Hunt Down The Freeman Demo

for Half-Life 2: Episode Two

7th September 2016

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“THE SHADOW OF BLACK MESA, A SURVIVOR OF THE SEVEN HOUR WAR, MITCHELL HAS WAITED 20 YEARS FOR REVENGE. NOW HIS TIME HAS COME!”

“Mitchell was a marine tasked on a mission in Black Mesa. During the mission, his squad was wiped out by Gordon Freeman.

Mitchell, being the only survivor, later wakes up in a military hospital during the Seven Hour War.

He thought it was the end of it all, but it was only the beginning”

Hunt Down The Freeman is an entirely original, standalone story-based FPS game that takes part in the Half Life Universe:
Features an entirely original story
New Characters
New Weapons
Amazing Voice Acting
More Than 30 New Levels
Improved Gameplay
6-8 Hour Gameplay
45 to 90 Minutes of Cutscenes
HTC VIVE SUPPORT
Original Soundtrack

You can find more details here:

Basic Details
  • Title: Hunt Down The Freeman Demo
  • Filename: hl2-ep2-sp-hdtf-demo-v1.1
  • Size : 1.44GB
  • Author: HDTF Team
  • Date Released: 05 September 2016
Gauge Users

Sorry, this file is way too large to download directly into Gauge.

Download Options

Download to your HDD [1.44GB]
You can still use it with Gauge once you have downloaded it, but you will still need to ensure Source SDK 2013 Singleplayer is installed and set to Upcoming Beta.

Manual Installation Instructions

If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.

  • Copy HTDF folder into your …\Steam\SteamApps\\SourceMods\ folder.
  • Install Source SDK 2013 Singleplayer from Steam. Go to Steam > Library > Tools > Source SDK 2013 Singleplayer > Install
  • Set SDK 2013 to the Upcoming beta. Go to Source SDK 2013 Singleplayer (right click)> Properties > Betas > select upcoming
  • Restart Steam
  • Open your Steam Library and select Hunt Down The Freeman

Videos

Phillip playing the latest demo is hopefully coming soon.

Watch Phillip interview the game’s director:

Screenshots

The screenshots below are taken from the original demo, which may differe slightly from the current version. Also, the screenshots only pertain to the early part of the release.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.

1024 x 576

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
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1366 x 768

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
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1600 x 900

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Reader Recommendations
Avoid It!
Think Twice
Maybe
Play It Later
Play It Now!
10 recommendations, average score: 2.8 (out of 5), standard deviation: 1.96 (what's that?)
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Meta Review Data
Statistics based on 10 comment(s) with meta review data.

Installed:
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 10 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 1 Hours, 28 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 45 Mins by crowbar
Longest: 2 Hours, 15 Mins by Duke
Total Time Played: 14 Hours, 35 Mins
Categories (?)
Half-Life 2: Ep2 HL2-EP2 Mods Play
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20 Comments

  1. Kosan
    Avoid It!

    Oh boy.

    We expected a really bad mod.
    Some of us probably were expecting worse, but I was still disappointed.
    Anyways, lets go into it:

    Gunplay

    So the game starts you off with a machete, which wouldn´t be a bad thing if it was just a crowbar reskin, but it isn´t. It´s like the crowbar in the sense that it´s a melee weapon, but it has a really weird delay on it, even more so on the hard attack, making melee combat really frustrating.
    The guns are not bad to play with, they are actually kinda fun. But thats probably due to them having almost the same stats and functions as the HL2 counterparts.

    Level Design

    This may be the worst aspect of the game, but I´m not sure.
    First of all, “Game Director” Berkan Denizyaran bought a gmod map (maps?) from the GarrysMod mapper KawooFish and hired him for the “game”.
    Indeed, the maps seen in Hunt down the Freeman are Garry´s Mod Roleplay maps.
    KawooFish edited them slightly and added enemies.
    Also, there is this really annoying and unfitting color correction, which dramatically changes from map to map.

    Basically, the maps aren´t that good visually and sure as hell not gameplay-wise.
    This game could have been a garrys mod save game, where some kid opened the map and started spawning zombies randomly. The game gives you no clues, leading to situations, where you´ll spend most of your playtime being stuck in the same area. This is most frustrating in the boss battle near the end, where you have to use the red barrels and your melee attack to kill the Antlion Guard (The boss battle is on the top floor of a multistage building, how did it get up there?).

    Visuals

    First of all, I like the HUD, it looks pretty cool.
    That´s about everything good I can say about the visuals.

