Liberation

for Half-Life 2: Episode Two

30th May 2015

Jump to read the 54 comments   /   Leave a comment or review   /   Follow the comments RSS feed

Starting underground, you suddenly find yourself out in the open with a lot Combine soldiers attacking you.

Only smart thinking and quick reflexes will save you.

Dispatch the soldiers and work your way through the prison to…

Well, let’s just say that a few friends could be waiting to help you.

BIG THANK YOU

I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to LifeLost for releasing this mod exclusively through PlanetPhillip.Com and MUST NOT be mirrored without prior written permission from LifeLost or PlanetPhillip.

Bonus Maps

This mod contains bonus maps of early versions of some levels. They can be accessed through the Bonus Maps menu.

LifeLost Prison

The first sections of this mod were originally released under the title of Life Lost Prison. The download for this has been removed, but the post still remains.

Basic Details
  • Title: Liberation
  • File Name: hl2-ep2-sp-liberation.7z
  • Size : 56.80MB
  • Author: LifeLost
  • Date Released: 15 November 2014

Download Options

Download to your HDD [56.80MB]

You can still use it with MapTap once you have downloaded it.

Manual Installation Instructions
  • Copy the Liberation folder into your SourceMods folder.
  • Restart or start Steam.
  • Liberation should now be listed in your Library tab.

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

Videos

The playthrough below is provided by Jim Partidge as part of the Critical Jim event.

The playthrough/walkthrough below is provided by PlanetPhillip. See more of my playthroughs on this site: VP: PlanetPhillip.

The playthrough below is provided by Custom Gamer. See more of his playthroughs on this site: VP: Custom Gamer

Screenshots

Click on the tabs below to select the size of screenshot you would like.
All sizes are the same screenshots, just in different resolutions.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.

1024 x 576

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Reader Recommendations
Avoid It!
Think Twice
Maybe
Play It Later
Play It Now!
20 recommendations, average score: 4.8 (out of 5), standard deviation: 0.16 (what's that?)
Total Downloads
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Meta Review Data
Statistics based on 18 comment(s) with meta review data.

Installed:
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 16 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 2 Hours, 29 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 43 Mins by Sweddy
Longest: 20 Hours by fraghound
Total Time Played: 44 Hours, 50 Mins
Categories (?)
Half-Life 2: Ep2 HL2-EP2 Mods Play
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54 Comments

  1. PlanetPhillip

    This was a great piece of work.

    Full review to follow tomorrow.

    Meta Data updated in a new comment.
    Reply
  2. Dysprogue
    Play It Later

    This is quite a hard mod to review because it’s great quality, the environments are well made, the combat is tough but there isn’t anything that particularly stands out in this mod. The pacing is a little odd throughout and some combat stays hectic for a bit too long but the design is open enough to skip past some of the fighting with a little help from combine-antlion infighting. This is an interesting aspect but it does mean that ai tend to get a bit confused as to who they want to fight.
    This mod does a very good job of recapturing the feel of Nova Prospect from HL2 for better or for worse you will get the sense that you’ve been here before.

    I did have some trouble figuring out where I was supposed to go despite seeing Phillips playthrough as some areas do look a bit samey (disadvantage of the theme) and the actual player goal often isn’t clear.

    Rescuing civilians can be a pain as they do a good job of blocking your path and in narrow paths this is deadly. I did however find it funny when Barney went through his civilian boarding sequence without any civilians. “that’s all of them :)” I don’t have any interest in going back and trying to rescue more civilians though.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Hard
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 20 Minutes
    Reply
    1. ihonnyboy

      You played this on hard difficulty?! Kudos to you, man. Did you die at all?

      Reply
      1. Dysprogue

        Oh I died quite a bit. But I watched Phillip’s playthrough on twitch so I thought I should ramp up the challenge a bit more. Also I’m getting a bit of a taste for hard mode since I started testing my own maps on hard (makes it a bit easier to gauge how hard to make a level.)

        Reply
        1. ihonnyboy

          Yeah, I agree. I’ve started doing that too. I seriously recommend people even trying the base game on hard mode. It makes you totally rethink certain things like weapon balance, and i believe ai changes slightly too for a couple enemies.

          Reply
  3. JG
    Play It Now!

