“You are Gordon Freeman…
It was a normal working day. Scattered Xen aliens were hiding even in the rear corners of the Black Mesa research facility.
It slowly return normality in everyday work. The old not been destroyed buildings have been modernized slowly.
You return from a normal disposal order, as in parts of the institution the power goes out.
Power generators to keep running on the main equipment and and your mission is to restore the energy supply.
On the half way you notice more and more Xen returns to Black Mesa and the military is back …
Uncover a new, exciting plot in the Half-Life universe!”
This release also includes Episode 1. Personally, I believe this is not the right way of doing things as you force people to download something they may have already downloaded. Even if the maps from Episode 1 have been updated, you should still give the users a choice.
Please do not include a review of Episode 1 on this page, post it on that page. This page, even though the file includes both episodes, is ONLY for Episode Two.
Thank you – Phillip
- Title: Hazardous Materials: Episode 2
- File Name: hl1-sp-hazardous-materials-ep1-ep2.7z
- Size : 245MB
- Author: D. Wengenroth
- Date Released: 15 October 2012
This release is too large to be used directly with MapTap – Sorry.
You can still use it with MapTap once you have downloaded it.
I would recommend first removing Hazardous Materials: Episode 1 if you have that installed.
- Copy the hazardous_materials folder into your Half-Life folder.
- Restart or start Steam.
- Hazardous Materials should now be listed in your Library tab.
If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.
The playthrough/walkthrough below is provided by PlanetPhillip. See more of my playthroughs on this site: VP: PlanetPhillip.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
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2,743Overall
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156365 days
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 8 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 1 Hours, 36 Mins
Shortest: 1 Hours by Hec
Longest: 2 Hours, 5 Mins by Stef
Total Time Played: 12 Hours, 50 Mins
If you believe this release is missing important tags, please suggest them in a comment?
Allow me to repeat that this review is just about Hazardous Materials: Episode 2, not Hazardous Materials: Episode 1.
The start of the mod involves getting your HEV and then choosing between training, Ep1 and Ep2.
I did the training but the shooting range had a bug that spawn me in a wall. I noclipped out but it wasn’t worth anyway.
There’s not really a story, just a reason to do stuff – that’s often confused by modders.
To be honest, as you may have heard from my video, I found the whole mod very, very frustrating. There were too many invisible walls. Image 39 is an ara that really is ruined by this. It’s even possible to fall through the map – which I did!
There’s a lot of good work here, but when the problems get in their way then you are left with something that leaves you feeling as if you were cheated.
A mod of this size and scope NEEDS extensive testing, from an early stage of development, otherwise you are left with too many issues.
Yes, I have recommended your playing it, but only because there’s not much else and there’s a small chance you will enjoy it.
Manually
Easy
2 Hours
About this episode 2, I’d say it improved a lot the original and previous Ep1. The whole mapping design was improved and now it doesn’t feel quite boxy, and a lot of work were put into the “open” areas, which makes you feel you’re definitely inside Black Mesa.
The combat was also enhanced in this current ep2, and always was intense and kind of hard both against xenians and grunts, the mounted gun part was just lovely to play. But the med kits supplies were very, very scarce and that just sucks as battles are hard and can turn down your health points very quickly.
The story is developed into the mod and that’s a nice detail, though I honestly have to say that voice cast is horrible and it doesn’t feel very realistic. Also another thing that I dislike it was the end, it was very lame, and almost absurd you never see it came and literally ends up in a boring hallway so I hope an ep3 could expand the story and gameplay a little bit more.
Overall, I recommend this as a PL, because though you find good and cool battles inside the mod, and some interesting areas, there are still quite a lot of flaws that reflects the lack of beta testing in this mod. Also is just OK to play this later as is really not important in modding scene, I mean, you definitely could play better HL1 mods than this one right now.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
I was actually one of the beta testers and many of the issues stated here I did report. For instance that one room where you could fall through a door right before you enter the outside area with that giant rotating Black Mesa Logo nearby.
Many of the issues I stated were not fixed but when I talked with the mapper which I do know for years by now who even has gone professional as well. He claimed that the issues could not have been fixed. It could have been a Hammer map editor issue I certainly do know that kind of issues myself. My own mod went well and things that worked a long time suddenly stopped to refuse working after the next saving. Which is one of the reasons why I stopped developing my own mod called Firestorm some while ago. While I refuse to call it dead it’s certainly on ice for now.
Anyway I’m slipping back to this mod. I couldn’t agree more with Phillip & Hec who are both fine play testers and in last case a mapper that this mod has it’s flaws. It has several indeed. However if you put those aside this mod is surely one mod that it’s one among only 3 handful of mods that are above average in my opinion and I did play em all.
Give it a chance ’cause as Hec said this mod does have it’s moments. As for the issue to play both mods. No issue at all just check what the maps are called and you can easily start with the first specific episode2 map after 15 years of Hl1 this should be common knowledge among the remaining hl1 players.
In case you really don’t know create a shortcut of your hl1.exe gamefile and then to go file properties and enter following line at the end after the destination line: -console
Then once ingame open that console either in the menu or with the ~ key and enter the map name: which unfortunately I don’t know right now as I don’t have the mod installed right now.
But just go to your mod maps folder and you shall see it immediately. As ep1 & ep2 maps differ in name.
