You play an elite soldier, who is sent in to perform a number of tasks on an abandoned research facility.
Your commander is in contact with you via screen text.
He gives you clear instructions for each section.
Can you make it out alive?
Basic Details
- Title: Ground Complex
- File Name: hl2-sp-ground-complex-updated.7z
- Size : 71.62MB + 10.1MB
- Author: Bioko
- Date Released: 20 March 2012
Download Options
Download the full updated version to your HDD [71.6MB]
Download the patch to your HDD [10.1MB]
Manual Installation Instructions
- Copy the GroundComplex folder into your SourceMods folder.
- Restart or start Steam.
- Ground Complex should now be listed in your Library tab.
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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Reader Recommendations
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Jump to a review
This is a hard review for me to write. There are plenty of good things about this mod but also some absolutely terrible ones.
Personally, I think the author has been overambitious in his objectives and I also feel the mod is oversold.
OVERAMBITIOUS
It’s great to have a story and try to include new content, but it must be planned well and executed even better. The author has tried to set the story on a desert planet, not connected with the Half-Life series, yet the enemies are the same and the weapons look the same.
The story is told through chunky text on the screen with no explanation as to how this happens. Sure, it could be projected onto a helmet but it doesn’t even feel like transmitted text. If you are going to go that route in your story-telling system, at least do it properly.
Okay, maybe I am getting off track here and focusing on the finer details, but the point is that a better planned mod would have worked so much better.
OVERSOLD
The presentation and screenshots of the mod far outweigh the actual reality. It advertises new weapons and all we get are new sounds and slightly different effects. Personally, all that work was wasted without a new model.
The mod includes music from retail games, which I think is a silly mistake, considering there is so much really good free music available.
This is a good examples of promising more than you can deliver.
Now for the one thing that completely ruined the mod for me: The never-ending antlions. Seriously, what the feck was the author thinking when he made this design decision? Did he get it tested by anybody but his friends? I really doubt it. Yes, never-ending enemies have their place in game/mod design but not in every situation. I freely admit I turned on GOD mode to play this otherwise I would have raged-quit after two minutes.
Even with God mode on it was tedious. Bad Modder!
Next, come the bright, pretty colours. This is a common mistake with new or young mappers and it’s a shame. Toned down the brightness and colours and you have some very interesting areas.
I could go on and on about the things I disliked, but that’s more for a beta feedback report than here.
For me this is a perfect example of a modder with ability but a lack of experience. That’s why modders should release small maps at first so they can continually improve, rather than making a larger mod that needs a lot of fixing. Yes, he can release a patch but there’s no way in headcrab hell I would play this twice. Get it right first time!
My advice to this modder would be to use your skills but with more realistic objectives. Make and release smaller pieces and find three clear things that can be improved upon in each one.
if you can’t do it properly, don’t do it at all. A good example of this would be the spaceship escape. Watching it turn at 90 degrees was fine ten years ago, but we expect more nowadays. Just let it fly forwards and fade to black.
Do I recommend you play this mod?
Maybe, but be prepared to turn on GOD mode or hold your breath and wait for a patch.
I wrote a similar review over at ModDB.
The problem with this mod is that it just isn’t any fun.
In short: It has some good ideas but they are poorly executed.
In long: The first scene is a sign of things to come, a huge chunk of text tells a story which frankly the player could have found out by playing. Text is used to narrate the story throughout and basically tell the player what they need to do next. But it is written as if a character is speaking to you which just fills up the screen obscuring the players view also the text is white and the desert is very bright so it is often hard to make out what the text actually says.
The environments are very blocky looking and really suffer from a lack of attention to detail. Models being improperly alligned, walls on buildings being the wrong way round, see through sections of walls and unnaturally pointy terrain all bring the presentation down.
The layout of the levels is just plain confusing there are various areas that look like they may be leading somewhere and they don’t and it is generally hard to tell whether or not you are actually progressing. Solutions to puzzles are often obscure and sometimes very tedious to complete.
There are no new weapons but the HL2 weapons have been modified to make them more appropriately powered for the sheer number of enemies you’ll be fighting. The AI is decent and seems to be quite good at finding you although a bit more variation would have been nice. As it stands you basically just have to kill them till they stop coming and this gets a bit boring after a while.
Played the patched version, most of my criticisms still stand some of the models have been realligned and I didn’t notice bad textures this time round but there was still a wall on the wrong way round. The puzzles aren’t noticably any clearer or any more fun to carry out and the world is still quite blocky.