    I’m going to give this mod a Play It Now because that’s what I think you should do. It’s a fairly lengthy, well constructed mod that contains several maps to play through. There aren’t many mods like this anymore and we should relish them because they do represent hundreds of hours of the mapper’s time.

    That said, is it a five-star mod? Not really. Set within Nova Prospekt, I think the biggest problem with this mod is that it never aspires to go beyond the source material. So many areas could have been cut-and-paste from the infamous prison itself. It never shakes that feeling of familiarity, as though you are experiencing “Nova Prospekt: The Greatest Hits.” Unlike other mods such as Union or Riot Act, it never provides its own spin on the idea. For that matter, it doesn’t do anything visually special either. Using the Ep2 engine, the author could have included better foliage, light beams, Hunters, etc. But no – you could have done this map back in 2006, and that’s kind of a shame in 2014.

    Combat never feels very “intelligent” either. It’s mostly Combine Soldiers barreling from around the corner directly at you, or standing in clumps patiently awaiting your arrival. I played this mod on Easy because after seeing Phillip’s playthrough, I noticed that most of the enemies were equipped with AR2s. That means the balance of these battles will swing wildly, and it’s noticeable even on Easy. You end up trading shots and massive amounts of HP until you either kill everyone or die. There’s no sense in taking cover because the enemies will relentlessly beeline toward you. Combat also has a tendency to become scattershot and unfocused, with enemies assailing you from several angles all at once, leaving no safe spots to hide. An example of this is the very first battle, where you’re unceremoniously thrown right into the thick of it. Fortunately, there are copious health opportunities, and you usually have a fair bit of combat space to play with.

    I would have also liked to see more of a story in a mod that’s this long. There’s no story at the start, and it’s only halfway through that you get an objective of sorts. What’s there is told through pre-existing dialog and it never sounds quite right or makes sense.

    To the mod’s credit, it’s nothing if not consistent. Unlike many mods that feature this many levels, you won’t notice abrupt changes in quality or style. It’s fine for what it is, but I feel there was a lot of untapped potential.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Easy
    Playtime:
    45 Minutes
    Reply
  4. Zekiran
    Play It Now!

    I quite liked this mod. It was I thought a clever use of the setting you think you know.

    There were a couple things I think could have been better:

    The pacing was off a bit, in that there were no exploration / puzzle sections to speak of (while there were a couple interesting puzzle-like moments) so it was pretty much a race to each next fight.

    The lighting, while good, I had to keep using my flashlight almost the entire time. At that rate I figure screw it, why not just either lighten the scenery up a bit, or have a perma-flashlight feature somehow.

    The scant use of dialog happened just as I was thinking “there is no dialog in this except Overwatch”. But there was just enough, and done pretty well. I have no idea whether I saved more than one citizen, and I certainly didn’t order any of them around, that’s not really my favorite aspect of HL2 anyway.

    The lack of the grabbity gun was a bit odd, but it did make for a good challenge overall. There was just enough crossbow ammo scattered around to give me a go with my favorite weapon.

    Just overall, I did like it. It was nice and long, though as JG states, without a plot to speak of I’d rather there be either more dialog somewhere, like a contact over the HEV’s radio, or on-screen cues about what was going on. A good mix of difficult enemies, plentiful ammunition, and a twist on what you think you know of as Nova Prospekt. Good work.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 15 Minutes
    Reply
  5. Martina

    Gefällt mir sehr gut 🙂

    Reply
  6. vancanucksfan
    Play It Now!

    I found this mod to be quite enjoyable. It really did feel very similar to the Nova Prospekt story, in fact some times I thought I was playing the same maps. There was quite a bit of play time and I thought everything was well constructed. The design when you get indoors isn’t that original but there is some nice surprises with enemy placement. I saw one strange creature through the glass just before I met Barney et al, and I was hoping to see more of that creature. it looked like a combination of an insect and a strider? It seemed to appear when I shot the glass.

    The outdoor areas were the best part of the mod and combat was nicely balanced. I did notice that no civilians seemed to follow you to the train but I didn’t try to rectify that.

    Overall this is a really good mod to play. I just wish that strange creature I saw had appeared more!

