About
The mod story does not consider events in Half-Life 2: Episode One. After explosion of the Citadel, G-man immerses Gordon Freeman in stasis, but after a while deduces it from there for the new mission. The target of this mission is penetration into a citadel which is in City 18 (the city located near to City 17). In this citadel there is a teleport into the Combine world. Using this teleport, it is necessary reach the Combine world and to destroy their leader.
Basic Details
- Title: Penetration
- Original File Name: penetration.exe
- Filename: hl2-sp-penetration.7z
- Size : 66.02Mb
- Author: Ha1fer
- Date Released: 23 August 2006
Download Options
Manual Installation Instructions
- Copy the Penetration folder into your SourceMods folder.
- Restart or start Steam.
- Penetration should now be listed in your Library tab.
Screenshots
Click on the thumbnails below to open a medium size image.
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Reader Recommendations
Total Downloads
Please note: These statistics are valid from December 2010
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7Last 30 days
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59365 days
Meta Review Data
Statistics based on 1 comment(s) with meta review data.
Installed:
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 1 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 46 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 46 Mins by JellyBeanDude27
Longest: 0 Hours, 46 Mins by JellyBeanDude27
Total Time Played: 0 Hours, 46 Mins
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 1 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 46 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 46 Mins by JellyBeanDude27
Longest: 0 Hours, 46 Mins by JellyBeanDude27
Total Time Played: 0 Hours, 46 Mins
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Has anyone played this and had a problem with it? I went into the tunnel between the first and second sections, and when it stopped to load, the computer hung hard, forcing me to kill it manually (hard shutdown); when I turned it back on, now it won’t boot at all, goes to a blank screen after POST, and… nothing. No activity, no disk activity, blank screen.
If anyone has any suggestions, I’m open to ’em.
Thanks in advance.
Ooh, the screenshots have got me salivating. Not a poky little corridor, dark cellar or sewer in sight. I’m on my way over to filecloud!
I had one hang up just prior to going into the first tunnel. No problem after reboot. It’s not a bad mod other than that one bad spot. Pretty much standard action.
dufferx, I wasn’t sure if it was me or the game; normally, when I go thru a tunnel, I drive fairly slowly; this time, I was haulin” butt when it went BANG on me. 🙁
So far, I’ve found a problem with the MBR or bootsector, chkdsk is trying to repair it now. I can boot if I put in an NT boot floppy, but otherwise it hangs on a blank screen. I can’t imagine how the GAME could do this to the MBR, but who knows? This *is* Windoze we’re tlaking about. 🙁
the only crash bug I had was when I didnt stay still in the gas chamber in the citadel & the 2nd time when I did stay still it went a’ok.
3rd time I got stuck after the gas chamber scene with a combine guard missing me with his shotgun after gunning down the vortigaut.
Tho overall this sp mod was truly awesome in the gameplay & level design.
Hope the author makes more or a continuation to this mod in the near future.
Medium sized SP-Mod with 7 Maps. Mapping is good. Nothing weird but also nothing special. Gameplay is like dufferx wrote. However I had a couple crashes in various places back to the steam-shell and serious stuttering.
Update on the crash: got the MBR fixed, was playing last night, when the game crashed twice, both times a error message popped up, saying “The instruction at “0x241fe49b” referenced memory at “0x0d92f438″ could not be ‘read’. Clikc OK to terminate program.” The first instance was as I was entering the next tunnel, and it was attempting to load the next level; the game terminated, and restarted ok, and played thru the next level. The next time, I had died in the canyon with the howlers, and when I saved the spot where I respawned, the game hung with the same error message.
I’m guessing that it’s likely that hang may have helped contribute to my problem, coupled with me havint to manually kill the machine. If anyone has any input on this, greatly appreciated.