To clarify the back to front wall is on the building to the far left of screenshot 8 but on the side not shown in the screenshot.
The criticisms were meant to be constructive, I certainly don’t aim to upset people. But as said above you run a higher risk of missing stuff if you don’t beta test
I don’t know whether to give this a maybe or a play it later. Settled on “play it later” but it’s a pretty weak play it later.
There were plenty of problems with this mod:
– The endless antlion streams. This is the biggest problem. This forced me to just rush through everything and I ended up not having a whole lot of fun.
– Minor problem: floating rocks in the beginning of the mod
– The metal door where you have to shoot the lock to open the door. How was I supposed to know I am meant to shoot the lock? This is not a common game mechanic in HL2-games (unless the specific lock model is used) and you had not taught the player that this is something that he can do in this mod. I had to do a lot of backtracking and checking places out before I finally accidentally solved this by just whacking at the door with the crowbar.
– There is steam coming out of a pipe in a corridor. It looks like the steam should hurt the player but it does not. Kinda confusing.
– Some buttons open doors. Some don’t. Seems random. Maybe the buttons should have red sprites on them when locked and green sprites when unlocked?
– The slow-mo when the antlion guard appears. Was that really needed? Also, the slow-mo lasted way too long.
Other than these problems, it’s not a terrible mod. I think it’s worth a playthrough unless you’re severely lacking free time.
Also, the music from Metal Gear Solid was a nice touch. As a big fan of the series, it made the ending a lot more enjoyable than it otherwise might have been.
The head-bobbing while walking was making me sick to my stomach. The endless antlions caused me to quit and delete the mod very early on.
In the words of Master Yoda “fun this was not!”. Only play this if you are really bored already, I mean REALLY, REALLY BORED! (as I was today).
I genuinely want to say something positive about this mod because from what I can see on ModDb the author is only 17 and possibly French (but I won’t hold that against him). The only thing I can think of, is obviously he knows how to mod and could probably develop into a quite competent designer. That said he needs to take a step back and re-evaluate how he puts them together.
I’ll let others more knowledgeable in the technical details say where the issues are, but as a non modder/mapper even I could spot some. The doors for me were a big issue but after seeing Miigga1’s post (is that the real Miigga or a clone) I’m not going back to whack the doors. The author seems to be of the opinion of what is obvious to him is obvious for all. In the words of the ancient Egyptian philosopher P’Tduh “The Obvious is not always so”.
Ok! don’t get me started on the Antlions (too late), in the earlier parts of the game they stop when you’ve killed enough, but later on you have to block their passages (so to speak) or you have a never ending stream of them. The problem there is the grenades bounce off of them more times than going to where they are needed.
There is just so much wrong with this from a players point of view that it is just not worth playing and yes I did use cheats just to get to the end of the damn thing, gameplay wise there is nothing to recommend it.
You know, I have read every comment here, but this is a real pain for me, not because of the critics since I am always opened to honest critics, but because almost everything you are complaining about is actually fixed in the latest update !
There was no beta-test before the release of the full mod because I am making this mod entirely alone and I can’t really trust anyone. This is why the version you played here is mostly a “beta version” of the mod, and after many comments from the players I have managed to fix most of those inconveniences and problems with the mod, mainly reducing the number of antlions which I have to admit was exaggerated in the first versions.
This why I am asking to you, give it a second chance ! The last update of the mod I have made not only reduces the global number of antlions, but make the puzzles easier and more evident and fix a lot of bugs. In another words, the mod is now far more easy.
There are no needs to download the full mod again ! just download the patch here.
Hi, thanks for stopping by.
Firstly, almost everything we are complaining should have been fixed before the the mod was even released and secondly, all the reviews here were for the only version available at the time. You can’t complain about reviews written before a patch was made available
Many mods are made by one person and get tested properly. When you say you “can’t really trust anyone”. Do you mean because you are worried they will steal your work or because of the quality of the feedback? Worrying about somebody stealing you work is a valid fear but there are always solutions. Release previews versions of SMALL parts of your mod publicly. Look for people. Did you even try looking for beta testers?
If it’s because you don’t trust the feedback, then that’s no different from releasing a mod publicly.
Personally, I won’t play this gain because I have already played it and doing so again would be boring. I didn’t find any serious bug or have any issues with the puzzles. Just those freaking antlions. You need to understand that once you have released something often there is no going back. People generally replay only the best single player maps again. You need to learn lots of lessons from this release.