    Berkan wants this game to be a canonical Half-Life game.
    The color correction makes it look like Doom 3 on low settings at times, the gun models don´t fit HL´s style at all (infact, the MP5 model is stolen from Firearms Source, coincidentally available as a GMod addon), some textures are extremely low resolution, even if it was a HL2 mod that came out in 2005.
    But the worst offenders probably are the character models.
    They are made in this program called FUSE. It´s a bit like the character creator from The Sims, but a bit more advanced. You can download it and make your own HDTF character in a couple minutes.
    The character models look completely out of place.
    Especially when they are side by side with the original rebel models.
    They aren´t HL2 rebels, they are [GENERIC SOLDIER ###].

    Other stuff I want to adress

    This game has a bullet time mechanic, called adrenaline.
    It prompts you to do it at the beginning to kill a single zombie (it is useless in that case) and you´ll probably NEVER use it again simply because you´ll forget it´s there.
    Also, it just activates cheats, turns down “host_timescale” and after it finishes, brings back the timescale to the default value and stops cheats.
    So yes, you can indeed cheat in that time period, which is really dumb for a game mechanic.

    If you´ve not already learned that Berkan seems to not understand Half-Life´s game mechanics, I should probably also tell you that the game has quite a few cutscenes.
    They are made in Source Filmmaker, are mostly COMPLETELY out of place and look worse than the game itself, due to it basically being in-engine footage with video compression.
    Think of a game you´ve played with the worst cutscenes.
    Hunt down the Freeman may be worse than that.

    Conclusion

    If you want to play a bad mod for the sake of playing a bad mod, go for it.
    But keep in mind this is supposed to be SOLD as a Half-Life GAME.

    I´m going to end this review by saying that everyone who unironically likes this mod, hasn´t played a 6/10 Half-Life mod yet, because that would raise their standards too much for HDTF.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 20 Minutes
    Reply
  2. DolmoTheDouglas
    Avoid It!

    The demo for HDTF has finally arrived (Over a month late) and I was quite surprised by it. I thought it would be of a slightly higher standard than other HL2 mods as after all, this has been greenlit and it will be sold on Steam. It was however, worse than I expected. I have played it through a few times now and each time I play it, it becomes more apparent that not a lot of thought has been put into this demo. I’m guessing this is just a chapter cut out of the game and if it isn’t, there wasn’t anything special about it or no hooks that made me excited for the main game. The main problems can be split into sub categories as usual.

    Visuals

    I will begin with the visuals. As you may know, I don’t see visuals as the make or breaking point of a map. As long as they are decent and give a general feeling of being in an actual place, I don’t care if they are overly spectacular. This map however did not pull off decent aesthetics and many rooms stuck out as poorly designed. The rooms all felt boxy and they didn’t give me the feeling of being in a real location. Going back on what I said before about visuals not having to look great, this game will be going on steam as a standalone game. The visuals to the demo must be way above average. They have to stand out yet in this demo, they are much poorer than a lot of other maps out there. From the very start to the very end, I was constantly irritated by how poor the visuals were and I fully expect the maps to be cleaned up and giving a lick of paint before the steam release.

    Gameplay

    The next thing I will talk about is the game play excluding the combat. I will go on about that later. There were moments that the game play actually seemed quite decent but these moments were few and far between. There was the pipe jumping puzzle with the barnacles across certain parts of the pipes that required the player to plan their next jump, and then execute it. The exit was clearly marked and the puzzle was rewarding. This is one of the only examples of good game play. Yes, there was the standard stuff that should be in every map like bright env_sprites drawing the player’s attention but aside from that, moving through the levels seemed like a chore. The pacing was broken up and did not benefit the demo at all. There were a few other places to explore but overall the levels were lacklustre. As I said with visuals, you need to make the demo as exciting and enthralling as possible but with low quality Half Life 2 game play; you are not going to do that. There were buttons and valves that you had no idea what purpose they served and parts were you had no idea how to progress that I very quickly became frustrated with the game. You never want to make the player feel frustrated when making something like this. The description says “Improved game play” but all this demo had was bad Half Life 2 game play done in a very boring manner. A new feature that was added was adrenaline. Something I forgot about 5 seconds after learning about it. You know something is badly designed when you can’t keep it in the player’s mind that it is there. There is also no explanation for it being there. It just seems like a useless game mechanic put in for the sake of it. Another thing that was in the game was a red effect on your screen when you were on low health. This and the heart beat sound were super annoying. It was distracting when you were trying to fight. I know other games do this but I’m not a fan of them doing it either. If you are on low health, you should have clear vision and sound so you can have more of a chance of surviving. Your vision should not change depending on what health you are on. It was irritating and the Dev should not have decided to have a feature like this.

