HunterVille

for Half-Life 2: Episode Two

5th April 2015

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Here are all the entries for my HunterVille mapping competition. I would like to thank everybody who entered.

I consider it a HUGE success and as you will see when you play the maps, the quality and ideas were truly amazing. I had real trouble picking a winner and I suppose in many ways, that’s a great position to be in. I feel some pride in thinking that my competition has encouraged the mappers to make and release these maps.

I have decided to present each map in the order of the chapters in the mod, which are more or less in the order I received the entries. I have added screenshots and some panoramic images, prefaced by my individual recommendations. It should be obvious but my individual reviews will contain spoilers, as do the screenshots and panoramics, so if you don’t want to read them before you play, just download the mod first.

Some of the entries didn’t have proper names or README files, something I will address in the next competition, so in some cases I had to create something.

Basic Details
  • Title: HunterVille mapping competition on PlanetPhillip.Com
  • File Name: hl2-ep2-sp-mc-hunterville.7z
  • Size : 106.0MB
  • Author: Evan Edwards, Lord, Bill Johnston, Samuli Jääskeläinen aka Hemuuuli/SJ, SNDexter, Sam Petty, Lauri Mäkinen, Gradius, Samuli Tiikkainen, Osian Bowles, Caleb Bergh AKA Botolf, Miika Siren, Jared Goodroad
  • Date Released: 25 May 2010

Download Options

Download to your HDD [106.0MB]

Installation Instructions

Episoe Two is required to play this mod

  • Copy the HunterVille folder into your SourceMods folder.
  • Restart or start Steam.
  • HunterVille should now be listed in your Library tab.

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

The Judging

Before I move onto the results and the details I want to make some points about how I chose the winner and honourable mentions. There were some fantastic entries and some really blew me away, but when it came to choosing a winner I had to ignore some of the elements not directly related to the theme. Having beautiful architecture, amazing views and other puzzle elements are great but a few entries had those. No entry stood out for those elements, so I had to fall back on the Hunter aspect.

I had to ask myself, which map used the Hunters in the best way? Which map actually had me nervous of a forthcoming encounter, which maps had me thinking about the best way to kill the Hunters and use the environment in the most destructive and creative manner?

I would have liked to awarded more honourable mentions, but my finances don’t allow it. I will seriously have to reconsider how I structure the prize fund in the next competition though because I am sad that I haven’t fully rewarded the thought and effort that has gone into these maps.

I hope the authors enjoyed making the maps and even though they didn’t win, still realize that they have created some of the most interesting maps I have seen in years.

So, let’s see who won…

The Winner

PlanetPhillip.Com HunterVille Mapping Competition Winner
After long deliberations and a few replays I finally chose Combine Den by Lord. The amazing Combine structure, coupled with some wonderful exploring and a final battle with the added strategic element of timed ammo and health replenishment all added up to something that really did make me go WOW at the end.

It’s a fine piece of work from the author of Eye Of The Storm, which is also one of my favourites.

There is a bonus round too but this had no affect on the map being chosen as the winner.

The Honourable Mentions

In some ways this was just as hard as selecting the winner because there are probably 4 or 5 maps that are worthy.

PlanetPhillip.Com HunterVille Mapping Competition Honourable Mention
The first honourable mention is Lobsterby Bill Johnston, and I seriously considered this as a winner because it was so polished and thoughtful. Twice we are presented with running Hunters as foreshadowing which is something I really like. You are forced into the open but you still have plenty of cover and exploring to do. I was excited by the addition of the Mounted AR2 but slightly disappointed not to have the opportunity to use it against the hunters.

As you will see from the panoramic image the main central area is very well constructed and fun to play. In this case it wasn’t that the map lacked anything for it not to win, just that Combine Den had more “oomph”.

PlanetPhillip.Com HunterVille Mapping Competition Honourable Mention
The Second honourable mention, Industrial Distress by Samuli Tiikkainen, is less amazing in its design than some others but the final battle was a joy to behold. As with the first honourable mention, I did consider this as a possible winner but the first confusing and rather difficult part made the choice hard to justify, in addition the two invisible walls, in the last section, stopping me from going outside were another reason it didn’t win, little things like that really make a difference for me.

Upon entering the last section I stopped and went “WOW, this is gonna ROCK!” and it did. The battle itself was the most enjoyable of all the entries, at least for me, because the design of the area was so suited to shooting and moving that I wanted to play it a few times, trying different strategies.

The Nearly Honourable Mentions

There are three other maps that are worthy of special attention and I wanted to talk about why they didn’t win or become honourable mentions.

Venatical by SNDexter is a wonderful piece of work but its format is too arena-like for my liking. At no point did I feel any anticipation about the forthcoming encounter. Each encounter, except the underwater one, which is too slow, was fun, but not enough too wow me. The final battle was incredible and the use of the Super-Gravity gun a stroke of genius but it wasn’t enough to redeem it.

The author clearly has talent and imagination for these kinds of areas, as demonstrated by his entry for my SniperVille mapping competition called Ballistic. Maybe I’ll need to have a competition specially themed around these areas!

The next map is Outlands by Sam Petty and starts outside but works its way into a huge cavern with a fantastic Combine base fixed to the walls. As a concept it is fantastic but the approach, whilst cool, just didn’t feel right. Also the Hunters popping out of the boxes got a little too obvious after the first one. Conceptually, it really works and visually too but I just didn’t enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed exploring it.

Finally, there is Industrious which is another incredible conceptual piece that blew me away with its Combine architecture and layout. Working your way through the place is a joy but the design is a little sparse and the encounter with the Hunters, whilst it almost made me fall out of my seat, wasn’t enough to win a competition where the Hunters are the theme.

The Poll

As with the last mapping competition, I have added a poll for you to select your favourite map. I am curious to see whether you agree with me. The poll allows you to make three choices. Please play ALL the maps before voting. There is no prize for the winner of the readers’ poll – sorry.

Hunter1
Phillip says Play It!

Hunter 1 (ee_hunterville.bsp) by Evan Edwards features an underground start, an open area for the Hunter battle and some Combine action in an industrial building.

I really enjoyed the first part of this map because it has a nice atmosphere, it seems a perfect prelude to some Hunter action and I was very wary that at any minute a Hunter would appear, and in such a confined area that would have been tough. As it was I didn’t encounter them until a little later

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Lobster
Phillip says Play It!

Lobster (Lobster_Hunterville.bsp) by Bill Johnston features a beautiful open area where most of the action takes place. One of the best features of this map is how you see the Hunters running across roofs and other areas. After emerging into the main area you need to enter a few buildings to turn of the power supply to allow yourself an escape route. Needless to say the Combine will do what they can to stop you. A combination of soldiers, manhacks and hunters keep you pretty busy.

As mentioned earlier, the inclusion of a mounted AR2 was enough to get me excited thinking I could mow down a few reckless Hunters, but alas it wasn’t to be.

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
Please Note: Panoramic images only are available in full screen mode. You can either open one by clicking the image link above or by saving it to your computer and then opening it locally.

How to use: Once the image is open and your cursor is on the image, press and hold your left mouse button and move around the image. Use your mouse wheel to scroll in and out of the panoramic image.

Hunter Mountain
Phillip says Maybe

Hunter Mountain (ep2_hunter_mountain.bsp) by Lauri Mäkinen features a basic underground area, leading to a larger area full of Combine Soldier. This then leads to a simple outdoor area with a couple of Hunters.

The hunter encounter isn’t very interesting and it was rather limited in its concept and design.

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
Greenhouse
Phillip says Play It!

Greenhouse (Greenhousehunting007.bsp) by Samuli Jääskeläinen aka Hemuuuli/SJ features, as the name suggests, a greenhouse, which is superbly done and fun to play. The actual playing area is quite small and the author has used the space incredibly well.

It was easy to see where you needed to go and also complicated enough to make exploring worth it. The encounters with the hunters were well done, although I found it a little easy to hide each time. The final battle was hard but not hard enough to become too frustrating.

All in all a great entry and definitely fun to play.

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
Combine Den
Phillip says WOW!

Combine Den (hv_combineden.bsp) by Lord features a large Combine structure which you must explore. Eventually you return to your starting point and work you way into, what is essentially an arena-like area, to fight your final battle.

This final battle is made more interesting due to the timed ammo and health distribution points. These are timed and made clear by green lights. In addition, there are elements that must be destroyed which can also be used as weapons against the hunters.

The whole mod, and the way you fight the hunters in particular, makes this map an incredible experience and I would be very surprised if you don’t love it.

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

Please Note: Panoramic images only are available in full screen mode. You can either open one by clicking the image link above or by saving it to your computer and then opening it locally.

How to use: Once the image is open and your cursor is on the image, press and hold your left mouse button and move around the image. Use your mouse wheel to scroll in and out of the panoramic image.

Venatical
Phillip says Play It!

Venatical (venatical1/2/3/4.bsp) by sndexter features a portal-like process where you must pass each test chamber. Each chamber features a different design and requires a different strategy.

I could move onto the next map without mention the incredible battle at the end of these maps. This final battle features hunters and gives the player the Super Gravity Gun. If you survive long enough then it’s great fun shooting the hunters across the room. I hate to admit it but I had to cheat to be able to finish this map.

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Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Please Note: Panoramic images only are available in full screen mode. You can either open one by clicking the image link above or by saving it to your computer and then opening it locally.

How to use: Once the image is open and your cursor is on the image, press and hold your left mouse button and move around the image. Use your mouse wheel to scroll in and out of the panoramic image.

Outlands
Phillip says Play It!

Outlands (Outlands.bsp) by Sam Petty features a simple start to what turns into a huge underground Combine installation. This is Sam’s first release (WOT!) and he (she?) should be incredibly proud and pleased. The first part caught me by surprise and I thought that might be it but once I got underground I was very pleased to see more, a lot more!

