You are captured by the Combine and turned into an Elite solider.
Accept. Comply. Execute.
You take your orders from the Combine Overwatch and they comprise a variety of mission types.
Protect your fellow soldiers AT ALL TIMES. Failure to do so may result in the termination of the mission.
- Title: From Combines
- Filename: hl2-ep2-sp-from-combines-v1.4.7z
- Size : 157MB
- Author: シzana4kaRU
- Date Released: 31 July 2017
Sorry, but this file is too large to load directly into Gauge. Please download it first.
Download to your HDD [157MB]
You can still use it with Gauge once you have downloaded it.
If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.
- Copy the fromcmb folder into your …\Steam\SteamApps\common\sourcemods\ folder.
- Start or restart Steam
- Half-Life 2: From Combines should now be listed in your LIBRARY tab.
- v1.1 – Fixed level transition in 2 chapter
- v1.2 – Fixed english translate
- v1.3 – Fixed some bugs
- v1.4 – Fixed some bugs and ways to break maps
Coming Soon. Watch out for the livestream this weekend.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
These are just a few from the first 15 minutes of gameplay – more will follow.
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3,248Overall
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1Today
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3Last 7 days
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17Last 30 days
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231365 days
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 6 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 3 Hours, 40 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 15 Mins by Daken50
Longest: 7 Hours, 7 Mins by rikersbeard
Total Time Played: 25 Hours, 37 Mins
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Started playing this yesterday but the first section was too dark and with no lamp I had to give up on that combine train, i think it was as i only had sound to go buy, it was too dark to see!!
The second part is rather interesting and has the makings of a good mod, some nice puzzles already!
I too started this today and got annoyed already in the first train map. Not because it’s too dark, just use the cool new night vision, but because there are some weapons lying around which you can’t pick up without an explanation. I suggest for the next update of the mod just remove those weapons to avoid misunderstandings and make the rifles at the train end takeable too, when you want their ammo!
After that it got better, but the level design is mostly rather basic with several minor map issues, like full-bright models because of too dark areas or level holes into infinity or bad lighting in some places. Still I like playing the other side, I created the Xen-Warrior mod a long time ago in which you play as an Xen grunt in Half-Life after all. And this mod does it great with missions in which you feel like a combine!
Neverthelesse while I loved hearing known combine sounds, I didn’t like sound and most of all graphical changes to things we know from HL2 like the health-kits or similar. This diminishes the continuity which the mod builds up so fine! Last not least, please get an English guy to check the grammar of your messages and repair the missing map titles for the desert mission, then it will become even better!
I couldn’t find the ‘cool new night vision’ until you got me thinking. I have Gordon’s flashlight set to ‘Delete’ on my keyboard and now it just buzzed.
Found the night vision pressing the ‘F’ key, sometimes these things need pointing out when you forget!
FYI. The guards and soldiers in this mod tend to react if you go to a door or console then activate / open it for you.
Night vision is fine but it don’t do much for the graphics!
Why is it only the ‘F’ key?
I personally like the bad grammar and or voice acting to add that ‘hand made’ touch. 😀
I’m pretty sure he wasn’t able to pick up those weapons because he wasn’t authorized to – he’s assigned the .357 and AR2, so he can’t pick up the pistol.
I don’t think regulations matter when your train has been boarded by the enemy and you have no other weapons! Don’t even try to explain this away, the beginning was certainly a bit stupid ;)…
P.S.: I tried to continue, but in the Fire Suppression mission after I get into a room with an interrogation chair and many monitors, a combine enters and then nothing happens…
Okay, I solved that puzzle now and it wasn’t a good one :(. So for anyone else that might get stuck there, you need to fire four or five times at the windows in the store room! Yes, no breaking at first try which is what would be normal in HL2, and you can’t shoot the lock two rooms farther in through the gate either or stack the boxes or jump onto the stairs. As with the weapons, if you don’t want players to do this, remove the objects needed like the lock or the boxes. Please keep the HL2 game world consistent otherwise people get annoyed!
I always like a mod that set you in the boots of the Combine Soldiers. This mod is one of them.