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Easy
    Playtime:
    1 Hour
    Reply
    1. Blue Lightning

      Strange creature? I must of missed it. 🙁

      Reply
      1. vancanucksfan

        If you want to see it, load the 4th chapter, go inside the area near where you meet Barney and look for a hallway with a glass window at the end. Go to the glass and wait for a few seconds and you will see it walk by. Use zoom to get a good look!

        Reply
        1. JG

          That’s a Crab Synth. You see them in the Citadel. They aren’t a fully-functional NPC, so they are mostly used for window dressing.

          http://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/Crab_Synth

          Reply
          1. vancanucksfan

            Thanks. I don’t remember seeing it before

            Reply
  7. ihonnyboy
    Play It Now!

    Whew, boy am I glad I played this mod on normal difficulty. There were a LOT of AR2 soldiers in this mod, and this is the episodic kind of AR2 soldier. Couple that with the occasional shotgunner waiting to ambush you at close range, yeah…It did sorta balance out, though. Either the author or the game compensated for this by giving me a bunch of ammo, armor, and health. I had almost full ammo and full armor by the second map (I exaggerate a little). That only seems like a sloppy solution to a difficulty problem (no offense). And you get pinned a lot. In some of the more “big hallway” oriented fights I would find myself backed into a wall because there wasn’t any good, solid, head-height, cover or “escape” routes. The combine would end up flanking me, and each of us would take a beating as we unloaded into each other. In the more “arena” style fights, I would get pinned because the combine could get too many good angles, or the combat was just too hectic for me to poke my head out. (These two issues sorta overlap). I’m curious to see the scripting for this mod, because the ai cold be causing some of these issues or there could be some scripting with assaults going on. I think valve mostly avoided this issue by hintgrouping the soldiers and giving them plenty of antlions to shoot at.

    Despite this these something this mod did amazingly well, something few mods achieve these days. It SURPRISED me. Not in the “oh, that’s new” sorta way, but in the “Ahhh, a nice plain corridor after a long fight–*zombine to the face*” or “Ok, Combine, prepare to meet your mak-*Antlion Guard to the face*” A great example of this is towards the end of the mod, you see a bunch of combine fighting a continuous stream of antlions. There’s about 8 soldiers, and you can interview at your leisure. I fire a rocket and jump down to finish off the last shotgunner. Then BAM! an Antlion Guard bursts through the wall and antlions stream in. I panic as I try to take stake of the situation and figure out where my buddies, the Guard, the combine, and the antlions are. Valve mentioned in their commentaries how they like to get the player into a rhythm and then surprise them; this is where a lot of HL2’s tension comes from. Sadly, this hurts the mod too. During a puzzle segment you get ambushed. Twice. And some of the fights stay hectic for too long. The break between combat scenarios is sometimes too short. Truncating that time can cause surprise, but do it too much and you cause fatigue. This is probably where some of the weird pacing people have mentioned comes from. This mod’s pacing is both its biggest pro and one of its largest cons.

    Speaking of which, I really enjoyed the ending map. The design felt a little odd at times (similar issues to the first paragraph) and I encountered a couple glitches, but I liked the overall design. It was this “uphill” struggle through multiple emplacements. I also like how you can sorta see your goal from the begging. I got some lag, but it wasn’t too bad.

    People said some portions felt copy and pasted, but I don’t really know about that. Maybe the aesthetic, but that lack of antlions and Alyx did make it feel different. I dunno, maybe I’ve played the Nova P. levels too often…

    I have a couple demos at the moment, but I don’t think I have room in my dropbox to keep them up for long. So, if the author wants them he can reply below and I’ll post them for a couple days.

    Two side notes:

    – I don’t think the acid lions ever spit at me. They made me keep my distance, but I think I was too close to squad mates for them to range attack.

    – What was up with the green and black combine?

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 17 Minutes
    Reply
    1. JG

      Y’know, it just occurred to me that perhaps this is the reason why I find Minerva so frustratingly difficult now whereas I found it fairly straightforward back then. When it was ported to Episodic, it obviously got the high accuracy AR2 guys with it, and there are a lot of AR2 guys in that first level.

      Reply
      1. ihonnyboy

        Wasn’t Minerva on Episodic to being with (being built off Ep1)? Or did Valve give the AR2 guys good accuracy in Ep2 and it bled into the rest of Episodic?