Mapping wise this is clearly one of the better mods out there. It resembles a good amount of Black Mesa style which is good. Also story and combat wise it is solid although as HEC mentioned the voice acting is rather poorly then again I prefer having voice acting over none at all if it benefits the story that is.
Draw your own conclusion. My advice play it later it’s not the best but also not the worst!
Manually
Hard
1 Hour, 45 Minutes
I remember playing this. It was fairly recent last few years and I remember finding a secret in the room where you choose which episode to play, lol. I wouldn’t say this is a good mod by any means but as phillip dismally pointed out, there is ‘not much else’
I started with Episode #1 to remind myself about it, then played #2. Lots of errors were fixed in #2 but frankly I felt like I just played pretty much the same thing twice. I was expecting a different “episode”.
Anyway, I found the mod enjoyable to play and just told myself to ignore the voice acting and getting stuck here and there, going through textures etc. Just don’t bother playing #1 again.
Manually
Medium
2 Hours
I hadn’t played HMe1 so I did wind up playing it – inadvertently, because the hub map is such a mess I just wandered into an unmarked door and started the episode. O.o
I’ll try and keep to e2 because that’s what the upload says, but … it’d be kind of impossible to extract this train wreck from its prior one imo.
I posted ‘play it later’ simply because ‘maybe’ might be a little harsh. That said, this mod was a wreck. The maps themselves were excruciating, badly lit, with too-subtle bits almost invisible with the darkness.
Points in e2 that are good – you do get to explore a little and actually be rewarded here and there with stuff in the crates you bash. Not like with e1 where you basically got nothing, ever, out of any crate. Most of the ‘whoops I got stuck’ areas in e2 were escapable, where as in e1 … I had to noclip to get out of that shallow water way.
The story was … nowhere to be found. I have *no* idea what was going on, not a clue why the scientists and guards were just *standing around* the whole time, but at least in e2 they did something once or twice.
The voice acting was spectacularly bad, coupled with the overlays when you zone to the next map and it would repeat. I had two bits of dialog going at once, when I transitioned from episode 1 to 2 in the air shaft. Even if there had been better voice acting, whatever was being said was so completely unhelpful that I wished it wasn’t even there. I would have done better just exploring on my own, with better map cues (which were not present at any time in either half), and with some sort of actual *goal*.
Mostly my frustration sits with the ‘why in the world is this even here’ thought. The final map with the purple… thing… how the hell did any equipment get into that overhanging room? Since, you know, there’s only one entrance and it’s a very, very narrow ladder opening in the floor? Mostly nonsensical maps, hooked together *very* badly, not even poorly – just badly. The maps themselves were all extremely small, too, which I suppose on one hand leads to shorter load times, but also begs the question *why* have a map which is literally an L shaped corridor with two doors? Why not have the map transition *at the door click*?
I did like a couple of the visuals in episode 2’s outdoor maps: the little hose lines for the landscaping, that was cute. But it was cute within a map that apparently had such large holes in its geometry that I again had to noclip in order to even enter one spot – because the eye-scanner door wouldn’t open for me, and I couldn’t locate any way to get into the teleporter device past the tank-inserted-wall.
Disembodied voices *everywhere*, wondering where exactly the soldiers or vorts are at? Nowhere. They’re just sound effects. Oh except for one soldier sitting in the dark in the middle of a room out of that air shaft *expecting me and shooting at me the moment the cover comes off*. What the hell? Enemy placement was just as nonsensical as the map transitions.
If this map was play tested, it’s painfully obvious that the testers were ignored. There are no excuses for the shoddy end result, even bad maps have been at least sewn together better than this. It lacked all form of flow, there was no coherent story, and definitely made me wonder why it was released at all as a ‘finished’ mod. This mod is definitely not ‘finished’. I god-moded through about half of episode 2 because at one point I was left with ONE hit point, and no armor, and a room full of stuff I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what to do.
I say “play it later” but I more mean “play it to put much better mods in perspective, because this is not a good mod”.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
I skipped e1 based on the comments above. I found e2 was kind of fun to play, but fairly buggy with sub-par voice acting. The author had some weird geometric designs in a lot of places that made no sense. I also found a long frustrating section where I couldn’t find any health kits and couldn’t advance without god mode. Worth a play but don’t expect a masterpiece.
good
Manually
Medium
2 Hours
This was as good as episode 1.
heltkit: taek, +15 hP, yeos, ready to fight in close range 45 soldiers and few aliens. use your +15 hp carefully cuz you won’t see it again for almost 15 minutes.
Manually
Easy
1 Hour
After playing the first episode I was hoping for something better and this was certainly the case regarding the level design less boxy somecutscenes and sometime great looking.
Sadly in the other hand and this was mentionned by other review (especailly the one of HEC & Philip ) there was not enough effort in beta testing the release so that you encounter traps or problem that needs noclip, the lack of health make it also a little too challenging and needs a lot of save and reload that in a way increase the gaming time but in a frustrating way and finally I got something lost not knowing what next to do especially when you need to activate something through a computer panel without no sign…
In conclusion it’s certainly sad to have put so much effort to try to create a descent release that flaws trough a simple miss of more beta testng, and in the meantime it was fearly enjoyable even with the frustration
Manually
Medium
2 Hours, 5 Minutes