I have mixed opinion about this mod. The way you can carry more or less ammo for certain weapon, don’t have Crowbar or Gravity Gun and cannot sprint changed the way you play a lot. The enemies seems to be stronger than normal too. For example, normal Headcrabs take 3-4 shots from the pistol to kill rather than 2 shots. And I don’t know if it’s just me or towards the end of the mod the enemies seems to do more damage than normal. A headcrab bite does about 12 damage if I can recall.
I really like the pacing of this mod, to be honest. The story was linear and the game always tells you about the objective. I somehow find this story memorable.
The bonus maps are……meh. The achivements are also a nice feature.
Now for the negative parts. Spoiler warning!
It was impossible for me to complete Chapter 4, when the game tells me to get to the chopper it crashed instantly. Even after a couple of times restarting the game.
There were 4-5 times I was confused about the puzzle and where to go. I had to cheat with noclip to continue because I was left scratching my head. Especially the beginning of Antlion cave part, I couldn’t find a way to get the pickaxe nor figuring out where to go next. And in Chapter 3, when you get to the last thumper, I didn’t know how to do it correctly so I thought the most logical thing was to jump down. (Which brought my HP from 89 to 16)
And about the boss fights at the end….Oh god. The fight with the Hunter Chopper and the Strider was kinda unfair. When you fight the Hunter Chopper, there will be 4 SMG Metrocops firing at you. (Which for some reason has extremely high DPS)
The fight with the Strider was OK, but the fact that its machine gun has a very high rate of fire, it can make your screen flashes constantly if you get shot, which is annoying. And because you cannot sprint at all, you pretty much have to “bunny hop” to get the rockets from the crate.
From Combine is a descent mod, but with fixes here and there it will become a lot better! And now I still feel sad for the Elite, he was left with nowhere to go. A “rogue” Combine, pretty much the entire world are now hostile against you, even your Combine friends. I can’t wait to see the sequel.
Manually
Medium
3 Hours, 30 Minutes
So I just finished the mod and experienced some of the same issues that you report! I got the crash at the end of chapter 4 but luckily reloading fixed that for me. I also had to use godmode in the mines because the antlion kills me before the combine blows the door to the pickaxe. And even after getting it, I can’t destroy the brakes under the cart and thus had to use noclip to continue. Then later on I assume the big rock was supposed to drop down to the room with the switches for the elevator but it didn’t on my playthrough so I had to use noclip again. After that the level with the fuel was rather boring and I didn’t like the car section either although I managed all boss fights without godmode. But two gunships at the same time while the rocket launcher is limited to one rocket? What was the creator thinking? Again not impossible, but just annoying to draw out the fight in that way…
Update: I started the mine mission again and figured out a way to survive the start without godmode. Such bad scripting! Once the antlion appears the door you entered through will lock itself. Run around in the room with the grubs and it will unlock and if you go through it ahead of the antlion this will dig into the ground and vanish. How should anyone discover this besides per accident? I’m curious how the cart and elevator sections are intended to work…
Wait, really? Now that’s unfortunate. I guess the creator wanted to create something cinematic or a stealth section? It turned out to be very confusing and frustrating.
I was curious so I decompiled the map to see what the intended strategy was. As it turns out, the dev put in these little triggers in some corners of the map that turn the antlion friendly as a sort of ‘hiding’ mechanic, but they don’t actually do anything. Additionally, you’re supposed to destroy a blockade in front of the first minecart and then stand on top of the minecart to proceed, but due to bad coding there’s no actual way to destroy it.
I recompiled the map, putting a trigger to destroy the blockade near the pipe and got on the cart to see what would happen. It was an… experience, to be sure. The cart was super janky, starting out extremely slow then speeding up massively, sometimes jiggling as it tried to stay on the track. Trying to get off would sometimes block you, and sometimes insta-kill you. While on the track, the cart would occasionally smash into a wooden crate, then get stuck on its gibs. Really, you’re not missing much by just noclipping to the other part of the level.