    Combat

    Combat in this mod/game/demo was atrocious. One of the only good things I have to say about it is the part at the start with the option to burn the 6 zombies. It was a nice little touch and gave the play and other option in the battle instead of just chopping the zombies. With that being said, the demo was full of situations where there were too many enemies in one area. This is something new mappers tend to do. They think that putting many enemies in will give the player a challenge. The thing with this is, when there were normal zombies, “fighting” them was the most boring thing ever. I would rather watch paint dry than try and chop the zombies with the machete. As the demo progressed, zombines were introduced and at one point there were 3 of them in a close confined space. Fighting 3 zombines and a few zombies with barnacles around you is an impossible task without using bait tactics. The fast zombies are also not suitable to have with only a melee weapon in a confined space. The first map should have had more options and ways of killing the zombies. When you begin fighting the rebels, they run strait up to you and you can run strait up to them. Combat with gun should take place from a distance. There should be an obstacle in the way. The turret soldiers were decent if somewhat a bit over powered. The antlions were tedious to fight and there were so many of them again in such a confined space. When you came to fighting the antlion guardian, your weapons disappeared without explanation. What was the point in that? If there was something you wanted the player to do, it was not obvious. This was one of the worst design decisions. Taking away the stuff that would help and leaving you with the worst weapon to ever exist in a Half Life 2 modification is just stupid. The combat 100% needs to be fixed.

    Sound Design

    The sound design was not bad in general because it was built with Half Life 2 as the base game. The soundscapes were placed fairly well. Maybe a bit rough here and there but it did not affect the demo. The music in it however stood out a little too much and did not capture the feeling of the situations were music played. It was loud even with my music volume right down. The custom voices were not amazing. They were sub standard. The way they sounded environment wise was not bad but overall the actually not as good as I would have hoped.

    HUD

    Changing the primary HUD colour to blue was a bad idea. At least the shade of blue was bad. It is hard to see against certain backdrops and lights. The crosshair was hard to see a lot of the time. Admittedly, The Half Life 2 games were no better for this problem but if the colour was clearer and slightly brighter then it would be fine.

    Custom weapons

    The custom weapons in this demo were not very good. As I have stated above, the machete was the main culprit. It has a fast left click and a slow but slightly more powerful right click. There is nothing clear telling you there is this feature. Even on the fast mode, the machete was still ineffective unless right up close to the enemy. The view model movement was one of the worst I have seen in a long time. The guns bounced about so much and was very quick to move from side to side it was distracting and it looked stupid. In Half Life 2, the view model moves slowly and not very far making it effective and believable as an actual gun hand. I would personally use the same view model settings from Half life 2. The guns would also turn a silvery colour in certain places and then quickly turn back to their normal colours. This may have something to do with cubemaps but it needs to get fixed. This is a bug that should not be making its way into a demo for a game that will be going on Steam.

    Lighting

    The lighting in the demo was not good. In some places it was needlessly dark and in other places it was so garish. It did not help or complement the visuals. There was no standard lighting theme among the areas. Lighting is all important in mods but in this demo, it was unrealistic for a Half Life 2 mod.

    Story Line

    The story line for the demo is confusing. It may be that this demo is a chapter in the actual game but the story could be clearer. What building am I in? Where am I going? Who are these people talking to me over the radio? Everything seems cryptic which can be a good thing at times but not for a demo. If you are trying to sell me the story through the demo, it has not worked. I would have made the demo rich with story and made the player familiar with more characters. It was very important to get this right but it failed to do so.

    Cut Scenes

    The inclusion of cut scenes was a bad idea. I can understand if cut scenes give you narrative. If they actually give you something that game play cannot give you, feel free to add cut scenes to your game. In this however, it gave across pointless narrative that did not progress the story at all. The cut scene at the end was to only near valid cut scene and even then, It was not placed very strategically as you were in an area with bad guys to then click on the door for the cut scene to begin. I was still fighting when I clicked on the doors thinking I could take cover. This was one of the situations where it felt like the game was grabbed out your hands. The interaction green blobs (?) cut scenes were alright for getting narrative progressed through flash backs but they did not work in the demo. (As in they were ineffective as there was no main storyline given) The worst case of the cut scene however goes to the time when you are walking down the slope and the antlion hits you in the back, then you hit the wall box and the door closes on the poor antlion. It was so pointless. It broke up the game play flow. It looked very unprofessional. I honestly can’t see why there was a need to have it. There could have been something for the player to do instead but the cut scene had to go and play. This was the point when your weapons got taken away. So let’s get this strait, there was a cut scene that was unprofessional and pointless put in before your weapons got taken away, and it did not even explain why your weapon got taken away.

