Who didn’t enjoy the scene near the beginning of Half-Life 2 where you ran along the rooftops?
It was a great start and let you see the city from above. I enjoyed it so much I wnated to play more maps like it, so I ran a mapping competition with “Rooftops” as the theme. Here are the 8 entries I received.
I hope you enjoy playing them as much as I did!
- Title: RooftopVille
- File Name: hl2-ep2-sp-pp-rooftopville.7z
- Size : 71.8MB
- Author: Sam Petty, Lauri Mäkinen, Samuli Jääskeläinen, Jared Goodroad, Jacob Heywood, Matt Hoskin, Radu Iceman and Leon Brinkmann
- Date Released: 20 February 2011
- Copy the RooftopVille folder into your SourceMods folder.
- Restart or start Steam.
- RooftopVille should now be listed in your Library tab.
If you require more help, please visit the Help page.
Firstly, I would like to thank each and every mapper who entered the competition. Without people like you the site wouldn’t exist. THANK YOU.
This was by far the hardest competition to judge. That’s not to say the previous competitions didn’t have some excellent entries, because they did, but for some reason I found it hard to select.
Ultimately I went with the one that gave me the most fun to play and still seemed in the spirit of the competition.
Therefore, I am pleased to announce that the winner of the RooftopVille Mapping Competition is.
Imprudent trek above the streets
by Samuli Jääskeläinen
Well Done Samuli!
Below are all the entries, with the Winner first and then the other entries after that. I have included only a few screenshots for each one due to time constraints. Please remember that the screenshots contain spoilers. Click on the thumbnails below to open a 1024 pixel wide image. I have added my personal comments under the screenshots.
Unlike previous competitions, there are no official Honourable Mentions, again, not to due with the quality of maps but because I don’t want to feel obligated to select them. I’d rather just let my comments be enough
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Strangely enough, this was the first entry I played and I have to admit I was a little disappointed at the beginning. I was worried I would never actually reach the rooftops. That said, the action all the way through was excellent, even if the final area was not as hard as I had hoped. The actual area that you play is is very small and this is a great lesson for some mappers who make large areas that are rushed through. I found every section well-detailed and realistic.
I only had trouble with one area that I felt was badly designed. It was near the end and gave the impression you could reach the roof but in fact you couldn’t. I wasted a little time there with wooden crates and jumping that could have been solved easily by making the hole in the ceiling smaller.
There were a few times I had to backtrack to make sure I was going the right way and I certainly died a few times, which is always good. Even though I spent less time of the roof than some other entries, this one seemed to capture the spirit of my idea, looked great and was fun to play.
I have little doubt that this time some readers won’t agree with this being the winner, but I am happy I have made the right choice – even if it took me nearly two weeks to reach that point!
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The vision and imagination of this entry is incredible and I certainly considered it as a winner.
What ultimately edged my decision was that I never really felt I was playing on rooftops. Sure, I was on the top of huge buildings but it felt so far from the idea of a rooftop as to be almost meaningless. The screen text tells you that it’s a simulation which is a nice way of allowing the mapper freedom to design anything they want but giving it a context.
It was certainly challenging and some parts were down right mean.
All in all a fantastic entry that is probably worth playing a few times while increasing the difficulty level.
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Compared to some of the other levels, this map is quite empty-feeling. It also gave me the impression of being a map made for playing, rather than a real place. The actual gameplay is quite fun but again, it feels too contrived. The jump from one building to another is quite hard and the final battle within that building doesn’t make sense.
Quite fun to play but not detailed or thought out enough.
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Another simulation but that’s only mentioned in the readme, which some or most may not read. Without that fact, you’ll think it is half finished. This is a great map to play and there’s a scene with some manhacks that will make you cry/scream/run or all three.
However, it was too non-linear for my liking and I found I got lost too easily. The action was well paced but considering you could go a few ways – or at least it seemed that way to me – pacing was always going to be a problem.
Definitely a great map but just not quite the winner.
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I had a LOT of trouble running this map. Even with all my graphic settings turned down it still stuttered, which is a huge shame because like Above the Clouds, the imagination of this entry is amazing. It starts a little plainly but hots up once you get to the sniper (whoops, sorry for the spoiler). I have no doubt that I missed things in this map because I was just trying to finish and I also have to admit I needed to jump sections.