There’s an intro briefly showing the hero’s life before becoming a combine soldier, but as far as I know the story is never brought back up again and it serves no real purpose. Imo it’d be better not to have any intro at all.
The opening with Vortigaunts one-shot killing you and without any weapons was already a bad sign.
Mapping was pretty basic and sometimes I wasn’t sure where to go and sometimes there’s empty rooms and invisible walls for no reason, or props are set to static so that you couldn’t use them to progress. Same goes for some of the weapons, sadly.
The mod does somewhat decent job at making you feel like a combine soldier at times, but sometimes it doesn’t make sense how you are send alone to a mission. Also, having your squad mates die in battle results in mission failure.
One particularily good looking map was the one set on a cliff, too bad it was easy to take falling damage just by going the only path possible, and that at the bottom I got attacked by leeches by standing knee-deep in water. There’s also a mission where you have to turn on thumpers, Id like to note that they are located in completely random places like sewers and on a rock sticking out of a cliffside. In addition, buttons activating those thumers are either located way too high, or, ironically, way too low.
Environmental obstacles such as electricity which have to be turned off in order to progress have either invisible walls, push you away, or slow your movement down when you try to get past them so that you die. It doesn’t make much sense, especially since these could’ve been easily avoided. For example, instead of having a competely avoidable electric wire laying on the ground that slows your movement when you try to jump over it, at the same time hurting you, why not have a pool of electrified water large enough to make it impossible to pass?
At one point early in the mod I jumped down to a coridoor which was blocked by steam and I couldnt go back up to turn it off, which resulted in mission failed message as well. Well why not add a ladder so I can go back up and be able to progress?
At some point the AI on Combine soldiers and turrets decided to turn on me for no reason, and when the game told me to go to a chopper it crashed. Oh well.
You can’t use much weapons aside from AR2 and there’s neither melee attacks available nor any melee weapon at all. And you can’t even sprint.
So… Basic mapping, meh gameplay and no story. Not much fun, but honestly not that annoying either.
Manually
Medium
2 Hours
‘Under Linux, everything to lowercase. Some Problems at some points that some doors didnt open. Dont know if this is a Linux, Windows or a Mod-Problem?
I’m on Mac and the mod appears to be fine from what little I’ve played. However, the archive doesn’t unpack properly and gives an error for the sound folder. Therefore I’ve no sound for my weapon fire etc…
I’ve tried a couple of programs but they all error with this folder. Even though they carry on to unpack the rest of the archive. Anyone else having issues with this 7z format (which I’m beginning to hate lol)
Kinda weird having no gunfire sound! :S
NOTE: I played this mod a couple weeks ago. I don’t remember everything exactly, but I will give my overall opinion
This was my first mod where you play as a combine soldier, and the beginning was quite promising. Although, the vortigaunts 1 hitting you was quite extreme. The first levels were fun. But later they just got boring. I just noclipped through some of the last chapters maps. It felt like half way through the mod maker lost interest, and this mod also does not feel very playtested. But I will get to that later.
Problems I had with this mod:
The night vision was a good idea, but it was poorly made. It just gives you a overlay texture and mat_fullbright 1. Because of that, everytime you exited out of it props would go from being bright back to being normal lighted. Which wouldnt’ve been too bad if it was just once, but everytime it happend (Of course it happens everytime, I’m just saying this to NOT discourage people to use mat_fullbright 1 for some effect for some scene!). Another thing was sometimes the env_message name was wrong. Because the message about the connection and chapter name and objective stuff was just “#fcmb-chapter6-msg1” or something around that. Another thing, there was not enough rebel fights. For a mod where you play as a combine soldier, you should fight way more Rebels! Another thing, the rebels did WAY too much damage. They did about 30 damage with a single AR2 Shot!
Sometimes, fellow combines would attack you SPOILER FOR THE LATE GAME : This was before they turned on you. Vortigaunts also 1 hitted you, now, I don’t know if this counts on Easy and Normal difficulty too, but nothing should 1 hit you except falling down cliffes. Which brings me to another thing: One chapter had you trying to go down a cliffe, and you actually had to jump down (I think) which was very weird. Just jumping into water from such a high distance which looked deadly felt wrong and is wrong… but not in this mod. (But I’m not 100% sure if it was meant to be like this or I missed something) in this level there also was some bad Far-z clipping. The cliffes across just dissapearing weirdly.