Fragmaster (post 5):
“Gas Chamber”?? The place with the sliding glass and headcrabs? WTF? I opened the glass, shot the crabs, jumped in, walked around a bit, jumped out, then went back out to the railroad tracks. Did I miss something there??
the screens look great, and because i’m a real sp freak I would love to play this sp-Mod. but because of all the comments with crashing messages I have decided NOT to install this one. specially the comment Old Scratch made me very afraid. I can’t take the risk of having big windows problems now, I have to much on my disk that I can’t loose at this stage.
so, i’m asking Ha1fer (the maker) to look over his Mod again and to take out to bugs/errors. please do so, it can’t be so that your work will damage others peoples computers or software. crashing takes out the fun of gaming.
don’t get me wrong, I know all to well as mapper myself what kind of problems you all can get in to while making a mod (Coastline to Atmosphere), but you just have to keep fixing the thing untill it can be played. Baltic and I had months of work to get all the cliches out of our Mod.
leon
Guys/Gals, I keep looking at all the posts about the crashing problems, and trying to figure out WHY I’m not having the same??? I only play SP type, and I don’t play online! I’m not a computer programmer with a Cray super computer! Only a Grey Gammer here in Minnesota (ya sure!!) I run WXP pro and have found that if you press CTRL-ALT-DEL and look at your background mem usage (running proggies) and try to shut down as much as possible, ya might not have as much crashing problems!! NO BS I have gone through this mod and unless there was somthing wrong with the mod, all the others I’ve collected! If there is somthing I’m missing from reading your posts, please excuse me (could be my age). Leon/spy your new/revised mod runs very well with FakeFactory’s graphics!! Thanks
The instruction at ” 0×241fe49b” referenced memory at ” 0×0d92f438? could not be “read”. Click OK to terminate program.
I used to experience this type of issue frequently when playing HL2. Found a reference at Valve and it has worked ever since. From the Run screen type MS-Config and check the box for “hide all microsoft services”. Basically, like AI said above and I had no crashes.
I can’t find the box for “hide all MS services” in my MSConfig (no hyphen by the way) nor my Windows Task Manager. Maybe my WinXP Home SP2 doesn’t include it.
Anyway, I suspect several of this add-on’s maps are too big for only 1GB of RAM, “cause HL-2 crashed a few times (but only after I reloaded a saved game a few times). Having said that, this add-on is reasonably fun and worth dealing with the crashes. I give it a 4 out of 5.
The hide all microsft services is under the Services tab. Len, would you be kind enough to rating this mod with the rating system. I would do it for you but I am planning to play it very soon and I want to also rate it. (I can’t rate it twice because it records my ip).
The same goes for everybody esle. Please don’t just say what you think, rate it properly!
Thanks
I to had windows problems with this mod. After between 5-20 min of playing, the computer just shuts down. I tried different nvidia drivers (6800GT) with no luck. I never had HL2 problems before. I tried DOD for about 1 hour and 1/2 of HL2 Ep1, and 2+ hrs of COD2 online with no troubles. Just this mod causes the shut down…
Leon (post 9):
Actually, I suspect the disk problem was my fault, because I POR’d (Power-Off Reset) my machine when it hung; again, I suspect that the popup message was hidden because I was hitting keys to try to get something to happen during the hang.
Besides, if it does manage to render your drive not bootable, you could (short of a true backup–HINT!) pull it, set it to slave, and image a new drive with a fresh copy of winblows; that way you don’t lose your data completely.
AI (post 10):
Actually, I think if you do what your describing (and, yes, I do that as well, and I suspect that there is more you can do), you shouldn’t have too much problem. I think this happens mostly when the engine is getting pushed hard; I noticed my framerates were dipping fairly hard below 25fps night before last (last time I played), and I suspect that something goes wonky if you go running into the “LOADING” zone(!) too quickly, as if it tries to not only load textures/etc as fast as it can, but also the next section, and it chokes the program.
I also made sure to defrag/verify the game cache files; if it happens again, I’ll defrag the computer as well, and perhaps verify system files.
Either way, don’t be too scared to run it. You do have to realize I push my hardware VERY hard–P4 2.8 with 1.5gig of RAM and a 128MB Radeon 9800 Pro that’s overclocked is being stressed VERY hard when run at 1280×1024 and aoo the visual goodies at HIGH and 2xAA/noAI/trilinear filtering; if you’re running at recommended levels, you should be do fine.
Phillip, I’d rate this, but for some reason I can’t rate, it won’t let me.
BTW, this is almost like a forum at this point, mebbe a “Quote” button on each post would be helpful.
I’m considering a number of comment features, including quoting, nesting and paging. Stay tuned!
Is there a walkthru for this? I’m stuck in the city section with the whalecopters shooting me up (funny thing, one of them got stuck *in* a building–talk about “shooting fish in a barrel!”), I’m out of rockets, can’t find anymore, and can’t find the exit to the section.
It turns out my problem was the power supply, changed it and now no problems. 7.1/10 for this mod.