Even if it ran smoothly, I don’t think I would have made it the winner because it didn’t really make me think of rooftops.
I am very curious to hear how it played for other readers.
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This entry was quite plain and I was worried that it wouldn’t really give me much rooftop action. I was almost right. The map requires you to sneak inside a Combine base via the roof and then flip a switch to open the field that was blocking your path earlier.
Once you get to the rooftop it was definitely fun to play but not really constructed properly. At least I didn’t think it was really the kind of rooftop challenge I was looking for. Falling off would only have caused me to lose some health points and force me to climb back up.
It certainly wasn’t clear that I had to go back to the beginning to finish the map.
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Perhaps the best start of all the entries, this colour-corrected map starts with a bang! It was fairly short and did what it was supposed to do and that was make me play on the rooftops. The path was clear in each section, perhaps too clear, and some action was easy to avoid. The final battle was too plain and vanilla, and it was even possible to jump around the corner and get out the map.
All in all a good entry but not polished enough to win.
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You can see that Leon put a lot of work into these maps. In fact, there was supposed to be a third but he ran out of time. There is certainly a lot of gameplay and Leon took my point about it not being linear seriously by adding choice paths at various points within the maps.
This is probably the most enjoyable map I have played from Leon, so why didn’t it win? Well, as much as I enjoyed it, it deviated too much from the idea of rooftops. Yes, a lot of the time I am running around on roof, but roofs that are enclosed and I didn’t get the feeling of being high up.
The underground sections were fun to play but not part of the contest really. I have little doubt that if you enjoy Leon’s maps you will enjoy these too.
A personal situation prevented me from posting this sooner and I also feel that the post is a little rushed. I wanted to include a commentary video from one of the entrants, along with some panoramics, but just didn’t have time – sorry.
I would also like to thank the Beta Testers Collective for testing my mod packaging – thanks guys.
I feel as though I have learnt a lot from the competition and promise the presentation of the next one, which will be discussed soon, will be much better.
Please use the poll below to vote for your favourite.
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
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Using Gauge: Users
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Time Taken:
Average: 2 Hours, 30 Mins
Shortest: 1 Hours, 43 Mins by brianthesnail
Longest: 3 Hours, 45 Mins by Unq
Total Time Played: 12 Hours, 28 Mins
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I have to admit I hated choosing the winner of this competition. The previous ones, the winner seemed clearer, here I feel many will disagree.
Anyway, some great entries some definitely worth playing twice to really explore.
I’ve already made my personal comments by each map, so I won’t waste your time here.
I hope you enjoy playing the mod.
Optimisational skills failing me again (maker of senescence)
Some really really nice looking entries here, Am downloading and greatly look forward to playing through these
At last! Downloading right now.
hmmm, on the first map, I found 2 of the 3 objects I need to activate the bridge but I can’t find the third one anywhere. where the heck is it?
From memory it’s a little farther away than the first two, but still pretty close.
Unless I’m very much mistaken the puzzle is rather broken and if the pieces arnt inserted in the right order the rest are despawned. Or atleast that’s how it was for the limited time I tried to get it to work. It also seemed incredibly hard up to Easy Difficulty… did I just end up taking too many hits early on? Seems like I could have used with more opportunity for taking cover and healing.
As for impudent trek, was there actually any point to the button near the end? I just kept hanging out there expecting the forcefield to deactivate. I also found myself caught up on props way too often in that map (careful control over what collides with the player and using clip brushes to move the player over surfaces smoothly can fix these sorts of things).
It (or possibly Hostile Rooftops, I don’t quite remember) also quit the game once it was over, not your greatest of ideas guys 😛
megaman excuse, tell me exactly where you found the third item, I’m going crazy, I can not find it.
I found a third object that emits a light but as soon as you put in the machine, it disappears!
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I’m on the first level, and I’m a the part where I found one blue canister thing to activate the energy bridge. Em… where are the other 2?? I tried nocliping, but still no luck. Could anyone tell me the exact location of where it is? Pictures perhaps? Thanks…
1 is up 1 by by crates 1 by barrels I think.Dont want to get too specific.They are all fairly close by
Above The Clouds– Whilst I loved the idea, the execution was between reasonable and substandard, with detail ranging between good and poor. I also encountered a few bugs, one of which was game-breaking.
The gameplay was fairly decent, but suffered a lot from a lack of resupply, which meant I often got whittled down.
