after that I will post my review.
Well I think we’re in an almost typical case of love or hate mod, I mean in my case I played this mod arround 4 to 6 times and it was untill the 6th time I reach the end, why? well maybe because this mod has that stupid and hectic backtracking rule, and pardon me but I am a declared ennemy of backtracking no matter how it’s inteended good or bad, I just freakin hate backtracking, sorry again, and it’s style was wierd and really excentric, I mean those “level” transitions were really odd, and the whole mod was centered in little details and a main core puzzle oppening doors and then proceed to the final “puzzle-boss end”. Those elements require search for certain and unique keys.
Why i’m in the “closest to hate” this mod possition??, well I think the main reason is because many clues and how to proceed to the next area elements were too unclear for me, the intention of the whole mod is good, I like the basic story, and that’s how u can make great mods with a simple story ressumed in one sentence, but in here the details and that annoying backtracking thing spoiled most of the fun.
I liked that this mod is build in HL1 engine and i’d love to see more new work for Gold SRC engine, and a competition could be excellent, I also felt some atmosphere similar to the really excellent and personal favourite Paranoia mod, maybe because of the misterious music here and similar to the first I mentioned.
I’d love to put this mod a higer grade, but I have most cons than pros to say on this, that’s it so only if u love wierd path puzzles this and Riot in Progress this last a really mess mod are for you.
I’ve started this a number of times and still can’t get the crack in the cave wall to open, can someone please tell me what I’m missing?
You need the flash light, which is outside somewhere, to power the generator
Thanks for that!
I tried to pick it up when I first played it and couldn’t, but now I can, weird !!!!!
I’ve started playing but I can’t say I’m enjoying it much, I’ll come back to it later. However I like the music and it looks good.
Backtracking and running around in circles, but looks nice!
I really didn’t like this despite it looking like a well (visually) polished mod. I had a problem at the Canyon/Cave area which Phillip helped me with, but after passing that stage it just became irritating. This is another mod where the author just didn’t get the balance right, the look was good, the music was quite pleasant but I just didn’t enjoy it.
As Hec said
Its definitely feels quite different from the general half life mod because of the visual overhaul.
But it involves quite the amount of drawbacks, and pretty much all of them are mentioned before. Accept for watching the freaking intro for 5 time’s cause you forgot to press your Quicksave key.
There’s hardly any ammo,health and your forced to fight 2 assassins with only a trip mine.
Where’s the fun in that?!
Play it for the developers effort.
Don’t play it to have a good “think,run,gun” experience.
It’s a very good map, but hard enough and a bit complicated. But if you are a veteran player, play it anyway 😉 .
God, this map needs a walkthrough. I am stuck, I’ll admit. I’ve just hit the button that supposedly unlocks elevator 2(?) and summons the assassins. I’ve killed them, gone up back to the surface and explored everywhere but I can’t find how to proceed. The only thing open to me is the detox room and that just kills me. Basically I can’t reach screenshot 25 above.
Any suggestions?
I have to admit I have no idea where to go next. If you send me your last save, I’ll take.r a look.
Thanks for the offer, Phillip. I finally found out what I was missing, thanks to the walkthrough videos I found here: http://youtu.be/HBa3rqGf8zE and http://youtu.be/mpe_fVW9Fhs Lifesavers. What I was missing: [spoiler]the trash chute in the detox chamber. I don’t really think that was a well-placed route.[/spoiler]
Unfortunately the only thing En Route 66 really has going for it is its looks. I really liked some of the style, particularly the canyon area near the start, but also much of the interior of the complex later on. There are a lot of sounds and effects and details that really add to the atmosphere. So in general I liked the map – but how it all connects together is just odd. One of the challenges of mapping is sensibly connecting all of the various areas in a map – but here the author just resorts to teleporting you (complete with quick fades to black) between sections. It’s kind of taking the easy way out, I can’t understand why the author chose to do that.
