Basic Details
- Title: Home Alone – Not
- File Name: hl1-sp-home-alone-not.7z
- Original File Name: homeal.zip
- Size : 2.02Mb
- Author: Jussi Poyhonen
- Date Released: 26 July 2000
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Meta Review Data
Statistics based on 4 comment(s) with meta review data.
Installed:
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 4 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 25 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 11 Mins by reaction
Longest: 0 Hours, 36 Mins by monster_urby
Total Time Played: 1 Hours, 40 Mins
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 4 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 25 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 11 Mins by reaction
Longest: 0 Hours, 36 Mins by monster_urby
Total Time Played: 1 Hours, 40 Mins
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Possible spoiler.have got to xen the game loads next map and crashes .The map after the elevator.Enjoyed this game would like to finish it.Any help/
I wish I could help. All I can say is that it works fine for me, so the issue is probably in your computer.
ok-good-just kill all grunts and down two choppers
mel I think you got the wrong mod – no choppers in this one. (Actually there is, but not the sort you mean)
Starts in a house. Kill the aliens, break out and kill the grunts. Fairly hard to find the goodies and triggers. Progresses to underground Xen and more battles. Ends with a combination of battle and puzzle. Quite good but short. Play on skill 3.
Yes you are right piledriver. Please disregards my comments at post 3, having just downloaded Home Alone Not as posted here I can confirm I have never played this mod before. don’t think I missed much from what I have played so far, the mod seems very basic with boxy design looking very much like a first timer for the author, not sure if I will bother to finish it.
mel, it does get better and much less boxy – stick with it
hahaha, when I played this (on steam) I couldn’t find any weapons, just the suit. And slaves take potshots at me. This isn’t good…
Funny mappack from a Finnish mapper.
The story is original and not based on HL, but there are similarities.
Just check out the readme for further information.
This pack has almost everything to make it very good!
First of all it’s the awesome leveldesign with cool architecture, new textures and stuff and then there’s good balanced combat action and at least a few puzzles.
More puzzles would’ve been great, though.
There are also new sounds and nice voice acting by the author (we all know it’s you!)
So we start in a well done mapped house as some strange things seem to happen here and there.
We go search for the HEV suit and some weapons which can be tricky (Gauss).
According to the readme, you really only should leave the house (red door) when you got enough weapons and ammo. But don’t worry, you can head back anytime.
Other places the mod takes place are the garden outside of the house, a tiny sewage system, and Xen.
In combat you should watch your steps as things can get nasty easily. But it’s always fair, therefore great balancing.
It’s cool that the maps are detailed and there’s music now and then, I like the layouts much.
The music in the living room is cool.
Funny things are some signs or pictures, computer screen etc.
Trying to get to places which aren’t looking reachable at first will rewarded with goodies, that’s great! Also, you really should check out every corner in the house as many things are interactive, which makes the game more realistic. Not to forget, goodies can be found then too!
All in all, it’s really fun to play so should play it if you haven’t!
Pro’s:
-Very good mapping, layouts and architecture with new stuff like textures, prefabs, music
-Excellent combat action
-Some nice puzzles
-Great balancing
-Some very nice scripts, also some cutscenes
-Unsual, good story
-Secret areas
Con’s:
-Short playtime (~10-20 minutes)
-Some tight areas, moving around can be tricky
-Important things like weapons can be missed easily (house)
-Some tricky jumps required, not really suitable for rookies
-No clues what to do to proceed
-Minor design oddities and flaws
Note: Readme names it a Beta, but too me it’s just fine. Like a final version.
Home Alone – NOT comes to us from first-time mapper Jussi Pöyhönen. It’s quite rough around the edges and shows some signs of a rookie effort, but overall it’s a halfway decent pack.
One of the things I liked about this episode is the story. OK, so it’s not gonna be a contender for Best Screenplay, but at least the attempt is there. Besides the supplied background info, there are a number of short cutscenes and in-game sounds and text that convey the story as you play. Though some of the parts are non sequiturs, overall the story is effective and serves to tie the levels together.
The other main strength of this pack is the combat. A couple parts of Home Alone – NOT are pretty challenging, especially during the first few maps where health and ammo are scarce. Make sure you check out every little area of each map before moving on to the next one – some of the goodies are well-hidden. You will face a mix of enemies in this pack, but your main challenge will come from grunts. There are also a couple of puzzles in this episode for you to solve in order to progress. Nothing difficult or out of the ordinary, but at least they force you to think a little bit while you play.