Some puzzles (such as the grenade+bridge) were also weird
5/10
Hostile Rooftops– Whilst there was nothing wrong visually with the map, it wasn’t the most inspiring
Being honest, I didn’t like the gameplay. I found it frustrating and uninspiring. This was the only map I did not finish.
2/10
Overcast B2– The visuals were sometimes oddly done, with floating buildings that made little architectural sense. The excuse of a simulation didn’t quite cut it.
The puzzles could sometimes be confusing, with me having to start from the very beginning at one point after dropping down at the wrong point
The gameplay was generally very good, including some excellent scenes with great combat (for instance the omgwtf moment with the zombies).
5/10
Senescence– N/A
Zenith– Hopefully this wont be too biased (it was made by a mate)
Visuals ranged from decent to ok, with well detailed areas being contrasted with poorly detailed areas.
The gameplay could be confusing and clustered, but had some decent parts.
Was also quite short
6/10
Roof1– The colour correction was used to a great effect to create a stunning visual atmosphere. This greatly enhanced the atmosphere and enjoyment of the map.
The gameplay was entertaining, if struggling with the problem of resupply again.
When was the ending? I destroyed the gunship and then I couldnt find what to do afterwards
With a great start and challenging gameplay I really enjoyed this entry
7/10
Rooftop Retreat– Im sure people know my opinion of Leon’s maps generally. Stunning visuals offset by poor gameplay.
I am delighted to say this is not the case.
There are the same great visuals (except for one graphical error with the elevator).
But this time there is fantastic gameplay and sensible player direction.
By far one of my favourite campaigns by Leon, and I hope he continues to work in this vein in the future
9/10
(WINNER) Imprudent trek– Being honest…I can see why this won.
The detailing was fantastic, almost valve standard at points, feeling like HL2 extensions at times.
The gameplay was decent, a couple of annoying parts offset by excellent gameplay.
I could write a large extensive review on how epic this map was, but it would be more of the same.
A clear winner in this case (better luck next time Leon)
10/10
I hope all my formatting worked (it doesn’t usually)
As developer of hostile rooftops, I would like to get feedback how I could improve gameplay for my next map.
Certainly, I was a little tired at the time of playing + reviewing so I may have been short on my usual patience.
My main problem was having absolutely no idea what was happening.
So I go up to a rooftop and kill loads of dudes, and then spend 5 minutes looking for those obvious pipes (more my fault)
Then I jump off onto the building, press the big red button and something explodes, and then a gunship starts shooting me. It’s usually too far away to shoot with SMG grenades and projectiles with the gravity gun.
I didn’t have an RPG etc, and I kept dying after jumping out of the window (saved with 6hp :P), with the idea that I might find one back where I started or something.
I found the big red button exploded something in the distance but it had very little effect.
Was I supposed to shoot down the gunship? I figured since I wasn’t given an rpg that I was supposed to run whilst being chased by the gunship.
But 10 deaths later I still hadn’t a clue where to go.
I suppose my main problem was the lack of a definable goal.
With all of the other maps it was a simple case of go from a) to b), with clear definable goals, but once I found the big red button room with the gunship (which would be annoyingly hard to shoot down with my current weapons), and then having no idea where to go, or for that matter what was happening,I lost my patience and loaded up Leon’s map.
I felt even a simple goal such as ” Find an rpg and destroy that gunship” would have provoked me to actually hunt around for an rpg to combat this enemy.
As it is I was firing grenades uselessly at it until a stray bullet killed me (the 6hp thing again).
It was then I ragequitted
Basically I didn’t know what to do and I couldn’t explore due to low health+gunship
Ah, thanks for the feedback.
The red button did open path on the other side of the building.
RPG was hidden under all of the stuff on the “corpse” room, maybe bit too hard to find. Ammo for the RPG is on the small room next to the first stairs.
I placed the RPG ammo to the beginning of the map to create non-linear gameplay.
Are you playing the “Above the Clouds” map? I’m having problems finding this “red button“. Can you tell me where to jump or just where this “red button” is?
I didn’t have any problem finding the RPG. Small room off full of boxes with stuff underneath them.
Break boxes!
On reflection though, it would have been better if it were more obvious.
Not just to make it findable but also so that the player doesn’t inadvertently blow themselves up.