You encounter Hunters along the way to reaching the Combine installation and you need to think carefully how you deal with them.

Once on the structures you need to work your way across various points. Hunters jump out of boxes and this gets a little boring after a while. Personally, one of the best things about Hunters is hearing their cry and the anticipation that comes from the pending attack.

I had trouble with the battery supply when I put one of the uncharged batteries in the place where they drop down and somehow managed to merge two together, this meant I had to go back to a previous save. Not the end of the world and I am sure it would have been addressed with proper beta testing. The final door is not solid, meaning you can walk through without destroying it but again a small issue.

The addition of the battery recharging was a nice touch and the laser was pretty cool.

The trek to the main installation didn’t seem quite right and I think it would have helped if it was in a separate cavern with a final tunnel joining them. This would have felt as if the rebels had constructed the walkways to access the Combine part. Again, minor complaints for a great map.

The actual battles with the Hunters seemed a little too cramped and I managed to avoid one or two by just moving the central “bridge” across and back again.

All in all a fantastic first map and I wholeheartedly recommend you play it.

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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
Please Note: Panoramic images only are available in full screen mode. You can either open one by clicking the image link above or by saving it to your computer and then opening it locally.

How to use: Once the image is open and your cursor is on the image, press and hold your left mouse button and move around the image. Use your mouse wheel to scroll in and out of the panoramic image.

Dave
Phillip says Play It!

Dave (hv_release.bsp) by Gradius features a short underground section rising to all beautiful open area that must be defended. Hunters approach from over the hills and attack in a more or less linear manner. A couple of waves are mixed with Combine soldiers but whilst it looked nice it was too easy and didn’t really get me excited. You are helped by a few rebel comrades which is nice but the combat is not frantic enough.

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
Please Note: Panoramic images only are available in full screen mode. You can either open one by clicking the image link above or by saving it to your computer and then opening it locally.

How to use: Once the image is open and your cursor is on the image, press and hold your left mouse button and move around the image. Use your mouse wheel to scroll in and out of the panoramic image.

Industrial Distress
Phillip says Play It!

Industrial Distress (industrial_distress/2.bsp) by Samuli Tiikkainen features an indoors starting section that I found a bitch to pass. I don’t know if I missed a weapon but I had to play the first ten minutes without one. I had to kill a headcrab in a vent with a desktop computer because that was the easiest thing I could find to kill it.

After that I got stuck in a room with a poison headcrab outside that would let the door open. That said once you pass those frustrations you are in for a treat.

As I said in my honourable mentions this map features the best actual hunter battle of all the maps, at least for me. The warehouse is fantastic and if it were a little bigger and the only part of the map I think I would have made it the winner. There are so many props to use to fight and kill the hunters, various places to run and hide it makes the battle more tactical than most other Hunter battles.

The invisible walls stopping you going outside were frustrating mainly because I wanted a perfect map rather than any particular gameplay aspects but we shouldn’t see them in maps released today.

I really wanted to give this a WOW recommendation but the faults just stop me from doing that.

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
Please Note: Panoramic images only are available in full screen mode. You can either open one by clicking the image link above or by saving it to your computer and then opening it locally.

How to use: Once the image is open and your cursor is on the image, press and hold your left mouse button and move around the image. Use your mouse wheel to scroll in and out of the panoramic image.

Day of the Hunters
Phillip says Play It!

Day of the Hunters (day_of_the_hunters_half.bsp) by Osian Bowles is actually from another new mapper. It is a simple concept executed fairly well. You start in an apartment building and work you way downstairs. Outside you encounter your first Hunter, which by the way, will follow you upstairs if you are not careful! Once outside you find yourself in a square and essentially cornered.

Being the fool you are, you press the Combine button that you know will call the Hunters but you have no choice. You then battle against a few hunters and if you are lucky can use the statue and other aspects of the square to your advantage.

It’s a fun map with few faults, but against some of the other maps it looks limited. I salute the author for controlling their imagination and building a respectable scene that was fun to play.

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Industrious
Phillip says Play It!

Industrious (industrious_01.bsp) by Caleb Bergh AKA Botolf features the grandest concept of all the maps. Starting outdoors, surrounded by rebel allies you foolish agree to enter the Combine base and destroy the cooling system. As you enter the base you begin to see the size of the problem. Working you way down via huge platforms you eventually find the cooling system and a couple of grenades here and there begin the overheating problems.

Of course the Combine won’t sit back and let you get away with it, no sir! Expect stiff resistance on the way up and don’t expect everything to work.

Your encounter with the Hunters will probably scare the pants of you, at least it did me, and if you survive to reach the outside, you’ll probably wish you hadn’t!

A fantastic (I’m running out of adjectives for some of these maps!) piece of work and I commend the author. The reason it didn’t win or get an Honourable mention was because the hunter battle wasn’t that great, at least not compared to other battles in other maps. Perhaps I am at fault for not being clearer about the competition’s objectives.

All in all a wonderful way to spend 30 minutes of gaming time.

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
Sewer
Phillip says Maybe

Sewer (Sewer.bsp) by Miika Siren features the hardest start to a map in the whole mod. To be honest I had to cheat to get past it. I will be impressed by those who don’t. Generally the mod lacked the quality and attention to details that most of the other maps have. I found the route very hard and spent ages looking for it.

When I finally encounter the Hunters killing them prove too easy and not exciting.

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
Toxic Compound
Phillip says Maybe

Toxic Compound (toxic_compound/2.bsp) by Jared Goodroad features a staring apartment building leading to a large car park. It’s a little too dark for my liking but the author added a few scary moments which was cool.

I found the jumping at the start very frustrating and this put me in a bad mood for the rest of the map – sorry. The final battle was an interesting idea but ultimately not very exciting.

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

Videos

The playthrough below is provided by Custom Gamer as part of The Ville Retrospective event. See more of his playthroughs on this site: VP: Custom Gamer

Reader Recommendations
Avoid It!
Think Twice
Maybe
Play It Later
Play It Now!
20 recommendations, average score: 4.45 (out of 5), standard deviation: 0.55 (what's that?)
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Time Taken:
Average: 2 Hours, 47 Mins
Shortest: 1 Hours, 30 Mins by MisterAddy
Longest: 4 Hours by Hec
Total Time Played: 19 Hours, 30 Mins
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79 Comments

  1. PlanetPhillip
    Phillip's Favourite

    As you probably have seen I have added individual reviews and comments for each map. This comment is just to say that I really enjoyed playing the whole mod and want to thank and congratulate all the authors – thank you.

    I am sure you will love some maps and like most. This is a great collections of maps and should be played by all.

    Reply
  2. k00pa

    Some nice maps there! Downloading now…

    In my opinion I got the first areas on my map working well, but I somehow lost interest to the map in the process of development. Thats reason for somehow boring final battle. Time to improve my skills for next map 🙂

    I will give the rating when I have played all of the maps.

    (PS: I spotted couple of typos on my map review.)

    Reply
    1. PlanetPhillip

      (PS: I spotted couple of typos on my map review.)

      Fixed, thanks.

      Reply
    2. Gradius

      Purely on asthetics Combine Den wins hands down. The lush, beautiful city vista. The Valve-quality combine architecture. It’s all fantastic.
      Gameplay wise it was frantic but I did find the infinite (or atleast they far overstayed their welcome) spawning rather annoying. The looping structure also meant it was a little too easy to get lost or to simply not know which direction to proceed in.

      As for my own entry I must apologise for a battle which is rather crap in comparison to the entries here. Far too much time was spent trying to get the enemies to jump down the hill reliably instead of running away (a mix of disadvantage-point hint nodes for the soldiers, and not having the hunters in squads + updating their memory of the player when they loose L.O.S) as well as getting the rebel that throws down supplies to work believably. This all left me a little short on time, hence the very easy and then moderately challenging (to people like me who kind of suck) battle waves.

      Reply
  3. samzala

    Oh dear, the crowbar wasn’t obvious enough I guess. >.<
    Btw my name is misspelled in the Honorable Mention part, it's Samuli Tiikkainen, not Samul Tikkainen. Got it right in the map description part.

    Reply
    1. PlanetPhillip

      Oh dear, the crowbar wasn’t obvious enough I guess.

      It’s quite possible I walked straight past it. Let’s see if other have trouble.

      I corrected the spelling mistake, sorry.

      Reply
      1. Jasper

        Spotted that. I like a challenge.
        Hall bursts into flames. [spoiler]Metrocops shoot you in the back (the chickens). Drop through the floor. In that room is a smaller roon. Crowbar on the table[/spoiler].

        Reply
    2. Grey Acumen

      What’s hilarious is that the first screenshot phillip has for your map shows exactly where the crowbar is 😛

      Reply
  4. PlanetPhillip

    Panoramic image for Lobster added, more to follow later in the week.

    Reply
  5. civanT

    I’ll play them all and choose a winner myself too. Good one Phillip.

    Reply
  6. Gradius

    Hunter1 Super-fragmented Micro-review:
    First off it lags, I imagine there is a leak somewhere because it really does lag considering it hasn’t got as much going on as some of the smoother playing entries.
    Secondly it’s has enemies hidden above and behind, I got shot trying to rechange my health 🙁
    Thirdly you can just run past the hunters (you’ll then have the grav gun and enough orbs + exploding barrels to take them down twice over without loosing a health point).

    In some ways it was enjoyable and definitely not a terrible entry but it really wasn’t in the spirit of the competition, even if you had kept the player in the area during the hunter battle – which you should have – the battle would still have been way too easy and way too brief for it to feel significant.

    Lobster even smaller review:
    Quite good although I ended up with enough supplies that I was able to take down the hunters far too easily. There are also no actual light fittings in the introduction area, just light. >:( For SHAME!