In my opinion the main weakness is the level design. Although I didn’t experience any slowdowns due to poor design, the levels themselves were far from impressive. The inside of the house is too cramped, and you can get permanently stuck in a couple spots while you’re exploring if you’re not careful. There are quite a few poor texturing choices, and the architecture is pretty basic and plain.
Home Alone – NOT really lacks the polish that the exceptional Half-Life levels demonstrate, which is understandable given this is Jussi’s first release. There are a few new sounds included, but for the most part they are unintelligible and don’t really add to the experience. Although there are 9 maps included, some of the levels are composed of only a single small area, and the entire pack isn’t really that big. Also, a number of the level changes are poorly planned, especially the ones at the beginning of the pack. And oh what I would have given for a crowbar! There are several crates containing health and armor, but no crowbar is supplied (unless it is really hidden somewhere). [UPDATE: There is a crowbar available here (though I missed it every time I played through). Perhaps I shouldn’t be so hard on the author, but the crowbar is the one weapon I think should NOT be hidden from the player, as it is almost essential when ammo and/or health are hidden in crates later in the level. So while my note about having no crowbar available is wrong, my criticism remains because it is too well-hidden from the player.] This is a matter of opinion, but I really hate using my limited ammo shooting open every crate in the hopes that something useful lies within. Paying attention to details like these can sometimes go a long way toward improving a map.
In general, Home Alone – NOT is an average experience. I didn’t hate it and I didn’t love it. The author does show some flashes of clever design, but overall this episode is run of the mill – a good story and some decent combat aren’t enough to really make it a recommended pack, but if you have some time to kill it may be worth a look.
Notes
This review is republished here by permission and was originally published Sunday, 10th December, 2000 by Unquenque.
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.
Wonder if this house was more or less 1:1 replica of authors house. Anyways, for some reason ive always liked these house maps. Especially if theres some hidden stuff or just things that you can interact with. This mod had some, but i was hoping for more.
Biggest problem that i find is that this thing is unbalanced. You better not to miss too many shots in the beginning. Good amount of enemies and not too much ammo available (or maybe i missed some, i only did one proper playthru). But after that, about after midway point, theres few places where you can just let aliens and human grunts fight each other and then you just go and clean whats left.
Oh, and… umm.. interesting ending.
Home Alone… Not! is an… interesting set of maps. Starting out in a house which may well have been based on the author’s residence, I was almost ready to give up after dying over and over again. Frustrated, I restarted the map pack on Medium difficulty and had a somewhat easier time with it. The first few maps are very cramped and you need to really put in the legwork if you want to find some weaponry. This mostly means attempting to run past (or indeed, jump over) most of the aliens while tanking damage (For this reason alone, I believe this is simply impossible on Hard)
The change level triggers are really awkward, placed just in front of certain doors. This often results in you getting stuck on the geometry or the enemies.
Thankfully, once you are outside, this map pack becomes a little more bearable and the unique take on certain environments like Xen are more than a little quirky.
There is a story that you get small drips of throughout, but it’s not particularly coherent, be that due to the author not being a native English speaker, or by simply being really strange.
Alls I can say is, give it a go… maybe. You might like it more than I did.
Manually
Medium
36 Minutes
Murrr, my long review didn’t get saved after being submitted because I used a swear word (?). I’m not writing that all again so here’s the bottom line:
The VO, story, custom textures and brush detailing like the giant mech make Home Alone -not worth playing if you don’t mind working around some fussy doors and jarring level transitions.
Manually
Hard
11 Minutes
^Rating
I couldn’t get inside robo cabin. There’s some ammo inside, but how on earth someone big like me could fit in that small hole. Only a grenade can get inside and grab the ammo, Gordon don’t use hands or a hook fish to grab some ammo from hard to reach spaces. In second place, how the robo knew where I was going, he just opened a new gate for me. A useless gate of course, it said that I couldn’t use the door, the door was for aliens, humans goes through the sewers infested with rats, headcrabs,zombies, vortgaunts and a spider, he just put one of each at least to make a good ambient of alien folks inside sewers hungry like hell. If you aren’t careful even the water can kill you apart. Just get stucked in the end, and no can’t go any futher and what now!
Manually
Hard
20 Minutes