As a whole it’s worth downloading, as it contains some really excellent maps, as seen from my review of the individual maps
9/10
Rooftop Retreat. Just shades it for me (no surprise there 😀 )
Glorious details. Glorious Battles. Multiple paths.
Happy ending.
Imprudent trek above the streets. Magnificent Mapping.
Takes some thought to get through it. The electrified water was irritating and out of place
8/10
Senescence. This was a very clever map indeed. The end was a let down with endless spawning until you took out the Helicopter.
Hostile Rooftops . Great fun. Lots of Combat with clever use of what is a quite small map.
7/10
Overcast B2. it’s a bit odd. Nothing wrong with that. Combat pacing was weird.
Great imagination though but I suggest that Rooftopville was not an appropriate place for this map.
The final battles were fantastic
Above The Clouds. This could have been the best. Lovely graphics. Towering (literally!) imagination. Let down by:
Not HL2 environment, endless spawning if you were to cross a trigger (APC roof), a grenade to bring down a bridge (!!!) and the grenade puzzle to lower the APC and access the bridge was no fun at all
6/10
Roof1. Actually very good but let down by a rather mundane boss fight. I couldn’t find an end other down to instant death which is tedious and irritating. What a pity.
5/10
Zenith. Nothing wrong with it at all but has nothing to make it stamd out.
A workmanlike map that’s worth a play (but not 2).
All in all. A great competition. My thanks to all of you.
WOWWWW thanks phillip many many thanks, this is a great day for modding scenario!!!, at last we have in our hands the so much expected Rooftop Ville so thanks!, can’t wait 4 play it I was about 2 play Call-in mod first, but now im gonna play this one first 4 sure!
The funny thing is, Leon’s ending was almost like Portal and Portal: Flashs” endings. It’s like, “Im finally free!!”. LoL. Leon’s map was great, but like Phillip said, it didn’t give me the feeling that I was ontop of a roof, but gameplay was fabulous. 9/10
I have to agree with the rest of you, Imprudent trek above the streets was the best map ever. You didn’t need crates to get up to the roof, all you had to do is to go through that door with a health/armor charger, and right in the corner, there is another door that leads to the roof. 🙂 Probably one of the best map I ever played. 10/10
I didn’t bother playing the other maps after I read the short reviews about it. Not really worth it, and I will never play Overcast B2, because maps that are too-non-linear are not my type. That map is just like Combine Destiny. Running through every corridor to find the exit was extremely fustrating, and nocliping didn’t help much.
Imprudent trek above the streets is definitely my favorite map. There is one issue though. Right after I finished playing that map, the credits rolled, and then it quit the game automatically, instead of going back to the main menu screen. Someone should fix that…
Well alright, your map, Overcast B2, was alright-ok. It’s descent to a point where gameplay was quite interesting. I can see you didn’t put much effort into props and background scenary. Gameplay was good, and overall, I’d give this a 3/5.
The only problem I had with your map was the part where the door was suppose to open in order to get to the skybridge. After reading your spoiler, I realized I was suppose to do 2 tasks in order to open the door to the sky bridge. You should have wrote something on a wall saying “Hey, you there, if you’re reading this, then you better read this carefully. First, you have to… etc. in order to open the door to a skybridge!!”. Notes and HUD notices could have been used, but I guess you ddin’t have enough time to do so? I mean, with I saw rebels on the ground, so didn’t they probably wrote something on walls or something to tell you where you’re going?
I overexaderated how your map was like Combine Destiny. That mod was just waaaaay too non-linear. Your mod was easier, but like I said, add some directions and stuff on the walls. 😉
Like in the first paragraph, it was disapointing that there was no background to it. Could have been nice if you did so. Hope you add a background in V2 of your map!!