I just want to say I had no problems playing this, it was great fun, well made and ran perfectly on my old computer. Only thing I didn’t like was the cliffhanger ending! Part 2, please!
Well, I finally got around to playing this and I am glad I did. I had a free short freezes and a few shutters but nothing too serious.
I really enjoyed playing this mod more so than Metastasis 1. I liked the locations and the amount of action. FOr me it’s important the type of locations. I don’t like cramped corridors etc.
This mod contained a nice balance of outdoor and indoor areas. I especially liked the citadel-style areas.
There were a few nice set-pieces but I couldn’t destroy one particular helicopter and I am unsure whether it was my lack of skill or designed that way!
In some ways I would regard this mod as quite formulaic but that’s ok with me.
All in all I give this 8/10. I highly recommend you give this a try, although by the sounds of things you should have working backups of your important files!
After the Lost city well designed but a little pointless Ha1fer come back with a new project. This time The g-man will use you to penetrated a base (city 18) to destroy their leader(?) and take back a combine teleport to escape. This release consist of a more consequent mod featuring a lot of huge well design area and a straight formard gameplay not to challenging except the first rocket launcher combat. This one regarding architecture is really impressive (even if sometimes untrue design) causing a huge waiting time during loading of every section and also a lot of slowing down (framerate) certainly due to the oversize of each part (especially last one) a part from those small glitches the experience is convinsing an enjoyable
have played it finally and it is well made, my only point about this mod is that it isn’t challenging enough for me, (but this is personal). in nearly every map I had to walk miles without fighting. in one map I believe I even had to fight against 5 combines, and that when the map was huge. so, for me he should have added lots more enemies, but like I said, this is just my personal taste.
still well made. although the end was a bit to dark, had to walk and wait untill my flashlight was loaded again, to see where I was going. never understand why so many people make such dark maps. here and there a dark space can make it more scary, but all the way black is to much of it. and the end was to suddenly, what happens, a teleport I asume, but to where, adn why?
still, it’s worth to play it, that’s for sure. should I give it a rate, then I would say;
layout;9/10
action/gameplay;6/10
leon
This is a very high quality map pack, well worth the download. The plot is opaque, and while this does not impair overall gameplay, it does leave you with a “huh” feeling at the end. The real strength of this release is in the mapping, which is flawless throughout, with the exception of the outdoor level, which was a bit bland. The use of HDR is a nice enhancement but is never overdone. An excellent release for HL2, one of the very few to deliver a worthwhile, sustained single player experience.
I guess this is chapter 1 of Penetration ending in a transporter, indicate we are going else where for some more, and the sooner the better for this was a most enjoyable romp whilst it lasted, back to that issue of being disappointed when a good but short mod leaves you hanging there for more. Also to respond to Phillips please rate mods, it’s not easy rating something that is not finished, if you rated this mod as it stands you need to make some reference to the non complete state and a ending leading no where, hence maybe down mark it. Well that a side I guess you just score it on the fun factor and here the game does well. I did not have too much in the way of problems just one crash for no apparent reason that was not there the second time around. I don’t know a thing about mapping so can not join the technical discussion going on about the wherefores of the bugs and crashes, but it seems to me that you will always get mappers pushing the envelop trying to get the most from the system by stretching the physics to the limit and this maybe the case here, certainly the HL1 engine stained under the pressure of large out door sets and it is noticeable that this mod was a bit unstable when topside in the big outdoors. However back to the game, very enjoyable great sets with design of the outside city settings a joy to look at and walk around, not a great deal of puzzles just a matter of follow your noise and shot up what comes along. Having read all the above reviews I expect trouble getting through this map so elected easy mode, did not find easy mode a challenge so will play again on hard. I will rate it 7/10 has it stands, but look forward to scoring the completed game higher.
Wow, I’ve had this for a long time; I thought I posted my thoughts already, but apparently not.
This is a very well-crafted mod. I’ve been reading all about everyone’s bugs and crashing problems, and I must say that I didn’t have any. The game ran very smoothly for me.
To be honest, I didn’t even know that this mod had any type of a story until I read the little blurb up at the top of this very page. The lack of story doesn’t do anything to make the mod any less enjoyable, however.
My only gripe would be with the shipping yard in the very first level; there simply aren’t enough enemies there. If I were to pick a nit, I would say that the GMan’s appearance on the outskirts of what I now know to be City 18 was very out of character for him.