But what ultimately sinks this map is that the gameplay is abysmal. Finding odd-looking buttons to open doors remotely, avoiding some instant-death traps, and some obscure puzzles add up to a disappointed Unq. Add in some uneven combat (some really easy encounters, but then some tough ones like the assassins and the final battle with a big squad of grunts, by which time I hadn’t seen any health in about 10 minutes) and you’re in for a bumpy and frustrating ride.
I only gave it Think Twice since there are some flashes of good layout and a lot of style in this map – otherwise it’s not much fun.
Played it today for the first time.
While this mod was freaking hard and offers mostly only riddles instead of real combat it was pretty decent and well created.
Those of you which love pure combat maps and hate it to use their brains by more than 5% ^^ 😛 keep your fingers away of this mod because you probably wont enjoy it.
Everybody else grab it while you can. It’s very nice however expect to get stuck here and there more than once. Time is indeed needed for this one in order to complete it. Especially as some routes doesn’t really seem to make sense. I Still enjoyed it but I enjoy every half-life mod that’s at least half way decent.
I found the Flauvos! Did you?
First things – the installation is pretty terrible. I don’t appreciate copying a ton of stuff into my valve folder; Steam tried to parse /enroute66/ as a new mod and even brought up a custom window (and showed the map, which wouldn’t play due to all the missing stuff). I suppose that as a single-map extension this isn’t too far from the usual, though; this is really a shortcoming of Valve’s mod structure demanding a lot of resources be installed even if the plan is just a short map like this. Still, the extra effort to set up a proper mod folder would have been appreciated.
The atmospherics are almost pitch-perfect. I didn’t care for maybe one track of music at the end of the game, but I enjoyed the mixture of English and Spanish, even if it does seem odd that this reporter would be narrating to himself in Spanish. Maybe it’s just my foreign languages training, but I didn’t find it hard to follow what he was saying even if many words escaped me, and docking points because of an unwillingness to learn is something I will not do.
I didn’t find anything too extraordinarily difficult in the puzzles. I solved the “Maya” puzzle in seconds flat, just fiddling with the buttons (without even having the clue), and if I had the presence of mind to actually finish up in the armory, I wouldn’t have been running around for 15 minutes without a clue what to do next. But really, once you get into the mindset of the mod it’s fairly easy to move from one thing to the next; if anything, the mod is far too short – finished in almost exactly an hour.
My personal opinion of the mapping: Competent, but mostly just functional. At worst it is a bit cutesy and even unambitious at times (the desert area past the opening, “Plain Rock,” is an example; strangely, I still enjoyed its looks and structure). Nothing to be ashamed of; I only got stuck in a door frame once (and managed to free myself, too). The minimalism (extreme, by modern standards) helps the atmosphere; you notice most important details because they stand out dramatically. I even liked the flat black ceiling and “floor” underneath the cargo elevator (not the first elevator), which just hints at a vast area without getting too bogged down in unnecessarily showing details.
The soldiers seem much slower moving than usual, but they were very free to share their grenades – more than usual hgrunts, I thought. I didn’t get the “full” combat experience because I just impulse’d all the weapons (partly to see if there were any hidden weapon replacements), but aside from the first encounter after finding the pistol it didn’t really look like there was much to worry about. Using the HD replacements linked from the ModDB page was definitely worthwhile, and provided much of the enjoyment of the mod for me.
The bottom line is that there are lots of fun touches, and those are the real focus of the mod. If there was some gameplay to speak of, this would be a real gem. Even as it is, I can’t complain since the game manages to cram an entire game’s worth of easter eggs into just a couple rooms. I don’t know if there is anything to the numbered sheets, but it doesn’t look like it – and there I must admit that the backtracking finally defeats me in spending any more time with this mod to find out.
Not logged in, but I would give this three or four stars.
Fun fact: The view back into the puzzle room you see during the ending is actually a static screenshot.