        Reply
        1. JG

          When the first level of Minerva came out, it was for HL2. I believe when it got the second level, it was ported to Episodic, where it remains now. I remember that Adam Foster had mentioned how he needed to rotate the whole level 90 degrees to incorporate the skybox.

          You could better answer when the improved AR2 was implemented. I think I’ve seen it in Github before, but I can’t remember where.

          Reply
    2. Blue Lightning

      I did get spat upon by the acid Antlions.

      Reply
      1. vancanucksfan

        I did too

        Reply
        1. ihonnyboy

          Weird, I guess I just didn’t let them last long enough to get a good shot.

          Reply
          1. Blue Lightning

            Well, I didn’t get spat upon much. You are on to something…the Acid Antlions were not aggressive.

            Reply
            1. ihonnyboy

              Well, they weren’t that aggressive of NPCs to being with. In all honesty, I don’t think the Guard Arenas fit their AI that well.

              Reply
  8. Gilbert

    In some scenes I have some artifacts (right word?) as this: http://www31.speedyshare.com/zm7dq/download/Plaatje.jpg

    Can I fix it ? (win 8.1)

    Reply
  9. Blue Lightning
    Play It Now!

    Ar2 Combine, Shotty Combine…and waves of Combine. Any questions?

    Yes, to say there are difficult battles in this mod is an understatement. If you like hard battles, rather than a lot of explore/adventurism, then this mod is for you. Being the explore/adventure type, and not the type that likes the dreaded “Combin-ites” affliction, then the question must be “why the high score?”

    Well, it is the way that the waves of Combine are used that give the extra-tough battles a passing mark by me. The author doesn’t stick us with a pistol and machine gun. Here there are opportunities to grab ammo for the AR2, the .357, and even the Crossbow. An occasional AR2 orb or RPG rocket can even be found. Sometimes a player has to scrounge to find the good ammo. But equipped with the good ammo, the battles seem fun.

    There are too many waves of Combine at times, and that starts to get monotonous. However, by back tracking and scrounging (which you will have to do to survive), it gets a bit…adventurous! Sometimes during a back track you can run across an enemy that was missed, or find a crate that is hidden from plain sight.

    Nova Prospekt was not my favorite level in Half Life 2. That’s because of the row after row of prison bars, etc…and that scenery got stale for me (although Valve did a great job of making a convincing prison). However, this map’s environment does change a bit from time to time, not keeping us in one type area for too long. My favorite part was the middle when I got to the Citadel structured part, and hooked up with the other rebels and Barney.

    This map is very well designed. It looks polished, like a lot of thought went into building it. The routing is also very good.

    And that’s why the high score. Although it isn’t a perfect mod, the main thing is that the map is fun to play. And fun factor counts for a lot. Play it now!

    Reply
    1. JG

      You bring up an interesting point with the ammo. Unlike most mods, this one doesn’t really have any weapon progression. You have the AR2, Crossbow and RPG from the first battle onward. Most mods would have staggered that roll-out and adjusted the enemy difficulty accordingly.

      Reply
      1. Blue Lightning

        Yep. Good ammo is in fair supply all through the mod, if one is willing to look that is. One has to be willing sometimes to scrounge, but it is there.

        The author doesn’t give us too much good ammo either…so the player has to not waste too much of the good stuff on regular Combine. One has to use “strategery” as Bush would say. That keeps it fun!

        Reply
  10. TolisXTRM
    Play It Now!

    This was surprisingly pleasant to play!

    This mod is set on Nova Prospekt, and even though the atmosphere and the visuals are great, it looks a bit too similar to the actual game, but I don’t mind that.

    Now, the combat was where this mod lost the PF for me. Don’t get me wrong, the combat was great…mostly. By the time you meet Barney and the group with the rebels, the area is WAY too small to fight. It’s even harder to find your way through.

    Generally, even with its faults, this mod is quite surprising and it’s also a total joy to play.

    Reply
  11. Weirdo

    Anyone else find Gnome Snipeski? A fun little easter egg I found at a certain water puzzle

    Reply
  12. dougjp
    Play It Now!

    I loved this mod. I think its main strength is in “placement”, meaning enemies as well as health and ammo. Variety of weapons needed to be used to be effective as well. Its obvious a lot of time went into creating the details in that regard.