Now to some positive things:
The idea of Signal Strength, Objective names and Location information was cool, also driving with a train from Objective to Objective was very cool. Sometimes combines followed you, which was a nice addition. The nightvision also was a good idea, but as stated poorly made.
Conclusion
Although the Negatives clearly outweigh the negatives, the first few chapter maps and the last few maps are good. You should definently check it out! I think the review “Play It Later” could not be more fitting.
Another a bit annoying thing is when you afterwards launch HL2, F is bound to “+NightVisionOn”. So you have to rebind it to your flashlight. But I can see over that.
I wanted to love this mod, and went into it with a positive outlook. For the most part, It was pretty ok, but unfortunately there are a lot of issues that ruined the whole experience for me.
The Problems:
First of all, there are a lot of bugs. The nightvision is implemented poorly, resulting in props staying fully lit. There were also numerous puzzles that I’m almost certain were broken, and that I was only able to solve by noclipping out of them, even after looking at other playthroughs. Most notably are the start of the mine area and a map or two later, where you need to turn on the power for the elevator.
In terms of general gameplay, a constant issue throughout the game is the lack of a melee weapon. You get one later on, but throughout most of the game if you run out of ammo, you’re out of luck. It doesn’t help that I found myself running out of ammo quite a lot, especially in the beginning where you only have one weapon. I mentioned broken puzzles earlier, but even the working ones are usually nonsensical and don’t properly convey to the player what to do. For example, there’s a defence section where you have to hold off hoards of zombies, but it doesn’t really convey when it starts, when the waves are, or where they’re coming from. The combine ball being put in the generator didn’t make sense either, I had no idea what that was for.
This mod also has visual problems. Most of the mod is well detailed, but at any point that could be followed by a boxy room with obviously repeating textures. It was really inconsistent which made it kind of distracting to play.
The Good Stuff (and conclusion):
With that said, most of the combat is actually pretty good. Fighting rebels and vortigaunts instead of combine forces is a neat idea that I enjoyed seeing fleshed out. The environments are generally well built for combat, and the parts that are well detailed look really nice. Unfortunately though, I can’t recommend this mod. There are just too many problems which aren’t worth it for the combat and nice environments, which are average at best.
Using Gauge
Easy
3 Hours
First off this is the nth mod I have played a combine soldier; remember the ‘red eye’ in the Citizen mod series? Well this one has a story like “Human Error”; they take you and you work hard and reach the zenith as an Elite soldier, the ‘red eyes’.
Now you are cleared for limited weapons by the chip in your brain and you have no crowbar, water pipe, ice axe or pointy stick for those crate-smashing duties! It the AR2 or not much else for you son!
I started with a major wobble being unable to see due to my confusion with the “F” key being locked to the Elite infra-scope view. Amazingly useful in dark places, but make sniping shots tricky!
The mod is set as a series of missions sometimes with back up, but that brings its own problem when your Elite friend is not allowed to die! The pacing and combat is well handled, with a good deal of puzzle solving and route finding and ammo is supplied where you need it, you will! You face the usual enemies but more of the zombines and poison-headcrab guys than I like, often in tight spaces for retreat!
Your mission is to activate thumpers all over the place, including caverns and cliffs where antlions and their poison brethren are a real pain. SPOILERS AHEAD!
There is a thumper on a cliff and the only way to progress for all my frantic looking was an insane leap into the big blue too many metres below! It worked for me but you had to get out of the deep quickly, the shallows were safe-ish!
Crashing into a mine entrance weaponless you are presented with death by antlion! But a dash to wake up a suicidal zombine does the trick and now you are stuck with two grenades and an axe!, repeat the last ten words for the ten minutes, the time I ran around getting real frustrated! That’s a lot of seconds!
The mod has a fault here and ‘noclip’ is your only option to slip through a gate.