    Reply
  7. eeVee
    Play It Now!

    Hunter 1 – This was kind of fun. For some reason, the Hunters were stuck in the building even after the doors opened? There seemed to me to be too much ammo and batteries.
    Lobster – I thought this was a good/very good map.
    Hunter Mountain – This was good, but I felt like there were too many barrels, and the room that held the gravity gun didn’t really make sense where it was. Once I got to the Hunters, they were pretty easy to take out; though I’m sure I could replay to try it several different ways.
    Greenhouse Hunting – This was very good. I died the first time, then I decided to use god mode–which I turned off almost right away. I’m glad I did because I managed to make it through… I kept finding shotgun ammo and looking for the shotgun. Dur–you start with it.
    Combine Den – This was my favorite entry. I even played the bonus round for a short time. (Geez, I didn’t know Hunters could jump so well–guess I’m forgetting White Forest Inn.)
    Venatical – I thought there were some very good sections in this map. The underwater section was interesting, too, even though I didn’t get to play it as I wanted because of all the water! 😉 The last battle was especially interesting since I didn’t pick up the super gravity gun right away. When I knew what it was, I reloaded and easily survived.
    Outlands – I thought this was good. There may have been a glitch for the first Hunter in the Combine area–it didn’t move around. Maybe it was the way I played, and the fact I play on Easy.
    Dave – I thought this was pretty good. The allies made it easy–maybe too easy.
    Industrial Distress – I didn’t like the beginning that much, but found my way. (I found the crowbar right off.) The last part was very good, except for the invisible walls.
    Day of the Hunters – This was good, and fun. I never knew Hunters took stairs! I was pretty sure it would follow me into the building, but not up the stairs! Good job.
    Industrious – This was pretty good. I hated the squad–they were incredibly stupid. Maybe they were mostly there for the end? I hate “must take damage” falls, though maybe there was a different path down at that point? There weren’t really enough Hunters to fight.
    Sewer – To get through the first part, I finally turned on god mode. Then I had trouble finding the way forward in the room with the train cars. The only Hunters in the map were way too easy to kill. (I replayed it to try to get past the beginning without cheats. It’s possible, but I had to save and reload at least 10 times.)
    Toxic Compound – I hated the initial platforming. I tried it, then I noclipped. I hated the flashlight disable, but I’m sure that was your intent. 🙂 The one room didn’t seem fair, since I only had a pistol at that point, then I figured I was just supposed to run, which I’m fairly good at.

    Reply
  8. Jike

    I would agree to the selection you made Phillip, however I must say I found most of the other maps not quite as good as you did.

    A lot of them lacked to tell the player: What is going on, where must I go.

    If Dave had rather been a “real” single-player map instead of an arena-type map, it would’ve gotten abig bonus from me. The Greenhouse map was a bit confusing. The Industrious map was sometimes too over-lit, sometimes too dark.
    Hunter1 was a bit buggy (you could enter the combine police room at the beginning simply by throwing something through the glass. However, it was not as buggy as Outlands. It was a good map considering it was the mappers first released map. But it had so many bugs and minor dumb stuff, that I had to reload far too often.
    Hunter Mountain was seriously crap. Somebody found the source sdk and I know how much fun it is to make maps – but was the author maybe blinded too much by the love to his own work??
    Industrious Distress was well mapped, except the fact that it was two maps. One would’ve been okay, as the second one featured almost the same part again (seen through the window) and one could go back to see missing brush sides. I can’t imagine the entity limit made the author make a second level… But Venatical had four. Also here, all of the maps could’ve been put together into one. No way, there were too many entities. No way, it was t complex. But it reminded me of Aperture Science
    – which reminded me of Portal
    – which reminded me of cake
    – which was okay for me!!

    Now to Combine Den. The mapping was good. Very combine-ish. It had a nice feeling and also had some nice level design elements (such as the big loop back up). But some things were disturbing: With other things, there were too many enemies (thank god the german version fades away the corpses on this one) and during combat it was very hard to get ready for the next Hunter Attack (reloading weapons, healing, …) and also watching the green lamps go up. I really liked the fact I could evade the rollermines to make them fall down the building. HA!

    I didn’t play the last two maps yet. I’ve been playing now for over 4 hours on all the maps up until now and am tired. However, I think I won’t play them as Phillip gave them maybe, but for the most of all reasons the screenshots look ugly. Brushwork needs improvement.

    I know how important gameplay is… But for me ALSO the visual aspect is important. If that fails, the gameplay must be very good. That’s the way it is, sorry, it’s just part of all…

    Reply
    1. Jike

      I am really sad, I wasn’t able to send in my entry 🙁

      I ran out of time. First school kept me busy. Then I wasn’t motivated enough. After I played through HL2 and the episodes once more I felt like mapping again. And once I was up and running again the damn sdk update came…

      I will finish my map and it will be in Combine Destiny 2 as a Bonus Map… Maybe I’ll release it earlier, but probably not…

      Reply
  9. Door

    Thanks again for hosting a fantastic mapping competition, it was great fun to enter this time. 🙂

    Reply
  10. Botolf

    Congratulations to the winners and everyone who entered!

    Industrious — This was pretty good. I hated the squad—they were incredibly stupid. Maybe they were mostly there for the end? I hate “must take damage” falls, though maybe there was a different path down at that point? There weren’t really enough Hunters to fight.

    The pathing was a bit of a mess in the outdoor portions, unsure if the water caused some problems. The intention was for the player to fall into the water, absorbing fall damage thus. Perhaps it wasn’t quite visible enough. And yup, Hunter numbers was something I struggled with a bit, didn’t know for sure how much was too much or too little.

    Haven’t played all the entries yet, but I’ll stick in some self-criticism for my “Industrious” entry here. All in all, I probably bit off more than I could chew with it. It was indeed sparse, in dire need of more clutter and more activity in places. The final battle needed some major retooling/reworking, it wasn’t all it could have been. I would have liked to show the facility coming a bit more undone. Hunters leaping forth from shattered transport tubules and engaging the player in a claustrophobic mess of twisted steel and wreckage was something I wanted to do but never really got time for.

    The good news is that I’m definitely going to be revisiting this location in my longish Half-Life 2 project. It’s something that could easily fill 2-3 maps or more, and I very much want to flesh out the concept and do it justice. A lot of the ideas and concepts of “Industrious” will probably return in much grander and more refined form down the road.

    Reply
    1. eeVee

      I liked some of what you did–the atmosphere was neat; maybe a little empty but I didn’t notice until you mentioned it. I’ll be happy to play anything you do in the future! The fall damage I was talking about was inside, some time after disabling the coolant system. Maybe I didn’t look around enough for an alternate path, but it’s in the area where the two Elites are.

      Reply
      1. Botolf

        Apologies, my two thoughts kind of ran into each other. There were two vats of water in that room that you were supposed to drop down into, although it’s very possible to miss a vat entirely and land on the edge or on the floor itself.

        Reply
        1. eeVee

          I am a dork. 🙂

          Reply
  11. jgoodroad

    how did people miss the crowbar!? I triggered the lights when the player picks it up…

    I think Phillip’s review of my map was spot on.

    Reply
  12. Anon_221672

    the poll has twelve options and I think there are thirteen maps. one missing?

    Reply
    1. jgoodroad

      yeah, where is venatical?

      I just finished playing the mod, personally I think venatical could be better mapped, but the story and gameplay were good,

      hunter1 only had…two-three hunters…I am dissapoint.

      somehow a lighting error I had on my map was fixed… 😀

      Reply
    2. PlanetPhillip

      Fixed, sorry about that.

      Reply
  13. PlanetPhillip

    I have added a panoramic image for Combine Den.

    Reply
  14. Gradius

    Woo, hugs for the two guys who voted for my entry (although it was probably based on it having a bizzare name more than anything :P).
    If anyone wants to see how my entry was put together I’ve upload all of the VMFs (like 20 odd itterations, the most recent is called “release_fixed” or something to that tune): http://www.planetphillip.com/files/hl2-ep2/hl2-ep2-sp-hunterville-dave-vmfs.7z

    Reply

  15. Pingback: Pelikoira » Map release: Hunter mountain

  16. Zekiran
    Play It Now!

    I enjoyed most of these, though some weren’t as good as others for one reason or another. Also, I had a huge sinus headache all day yesterday so I should probably play the mods over again today since I’m not feeling poor 🙂

    Hunter1 was very, very buggy. I didn’t engage the hunters *at all* during the game, I even went right up to them but they didn’t leave their room. It seemed like parts of the map were invisible, or props were not seen, because it was just… off.

    Lobster was my favorite, I will say that. It was hard, but not so hard that it made me want to quit, and beautifully mapped. I too wish that I could have used the stationary gun on some Hunters or combine 🙂

    I didn’t care for Hunter Mountain. It too seemed very buggy, there were times when things simply exploded for no apparent reason?

    Greenhouse… I’m of two minds on this one. on the one hand the hunter fights were intense and very scary. On the other, I had a very difficult time finding my way into the actual greenhouse, it was so dark I could hardly tell where to go, and then had issues finding my way into the second area because it didn’t look as though I could climb over any debris. Otherwise, it was extremely pretty, I love the map itself.

    Combine Den, I liked but it was confusing. I’m not a big fan of ‘lather rinse repeat” circles, so I was having a hard time understanding what I was supposed to do most of the time. I do like having goals, and I did figure out the green light sequences. I turned on godmode and played with the Hunters till the end, that was a blast. And I am *extremely* pleased to learn that it’ll be used in an upcoming sequel to a mod I loved.

    Venatical, I actually liked this one. It was to the point, fairly straightforward. Good twist, with just enough foreshadowing to know what “freedom” really means 😀

    Outlands was hard at the start because of the close quarters. It took me many, many tries to get the Hunters down just at the beginning but after that the scenery opened up a bit. However, I’m pretty sure that it was bugged at one point, since I could simply walk right through the large doors and on the other side saw some rubble of the doors – which I assume would have been blown up at some point. The first section I think was best.