    Combat was frequent and fairly difficult, however it didn’t have any deflating “game breaking moments”, by that I mean where I say to myself something like ” this is ridiculous “. Instead the combat was usually satisfying and each time ended with a sense of accomplishment. As others have said, this mod almost requires hunting around and/or going back to maintain your inventory and be able to last through the battles, which I also enjoy doing. I also nearly picked it as a Personal Favorite and backed away from that, saying it was a PIN instead, for the same reasons already mentioned (repeating, lack of storyline and “new things”).

    One great unique thing was the inclusion of Bonus maps! While I had a few minor glitches with those, for example a CTD on a transition between maps, and another time where the map didn’t load automatically (map 5), those are minor. What essentially happened was this gave the mod an instant re playability. How many times have we played a great mod and said to ourselves, we must play that again. Wanting it to be slightly different but not having that option. Then never ending up actually replaying it?

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 30 Minutes
    Reply
  13. Blue Lightning

    Seems this map is getting a lot of good scores, it’s all green which (I think) could lead to wall of fame material. It is a fun map, no question about it. I think the reason it hasn’t gotten a blue or two yet could be because of the almost constant battles? In other words not a lot of “ahead quiet time”? I might be wrong though.

    Reply
    1. JG

      Well, for me, it’s not a PF because I didn’t care too much for the way the battles were balanced and set up. I also have a difficult time getting past how many areas look like they were ripped from Nova Prospekt itself. I’d give the author the benefit of the doubt, but there’s just too much deja vu for me. If I’m going to revisit a popular location in the HL2 universe, I want to see new parts of it.

      Reply
  14. ESToomere
    Play It Later

    Generally I’m not a fan of the Nova Prospekt area in the main game. There have also been a lot of maps and mods that try to recreate the area. This one was very different.
    To be fair, a lot of the areas looked almost copy-pasted from the main game, but, because they were set up in a different and coherent enough way, it didn’t bother me that much. It was also an odd trip down the general quality, like mentioned, the starting areas looked very ‘retail’, where as the mod went on, the maps became more blocky and blocky. But again, that didn’t take away from the fun.
    It was a REALLY fun run and gun action. I haven’t played a map in a while that has made me run for cover and/or health. The few (usually rare) times I did die felt justified. Sometimes the AI acted really stupid, barreling towards the player, but boy did that add to the fun.
    Even though there wasn’t THAT much focus on the story I found the scripted sequences pieced together in a fun and enjoyable way.
    In conclusion, the mod brings back the heyday of the 90’s FPS games where there was almost a general aesthetic but the main focus remained on the genre: shooter.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour
    Reply
  15. fraghound

    Thanks for making a very good mod.
    Fun to play, I had a good time. One of the best mods I’ve played in a long time.
    You gave me hours of new play time in the Half Life world.
    Thanks.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    20 Hours
    Reply
  16. Anon_1380493

    Installed the game, would play it but got the message I first had to update Steam Vr…. ?

    Can someone help me?

    Reply
    1. PlanetPhillip

      This problem is not directly related to the mod itself.

      Various people have had to try different solutions.

      The first thing to do is try to play Half-Life 2 and Episode Two.

      When you try, it may give you some instructions. Follow them and then try the mod game.

      Let us know what happens and we will offer some more suggestions.

      Reply
  17. Anon_1380531

    Solved !

    I played HL and it began with an update (although I activated the option: update always automaticly…?)

    And now I can play the mod.

    Thank you Philip – you can delete my postst if you wish

    from Belgium, gilbert

    Reply
  18. Hec
    Play It Now!

    Well,boy!! After playing some lousy HL1 maps and mods, this cool work truly feels like a huge breath of fresh air!!!

    I love to fight the combine again in a prison scenario. Also in a very realistic mission with plenty of intense combat, and those lovely mounted guns part were just a delight to play.

    The whole mod feels fill of an intense environment and atmosphere, and I also would say that the balance of zombie enemies and combine troops were just OK.

    The strider part was very intense, and meting with Barney is also a nice touch! as a long time ago I haven’t seen that old Gordon’s Pal. When I met the rebels I felt protected and the were very handy in some intense prison combat.

    Overall I really enjoyed this mod, it was a realistic HL2 mission a thing that I truly like too, combat was intense, and all the way mapping was very good and neat; also there were an excellent supply of ammo and med kits.