The most enjoyable part was probably the WTFzombie trigger sections and running around the rooftops. That was fun. 😀 Keep up the good work, and if you need any help for beta testing, you can add me on ModDB. My account user is Joji. 😉
Zenith Review – 3.5/5
I liked the idea of sneaking up and sniping them. That first part was fun. 🙂 Weapons cache room was awesome, and I had a feeling I was going up a rooftop. Not bad at all. I liked how the creator of this map made some barricades so I can shoot and reload while crouched in cover. Excellent!! The final scene with the chopper was an interesting twist. Instead of shooting it down, you’re suppose to run away from it all the way back where you started, and down the tunnel. Alright, great map, but a little notice “that the forcefield that blocked the tunnel is now disabled, run back to it” could have been helpeful. Otherwise, a great map. 😀
Roof1 – 3.5/5
The colour correction gave me a feel that I was really at war. Started out nice with all the fancy props and visuals. Perfect!! My buddies kept on getting blown up by grenades (they don’t even run away from them!!), and the AI was too easy to kill (unlike other maps in this contest). Ok, didn’t had a big problem with that. I like how the creator of the map got some inspiration from the first chapter of HL2, where you’re suppose to walk on the ledge of the houses to your next destination. The final battle was… expected, and after that, I was lost. Oh, and the rooftop where you’re battling the gunship-thing lacked details (details as in props and rubble). Overall, great mod, but it still needs some improvements. 🙂
This is my last review. Not going to bother reviewing the others, because I’m too lazy. 😛
so, you not going to play Overcast B2 because you think it’s non-linear?… That makes me sad, since ultimatly it only appears non-linear, but really that’s an illusion.
DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU HAVE PLAYED THE MAP.
[spoiler]there are only two spots where the player must make a decision. the central hub. and the rooftop above the “cafe” in the first section the player must chose which task to complete first, turn off the power to a combine shield, or open the door to the skybridge. BOTH TASKS MUST BE ACCOMPLISHED in order to progress… I have gotten some feed back and apparently some players have the idea that one of said paths is only a dead end, and ultimatly pointless (because they don’t understand they have accomplished anything.)
in the second choice the player must choose to fall off the left side or right side of a building, one side leads to the objective, and the other side leads to the same objective. (this area at least is only a few moments of a detour, so there isn’t much difference between the two paths) so, to those who agree with Phillip that it is “too non-linear” I must say… I have found a holy grail of sorts.[/spoiler]
I will also take this moment to say I plan on releasing Overcast B2 as a stand alone map, with additions and corrections based off feedback. So thanks to those who give their honest reviews, the are most helpfull.
Well fine, I’ll try your map tommorow and see if it’s good or not. Sorry about the small insult there, hope it didn’t hurt your feelings too much. No really, I’m sorry… :'(
No worries mate.
ugh, I finally found the 3rd canister for the bridge. it’s inside one of the round containers. you have to backtrack quite a bit from the bridge area….and I had to noclip to reach it
Since people seem to be having trouble, here is the location of the two canisters if you can’t find them.
First one is obvious, second one is under the giant pile of boxes you see exiting the building, and the third one is in the hollow box on top of the other ones. Use boxes to get up there. I didn’t really realize it would be such a problem. Need a wider beta testing group I guess.
I thought it was a fun “find the X” puzzle, the one in the pile stumped me as much as the battery (in Half-life 2) that was hidden under a bathtub.
As I’ve said in a previous comment, I had the “batteries” despawn so I’d guess that other when other players couldn’t find them its because they literally werent there anymore.
BLUNT REVIEW
My hands are too cold to type, so I am going to make this quick.
Rooftop Retreat. detail wise it was pretty cool, but there was SOO much NPC spam. The entire cave section all I could thing of was… “Spam, spam, bacon, spam, spam, antlions, spam, combine, spam, eggs and spam” (this WAS what I was thinking). I also could not get the elevator to work. I think I glitched it out by pressing the button too early. there were also several errors here
Imprudent trek above the streets. It’s was pretty good, the holes looked a bit odd at times and the section with the zombies and the sniper was cramped.
Senescence. My computer is run on hamsters… end of story.
Hostile Rooftops . Beginning was good, went downhill really fast, found the bit with the pipes enjoyable.
Overcast B2: not going to review, hard to be unbiased about such things, but overall I feel it was top 3.
Above The Clouds. One of the best, if not THE best, it was very well made, and mastered the feeling of “if I do this will it break the map?… no?…cool” which was exactly how I felt during the citadel levels in HL2.
Roof1. Beginning was great, but everything after that was bland… also had no ending :C
Zenith. *echo* it’s really empty in here…
Overall, I say: 3 of the maps were too empty and under-detailed, 1 was unplayable due to my very old computer. 1 was ok (minus the NPC OVERKILLAGE) and 3 were great (of course… one of those WAS my map… take that as you will) In the end it was a refreshing collaboration effort, and I can’t wait till the next one.