    I liked Dave, again it was short and to the point. Bonus for adding Magnussen. 🙂 I think I may have missed a part, since I didn’t explore the beginning area very well, and immediately exited to find the door behind me locked.

    Industrial Distress, definitely the warehouse fight was fun. I loved throwing things at the Hunters. However, getting to that point was kind of confusing and not very apparent.

    I enjoyed Day of the Hunters, it was short and once more to the point. Good close-quarters but outdoors, lots and lots of dodging 🙂

    Industrious was probably my 2nd favorite of these maps. It had a great plot and idea – though none of my squad actually followed me anywhere. There were obviously some pathing issues with the poor guys. But that’s okay, as I prefer to endanger only myself when I’m playing 😀 They waited outside for me. I think the only thing lacking in this map however, was *more* Hunter fighting. Having bypassed the stacked crates of em on the way in, I knew I’d be fighting those on the way out, but there weren’t really very many otherwise. However, the mapping was gorgeous, and had good ideas, well executed.

    Sewer was a bit disappointing, in that it didn’t seem to have much in the way of Hunter action either, and too many snipers, combine, and zombies for a hunter competition map. I cheated most of the way through this one too. The maps themselves weren’t very well made, plenty of seams and errors, and the exit from the warehouse/train yard area was extremely difficult to find (it looked like a non-crowbar-able grate to me).

    I had plenty of fun with Toxic Compound, though I passed by the gravity gun numerous times before I realized it was even there. I was never sure what I was doing with the grenades there either. But it was a fun looking map, nice bait and switch ending. 🙂

    All in all, plenty of great maps. Difficult, enjoyable, none of them were so buggy or difficult that I skipped them.

    Reply
    1. Zekiran

      Pinging this because I did review it. Didn’t add a rating though, not sure why. At least a PIN, probably not a PF though. Should play it again.

      Reply
      1. PlanetPhillip

        I’ve added one for you.

        Reply
        1. Zekiran

          Thanks Phillip! I noticed that 😀 It still says on the main page “not reviewed yet”, even though obviously I had commented – without the tag I guess it doesn’t believe us.

          Reply
          1. PlanetPhillip

            And now?

            Reply
  17. Grey Acumen
    Play It Later

    I haven’t even looked at Phillip’s reviews yet. These are purely my own impressions:

    The biggest issue I have with nearly all of these maps is that people are using the Hunters either defensively or simply sending them after you in waves after waves. Hunters are HUNTERS, they should be actively coming after you, but not just charging in blindly, rather waiting for an opportune time to strike, by ambush if possible. I don’t feel this aspect of the hunter was emphasized nearly enough.

    Individual reviews(not including names for every mod, just numerical order)

    1.) Weapon progression was fairly good. Not bad design map design. Very difficult battles when I didn’t play smart, but easy once I did (usually through explosive barrels though) Ending felt like a major letdown though. you were going down an elevator into a room, why not end after you see something IN the room?

    2.) Strange name. I enjoyed being able to use the stationary guns. The pacing for the final skirmish was good. The strider startled me a little, but the fact that you didn’t have to fight it was a nice touch. Again the ending felt a little weak.

    3.) Level design was incredibly basic on a visual basis, straight even slope even though it was a tunnel going underground, the two above ground areas were tall boxes with walls on each side. The last tunnel you had to go through to end the game had no reason to prompt you to go down it except there was no where else to go and it was deep enough you couldn’t tell right away that it didn’t go anywhere.

    4.) This could have been a favorite of mine, but too many flaws, both large and small, bogged down my enjoyment: After I actually beat the hunter, there was no new opening to go to in order to continue through the map, but there was obviously much more to the map than what I had been able to access. The other issue was that it was possible to use the SMG grenades to blow up the flammable canisters without getting hurt and not have it break the wall. The wall only broke when you set off the sparks to ignite the gas, which didn’t actually create an explosion without the flammable canisters, so it looked weird when that was what opened the wall there.

    5.) This was an incredibly well detailed map, though much of this was obviously from being part of a larger mod that will be released in the future. For some reason this map has stood out to me as having an excessive number of hunters. I enjoyed the rollermines, and how they could be dealt with using a bull fighter’s technique. The ending credits scene to this was hilarious despite how corny it was.

    6.) Completely ridiculous, but still fun. I ended up practically not using anything but the gravity gun, since it’s the most effective weapon against Hunters, then for the regular soldiers I used SMG grenades once I found the infinite supply of them. Super gravity gun at the end was so retarded, but epic at the same time. The infinite sprint and oxygen felt like it made things a little too easy though.

    7.) This was very awesome, with variety of different types of gameplay despite only using hunters as the enemy. I liked figuring out how to get the laser working, my only problem was that you could actually go through the final door before actually firing the laser at it.

    8.) There was nothing to this map that I could tell of. At first I thought it was endless spawn, but then steam started leaking so I had to turn a valve, then another part of the skirmish started up and after I finished it nothing else happened. So I’m left sitting with no ending and no path that I can go to get anywhere.

    9.) The only part I didn’t like about this was the hunter battle, which consisted of a room that had 2 visible exits out of, but absolutely BLATANT invisible walls blocking you from getting to. Not even so much as the slightest attempt to put debris in the way to indicate where the wall was, you just stopped moving forward.

    10.) Perhaps the most minimal, yet most effective scenario I’ve seen. This was well introduced, as instead of feeling like I was specifically set up for the fight, I felt like it was sprung on me. I felt like I was actually prey here.

    11.) For some reason, despite having a much rougher design than some of the almost professionally polished maps entered in this contest, I think I actually enjoyed this mod more. The only problem I had with it was that the team you had following you was useless. It took forever, but I was able to get them to follow me into the factory but then I couldn’t bring them back out, so I’m guessing they weren’t actually supposed to follow me.

    12.) In some ways, I actually liked this map the most just because it didn’t make everything revolve around putting 5000 hunters in a map. Unfortunately when the hunters did finally show up, they took all of 2 seconds to fire both pulse rifle spheres at them, killing them before they even had a chance to move. Kind of a let down after the infuriating sniper section in which I had no idea where I was supposed to go and didn’t have the time to find out with snipers constantly shooting at me, resulting in the only(though numerous) deaths I experienced through the entire map.

    13.) This mod had the best “mood” hands down. The only thing that really bothered me was that Hunters went down in a single Shotgun blast. It could have easily went with a single regularly powered Hunter in each encounter and left them at full strength.

    Top 5:

    5.) Combine Den – Best overall map quality
    6.) Venatrical – Best mindless fun
    7.) Outlands – Best platforming and puzzles
    10.) Day of the Hunters – Most efficient hunter use
    13.) Toxic Compound – Best mood

    Personal Top Favorite – Day of the Hunters.
    While I feel that the overall map quality of other maps was far superior, I felt that Day of the Hunters really used Hunters the way they were meant to be used; hunting down people in locations too small for striders to get into. The one hunter that was in the small enclosure was nice, but then the hunter in the hallway really emphasized this. Then the small pack of 3 or 4 that showed up at the end felt just right, to wrap up the end of the level.(Though I wouldn’t have minded just two, and then less ammo to deal with them both)

    Closing thoughts: Why did it feel like everyone was going for quantity over quality? Looking back almost all the maps either had anywhere from half a dozen to 2 dozen hunters, or only used maybe 2 that seemed like they were included as an afterthought.
    I really would have liked to see a scenario where you were trapped inside a large house, armed with only a gravity gun, but had no metal objects to use. Only breakable objects, forcing you to go from room to room to find more objects to throw at them while they chased and tried to corner you in each room. When it seemed like they were going to corner you, the floor could cave in, or the room would have a ladder you could climb into the attic where you could get into the ventilation, etc. Rather than overwhelming the player with superior numbers, overwhelm the player with (comparatively) superior firepower. Even just 2 hunters would have felt incredibly powerful in this situation.

    Reply
    1. jgoodroad

      I tip my hat to you! most people tend to use the alt-fire (double barrel) on the shotty, so I did some console coding and made alt-click USELESS! MWAHAHA! but you have found the loop hole, single blasts did up to 10 times more damage (since they had more pellets)…
      the downside was that many players told me “it was too difficult fighting 4 hunters in an enclosed spot with no ammo” because they were too afraid to use the standard fire. well I thank you for saying I had the best “mood” as most said it was “too dark” and complained about how their flashlight stopped working…ha.

      cheers!

      Reply
  18. PlanetPhillip

    I have added panoramic images for Dave, Outlands, Industrial Distress and Venatical

    Reply
  19. Berrie

    Combine Den is unquestionably the winner.
    Beautiful map, lot’s to do and all the stuff going on outside (at the start and later) just creates a great atmosphere.

    My second would be Dave. A great concept having the entire map centered on defending that point.
    The waves of enemies increased well in difficulty. The level design is quite nice. And the ending can be considered a bit of a reward for finishing.
    It would have been nice to perhaps do a bit more in building the defence. Place turrets or mines and obstacles.

    Third would be Lobster for me. I really like the lay-out and the final battle is insane but so fun.

    Reply
  20. Jasper
    Personal Favourite

    They are all a ‘must play’. Varying from PILs to PFs
    Not a Maybe or worse among them.
    But my winner is the outstanding ‘Outlands’.

    Reply
  21. Jasper

    Top plaudits to all the Authors for all 13 top notch games and to Phillip for inspiring and organising this competition.