Overall, I found the maps gorgeous and the gameplay satisfying.
Brilliant! This mod had me hypnotized with the stunning visuals. I had so much fun playing Penetration and enjoying the graphics. I actually had to drop the graphics quality to keep a decent frame rate.
I love the parts of the city where you have to move from apartment to apartment. There are lot areas that make the maps seem larger than they really are. Like you will go to the edge of a street that is blocked off but you can still see cars, debris, and lots of stuff beyond that. You won’t need to explore that area but it makes you want to. It really makes the atmosphere of the game seem larger than life. A lot of work has gone into this mod. I hope there will be a penetration 2.
I can only echo the comment above by Booman. I thought this mod was great, getting better the further I got. I like dthe waterfront setting, the jeep section, the apartments and the final combine stronghold. The only bit I disliked was the outdoor section where the fast zombies were the main threat. There are a good mix of enemies and battles to be had.
It froze on me three times, necessitating a ctrl+alt+del moment, which was a pain, but I’m glad I played it. One of my favourites.
This mod is great so far, but I’m stuck in the same way fragmaster describes above: I get to the gas chamber, then wake up and see the Vortigaunt open my cell. Then a Combine takes the Vortigaunt out and begins shooting me. I can’t move at all at this point. My health stays the same, and the Combine keeps shooting endlessly. It makes no difference if I remain still in the gas chamber or in the cell. I’ve tried quite a few times now, with the same result. I guess the mod ends here for me.
Before compiling this review I played through the mod once more and I was pleasantly surprised as well as being reminded just what a good mod this is. So much, that I went back and updated my personal records giving the mod a higher ranking than I originally scored it.
This mod oozes quality from beginning to end, just taking in the opening dockside setting of boats, wharfs, warehouses with dockside hardware, all surrounded on one side with tree capped hills and open ocean on the other. It’s worth wandering around to take in all the fine detail as well as some superbly crafted buildings and structures.
It’s almost sad to leave the setting having found the road buggy, but the mission is awaiting and you are soon speeding the coastal roads, when confronted with the first and one of the tough encounters the mod has to offer. The open road architecture is on par with that of the original HL2 game, if somewhat condensed in duration.
Having left the road and the buggy for the open canyon terrain packed with howling Zombies, here again is fine detail applied to the scenic surroundings as you progress and fight off the hoards of zombies towards City 17.
The action opens up among the streets littered with debris, and yet again the author crafts great detailed settings mixed with Combine encounters supported by formidable hardware. I know I keep repeating this point but the quality of the mapping is tremendous. Nothing seems left to chance with City 17 apartment blocks, streets and scattered content inviting the player down every alley and street.
So far apart from a quick sortie into the tenement buildings for supplies and progress to the adjoining street, all the environmental settings have been outdoors (three cheers for that). No cramped settings with boring tight surroundings, or encounters not affording room to swing a cat (sorry cat lovers – I have a cat and she’s called Whisky). So far the mod has taken place within the big outdoors (thank you mister author). I just wished others would follow your lead.
Finally, the mod takes a deep breath and enters the inner world of the Combine stronghold , the Citadel. The architecture is on a massive scale with vaulting heights and grand openings with wide linking corridors and the ever waiting Combine. To be honest, the inner Citadel is one of my less preferred HL2 environments. However, here again the author gets it right with a nice balance of combat within atmospheric surroundings lasting just before any boredom sets in.
Not much in the way of negative aspects. Of course it will not be to everyone’s liking. Some may think that it needs more intense engagements, with no puzzle solving or climbing about needed. In some ways a few of these elements of gameplay will take a back seat when the choice of environmental settings are the big outdoors.
Other than a few burnt-out and abandoned cars that appeared scaled down in size, a somewhat uninspiring musical soundtrack and a weak story line, I am at a loss to raise much in the way of faults.
Negatives
– None worth highlighting
Positives
– Plenty
Conclusion
If you have not played this mod then go do so now. If you have already played it then go play it again. It’s better than you thought.
My Recommendation
Replayed this mod recently after reinstalling HL2 and Episode 1. No crashes this time on
the same hardware as before.
I also recommend this mod to play. It is clearly
one of the better mods so far for HL2,but instead of high praise I think its mostly cause the comparsion is not that strong with only very
few realy outstanding sp-maps released – Minerva for example.