That was a minor flaw in a very playable and interesting mod. But what is with those drops into rampaging antlion guardians about. I was on ‘13’ health when trapped in a small two-room death match with one running around empting my AR2 rounds into it. The plasma grenade always seemed to end in that, ‘combat asset killed’ message or something akin. Although you are advised to ‘quick save’ frequently from early on!
Finally you find the way back up in a lift and you discover another mine glitch. I was in this area for some twenty minutes seeing what I could do with an explosive barrel other than sit on it absentmindedly pick hole in fast zombie heads! There was a big wobbly rock in a small room and I could not blow it so I looked below, eventually! ‘noclip’ showed the switch I suspected was below that dead zombine, there was a grate.
At this point I began to realise I had the wrong weapons, something was wrong with this Elite soldier!
A touch of nostalgia followed with an old fashioned collect the fuel cans for the generator hunt, with a plethora of zombies for company! But flambéing them is such fun!
Was this one of the many bonus missions? I was not sure but it was fun anyway and the generator eventually revealed the iconic car, which I crashed backwards out the garage by mistake! I think that was the right way but a difficult hill climb, for me!
It is an epic and fast car ride as your realise the combine are not your friends anymore, but are the resistance?
The final fight is a nasty trap where the combine and a chopper attack you in the open with a single grenade-delivering box to empower your RPG! I barely survived! But there was more, after I was upside down in the toxic river!
An open assault on a lone strider was impossible; I just could not stop from dying! I wussed it on ‘god mode’ and discovered a way to do it normally. But that was before I discovered the two gunships assaults that followed!
A citizen tells me to get on a train and I leave as the mod informs you of what you already knew. Your Elite status revoked and you now wanted! A Good story with more to follow I hope.
I enjoyed this mod and with no crashes and just two flaws it holds its head up pretty high.
Creepiest moment came at the start of the base defence mission proving I am still freaked out by the sound of those Hunters! This was a well scripted action sequence and I really felt I was fighting alongside my fellow Combine to hold the base.
The only negative I found in this mod was the two open-air ending assaults. A chopper, Strider and two gunships was a little much with the single shot RPG, for me! Aside from that I really enjoyed the story and exploration of this mod.
There were two huge cavernous rooms in this mode that were empty but had deadly floors, anyone?
I look forward to more…
Manually
Medium
7 Hours, 7 Minutes
This isn’t exactly the mod i expected it to be. From the start it wasn’t so well made, because Vortigaunts only need 1 hit to kill you, which is hardcore. Secondly, the mod is extra long, and i don’t have any problem with that, the problem is that it doesn’t have any story, just that little bit in the beginning and that’s it. The rest is just a matter of shooting and solving puzzles, without any objective to it at all, which is like playing Quake or Doom, and that isn’t so enjoyable for today’s standards. For that same reason, it becomes repetitive, and thus, boring. I simply finished it because i wasn’t in the mood for playing something else, and gave up mid-way through before that.
The gameplay is good enough, the enemies are neither few, nor too many, although the rebels doing like 23 damage in 1 hit in hard mode is….well, too much! You are a combine soldier, the suits they wear are heavy and are supposed to protect you. Also, during the chapter that you are inside the mines, enemies that spawn infinitely is a big no-no, there are no ammo crates around so you’ll run out of ammo when trying to figure out where you need to go…And let’s not talk about all these horrible bugs that the first version had, having to use noclip in some areas because of the incorrect way the breakable objects were made, or doors not opening for whatever reason just makes it seem like you’re playing a Half-Life 2 Beta Leak instead of a mod…And that is totally unacceptable because it kills the experience of the mod! Moreover, the player clips are too many, those in Half-Life games do have a purpose, which is, not letting the player break outside the maps, but in this mod, they are in so many places for some reason. If you do not want the player to jump/go somewhere, just add a fence, it takes about 6 seconds to do! This isn’t Counter-Strike, this is Half-Life after all! The nightvision feature is also badly made, and using mat_fullbright 1 is the worst thing you can do, the flashlight can be adjusted in ways that it looks like an actual nightvision. That includes the FOV of the flashlight, and how far the light can be casted. By making the FOV something like 170, and the range 10000, and the r_screenoverlay set to a binocular, light blue-ish color, you have just created a succesful nightvision! Making the screen gray is also kind of unpleasant, the combine soldiers themselves can be seen wearing light blue-ish goggles, so why should it be gray? And the props staying fully lit are some consequences of how the mat_fullbright command works, that’s why it should be avoided. Futhermore, physics props being static so that the player can’t use them is just a lazy way to do it, and it’s also annoying in a way…I don’t understand why should they be static, to prevent a player from stacking props to get in an area they aren’t supposed to be to? Just add a fence, or a wall, and NOT a player clip in this case! Another thing that is worth a mention is the changed limited rockets you can carry. Gordon being able to carry 3 and a combine soldier only 1 made me scratch my head, and for that reason i had to change the max limit by editing the mod’s files, because i was dying constantly during the boss fight with only 1 rocket being carried, and the crate completely in the open! Oh, and about that, being able to equip only a magnum, and an AR2 as weapons is just not logical. When you run out of ammo, what would you do? Fight with your fists or pickup any type of weapon on the ground, like a pistol, or a smg?