    The quality of all the entries is superb but we have to sort them somehow
    My judgement is based on Gameplay and Combat in particular. My order of best to not so best:

    Equal 1st. Outlands, Lobster
    Equal 3rd. Industrious, Hunter 1, Combine Den, Venatical, Industrial Distress, Day of the Hunters.
    Equal 9th. Hunter Mountain, Greenhouse Hunting, Dave, Sewer, Toxic Compound.

    This combat player’s opinion on each in order of play.

    Hunter 1
    Very good. A bit short.
    I did find one small bug by playing not as intended by the author, I suspect. The garage door opened but the enemy could not attack because the door turned into an invisible wall. The personel door was OK though.
    On second play I proceeded as I think the Author intended and all was well.
    A reasonable amount of Combat but could have been better with 2 or 3 Hunters on the ground floor of the final fire fight.

    Lobster
    Astonishingly good.     Lovely mapping, Excellently planned out and marvellous Combat.
    What scenes! Gorgeous.

    Thoroughly enjoyed taking down the first 2 Hunters with the mounted machine gun.
    Tactical thinking definitely pays off with this entry.
    In Hard I finished 59/0 and low on ammo’. Great.
    Now where did that Strider go?

    Hunter Mountain
    A good map if not pretty. In Hard I needed to take on the Hunters from the hole in the ground which was a bit tedious.
    I enjoyed the map most before the Hunters. The Hunter section felt as though it was an “Add-on’
    Took out the last Hunter with standard combat procedure.

    Greenhouse Hunting.
    No problem with the mapping which was rather good.
    I could not get through the roof of the first greenhouse. Try as I might with stacking crates to get through the roof.
    I had to noclip to the second greenhouse. Hate having to do that.
    After that, great fun. The last 3 Hunters near scared me to death but I made them pay for that.

    Combine Den.
    Brilliant map, brilliant game play, magnificent combat.
    The Combine Architecture was OK but nothing much new. In fact, I saw HL2 and EP1 assets recycled.
    It was the gameplay that was different and exciting.
    I thought the Roller Mines were overdone. On replay in hard I gave myself the GGun and the gameplay improved enormously.

    That last battle! Streuth! Marvellous. Go back for more?! Crikey I only had about 15% life. I took the lift while still ahead and living (just about). I played it again and played the bonus which was more of the same – but fun.

    Venatical
    The 5 test arenas: 1 & 2 were good and a gentle build up to arena 3 which was very good.
    Arena 4. Inspired but tedious and irritating to play.
    Arena 5. Nicely done and set up so well that it was easy to play.

    I was thinking of a MAYBE but after Arena 5, it was magnificent. Great gameplay followed by a mini-boss fight like no other – ever.
    How many Hunters were there? I lost count.
    First play – lost. Second play – WON! But only because I realised that I had the Super G and the best place to be was by the
    life and power machines. For the last 3 Hunters(I think) the Super G reverted to a standard GG. No matter, I had lots of ordnance. The Hunters were but cannon fodder!
    After arena 5 was superlative. What a punch-up.

    Outlands.
    Magnificent.
    Great mapping, great design, great planning, great pacing with extreme combat.

    First part. Cunning combat skills required. There’s not a lot of cover or ammo.

    Middle part. Quieter, thank goodness, I needed the relief! And still had to fight for my life.

    Last part. When I saw it, I was stunned. Absolutely astonished. I just stayed where I was looking at it and then zooming about rooted to the spot. This was a genuinely fresh interpretation of Combine Architecture. Then the fighting started. Oh boy!

    (Warning to fellow players: If you did not have combat with Hunters on the very last platform, you have exited without finishing)

    It’s this simple: Stupendous.

    Dave
    Straight forward but hard EP2 arena combat coming in waves. Got a blast.
    On second play in Hard something did not trip. No blast.
    Nice map and a must play but nothing to make outstanding.

    Industrial Distress.
    As an exercise in mapping and Combat Gameplay. Terrific.
    As an exercise in disappointing the player. Top marks!
    I got the Jalopy and, and .. Bummerooni
    Great combat though

    Day of the Hunters
    Nicely mapped with great pacing of Combat.
    Straight forward EP2 gaming.
    Loved the dead Metrocop. I blew his head clean off! Bother!
    A must play.

    Industrious
    Very!
    A commando style attack on a Hunter manufacturing installation.
    Excellently thought out and mapped with loads of lateral thinking.
    The Combat was relatively straight forward but hugely enjoyable.
    Then you get the multiple Hunter battle on the way out, Crikey.
    Nice, very nice.

    Sewer
    This is a good map but with some game play issues.
    2 Snipers with nothing with which to take them out so it’s just a gauntlet run from pillar to post that cost me 20% life.
    Then things improved up to and including the carriage depot.
    Then the way forward was almost completely obscure and finding it was tedious in the extreme. It took me ages and so detracted from the game play.
    The Zombies were easy to get around, just get to and climb the ladder without so much as a swish with the crowbar needed.
    The last skirmish put the Hunters at a huge disadvantage.
    2nd play, even in Hard, I found this too easy to play.
    Nevertheless I did enjoy it and am glad to have played it.

    Toxic Compound.
    Part 1: The jump puzzle was just irritating and detracted from otherwise enjoyable standard EP2 combat.
    But you took my flashlight away! If this was intentional, why? The only thing it added to the gameplay was more irritation heaped on the irritation of the jump puzzle.
    What a pity.
    Part 2: Now your talking. Loved it. It was hard in Easy.
    In Hard, actually I have yet to beat it – but I will! I am determined upon it.
    The end was a bit weird.

    Reply
  22. Clunkfish
    Personal Favourite

    I thought all the entries were very good, and enjoyed playing them all. My own personal favourite was Greenhouse Hunting because of its wonderful ambiance – it was a perfect rendering of a hot summer’s day…then the hunters came after me. Superb!

    Reply
  23. Salling

    Why can’t I choose between the games, only the first is avalible. 🙁

    Reply
    1. PlanetPhillip

      Sounds like you are using the beta release. Where did you get it?

      Anyway, open HuntervVille/cfg/config.cfg in Notepad and on line 187 change it to:
      sv_unlockedchapters “14”

      Reply
      1. Salling

        That did the trick, had to write protect the cfg, or it would change back, but thank’s a lot Phillip. 😀

        Got it from this site, the planetphillip.com link. 🙂

        Reply
        1. PlanetPhillip

          You are most welcome.

          Reply
  24. dougjp
    Play It Later

    I wasn’t going to post as my views were so far off from the ratings. Perhaps the buildup had me expecting too much.

    Then I thought, why not, because I rated them in a different way. Which is, gameplay design and enjoyability, not on the use of Hunters.

    To explain further, if gameplay design was abandoned, either by making it too simple or easy, or making it too difficult resulting in dying repeatedly almost without resolution, or without the ability to use strategy/thinking, that hurt the ratings. If the map wasn’t intuitive, ie; after many tries it became what seemed to be impossible or very unclear, then the ratings really took a hit.

    My “Maybe” overall image is not the usual use of the images, its like a rating of the mod, and was because of the average of my scores.

    Out of 10:

    Hunter1 8/10
    Lobster 6/10 (it looked like a winner until the ending sequence)
    Hunter Mountain 7/10
    Greenhouse 7/10
    Combine Den 1/10 (start sequence not intuitive at all, annoying, eventually quit after dying 20 or so times and getting nowhere).
    Venatical 6/10
    Outland 7/10
    Dave 5/10
    Industrial Distress 5/10
    Day of the Hunters 8/10
    Industrious 10/10
    Sewer 9/10
    Toxic Compound 1/10

    Reply
  25. k00pa
    Personal Favourite

    Summary

    All of the maps are worth of trying. If some map was bad, it was usually because it was way too hard, not because the idea was bad.

    Hunter1

    Great great map. I loved the hunter fight, it was just so awesome! The flying things that “stuns” you were at so good place…

    Maybe too short? Can’t say anything else to improve on this one.

    Lobster

    Damn well balanced fights. I ended with shooting my last ar2 secondary fire to the last hunter. I had like 7 hp when I finished the level.

    Hunter Mountain

    This was my entry to the contest, and I clearly see that there was much stuff to improve. In my opinion I got the first room done well, but after that I somehow lost interest to the map and rest of it become generic room to room fighting. But this was my 4th map I have released so I will continue mapping and try to improve my skills.

    Greenhouse

    Way too hard. I almost didn’t know where I should go after killing the first hunter… Maybe I am just bad at solving puzzles or something… :/ Good map, but for some reason I didn’t really like it because I got stuck so badly 😛

    Combine den

    Great layout. Fun fights and those things that gives ammo are awesome! Great great level. Lights were awesome. And the ending was epic 😛 One of the best custom maps I have ever played 😛

    Venatical

    I Loved this map! The test parts were awesome! And I almost thought that the map ends at the room with gas 😛 However, I got very bad framerate problems on the last map (venatical4), it lagged like hell, so I wasn’t able to finish the map.

    Outlands

    Level is interesting and well done, however, there was maybe too much hunters and the ending bugged because I could walk trough the last door O_o Great level, but I would like to see some other enemies as well. I also had low framerates at some points.

    Dave

    Good map, but it is more like a “arena” map. But a good arena map.

    Industrial Distress

    Great level, the last battle was awesome, but really, invisible walls? D:

    Day of the Hunters

    Nice map, maybe too short. Only problem was that I only had smg and shotgun… There wasn’t any props to throw at the hunters… However, the second hunter on the dark was pretty nice 😛

    Industrious

    At begining of the level, my squad had serious problems when they tried to follow me…. But rest of the level… Awesome! Lights were especially good on this level, lots of bloom 😛

    Sewer

    The first sniper thing was AWESOME idea, but little too hard. I completed the level without cheating. (expect once I nocliped to find out where I should go… There were some technical problems and mostly it was way too hard.