While there’s nothing seriously wrong with this mod, there’s nothing that makes it stand out from the crowd either. There was a sequence set in the streets that was quite good, but the Citadel seemed a bit boring.
I know this comes really late but when you get there wait for the door to open then if you’re looking down you will notice another thing that goes around your waist releasing you – after that just press the “use” key and you’ll get out. You will have to jump down and figure out what to do afterwards 🙂
As for the rating – there is a really good set design and layout, very nice flow through the maps with combat on the light side and no real puzzle. Unfortunately there is no excitement, I haven’t really felt involved when playing this, quite bland overall. So it has to be:
I know this comes really late but when you get there wait for the door to open then if you’re looking down you will notice another thing that goes around your waist releasing you – after that just press the “use” key and you’ll get out. You will have to jump down and figure out what to do afterwards 🙂
As for the rating – there is a really good set design and layout, very nice flow through the maps with combat on the light side and no real puzzle. Unfortunately there is no excitement, I haven’t really felt involved when playing this, quite bland overall. So it has to be:[/quote]
Hi everyone.
I just wanted to say that this is a good mod…. no GREAT MOD and well worth the effort of playing it.
The only problem that I had besides trying to figure out that I had to use the “use” key to get out of the cell as others did I see. Was I could not shoot down the first gun ship ( to tuff for me ) so the only thing I did was to open the force field and get back into the buggy and get out of there ASAP.
Congratulation to all involed in making this mod.
Leo
I just finished playing this mod today. The storyline premise is that, after the destruction of the citadel at the conclusion of HL2, the G-man places you into stasis. He eventually recalls you to enter into City18 (a different city than the one you fought through in HL2) to make use of a combine teleportation device (where this mod ends) and enter the combine stronghold. This implies that there may be a second part to this mod that hasn’t been released yet.
Overall, the mod was fun. I enjoyed the variety of well-constructed maps, many of which were in the outdoors. I particularly liked the opening map located near the city docks. The author introduces variety by giving the player some indoor maps to play through as well. These are interspersed until the last two of the eight maps which are completely indoors (this is when you are infiltrating the combine citadel and making your way to the teleportation device). There was a wide variety of enemies, from zombies and headcrabs to fast zombies and combine elite. Also included are several battle sequences with aerial enemies (gunships). The player has a nice selection of weapons to take out these foes, from the lowly crowbar to the RPG.
Despite the overall enjoyment I got from this mod, I did experience a few negative things that others have also reported. First, in the opening sequence, the G-Man’s voice stutters a great deal. Second, the mod froze my computer twice and crashed it once (giving me the blue screen and forcing me to do a hard shutdown). In addition, after entering one of the outdoor maps, I wanted to retrace my footsteps to an earlier map and explore an area I had skipped. When I came to the boundary with the earlier map, an invisible wall prevented me from backtracking.
These negative elements did impede the enjoyment I got from the game. However, I am hoping that the author will release a sequel to his mod.
BTW, you can destroy the first gunship (this is in level 2) by using the rock outcropping near the cabin as cover. The stash of RPG ammo isn’t too far behind the rocks, but accessing the stash will make you temporarily vulnerable to the gunship. Timing your shots well and being willing to take some damage, it is possible to destroy this enemy. I did it, but I had to die several times before succeeding.
WOW sooooo cool I like no bugy excelent very hard battles very interesting map and not impossible map though you can find everything. The BATTLES are the hardest WOW! Lack of ammo though, I can play almost any HL without sv_, but I needed ammo and got tired of trying to fight without ammo, so I had to impulse ammo.
SWEEEEET MOD!!!!!! Thanks
Very good.
It was alittle confusing in parts and there is way too much walking around with no enemies to shoot at. The maps look real good but their should be alot more action to this. The ending was really a surprise as I expected alot more. This is a good start to what could be a really good mod.
Critics who gave this anything less than a bright green “Play It Now!” are out of their minds. It doesn’t nothing special? If I had a dime for every time I paused to take an inspirational screenshot… this is one of the best looking mods, period. There are portions that rival the official maps.
Yes, it crashed a fair deal for me. For others, it ran just fine. Normally, this would be a deal breaker, but the fact that I’m still recommending this mod despite these issues and quirks should give you a strong indication of what I think about the rest of mod. I also rate this based on the fact that Episode 1 gave me a lot of similar crash issues which Episode 2 did not, so part of the blame could rest on the underlying code.