    In Closing (Conclusion)

    Overall, The HDTF demo did not do its job as a demonstration for an upcoming game on Steam. It did not make me excited for it. It did not sell me a wonderful story and it showed me that it has not had much care going into it. The question I have to ask is, Was this play tested by experienced people? Did people go in, find bugs and tell the dev what could be done to make it better? The answer to both of these are no. Unless the Dev did not take feedback which is not a smart thing to do. I’m sure an argument could be made saying “But it’s not the finished game. It can be fixed.” This is correct and at the same time completely wrong. If you are making a demo for anything, you want to make it as polished as a finished game. Demos are the thing that will get people on your side. It’s better than just telling people how good it will be. It shows that it’s good enough for people to put their money into buying it. This demo did not deliver.
    This game has been greenlit and I believe it has received Valves blessing. It will be going on steam. This is quite a thought as the level of mapping in this demo was poor. There are so many other maps and mods that are more “Steam worthy” than this. The least we can do is reach out to the Dev and try and get him to change the way he is making HDTF.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 30 Minutes
    Reply
  3. crowbar
    Play It Later

    I played the demo pre release. The develoepr let me test it before everyone else gets to play it.
    I think it was an alright demo. Won’t feel like a waste of time, try it out. It feels different, because of the use of cutscenes which are, unlike in “The Closure”, made with Source filmmaker and actually well made for the most part. The mod starts with a short cutscene where you can also see a little bit of the end but then it jumps back a few hours, classic storytelling mechanic, but here it was a bit weird. When you go back you wake up in some random canal thing or something. So right at the start the mod starts to feel weird.

    Then the first thing you encounter is a floating green light you can interact with. This just raises more questions and makes the thing feel more weird. Why can this character interact with dead people like that? Did the character just saw the past of a dead person? Maybe in the full game this was supposed to be introduced better and in a more organic way, but at the moment it just feels a bit weird. Also the things you see in those memories are not really worth anything for the story, but they are well made. They never felt boring or too long, and they are completely optional anyway, so I liked them at the end.

    The voice acting is another thing that you will notice immediately, and yes, it is a bit overacted or cheesy or whatever, but I still liked it. It still sounded like effort went into it and it kinda fit the characters imo. It reminded me of how the soldiers in Black Mesa sounded in the mod release though 🙂

    Visually the mod is average or above average. Very simple geometry most of the time and very generic enviroments, but they look okay. The color correction helps a bit to make it look better and give it a more unique look and atmossphere, but I am sure some people won’t like it. Just like in Battlefield 3 which had this blue filter everywhere. The biggest problem with the visuals is that it feels very random what you are doing. You just go where you can go, because that is the only thing you can do.

    A big problem of the mod is level design, especially for combat. The levels don’t seem to be really designed around the combat, but enemies just seem to be placed in the levels. Some encounters were annoying, some were straight out unfair, some were alright. Player guidance is not great. There are no landmarks, no special areas. The next room feels always as generic as the first one. It had one cool looking area towards the end though where you had a boss fight.

    I was actually surprised by how little cutscenes there were. I thought the developer wanted to be super cinematic and tell a story through 100 cutscenes, but no, they were spread throughout the mod very well IMO. I also liked the small cutscenes, for example towards the end where you get attacked by the antlion. They were all well made as I said. Btw, people crying about cutscenes can be really annoying sometimes… it’s not like Half-Life has no cutscenes. In Half-Life you can’t even skip the “scenes”. You just stay in the room until you can move forward. Obviously that’s fine, because it doesn’t happen so often and you don’t have to wait too long, but still, sometimes when I replay Half-Life 2 I wish I could skip some of the dialouge.

    Lastly the new weapons. Hated the machete, love the pistol, mp5 is alright and shotgun is fine too. The weapons have the exact same roles as in the main game, but balanced slightly differently. What’s annoying about the machete is its weird attack animation, although cutting zombies in half with right click was satisfying to do. The pistol was awesome, it looked great, it sounded great and felt great. The MP5 was too weak and most of the time the shotgun was more useful. It’s supposed to be a mid range weapon, but it wasn’t really good at that, and the shotgun was still alright at that range.