In fact, you could have learnt the same lessons in half the time and created a much better final product if you had just done things properly from the beginning.
I have updated the main post to include a patched file and the updated version if people want to play it.
Hi Bioko.
One of the first things you need to realise is that if you make a mod or indeed a full commercial game, players will judge it on the merits of its first release. Patches for minor technical bugs are quite common, but the gameplay is not something that can be patched and gameplay is where your mod fell down. It is not a matter of making it easier, but you show promise, so it’s a pity you didn’t trust anyone to beta test this as it could have been a really good mod.
The whole layout of your mod was screaming out for varied enemies, but with only Antlions it became tedious very quickly.
Bioko, I am convinced you are capable of so much better, but you need to trust some beta testers to hone your skills. I for one want to see what you can do with a little more experience.
Well I haven’t played your work yet, so i’ll try it with this new patch you said, I found the environment quite interesting, and i’ll definitely going to try it.
There is only one problem with this mod.
The endless stream of Antlions.
Everything else is perfectly acceptable (well mostly) in my opinion and would have earnt this a play it later/play it now from me.
The endless stream of antlions (which I note has not been changed in the patch) makes this map a chore and very unpleasant to play.
I think the visual style of the first section (which was all I could actually stomach playing) was really cool with the sulpherous yellow rocks etc…
It looks good, I liked the story etc…
Just for goodness sake realise that when the player is constantly being hasseled by an Antlion gnawing on his butt, the player is not having any FUN!
They’re annoying as hell and just put the player into a panic state where he can’t absorb anything else including puzzles, architecture, or any of the other good things that I’m sure are included in this mod.
Remove the endless stream, change to bouts of 3 – 5 antlions spawning randomly using a func_timer. It will allow people to actually play the mod and enjoy it.
I hope you will…
I liked it. From the reviews, I was expecting a turd but that wasn’t the case. It is an average mod, which is still fine by me.
OK, I’ve played it and it seems there are not much difference with the ammount of annoying Antlions atacking you, for mee seemed the same annoying as allways, but I preffer them rather than the stupid bully manhacks definitely.
I think I recommend as a PL, because I liked the big open areas and when I did the “climbing part” I got some stunning awsome views from the top of those redmountains, I really liked that part.
The problem with this mod, is that maybe it was just too much ambitious to build it as a Total converssion, sorry but is really very far away from that. So my thinking is that it would be just fantastic if this mod would be set into the HL2 universe instead of that wierd story, maybe that’s irrelevant but i’d love to combat against some overwatchs in those grat open areas scenarios instead of 100% antlions, maybe the developer could be focused yeah in antlions but it would have been better if he would had put some combine in there.
SO my advise would be, forget about Ground Complex2!, make some other great looking maps but within HL2 combat and it will be funner and maybe even more succesful than this one.
Is a Play it latter also because you won’t loose anything if you don’t play it right away. Thats it.
Oh and by the way those 5 months of hard will and work, worth the effort in here that’s a not quit fact, I thank the modder for that hard work and giving his job as a mod for the community.
PD, I liked the custom new sounds on the waponery, but i’d preffer changes in the models if it was an attempt of a TC mod.
PLease conssider my advise don’tdo GC2 instead try within HL2 maps and combat and you would get better ressults.
straight away I was put off by the blocky graphics…. this kind of shading looks good on some game mods such as serious sam however it does not suit hl2 mods….. well thats my opinion….
the head bobbing works well and is a nice touch however I must agree with phillip and the other guys that the antlions were overkill…. I though they would never stop coming…. granted you should include them but stop at around 10….
at the end of the day ground control is ok…. just didnt produce that bit of magic which is found in other mods….. but not bad… just maybe !
There are some really good things about this mod and some not so good things. I loved the size of the area you were exploring and the variety of the different environments. I really disliked the number of ant lions, the lack of any other enemies, and the incessant head bobbing. I am not sure why mod designers feel head bobbing is a good idea. The only other mod where I saw it had a quick “patch” so you could turn it off if you want. This mod could have used that!
In my opinion the solutions to the puzzles were not very intuitive in many cases. I never did figure out how to get in that damn room where you plug in the multiple power cables, so I had to noclip. I was also disappointed to find that the ladders shown on objects in many cases are not real and you can just walk through them. I found this in the climbing section after you hit the water.
Definitely worth playing, but I recommend waiting until the author posts the “2 of 2” video walkthrough on the ModDB website before you try this. Right now he has a walkthrough for about 1/2 of the mod which only gets you so far!
Looks good. Plays terrible.