    And tough the ending was sort of a cut-off moment the whole mod is a fair modding piece of entertainment, I hope to play further mods from this author.

    Finally I have to say that when I was playing this, I had a constant thought. And that was that despite prison environments in HL2 are not my cup of tea, or my favorite scenario to play, it could be very interesting to run a “PRISONVILLE” PP competition, as I’m sure many players would make some pretty cool Prison maps.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour
    Reply
  19. Flynn

    Hi, did anyone have a problem with missing crosshairs in this mod? I would like to play it but there are no crosshairs in it which spoils the combat because you have to guess and I don’t like the lack of accuracy.

    Reply
    1. PlanetPhillip

      Yeah. Some of my screenshots don’t have it, so I suppose it’s not set as default. Let me know if you need help getting it back.

      Reply
    2. JG

      I think you can just do “crosshair 1” in the console to get it back. I have a perennial issue with my crosshair disappearing and I’ve never been able to figure out a pattern to it.

      Reply
  20. Flynn

    Great! That worked perfectly, thank you very much. Just finished it, a nice little mod, I especially like the use of the stock voices for the citizens and Barney. At times I felt as though I was back in HL2 😀 Just the right length to play in one sitting as well. I will probably play through it at least once more. My only annoyance was that there was no way of saving the citizens against the Strider. They stay outside the building and get slaughtered. And you can’t get to the rockets upstairs until you have cleared out the Combine from it by which time the citizens have been vaporised. Since the theme of the map was getting them out and onto the train I thought they might have been invincible but they weren’t.

    Reply
  21. dansilvester
    Play It Now!

    Well I had enormous fun. Good length, good shootouts and I quite enjoyed the standoffs with the Antlion Queens.
    Not much exploring I guess, but I enjoyed it to the end.

    More please!

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Easy
    Playtime:
    1 Hour
    Reply
  22. DeadCamper
    Play It Now!

    I had a lot of fun with this mod. Though the prison section of Half-life 2 wasn’t my favorite area of the game, this mod manages to capture and extend the feeling that Nova Prospekt had without feeling redundant or boring.

    It does reuse a lot of the same areas that were originally in Half-life 2, almost to the point where some places may have been the exact same architecture down to the floor plan, but the variety of fire-fights, lack of gravity gun, and lack of Alyx in this version of the prison change the game play to a significant degree. The reskinned new Combine solder was a cool touch.

    There are some points I feel could have been done better. The presumably modified harder version of the Strider was a bit too overpowered for the fight against it to seem fair, and there was one point where I didn’t know where I was supposed to go due to a hard to see open window (this was during a pause in the combat, while with Barney. I eventually found the open window), it’s still extremely fun to play.

    Though the ending was cut off (I hope in an intentional way, because it was kind of hilarious), I still had a lot of fun. The bonus maps, while a novelty, feel too similar for me to want to play them immediately after the main mod, but it’s cool of the author to include them.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 20 Minutes
    Reply
  23. PlanetPhillip
    Phillip says Play It!

    Don’t really know why I never properly reviewed this but anyway, here it is.

    The start is full on and I liked it. You have plenty of cover but plenty of Combine shooting at you. The moment the Combine Gunship arrives any rest you may have hoped for disappears. The location of the rockets is clearly planned for gameplay and that was a little annoying.

    The next section takes you underground and through what I thought was a pretty clever section. If you rush around then you get hit quickly. If you sue your grenades carefully and work your way through slowly it’s a fun section.

    This takes you into the meat of the mod and this is the prison section. It’s very well built but suffers from “Button/Door – new area” syndrome.

    What I did feel was that too often you can move back and avoid lots of trouble OR you get dumped into a completely closed off area and have a really tough fight ahead.

    The final section feature Barney and some rebels and besides having slow down issues with the area, it’s a pretty good boss fight.

    Finding fault with the individual sections is about looking for minor details and if I had to level criticism at the mod it would be the fact the pacing and flow were not managed as well as it could have been.

    You should definitely play this as I am sure you will enjoy it. Highly Recommended. Looking forward to whatever LifeLost makes in the future.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 10 Minutes
    Reply
  24. brianthesnail
    Personal Favourite

    Well what can i say about “liberation” .. this has everything you want ( and expect ) from a half life 2 mod and delivers it with style
    what i like about the mod is how its set in several different locations .. for example the prison,then the outside and allthough its mainly set in “nova prospect” it does not make you feel that you are
    theres also plenty of ammunition avalible which helps and npc,s are not over the top making the game not too easy but not too hard ( even on medium ) ..
    this is one game that will have pride of place in my libary alongside the other classics !
    amazing mod .. period !