    If you go into this expecting a demo for an awesome game and you have high expectations, you will be dissapointed. If you go into this like into any other mod release here on RTSL, I think it will be alright. Although some parts had weird balancing which can quickly become frustrating.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Hard
    Playtime:
    45 Minutes
    Reply
    1. BadPeaceDK

      If you go into this expecting a demo for an awesome game and you have high expectations, you will be disappointed. If you go into this like into any other mod release here on RTSL, I think it will be alright.

      Thing is, the author is going to take freaking money for the game this demo is from. It is only obvious that this should be held to a much higher standard than other mod releases on RTSL. And seeing how blatantly terrible the demo is, I can’t say my hopes for the main release are much better. I am 99% sure that the only reason this got greenlit is due to the very cinematic trailer and ridiculous promises.

      But I digress, we’ll have to wait and see if the author can improve in time and make the game worth whatever he’s selling it for.

      Reply
      1. Kosan

        Lol, the first trailer was taken down becaue it had a ton of segments from this video:
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC2PFQVe-8U

        Reply
  4. Monkeymo
    Play It Later

    “Another Prospekt?”

    I went into this with a neutral feeling, though some people don’t feel that way, and tried to look at things in a positive way. I am still a little skeptical about the ambitions of Berkan and if he’s going way over his head. Anyway, let’s get into the review.

    Gameplay

    In my opinion, demo gameplay is average. The antlion guard battle is a unique battle that doesn’t rely on you throwing barrels or shooting at him a lot. The Rebels were basically Combine reskins so not much to say there.

    The new weapons were nice… except for the machete. This weapons swings slower and is less effective at whacking zombies and smashing crates. The MP5 works fine, but I don’t know about the grenade mechanism. It take ~1.5 seconds just to throw a grenade from the SMG. Why they didn’t just using the grenade launcher mechanic I don’t know; it’s not like the Valve SMG had an attached launcher, so it can’t be aesthetics. Pistol and Shotgun are hardly changed.

    6/10

    Cutscenes and Story

    I liked the cutscenes. The cinematographer is talented and knows what they’re doing. The scenes happen at a rate so that they’re not intrusive, but still plentiful.

    Voice actors are above average, but seem to be overacting at times (the soldier talking about cremators a notable one). Everything else fit the characters and the situations.

    I’m pretty sure the demo is a chapter in the game and, taken out of context, seems disorganized. I’m sure that the chapter will make sense once it’s out.

    8/10

    Level Design

    One thing that stood out to me was the overabundance of physics props crowding everywhere. I always seemed to be tripping over barrels or plastic junk. This got especially annoying when I had to back away from approaching zombies. HOWEVER, the props weren’t placed wherever, they were placed in positions that made sense (barrels on carts, cans and bottles in milk crates). This implies that the designer put a lot of work into making the maps and had good attention to detail.

    The map design fits the type of encounter you face and make for good fights.

    6/10

    Conclusion

    From what I’ve seen, this could have been MUCH worse. This is not the worst kickstarter of all time nor is it the worst mod ever. I’ve seen some pretty bad games, and if this is what we’re getting, I’m pretty grateful. I hope that the full release is even better.

    Would I pay for this? Errr…. I’ll have to wait for the full game to come out and see what it’s like. I don’t have to buy it day one.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 45 Minutes
    Reply
  5. Shepard62700FR
    Avoid It!

    Recycled GMod maps, recycled HL2 beta assets, useless cutscenes, slowmo in-map (which is an evil hack), stolen content, difficulty balancing, the recoil on the MP5K is horrible, the creator of this mod seems now to hate RTSL because he can’t take criticism, it’s supposed to have it’s own Source engine license but still look like a mod, horrible voice acting, weird characters, was stuck for 30 minutes at the beginning, lots of missing clip brushes to avoid bugs. If you like everything said earlier, go ahead, play it and waste your time.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    2 Hours
    Reply
  6. crowbar

    how would you guys order these 3 mods from best to worst: Prospekt, The Closure, HDTF

    For me it would be
    1. HDTF Demo
    2. Prospekt
    3. The Closure

    Just wondering cause of the very negative reviews

    Reply
    1. 1upD

      That’s an interesting question.