Cheers! and good work everyone.
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Sigh. Yet more wonderful maps that obviously deserve as much feedback as possible, but I likely wont have enough time to even play, let alone review. Oh well. I’ll still mark my spot now so that I can reply here if I ever do get a chance.
Just a few comments….
Imprudent trek:
Personally I found a lot of it too cramped and hard to move around; I also, like phillip, wasted a lot of time trying to get through the hole in the roof before finally finding the way; as Joji said earlier the game quit instead of going back to menu at the end
Above The Clouds:
Probably my favorite so far (haven’t finished playing them all yet). Really brought the fear of heights out in me. Kind of hard for me to figure out how to get to the third building because the [spoiler] ledge looked impossibly small and I didn’t consider it a viable option at first.[/spoiler]
Hostile Rooftops:
Enjoyed it…love throwing/shooting explosive barrels and tanks. First time I hit red button nothing happened, had to kill everything first then when I couldn’t go anywhere else I finally decided to go up and hit the button again and then it worked. Also killed myself swinging crowbar at crates and weapon changed to rpg that was under crates while I was clicking away…
Overcast B2:
Enjoyed it but never did find out how to open the skybridge. Got tired of running in circles looking…everywhere I went I ended up back somewhere I had already been and finally noclipped onto bridge
In real life, cramped areas are a part of life.
In real life, horrible accents are a part of life.
In real life, completely random small holes are a part of life.
In real life, not everything is wide and open.
😉
Very true but the roof hole was pretty big and definitely looked like the correct way up to me…oh well. Nice map and I had fun playing it!
had trouble with the skybridge?
hmm… as the creater of Overcast I would like to know what it was that you DID do, where did you get stuck?
well, I thought I went everywhere there was to go with nothing but the skybridge keeping me from the other building. I even flew around in noclip looking but everywhere I went I had already been to so I must have missed something apparently.
after the manhacks, where did you go?
after the manhacks I went down the roofs both ways, one way goes back to the beginning area, one way to some scaffolding and back to the laundry room area.
ah, I see where you got stuck then, there is a section where it is possible to jump down to the walkway outside the player’s spawn. simply
[spoiler]don’t jump down, wrap around the “cafe” building, you should see some vents, and a slanted roof leading to some electrical equipement (see image 1 of phillip’s screenshots for my map.) and a small house, go in the house, and press the keyboard.[/spoiler]
ok, yeah I went in there a hundred times before but I always see dummy keyboard props in every map and I never press on them. Unless they look unusual or have a light or sign or something to make it stand out I would waste a lot of time if I pressed every keyboard I ever came across.
Oh well, appreciate the help. It was a fun map to play!
P.s. Phillips screenshots for your map do not work…at least not for me anyway…….
Senescence:
This one I thought looked good and was fun to play except for having to lower my resolution so it didn’t play so choppy. Also the ledges were so small it was easy to overshoot them when dropping down to them but maybe that is what some people like. As for the ending area I don’t like respawning enemies ever and even on god mode the helicopter took forever to shoot down.
Zenith:
It had some interesting moments of combat but was way too short. I didn’t care for the invisible walls in the forested area…I wanted to look around but couldn’t. The sleeping barack area was huge and had nothing in it but some bunk beds…no tables, chairs, boxes, lockers, shelves…nothing. Didn’t care for the end all that much either, should have been something to let you know you have to go back to the very beginning.
Roof1:
Like everyone else I thought it looked great and started great but then just turned mediocre and plain by the end…. which there is no actual ending.
Rooftop Retreat:
Very good maps. The only thing I don’t care for is impossibly hard to kill boss enemies…just my opinion.
These are just my personal gripes and I hope I have offended no one. Other than the few things I mentioned I enjoyed playing them all. THANKS!!!
Above the Clouds: It was a pretty fun map, had a slow pace but it was kinda enjoyable, the only thing that was missing to make it better and more “atmospheric”, was some nice soundscapes which could have changed its face completely. Also, I do believe the helicopter never arrives physically in the map and it just ends there with you on top of the building?
8/10
Overcast B2: It sort of looked interesting in the beginning, it had this non-linearity that made it kinda frustrating to look for the right path if there ever was one. It was the only map of the list that I didn’t manage to beat because I couldn’t find a way to go once I got through the super massive manhack wave coming out of that window. Besides that, it also lacked with some soundscapes.