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 40 Minutes
    Reply
  25. Stef
    Personal Favourite

    like brianthesnail I was totally immerged in this map pak you got no time to breathe since you are always into the action
    Everything is well put in balance for me and the design between outdoor and indoor is great even if experience is sometime repetitive it doesn’t matter because it always take play in a new environement
    The voice acting was just what it should be using a lot of original content with some new (this is easy to notice for me since normal voice comes with my version in french and additional in english) but mixing both was really well done in my opinion

    LifeLost really know the original game and manage to put together something new that could easily be part of the original release

    Installed:
    Using Gauge
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 20 Minutes
    Reply
  26. Jim_Partridge
    Play It Later

    Liberation looks good, is for the most part, well put together, challenging and enjoyable to play.
    However there’s nothing new here. All the elements included are familiar and almost all can be found in the Nova Prospekt maps of HL2. As a result it’s only a 4 star review unfortunately.

    There’s too much action and you move from battle to battle without too much variety which really caused me to burn out after a while. Combine after combine died with not a huge effort from me. Hundreds by the end until I was combined out.

    Reliance on point blank shotgun troops or too many AR2s to create difficulty is also rather frustrating. I’d much prefer less combine and the architecture be used to create a challenge rather than sheer numbers of bad guys.

    There’s some smart work here and when it shines it shines brightly, however deciding to leave out the gravity gun was a big misstep in my opinion as much of the Nova Prospekt gameplay was based on it.

    Go ahead and dive in, you won’t regret it… but you might want to go play the real Nova Prospekt maps afterwards like I did…

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 30 Minutes
    Reply
  27. Arnesahn

    This was an work from a true fan!!!! he made me have that good HL-feeling again, a must play mod!!
    I used long time because i enjoyed it lot 😀

    Installed:
    Using Gauge
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    5 Hours
    Reply
    1. PlanetPhillip

      The recommendation from your review has been removed. The review is not detailed enough for 5 hours of play.

      Reply
  28. Steve
    Play It Later

    It’s a familiar theme graphically but I don’t mind and I love the adventure throughout .. Some of the all-out battle scenes killed me over and over. So frustrating! Or maybe I’m just not very good when there’s so much going on! lol

    But it felt like an all or nothing much of the time. I’d like the pace and consistency to be better..

    I certainly didn’t like the rescuing people part however, this was a PITA. Those damn bots kept on blocking me or just getting in the way too much. Really annoying and I felt like I’d had enough by then.. otherwise that was actually a fantastic map till then.

    Maybe brighten it up a little too. Sick of using the flashlight lol. But now I am being picky as this is a fantastic download and (overall) a brilliant play. But hard…..

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    2 Hours
    Reply
  29. RobosergTV

    Very good mod. 10/10

    Reply
  30. Sweddy
    Play It Now!

    So you visit Nova Prospekt again huh? Seems interesting anyway this is a great little mod I only found one moment where you feel outgunned the pacing in my opinion is kinda meh I mean something about it just feels a little off to me I can’t figure out what it is. Alot of this is reusing areas from Half-Life 2 which isn’t a bad thing but just kinda makes it feel weird seeing as you’ve been here before, oh the ending it ends on a pretty funny note.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    43 Minutes
    Reply
  31. Daken50
    Personal Favourite

    That’s the stuff..ahh…. Look and plays good. Reminiscent of Nova Prospekt without rehashing it. Fine, I’ll make it a personal favorite. Happy now. 😉

    Reply
  32. Captain Crap
    Play It Now!

    The difficulty of this mod makes it better than Nova Prospekt ngl. The level is mostly linear, only few puzzles like finding another way around. The combat is pretty challenging, at least not spamming shotgunners or soldiers with smgs at least. The best part in combat is the boss battles especially the antlion guard ones, my favorite part of this mod. The story would make a little more sense as you progress. At first I had no idea why I was raiding the prison. Obviously you’d break someone out of the prison, you’d meet them later on which adds the excitement. Overall, great map

    Reply

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