Aside from the crashes, my only point of criticism was some of the battle design. Unlike others, I had no qualm about the frequency of enemy encounters. Because of its size, this mod had the luxury of being able to stagger them, much like in the Highway 17 chapter of Half-Life 2, rather than having to rely on constant action. No, my issue was that the battles tended to present the same setup over and over again. En route to the city, you engage the same Fast Zombies that run from around the corner a dozen times. Once you’re in the Citadel, you engage the same Combine Elite that run from around the corner a dozen times. It’s uninspiring and doesn’t offer much variation. You see it coming a mile away.
Everything else was beautifully executed.
Penetration should be a classic on par with Minerva and it seems to be a truly overlooked gem. There’s a lot of good stuff here. Check it out.
Nobody is “out of their minds” that does not agree that this is on par with Minerva. That is simply rediculas. I haven’t seen a better mod maker then Adam Foster. That’s why Valve hired him to work on the final chapter of HL-To put this mod in the same category with Minerva is a joke. This mod had a few fun moments and the maps were pretty to look at but the overall game play was slow and non challenging. There were areas like the headcrabs behind glass that made no sense at all. You let them out to attach you? What was that all about? There was never enough ammo and it crashes alot. This is a good start. Maybe he will fix all this for the second part. There are much better mods out there.
If you read my remark again, you’ll see that I’m not directly comparing it to Minerva. Minerva is by far and away the best HL2 mod ever created. What I meant to say is that it deserves to be in a class of oft-mentioned “classic” mods, like Rock 24, Riot Act, Awakenings, that kind of thing.
You can disagree with that all you want; this is my opinion. Aside from that, my opening remark was guided toward comment 33, not yours. Apologies for making an overly broad generalization.
The difference between this mod and the ones you mentioned is that those were done with new, unique, storylines and the maps were mostly original. I like playing these type mods as they add something new to the hl story. Penetration, for me, was not original or exciting at all. There was very few puzzles and it was not inspiring at all. I loved the other ones you mentioned and the one I’m playing now is also fantastic as it adds alot of new ideas and senerios. It’s Poke 646. These reviews are always about personel opinions, nothing more. What you like about a game may be different then others. I do think the games you talked about as well as Poke are rated high, has alot to do with their originality. It also helps when the game is not crashing.
Frankly, I don’t place as much value or emphasis on “originality” as you do. Whether an author chooses to recreate elements of Half-Life 2’s world or define something completely new, at the end of the day, I care more about the visual fidelity and technical acumen of the environment rather than what it depicts.
I may be unlike other reviewers in that regard, but I don’t care much for mods that try to completely redefine the game.
I don’t like total remakes either but I think most people like to see an expansion on the game. That’s why Riot Act, Rock 24 and Minerva are so good imo. The graphics for me are secondary. The brillant colors and light show that some mods incorporate, for me does little to enhance the game. If I want to see bright lights I’ll go to Vegas.
The main thing I like, that makes a game worth playing is the storyline and the puzzles. I really like Ravenholm mod for that reason. There was very little bright lights and color to it. It was good because of it’s intensity. The puzzles and the story were fantastic it that mod. So, it all comes down to personel taste. For me, the lasers and the other bright effects don’t mean as much as a good story and some challenging puzzles.
Minerva did so well with people I think because Adam mixed a good, new story with some fairly tough puzzles as well as bright lights and lots of flash. It has it all. And his other one Someplace Else is nearly as good because he used the same formula. Good story and tricky puzzles.Penetration had some beautiful maps but was lacking on the other things.-By the way I liked your mod alot-if your the same guy, it was good.-fresh story.
I have to say this is one of the best mods I have played. Although this mod could us some better npc placing and a better story what makes this mod so good is the mapping. the mapping is amazing I could spend hours in this mod just walking around the Europe setting and taking every detail. I hope Ha1fer makes more mods because I will definitely check them out.
I have to say I’m going to be spending a lot of time in this mod to figure out how to map better, for myself.
I’ve downloaded this mod and I’ve run the executable, which SAYS it’s installing Penetration, several times but can not find it anywhere on my computer. Also, I had to go to another site to find it since the Planetphillip filecloud link didn’t work for me.
You need to make sure that it’s installing into the correct folder. It’s default is the old /Valve/steamyournamehere/ which you must change to the current configuration. It goes into your typical Source Mods folder, but you MUST tell it where that folder is.
great game, pure solid hl2 action baby :D.. It didn’t crash my sistem
This was a beautifully mapped mod. I thought that it was extremely light on puzzles, which I would have liked more of. There was very little action, except in bursts, but the individual fights were quite hard, even on normal difficulty, and I had to resort to godmode several times.