      For me, I think it would be:

      1. Prospekt
      2. Hunt Down the Freeman Demo
      3. The Closure

      I think that Prospekt has the most visual polish. I didn’t like the way encounters with Combine were set up, there wasn’t enough variety and I had a lot of other gripes but I feel like as a free mod it would have gotten a Play It Later at least if not a Play It Now. I feel like a lot of the frustration regarding Prospekt stems from the way it was publicized and talked up disproportionately to the actual value of the game. The story was extremely minimal but the voice acting was pretty passable, with exceptions.

      I think Hunt Down the Freeman has an interesting premise but everything is just too much. The voices are overacted and overdirected. The cutscenes are too long, too many, and too often. There’s too many enemies when far fewer would suffice. The new character models really clash with the Half-Life 2 aesthetic style.

      I don’t know quite what to say about the Closure. The characterization and aesthetic choices just didn’t fit with the rest of the Half-Life story.

      Reply
    2. Kosan

      1. Prospekt
      2. Hunt down the Freeman Demo
      3. The Closure

      Reply
    3. Monkeymo

      1. Hunt Down The Freeman Demo
      2. Prospekt
      3. The Closure

      I can see good things and bad things in all of these mods.

      Reply
  7. Mythos

    So, if these reviews are unbiased (no offense guys, but how can I be sure?), this ‘game’ might hurt Steam Greenlight in the long run. Sure Valve wants to make money, but no way do they want their original franchise tarnished like this.

    Reply
    1. crowbar

      I dont think it will hurt Steam Greenlight. Steam Greenlight is hell anyway. And not everyone has 50k$ lying around to get the licenses.

      Reply
      1. Steve

        Ahh heck! I’ve followed the instructions but this doesn’t run on the Mac. Greenlight shows an Apple icon there so I guess it should work. Doesn’t though. Bit gutted now 🙁

        Reply
  8. Stanleyro
    Maybe?

    So this is the “thing” that made all the drama. For my first review here, I couldn’t have picked better piece of mod

    I went into this thing very neutral, on one side I understand that HL2 moding community has its own set of silent rules on how to make good mod, that respects HL2 and adds something of its own, but on the other side I can very much appreciate bold ways to create what you really want to. Indiegogo campaign aside, when I saw the trailer, it didn’t seem like the worst idea ever, not even worst presentation. Ofcourse, many things would need to be redone or done better (character models are the main thing) to make it very good, but the base of story as it was presented, was interesting.

    Gameplay

    The promised improved gameplay was known to be impossible from begining, because we all know there is very little to improve from the clasic raw Half-life gameplay. The crowbar is changed to machete in this demo, and as a melee weapon, it could use some tweaks as stated in previous reviews, but I would lie if it wasn’t satisfying to press the heavy attack, only to see the zombie cut in half. It is nice touch to the weapon, and with the delay on the heavy attack as it is now, it could work fine if it was one hit to kill.
    The pistol gameplay is just alright. Feels good, sounds good (to me).
    The SMG is where thigs fell apart for me. the gun becomes very shaky, almost unusuable for me, it should feel stable and quick, we are playing as an experienced soldier after all. Also the throw grenade secondary fire mechanic is just not good at all, once again, as an idea it’s not really the worst ever, but the implementation itself feels very clunky.

    Big new addition are the cutscenes, which to me, compared to the most of source filmmaker stuff that is around on the internet look actually very good, I wouldn’t blame anyone for stealing cinematography of MGS or any other series. Still the problem is for me, as for the most of the community, that they don’t fit in to the Half life genre as a whole.

    Because the demo is cleary placed somewhat in the middle of the story (judging by the rebels talking about siege of Black mesa east) I won’t comment much on characters ability to see memories of dead people. But I can see it as a nice mechanic to create some interesting puzzles already.

    So in the end gameplay/gunplay is 5/10, it doesn’t shine as the best ever, but it atleast tries to bring some news to the table.

    Level design

    I don’t really play Garry’s mod anymore, so I don’t know or recognize any of the maps, as somebodys work (sorry guys), so I will just review it as it is, because from what I understood, author actualy atleast tried and Got permissions to use and modify those maps.
    Levels to me were visualy good, again not best, but far from worst. The demo itself atleast felt as it is being played in one cohesive location, unlike The closure. Prop placement felt also Alright, but at times, maybe a bit overdone with physical objects. Visual help to lead the player through environment was sometimes done well, and sometimes not done at all, even in the same location. For example the rebel body hanging from the window to show you that there is the switch you need to use is very nicely done, and seconds later, you have problems finding that vent to start your journey to that room with switch.
    Fight with Antlion Guard was fun addition to the mix of mainly explorable locations, and the destruction caused by crashed helicopter was also well depicted, but that fell short because it literaly came out of nowhere. Player should’ve been given atleast sound cue that there is a helicopter around, or even that it is falling down, not just explosion out of nowhere.