    Toxic Compound

    Awesome map, but seriosly, why it has to be so hard? There was like 4-6 hunters and couple of combines, no way I could get trough that without wasting hours using quick save all the time. Yeah… There was some freaking awesome lights and the idea was great, but way too hard… And I dont want to “jump” to get those small holes.

    Reply
    1. Old Scratch

      However, I got very bad framerate problems on the last map (venatical4), it lagged like hell, so I wasn’t able to finish the map.

      Yeah, me too, absolutely awful even after bailing out and restarting to see if it was just a minor glitch. Seems not.

      Anyone have any ideas how to fix it, “cuz I’d like to finish the map.

      Reply
  26. scraps
    Personal Favourite

    That took me a while to play.
    What a marvellous competion.
    I thought Lobster was by far the best, followed by Dave.
    In most of the others I found the combat a bit overwhelming.
    In the rest, not enough combat.
    But I enjoyed them all.

    Reply
  27. Cyo

    I ran into an odd little glitch while playing Venatical. It seems that after you beat it and then go into another entry (I’ve been playing them in the order they appear) you will always get the super gravity gun rather than the regular one. Not sure why this is so, but it also does something else. When you kill a combine soldier, the weapon disintegrates. Which ruined one map, as I had only a crowbar to face off with the lone hunter.

    I just wanted to alert you guys of this little detail.

    Reply

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  29. s.anchev

    I’ve only played the first map (not too bad, but a little too difficult), and then, COMBINE DEN : it is really a masterpiece, good fights, great ambiances, some puzzles (how to get off the rollermines, lol… roll, ball, roll!), and marvelous Hunter fights… A really good training…!
    And the ending is even really well-done… I’m not suprised because it is the work of the man who did EOTS…
    I will play the other maps later 🙂

    Reply
  30. Phil Bolton

    I have read above that people have had problems getting out of the first Greenhouse —
    Well so am I!
    Please give me a clue – please, I have stacked those crates in so many places but can’t climb through the roof.
    I smashed every piece of glass in the place in the vain hope it would fall down – it didn’t.
    I could “noclip”, but I’ve tried for so long now I HAVE TO FIND THE WAY OUT !!! ARRGGHHHH!!!
    Calm down, OK, only a game, I’ve been ill you know, muttermutter—

    Phil

    Reply
    1. Phil Bolton

      As usual, Phillip has worked his magic, and going back to the game has produced the revelation I needed. I am progressing–

      (Phillip – how do you do that? Are you telepathic?

      Phil

      Reply
  31. Old Scratch

    What’s with the ending of “Lobster”? Went into the room, doors closed, and the lights went dark, and stood there in the dark with sounds all around, unable to see or even light up things with the flashlight.

    Reply
  32. Old Scratch

    Well, crap, I posted looking for help last night, but it seems to not have taken! 🙁

    I’m playing Combine Den, I’ve looped around thru the rooftop and the hunter battle there, and I’m back into the first “room” (garage?), and I’ve finished the big battle there, and now I’m stuck, and I can’t find my way out. What to do?? 🙁

    HELP!

    Thanks in advance.

    Reply
    1. PlanetPhillip

      I *think* you need to go down a few levels, but I can’t remember exactly, since it was so long ago. Try looking for a lift of some kind.

      Reply
      1. Old Scratch

        I did… they all seem to be shut down. 🙁

        Reply
      2. Old Scratch

        Okay, I figured it out… nice map, I really liked it.

        Reply
  33. slurm23
    Personal Favourite

    Incredible mod… Some of the best stand-alone levels, that I’ve ever played in Half-Life. And everything is packaged in such a compelling way – a real treat!

    Reply
  34. Old Scratch

    Okay, does ANYONE have any idea how to fix Venatical’s last map?? I’ve email the author, got no reply, and I want to finish it, badly!!

    Reply
    1. Adam

      Yeah, I’m having this problem with Venatical as well. Typing in cl_showfps 1 in the console shows that the game is running at 1 fps just after going through the automatic door into the large room with the super gravity gun, making it unplayable.

      I’ve tried everything, from setting the graphics settings to the absolute minimum in every respect (as well as some console commands to remove even more flashy stuff), to rebooting my computer and exiting out of everything but the game. No dice.

      A real shame, as I was looking forward to the end of that one! 🙁

      Reply

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  37. Hec
    Personal Favourite

    Gosh its a biggest sin I haven’t reviewed thisone!!!

    Why?? well because this is just and farmost: “the best PP.com mapping competition ever!!!!”, I mean it, really this is great and I think still has no comparisson to the other PP comps. yet, in a huge number of entries, but especialy in the amounts of combat and action we have in most of the maps in this jewel.

    This is absolutely a classic you must play, this was only an exclusive cool competition that was greatly well recived and that u won’t find in any other place that is NOT pp.com, so if u are a newebie in this site absolutely must play this one.

    I can’t go further remembering particularities of each and every entry, but I loved this next ones: Greenhouse, is just great and probably the most realistic and scare feeling I had fighting against hunters ever. Combineden is great and a truly worthy winner with no doubts, Lobster was just delightful and very into the city17 architecture that I love, Outlands also was very impressive, and the others are just also worthy to be played!!!.

    So come on an Play it this is a truly classic in modding mapping HL2 history and is an exclussive of pp.com you just can’t let go escape!

    Also is a great piece of work that deserve you take your time in every single entrie you play, that’s why I spend like 4 hrs in gameplay, but hell yeah it was absolutely worthy!!!

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    4 Hours
    Reply
  38. MisterAddy
    Play It Now!

    Another competition I’ve only just got round to trying out. There is such a fantastic selection of maps in this one, with plenty of fun gameplay to try out. I’m not sure which was my favourite, but they are all at least worth looking at.
    Play it now!

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

    Just going through these old PP Competitions. This pack is pretty solid, there are some real gems in here.

    My particular favorites are Combine Den (great Combine feel and awesome arena finale) and the arena-style entries Lobster and Dave. The last two were quite different in approach but had some similarities.

    The other maps are a mixed bag, some very solid ones in there but also there are some that aren’t that polished at all. I suspect some of them were balanced for the easy skill if they were balanced at all, since hunters are one of the toughest enemies in the game and to put several of them in close quarters with limited ammo is just silly.

    Overall, worth a play. I had to crank it down to easy for most of these maps, hunters are damn tough foes even on medium.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Easy
    Playtime:
    3 Hours
    Reply
  40. Robolovsky

    Nobody seems to have mentioned that in Greenhouse Hunting it is possible to climb out of the upstairs window (past the exploded shell) and across the roof of the building. You can then drop down into the area at the back of the shed with the trucks and this triggers the end of the game without ever seeing the last three hunters.

    Reply
    1. PlanetPhillip

      I think I found that on a subsequent playthrough. Well spotetd though. Maybe you should consider applying to be a beta tester with the BetaTestersCollective?

      Reply
  41. DaZ
    Maybe?

    I played this pack today as part of The Ville Retrospective for RTSL.com, if you missed the live stream the VOD is available on the RunThinkShootLive YouTube channel

    Hunter1

    Visually a bit bland but had some fun combat scenarios. The final arena is a little buggy unfortunately and the Hunters were stuck inside the garage.

    Lobster

    My 2nd favourite of the pack! It’s a nice, almost “dead simple” style of level that has you visiting 4 corners of the level to release the lock on the exit. Well crafted spaces and fun combat for the most part. Nice ending with combine and hunter waves and a nice visual wow moment at the very end as you walk towards the citadel.

    Hunter Mountain

    Very boxy design and an over-abundance of physics props in small areas made this map a little annoying. A shaft hidden under a bunch of physics props took a while to find. The final hunter arena was larger (good) but had too much cover (trees, rocks, etc) which made the hunters no threat whatsoever.

    Greenhouse

    Breaks some interaction rules set up by Half-Life 2 : Episode 1 regarding the use of the power boxes. You should not have to “use” the power box a second time after it is open. This confused me for a quite a while! I got stuck after killing the hunter in the greenhouse. Unsure if that was meant to be the end of the level or if there was more…

    Combine Den

    Fantastic level and my favourite of the pack! Very beautiful to look at and for the most part very enjoyable combat and encounters. The additions to the citadel were very cool (the power beams that fry everything around them if you throw something into them) though I never did work out what the lightning generator things were. They didn’t seem to hurt enemies and I was too afraid to stand near them myself when they were going off. Very puzzling!

    Outlands

    Has a cool James Bond villain underground lair vibe going on with it. I found the introduction of the laser weapon was very good and the design let the player know what they had to do to fire it again. The combat at the end I found annoying however, a combination of too many hunters and not enough space for myself and the hunters move around in. I had some very bizarre physics problems also, at one point I was flung across the level and into the abyss for no real reason 😛

    Dave

    Nice visuals but a pretty bland arena design. The enemies were too far away for the arsenal the player has which made the combat frustrating. There isn’t enough cover around the arena either which makes the player stay near the entrance. The rebels dropping supplies is a nice touch but again forces the player to stay still near the entrance.

    Industrial Distress

    Visually this was ok, although many corridor areas felt cramped and dull. The arena fight at the end had giant invisible walls blocking chunks of the arena off which is not good at all. The hunters got confused trying to navigate around the crashed helicopter in the center which really hurt the enjoyment of the battle.

    Day of the Hunters

    A short and sweet level that is distinctly average in just about every category 🙂 It looks nice, it players nice, it is nice.

    Industrious

    An average looking level with some interesting game play in parts but over all felt a little slow and unrewarding. The backtracking aspect is a cool idea but the level isn’t really changed enough on the way back which made it seem lazy. My entire squad got stuck outside and would not follow me in. yay!

    Sewer

    Probably the worst level of the pack. Ugly brushwork and very frustrating to play. Of special note must be the arena with only one entrance with the entire combine army staring at it ready to roast you alive!