The details are in some places good, in others bad. What i mean by “bad” is, too blocky, it’s like the mappers were bored to add these half way through, or at least in some places. One other big mistake i found is with the soundscapes. These are placed everywhere, but it seems like the mappers didn’t know that when a soundscape is activated, being out of its range doesn’t deactivate it, but it stays active until the player walks into another soundscape’s spherical range, but i’m pretty sure it doesn’t make any difference to your fps so, it’s not that crucial. Some displacements during the mine sections are also not so well made, sometimes you get stuck and you have to jump because the space is closed.
Manually
Hard
6 Hours, 45 Minutes
I eventually got a PC friend to sort me out with the Sound folder from this (corrupt?) archive. (see my other message above). Perhaps that needs looking into if it will only unpack on one type of machine? Can something else be used instead of 7z?
Anyhow, I wasn’t too sure about this mod at first. Something about hopping along for extra speed (as there’s no run option) seemed very silly. Plus I didn’t like the limited weapons at hand, although I’m an Elite Soldier so that sorta made sense. But the initial parts are a little disappointing and umm I dunno but I just didn’t “feel it”. At first.
However, once I’d got used to the fact I was a Combine, I found myself loving this mod. I also thought the levels were generally well designed and interesting to explore. Especially the outdoors parts, although a few more enemies in these places might have been a good idea. The night vision is a great idea and worked very well. However, I’d have liked it to “screw up” and be too bright in areas that didn’t need it. Sometimes I’d disable the night vision to find myself in a perfectly lit area, so some more visual feedback in that one respect would be nice?
I did get to a couple of areas where I didn’t know what to do and I needed a noclip. Falling out of a vent in one level led me into a cage that I couldn’t escape from – unless I went back through the vent ofc but there was nowhere else to go!! Also, the mining cart on the later underground levels wouldn’t break through the doorway – so I needed to noclip my walk along that tunnel manually. These are minor issues of course and didn’t really spoil my fun. The Strider/gunship ending was a killer and it might have been much better if the rocket was able to stock 3 or more!!
Overall, this is a brilliant mod. To think I thought I wouldn’t like it at first!! Well, I REALLY enjoyed it and I wanna see more now 🙂 Great mod for explorers and gun lovers alike. I had tons of fun playing this.
Fun long mod.
If you do not use the default “f” binding for the flashlight go to ..\sourcemods\fromcmb\cfg
Edit these 2 files
nightvision_disable.cfg
nightvision.cfg
and change these lines to your key
alias “switchToOff” “bind f NightvisionOff”
alias “switchToOn” “bind f NightvisionOn”
Hello there, there is a vent behind the door you opened with the handle on the ground.
I was struggling at first to and nocliped around to see that there was a vent.
The mod itself was amazing, I love the idea to play as Combine.
Some puzzles are a bit broken but overall 7 hours of fun for free?
Nice!
Got stuck on the train.
Manually
Easy
15 Minutes