    Level design itself for a non Garry’s mod player is a solid 7/10. Many details could be fixed if the game was handed to local community to playtest.

    Conclusion

    As stated above, this could’ve been much worse. The fact that it’s not complete dissaster gives me a little hope, that if creator will come to it’s mind, and release it as a free game, instead of trying milking it, it could be actually very nice experience. But for now, it’s just a Maybe with a hope of better future.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Easy
    Playtime:
    1 Hour
    Reply
  9. K0DAK47
    Think Twice

    Already wrote something with my english before reading the reviews on RTSL and noticing this words from Kosan (thx for the deep reviews to all guys):

    Oh look, Prospekt 2.0. A lot of enthusiasm, but no skill.

    (multiple “you” in the text is for the devs, not the readers) Sorry, but there’s tons of modifications who’s better than yours work. By far. And they are free of charge, of course. Why people should pay to mediocrity (to put it mildly) like Prospekt or yours work, if they have things like Mission Improbable or Leon’s mods for free?
    Where do i start?

    — Level design is bad. I mean, really bad. 2005-early mod style cramped drainage rooms (valve’s one from hl2/episodes were a lot better, for sure) mixed with few odd prefab-looking “atmospheric” rooms. This itself leaves me with thoughts your whole team never played nor original /w episodes nor really good mods which can give you nice example to how to build an great sewer locations.

    — Weapon reskins. Yea, i’d like to say they’re good, but this machete… god, why? Why the crowbar wasn’t enough for you? It’s not only looks like complete shit made for Garry’s Mod by some “wannabe” modmaker child from Gamebanana, but also have some strange delay which makes the weapon not useless, but frustrating for use. Although, weapons not the worst thing here.

    — HUD, interface. HUD recoloring is nice, it fits perfectly in the game. However, some people complaining about crosshair not being visible a lot of time, and i have to agree with them.
    — Visuals, lighting. Visuals is definitely obsolete as people would be say (already made the point in the Level Design paragraph), the lighting is best part about whole mapping work, but there’s really big problem with color correction. Some areas looks dark in a bad way, just, you know, flat and bland dark. I’d like to play this with color correction turned off and see the difference.
    — NPC Models. But what is really freakin’ obsolete, even more than boxy levels;
    >>MadHighlander 8 сен в 16:44

    These models legit look almost as bad as the original half-life. Like HL1. (с)< < that's this models. They're generic, terrible, atrocious (over 9000 adjectives you can put here), even worse than machete. Not fit in game at all. I guess you made them in really shitty 3rd party program. -- New features. Yes, there's the slowmo. host_timescale 0.xx. GG for the adding some useless feature, but that's better than nothing. The COD red-screen effect "i'm low on health", on the other hand, was even more pointless and stupid. Hope this is NOT coming in final release. -- Cutscenes. Random as heck. Total waste of using Source Filmmaker. What was the point? -- Gameplay and combat. Yes, the most relevant thing of them all and it not delivered obviously, as seen for the reaction of people who played this and came with negative comments. Gameplay was decent-to-poor, with little puzzles (that one with pipes was very entertaining and i loved it), the levels is the problem and made to devoid you from the exploration enjoyment. There are moments where you can get stuck without any clue what to do next. But the combat... hell yea, here we come to the lowest point of whole work. Fighting zombies in the cramped areas with this stupid machete is heck boring, especially in 2016, especially (!!!) in product that wants your money. As progress came, there's more and more enemies, combat became harder, but the boredom never starts to faint. Other enemies has been no better, fight with antlions is total bleh, this enemies has been made for open space and here's barely a open ones. Antlion guardian situation is even worse, no spoilers to future players to be fair. -- Sounds. Music is kinda loud and out of atmosphere, this is huge problem for almost any of the new mods coming lately. Custom voices, uhhh, many people criticize it to the ground, but i think it was acceptable. -- Storyline, yea, i know this is demo, but it looks like devs take the episode from the very middle and put the player on it without any explanation, strange cutscenes makes things even worse. I usually don't pay attention to the story in mods, but again, this is gonna be paid product. TL;DR: yip, i know this is demo, but the thing certainly fails in most categories games represents. Now i'm wanna see what's the final product is gonna be, but don't expect me to pay for this. Not a single dime. edit: judging by the reviews on the site, the situation is became really shitty, maps are nothing but edited Garry's Mod RP maps made by KawooFish, probably bought from them, there's stolen weapon model(s?), maybe even more stolen content and they're wants our money for that. well, that's something. First of all, “Game Director” Berkan Denizyaran bought a gmod map (maps?) from the GarrysMod mapper KawooFish and hired him for the “game”. Indeed, the maps seen in Hunt down the Freeman are Garry´s Mod Roleplay maps. KawooFish edited them slightly and added enemies. So, damnit. this team wants people paying for the premade GM maps with stolen weapon and leave with it? That's what i call laziness. And people thought Prospekt author was bad person. i'm not gonna support this devs at all.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Hard
    Playtime:
    2 Hours
    Reply
  10. Hec
    Play It Later