    Toxic Compound

    Reminded me a little of the F.E.A.R series of games in visuals and tone. Mostly nice to look at but left me feeling frustrated and bored. Lots of silly non-nonsensical things happen during your play time and there is an area where you are supposed to fight 5 hunters in a tiny area.

    Venatical

    Fun Portal style test chambers with combat scenarios rather than puzzles. Doesn’t look very nice at all but the scenarios are varied and fun for the most part. Beating all the chambers leads to a nice twist where you can get some sweet revenge 😀

    Conclusion

    Overall, I gave this pack a “maybe?” because there are only really two good levels in it, the rest are unfortunately pretty forgettable! Some of them are down right rage inducing!

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    3 Hours
    Reply
  42. Emnu
    Maybe?

    Hunter 1:
    The detailing was good at first, but was really lazy in the outside bit. I didn’t like the linear level design too much. Maybe?

    Lobster:
    Blocky design. Really fun to play! Play it now

    Hunter Mountain:
    Well that was horrible. I felt like playing a game by Michael Bay with random stuff blowing up. The design is incredibly blocky and ugly and I’m pretty sure the AI doesn’t have nodes as they just stood still trying to shoot me. Think twice!

    Greenhouse hunting:
    The greenhouse setting is quite interesting as the wreckage the hunters cause is so cool! Too bad theres no other enemies than hunters. Also the biggest mistake in this map is that it’s too hard! Seriously 14hp vs 3 hunters with only pistol ammo left. I’ll give it a maybe, because it’s not fun to play because of it’s hardness. I’ll have to give it a maybe.

    Combine Den:
    The visuals are good but I hated the map. It was just waves of waves of waves of enemies with no pacing whatsoever. I didn’t finish it as I ran out of ammo and basically lost. Hunter mountain was better than this :S Avoid it!

    Venatical:
    The visuals were pretty good. The idea was awesome and the gameplay was good. The finale was rather dissappointing, but overall a good map. Play it later.

    Outlands:
    Really weird use of displacements. It wasn’t really fun to play but it wasn’t that bad either. Maybe?

    Dave:
    Really anticlimatic. The visuals are great, but the gameplay is just waves of either hunters, combine or combines and hunters. Play it later.

    Indrustial distress:
    Wow extremely dissappointing. The visuals are great, but the gameplay is wayyy too easy. The “finale” was the easiest part, all I had to do was to pick up a heavy item and kill the hunter amy with ease. Avoid it unless you are for the visuals.

    Day of the hunters:
    This map starts really good setting the right atmosphere. Too bad it falls flat after that. The detailing becomes extremely lazy towards the end. Also there’s not enough ammo for the player so I had to crowbar the last hunter to death. Maybe?

    Industrious:
    This map started good but got really dull towards the end. The visuals are OK and the gameplay is quite fun. Play it later.

    Sewer:
    The only good thing about this map was the part where 2 snipers try to kill you. Other than that the map is meh. Maybe?

    Toxic Compound:
    This one had a little bit of horror in it. Play it later.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Hard
    Playtime:
    2 Hours
    Reply
  43. Unknown

    I checked the HunterVille folder Sound Files and found something amusing. One of the developer’s had copied over some of the sound files from the SniperVille mod as well.

    Reply
    1. PlanetPhillip

      Not one of the developers, but me. Sorry about that.

      Reply
  44. Neon Minerva
    Play It Later

    And thus, I continue my journey through the villes.

    Hunter1
    It is okay

    A short, decent level with some nice ambushes. Unfortunately, the hunter encounter doesn’t work, and in a level that’s supposed to be themed around hunters, that’s definitely not a good thing. The visuals are pretty good though.

    Lobster
    It is great!

    I very much enjoyed this one. The atmosphere is very nice, with the citadel looming above you at all times. You have to go to both sides of the level in order to win, and both are challenging and fun. You can see the hunters running outside the playing field before you fight them, which is really cool. My only complaint is that you never get to fight the strider that you see twice in the level.

    Hunter Mountain
    It is bad

    There are some neat secrets in this map. However, the visuals are blocky and most of the combat is just enemies placed into rooms at random. Also, the covered hole in the floor is a bad idea for something you need to find in order to progress.

    Greenhouse Hunting
    It is okay

    I really wanted to like this because the map is beautiful and atmospheric. However, all you do in this map, apart from solving a confusing puzzle, is fight hunters, and probably run out of ammo and have to use the gravity gun to kill two or three hunters at once.

    Combine Den
    It is great!

    It’s amazing that this was made in time for the contest. The visuals are grand, the gameplay is great and there are a lot of creative and fun elements to it. I like how it loops back to the start for a huge fight. The bonus hunter fights get a bit tedious, but apart from that, this is a great map. It’s too bad Eye of the Storm was never finished, as I’m sure it would just get better and better.

    Venatical
    It is good

    This is a really fun, clever map. The test chambers are interesting and I like the environments build inside them. The fights after the test chambers are simple but fun, and the very last fight with the super gravity gun is very fun even though it’s kinda mindless. I enjoyed this map a lot.

    Outlands
    It is bad

    Well, I like the environments. The gameplay, not so much. The only enemies in this entire map are hunters, just hunters over and over and over. It’s just a tedious romp walking back and forth while killing hunters. Wow, I think I’ll be about twenty times better at killing hunters by the end of this competition.

    Dave
    It is okay

    Pretty nice little map, the visuals are good and the arena is well layed out. However, I’m not a fan of arena maps, so some people will enjoy this a lot more than I did.

    Industrial Distress
    It is bad

    Well it starts off pretty alright. The environment is nice, and the gameplay at the start is decent enough. But at the end, there’s just too many frickin hunters. Hunter after hunter poors into the arena, and it just gets tedious and boring.

    Day of the Hunters
    It is okay

    Apart from one combine, this is another one where all the enemies are hunters. And most of them appear in an arena area. Yeah. I didn’t really enjoy this one.

    Industrious
    It is bad

    Firstly, all the playing fields are way too big. Attempting to shoot combine from far away with the weapons they gave you is not very fun. Secondly, there are a few areas where the enemy has a huge advantage on you. There’s even an area where a conveyer belt pushes you directly into a hunter, and the area to fight it in is very small. Thirdly, could you not have just put the buttons ON the elevators? You have to run to them before they leave without you.

    Sewer
    It is dire!

    Nope. Poorly mapped and square, the part with the snipers is annoying, the combat is poorly designed, and the way you get from the large area with the glass ceiling to the next is absolutely ridiculous.

    Toxic Compound
    It is dire!

    Have you ever wanted to fight four hunters at once in a cramped area? Probably not. This map is frustrating and poorly designed. Even the car isn’t fun to use due to the small area you have to drive it in. At least running over hunters was kinda fun. Also, you shouldn’t do fakeout endings like that, I almost quit when it did that.

    Overall

    BLARGH TOO MANY HUNTERS! I could not see another hunter for a month and be fine with it!
    This is why I’m glad the multiple recommendation system is there. I really think Combine Den and Lobster are worth downloading the pack for, but most of the maps are not nearly as good. Next up, RooftopVille.

    Reply
    1. Neon Minerva

      I feel like I was a little hard on Day of the Hunters, there’s nothing really wrong with it, it just wasn’t for me. If I could I would change that to “It’s Okay”.

      Reply
      1. PlanetPhillip

        I’ve done that for you.

        Reply
  45. Robolovsky

    OK so I just thought it might be fun to play this again and loaded it up in Steam. Strangely only the first 8 maps are available to play with the last 5 maps being faded/greyed out and unclickable. Can anyone explain this weird phenomenon? Previously when I played this a couple of years back all maps were available. I have re-downloaded and reinstalled both manually and through Gauge but the problem is still there.

    Reply
    1. Lucia

      Have you played through all ep2 chapters? Probably only the first 5. The mod runs on EP2, and the chapters can not be overwritten. So either you play through EP2 or type the command “sv_unlockedchapters 7″ without ” in the console.

      Reply
  46. DeanAmythe
    Play It Later
    Hunter1
    It is okay

    This was a meh entry. The hunters are supposed to be the highlight, but they are so easy to defeat because of the alternate fire for the Pulse Rifle. And not only the hunters; the Combine didn’t give much of a challenge either.
    Visually, this entry looked good in some places, and in other places it felt lacking. If this entry had used the hunters better it would’ve probably gotten a higher rating from me.

    Lobster
    It is great!

    Really enjoyable entry. Much shooting and action. Difficulty is just right; it’s quite easy at the beginning but the final battle puts up a challenge, but not too difficult. There’s plenty of ammo to use, which is always a plus for me.
    It’s not lacking visually that’s for sure. The world looks good and some effects like smoke and fire make the world feel alive.
    One thing that’s weird though, is that I heard someone scream “Strider!”, while I actually didn’t even see a strider at all while playing.

    Hunter Mountain
    It is bad

    The visual part of this entry is… quite bad. No displacements were used, so the caves, the grass and everything that’s made by nature itself feels weird because it’s basically a block. I noticed that the top of the map just… cut off. Like someone grabbed a big knife and cut the ceiling off. But, enough about the visuals, on to the gameplay.
    Combat is… okay. It’s quite easy with all the weapons and ammo you get in the beginning. The hunters at the end were also REALLY easy to beat because of all the props like logs and barrels that you can throw at them. Even though there were about four or five hunters, the battle lasted for about 40 seconds.

    Greenhouse Hunting
    It is good

    Want to hear about the visuals? They are good! That’s all I’m going to say about that. There are quite a lot of Hunters in this entry. Not that it is too much though. The Hunters are pretty easy to defeat. There are some props that you can throw at them, and I never thought I would ever say this, but the props are quite overpowered. A few throws at a Hunter and it’s (almost) dead.
    The final battle throws three Hunters at once at you, which was more of a challenge, but since I almost didn’t use any ammo in my fights against the previous Hunters, I could use all of it now.