What little plot there was, was okay – get in, do … something. But there wasn’t anything to do once you got to the teleporter? I wasn’t really sure what was the point, and I was certainly left with the feeling like this was part one of multiple bits. I guess there hasn’t been a continuation of this? It’d be very nice if there would eventually be one, because as it is, I’m left wanting much more.
The maps themselves were beautiful. A little repetitive not in visuals but in theme, that you wander through the same kind of area but with slightly different appearances.
All in all though, this was an excellent mod and I would definitely play more by this modder.
Yeah, this has been one of my favorites for a good while now. Clean polished maps, good length, fun battles, lot’s of beautiful enviroments. This one gets parked on my hardrive. A must have for true HL2 fans.
Much like bad sex, Russian designer Ha1fer’s Penetration can be somewhat intense but a little disappointing at the same time. Set in City 18, the map pack ignores the events of Valve’s Episode 1 and tasks the player with “penetrating” yet another East European stronghold under the Combine regime.
As you can tell from the screenshots, the architecture and overall visuals are roughly on par with Half-Life 2, though certain aspects betray a lack of understanding. For instance, the beginning coastline section has the right details – cranes, Combine outposts, rocky cliffs, boats, an endless ocean – but then you notice that a lot of the cliffs form 90 degree angles, or that the grass is perfectly flat with little height variation, or that the Combine design motif is subverted for blocky and undetailed rooms. It’s like a cardboard cut-out; it might look like the real thing at a distance, but it clearly isn’t the same.
Though for the most part, it does a good job of mimicking HL2’s style and sensibilities; you’ll drive a vehicle, shut off some Combine shield walls, and even fight some zombies. The pacing is also reminiscent of HL2, allowing the player some rest and exploration time between fights.
However, that’s where the similarities end, as Penetration fails to vary its “run and gun” gameplay: The physics simulation is relegated to clutter and needless detail in front of buildings. Enemy types are rarely mixed, resulting in wave after wave of the same combat encounters.
Continue reading the review on Ten Four…
Notes
This review is republished here by permission and was originally published Sunday, 10th September, 2006 by Campaignjunkie.
The planetphillip download for this mod is missing.
I’m sure many people would disagree with me, but I don’t find this mod too memorable. For one, it’s not decorated very well. There’s these large areas but they just don’t have stuff in/on them. Go buy some Combine posters please. The only part that didn’t feel this way was right before you “penetrate” the Citadel, that part was rather atmospheric. The lighting wasn’t too great in this mod either. Something else useless I noticed that has no impact on anything at all is that almost every corpse you find is burnt. How did everyone get burned so badly?
One good thing about the mod is that it’s kind of nonlinear. There’s only one path to progress but there’s optional places to go. I like that.
The first level, the coast, is the best level in Penetration in my opinion. I really enjoyed the atmosphere and design. There’s one weird part where some fast zombies appear (a lot of them) but the environment is wide open so they’re not even remotely a threat.
The city level, while more linear than most, is super fun. You fight all three types of zombies, all three types of Combine and a Gunship with fellow citizens. I love this level as well.
Remember how I said that the part towards the end at the entrance to the Citadel was awesome? While all that potential is wasted when you walk into it itself. First it shot poison gas at me and lagged my computer. Then Gordon took forever to wake up. Then they only gave me two weapons and pitted me against tons of Combine in a boring layout of hallways and corners. And I almost quit when I got into a room with about fifteen Elites. The Citadel in Penetration is the worst level I’ve played in HL2 so far. Ech.
So is Penetration worth playing? Well, the first two levels, yes. I would not recommend the last one. The ending isn’t satisfying anyway so you might as well just assume that after you get gassed in the Citadel that GMan takes Gordon back into cryostasis. I wouldn’t say to make time to play it like some awesome mods but if you have spare time go ahead.
Manually
Medium
46 Minutes
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Could not Penetrate PlanetPhillip Filecloud Server.
Recommendation was removed, you have to at least write a reaction or basic thoughts on the experience.
Link broken
So when’s the link gonna be fixed?
There you go, I happened to find the exe on my hard drive, apparently downloaded the day after this post went live. Hope it works for you.