    Let me say it’s quite weird to review a “demo” for a mod. I think developers can releases mod-demos only if they’re looking for some feedback and gamers critical perceptions. So if this is the case then here are my thoughts about HDTF Demo.

    As a concept I think its quite ambitious, and also their developers focus a lot, and maybe in excess into that cinematic feature of the mod. You know is quite strange to launch the cut scenes inside the game play by clicking to some little lights in some parts of the map.

    Then the combat was OK, but at first it was absolutely unbalanced. I mean you are totally unarmed and you find the machete after struggle against many hordes of zombies! I managed that by “impulse 101” cheat, once I had the fire weapons things were easier.

    I hope that weird machete as the main melee weapon would be replaced by something more agile. As it was a horrible melee weapon, because is hectic to use and very slow.

    The story itself look interesting but I think the whole concept is quite ambitious. So ambitious designers always have to be very realistic about achieving their goals. This mod can be developed in more years, but is better to be released with a proper beta testing program rather than without beta testing.

    Overall is an interesting work to play, and its OK to play it later. I also have to say I couldn’t install this one on gauge at all, be warn about those details and try it if you want to play everything that comes out in the HL2 universe.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    45 Minutes
    Reply

  11. Pingback: Half-Life Fan Game Has Messy Launch On Steam | Kotaku Australia

  12. Strontvlieg
    Maybe?

    Hunt Down The Freeman Demo paved the way for the very controversial main HDTF game back in 2018. It has now lost that function but how does it hold up in regards to gameplay and visuals on its own?

    Gameplay is a very mixed bag. I liked the custom pistol and MP5, while I disliked the secondary fire of the MP5 and the machete. Both the secondary fire and the machete have some sort of delay which makes using them quite unintuitive. The way forward isn’t always clear and I especially got stuck with the battery puzzle roughly halfway in the demo. Ammo and health were distributed well throughout the demo but there were too many enemies in too small spaces in several cases.

    The visuals are a mixed bag as well; indoor areas range from OK to good and I liked the usage of lens flares, while the outdoor areas sometimes look atrocious.

    I have no objections to cutscenes in Half-Life mods and they were implemented well in the demo, but the voice acting wasn’t always convincing.

    The music was a mix between stock HL2-music and some custom tracks, which blended quite well in my opinion.

    All in all this demo has some good sides but also a lot of rough edges, but I wouldn’t say it was a waste of time. About the main HDTF game: lets just say I am informed enough to stay away from that one!

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 15 Minutes
    Reply
  13. Duke
    Play It Now!

    Well, despite the negative reviews both on here and you tube, I quite enjoyed this. Sure, the ‘machette’ (though I think it’s more a sword really) is slow and unwieldy, but then it would be, it’s heavy. Perhaps less of that in the beginning and earlier access to guns would have been better, but hey ho.
    I liked the way this mod looked, the cut scenes didn’t seem too much really and there was plenty of action, though I did feel a bit swamped occaisionally. Had to cheat a couple of times, I take no pleasure from repeated deaths and I hate jumping (because I’m useless at it mostly) but none of that spoiled the overall experience for me, I wonder if there will be more. Plenty of videos I could find but not a lot to actually play. Anyway, it’s a thumbs up from me but I realise I’m mostly on my own with that….give it a go if you haven’t already. I’ve started working my way through the list of mods on here (and some that are not) in the light of very little new being released these days, I keep finding the odd gem that perhaps hasn’t garnered the interest I feel it should have, but each to their own I suppose.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    2 Hours, 15 Minutes
    Reply

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