    Combine Den
    It is WOW!

    From the visuals to the combat, this is all perfection or close near it. I was overwhelmed by the skybox at the beginning. It’s so large and good-looking! The good-looking aspect applies to the whole entry by the way. There is so much detail and thought put in, it’s Valve quality mapping. And near Valve quality gameplay and combat.
    I really liked the mechanic where you grab an item from a dispenser and then you have to wait a few seconds before it appears again. It’s a nice replacement for ammo boxes. This is my favorite entry of this competition, no doubt.

    Venatical
    It is okay

    This entry was done Portal style and it did a good job at that; you first go through some tests, you find a secret hinting you that something is wrong, you escape. The tests were about fighting Hunters in an arena. Every arena had a different challenge: only with a pistol, underwater, etc. The difficulty wasn’t well done, in the sense that it didn’t get more difficult as you progressed, the final challenge was the easiest.
    When you escape, the game basically becomes a beat-em-up, with ammo boxes with SMG grenades to throw at rediculous amount of Combine. You do this for some time. At the end is an arena with an escape elevator. You get the Super Gravity Gun and you wait for the elevator to arrive. Then the creator remembered this competition was named “HunterVille” and decided to make you fight about 20-30 Hunters at once. Yes, you do have the Super GG, and yes the fight is easy but that doesn’t make it less rediculous.

    Outlands
    It is good

    Plenty of Hunters to fight, plenty of ammo to shoot the Hunters with. This was enjoyable, but sometimes I found the design of the places where you fight a bit lacking. Sometimes there isn’t really room to move around, which is something you need when dodging Hunter flechettes.
    There is a “puzzle” later in the map which I found quite confusing because when I pressed a button I didn’t know what it did, causing me to walk around for a while trying to see a solution. After a while I guess I found one. I could just walk through the giant door. No, I don’t mean when it’s open, I mean just… THROUGH it. I probably skipped an entire section, but if the creator doesn’t even make his doors solid I guess I’ll take that opportunity.

    Dave
    It is bad

    It’s such a map where you fight wave after wave. Could’ve been good, but I didn’t really enjoy it. Most of the fighting is long-range, and with only an SMG it’s really tedious. It’s also really basic, there really wasn’t much interesting about this.

    Industrial Distress
    It is good

    Not much to say about this one. It’s like you would expect: do some things and at the end is a final battle against Hunters. It’s enjoyable, but I didn’t see much special about it.

    Day Of The Hunters
    It is bad

    Fighting against a Hunter with an SMG and a crowbar? Seems like a great idea! Fighting against multiple Hunters but this time with a shotgun? Yeah!
    I just summed up this entry. I did not like it, if you hadn’t already noticed. Hunters are the type of enemies which require you to think and use as many weapons as possible to your advantage. With only an SMG and crowbar it’s tedious as hell. In the final battle you fight against multiple Hunters, but your SMG ammo is quite limited, an ammo crate would’ve helped here immensely.

    Industrious
    It is good

    Let’s start off by saying that the visuals are amazing. You really feel like you are walking through a giant factory. Now on to the gameplay.
    Combat is fun, most of the time. Sometimes you will need to shoot enemies that are very far away, but this is not really a problem since there is SO MUCH AMMO. Seriously, there are way too many ammo boxes in this factory. It seems like you encounter one every minute, if not sooner.

    Sewer
    It is dire!

    By far the worst entry in this competition. It looks awful and it plays awful. There is one giant room with a lot of trains, and I was stuck there for minutes. Apparently, there is something you need to break on the floor underneath a train. But what you have to break is a damn decal! How would anyone be able to know that you need to break a decal?!
    Oh, and you know why this is an entry for HunterVille? Because a few Hunters appear at the last moment of the map. Yup.

    Toxic Compound
    It is bad

    It looks and plays a bit better than Sewer. And that’s all.

    Conclusion

    Definitely worth a play. There are some really good maps on here! Some bad ones as well of course, but you can just skip those if you don’t want to play them.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    3 Hours
    Reply
  47. Daken50
    Maybe?

    Nothing really jumps out at me making me want to play it again.

    Reply
  48. Avantgarde95
    Play It Now!
    Hunter1

    I like the atmosphere of the map. Fighting two hunters and the soldiers were tough but fun.

    Lobster

    At first, I didn’t figure out what I have to do. Soon I noticed that I have to turn on the switch in each building and turn on the switch around the fountain. The process of searching the buildings and getting the weapons is very fun. I like that the area around the fountain is large so I can run in many directions when fighting the hunters.

    Hunter Mountain

    I like the underground part. Explosion surprises and hidden weapons make that part very interesting. I think that the outside area is larger (ex. wide area, some routes, etc.), fighting the hunters may become more interesting.

    Greenhouse Hunting

    I like the gas & explosive puzzle in the first part. The visual of the greenhouse is very nice and fighting the hunters in that is challenging. When finding the paths, sometimes I got confused.

    Combine Den

    One of the most hardcore mods I’ve ever played. The utilization of the spaces of the tower is super nice. Avoiding the rollermines and fighting the hunters at the same time was a very challenging experience for me. The visual of the map is beautiful. Nice work!

    Venatical

    I love the ‘experiment’ concept, which reminds me of Portal 1. Killing the tons of the hunters using the super gravity gun is very creative and fun. One of the best HL2 maps I’ve ever played.

    Outlands

    I don’t like the outside part but I like the underground part. The visual of the underground facility is very nice. I think that there is a bug that when I press the final button, the final door to the exit is still rendered but I can go through it and escape.

    Dave

    Nice defense map. There is a bug that the hunter sometimes got stuck before go down to the ground.

    Industrial Distress

    Nice map to utilize the gravity gun and many drums to kill the hunters.

    Day Of The Hunters

    Fun map. I think that if there were more weapons to use (ex. crossbow) the map would be better.

    Industrious

    The visual and the atmosphere of the facility is very nice. The game is simple until destroying the coolants. But it becomes very fun in the escape part. Nice mod!

    Sewer

    The music fits very well with the atmosphere of the map. The maze with two snipers is super hard; I beat it after dying to find out the right direction. The area filled with water and hidden fast zombies is very scary.

    In the last part with 2 hunters, I already had energy balls so it was too easy to kill them. I think that the overall quality of the map is excellent but the quality of the final part doesn’t follow the previous parts.

    Toxic Compound

    I like the creative parts like the jumping part at the start, scary surprises, and ‘The en…’ event. The parking tower part before escape is very hard but fun.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    3 Hours
    Reply
  49. Captain Crap
    Play It Now!

    Another good and challenging ville here, well not all entries are good.

    Hunter1
    It is great!

    Well off to a good start with a good first impression for this ville. The level design is okay, the combat is easy, not bad at all.

    Lobster
    It is great!

    Weird name but it’s a very good level design with great visuals. It does give me an uneasy feeling when hunters start running across rooftops, but yeah. A great entry.

    Hunter Mountain
    It is bad

    Well, we’re at the garbage part of this ville. Why is everything so claustrophobic? The level is blocky and props everywhere, combine soldiers all cramped up in one room, and only 4 hunters that are too easy to kill at the end. Moving on.

    Greenhouse
    It is great!

    Finally we’re back at the good map, level design is great, combat is very challenging to say the least.

    Combine Den
    It is great!

    In terms of level design and visuals, this takes the cake but not the combat for me. Although it is very challenging when fighting hunters, rollermines, but sometimes it gets annoying when you fight too many combine soldiers. Or let’s just say fighting the soldiers is a lot harder than hunters, how ironic.

    Venatical
    It is good

    The level is blocky but the combat is pretty good. In fact, it’s one of my favorite. The arenas give me some Portal vibes, and you have to escape, that’s it. And for some reason, once I get the super gravity gun, I get to keep it for the rest of the whole mod.

    Outlands
    It is great!

    NOTE: From this playthrough and onwards, my gravity gun is still supercharged since Venatical, therefore affecting the gameplay.

    And with the super gravity gun, I was able to one shot many hunters making this game easier. And the level design is quite good, love the laser cannon part as well.

    Dave
    It is good

    The level design is okay, White Forest as usual but the combat is way too easy. Idk why everyone is using the SMG and you know how terrible its accuracy is when it comes to long range. With you having the magnum to snipe down soldiers, and infinite smg ammo, it just makes everything easy.

    Industrial Distress
    It is great!

    Great level design again and of course, fair combat. But I only have a few concerns with this map. Let’s start off with the large area where you fight the hunters. There are invisible walls everywhere. Why do you have to make the warehouse so open but only to be blocked by invisible walls? But of course, with my super gravity gun, I one shot the hunters. Even without super gravity gun, there are many props around to kill them it’s as if they run into a death trap.

    Day of the Hunters
    It is great!

    A very challenging combat, almost every units are hunters and with my super gravity gun activated, all weapons will disintegrate when enemies die. In that case, I had to stick with a shotgun only which adds more challenge to it.

    Industrious
    It is great!

    From my experience, this is far the hardest I have ever completed. Of course, weapons disintegrate when enemies die so I have to conserve my ammos very well. Not only that, it is really very challenging to go through all of it with only a shotgun again.

    Sewer
    It is dire!

    Great, we’re back in the garbage part of this ville and it’s the worst of them all. Remember this ville is where you’re supposed to fight hunters but this one makes you forget it. The level is extremely blocky and amateurish, too many soldiers and zombies, and only two hunters at the end that are easy to skip and avoid. I’d say avoid this entry.

    Toxic Compound
    It is good

    This one is alright, but it needs a little bit more on polishing. The best part is that it adds some few scary moments in this entry. Other than that, it’s fine.

    Summary

    Just don’t play Sewers and Hunter Mountain, they are bad.

    Reply

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