5/10
Hostile Rooftops: As Phillip said, it was kinda empty and it was so simplistic with those Combine Soldiers scattered all around with what seems to be a map with no info_node just made it one of the weakest maps of this entire collection. It could have been good, but it was badly executed.
3/10.
Senescence: This one was rather fun in some situations and really frustrating in others. For instance, the annoying Ninja Combine Snipers, they were really a piss in the ass for me, it was like they could hit me no matter where I was. Other than that, the map itself made me feel like I was playing in one of those HL2 Leaked Beta Maps for some reason and I find that good. The lighting was way too strong, an env_tonemapcontroller or something like that could have been used to better control the HDR lighting so it doesn’t look like the sun is coming from a lamp. Another problem was the optimization but I’m sure that is something we can forgive.
7/10
Zenith: For one moment there I thought this map had an interesting promise but it wasn’t anything that special. The way the player is presented to the map isn’t somewhat friendly and you can’t really tell what you have to do precisely. Then you spot a dead body and try to follow its path towards the woods. But then the woods have invisible walls between the trees and that was sort of annoying. The “stealth” was just about going up the roof of the Combine barracks and maybe shooting down some CPs with the crossbow and that’s it. The rest of the map is just waves of enemies coming straight at you. The ending could have been better worked on, other than making the player return all the way back to the starting point for no apparent reason.
5/10
Roof1: I had high hopes for this one once the map started. The nicely done color correction and mapping was one of the best of the entire map pack. Although, it was way too simple, there was barely any action on the rooftops, or anything special about them. It could have been a lot better indeed. One more thing, though, the combine consoles that open up the shields should somewhat have something that indicated that’s what’s supposed to open the shield. I wasted 10 minutes walking around trying to find out what I had to do to open it up and then I decided to press E on everything.
5/10
Rooftop Retreat: Another great and creative map by Leon. It introduced a nice replay value to it with the alternate routes you could take even though they presented not much of a difference in the end, unfortunately. One little problem is that, since this is was a competition about rooftops, this map sort of went to a completely opposite direction even though the starting areas were on the rooftops but you never really had the sensation that you were on a rooftop but rather on some agglomerate of buildings, etc. I find that this map doesn’t kinda fit the competition, instead, it would have been a great standalone map by itself.
7/10
Imprudent trek above the streets: The winner of this competition was well deserved. Even though it was sort of simple with just a lot of props and stuff like that, it really quite feel something great about it. I don’t know, it might just be me. It sure had some action on the rooftops, but, I don’t know. I didn’t see anything that much special about it, besides the fact that it was one of the few maps of this competition that took the rooftops setting to the right way.
8/10
You are correct, I did not add info_node and after reading the docs about it, I should have added them… I myself used nav_generate to generate nav file and it worked fine on my system, not sure if its on the Rooftopville download..
Any other feedback besides of the lack of info_node’s?
yeah, the helicopter arrives but you have to go back down the lifts then it will come and hover a couple buildings back…game ends when you walk up to it.
Hey, can someone please optimize SceneScene, so me and the others can play it better? I really want to play it, but playing in 10FPS is not an option. Someone please do something? Thanks…
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Above The Clouds by Sam Petty. 8/10
This looked spectacular all the way through. I really felt like I was above the clouds. Although some wind noise and a dynamic sky would have been magic!
I liked the fact that you could see your objective from the start you could clearly see your pathways. Even when inching around the edge of a building on a knife-edge with combine taking pot shots!
The combat was quite hard but manageable early on.
Box stacking was required for climbing and patience. I had to bite my tongue and say no to ” noclip” and stack my way onto the hanger roof!
Activating the air-bridge was simple as everything was close by, but it did give rise to an amusing glitch. I found myself walking in the air on the other side of the containers!
And up popped an APC! I had a senior moment there and it took me a few tries to figure what was meant to happen. Not helped by an endless supply of combine!
Nice trip under the bridge followed by up, up and up. To the very top, do the biz and then home for tea and cake! 8/10
PS. What was up with that helicopter! A sideways thrusting fan under the main rotor hub is aerodynamic nonsense! The tail rotor counters torque!
Hostile Rooftops by Lauri Mäkinen. 7/10
This started off with a couple of melons! Then it was box shuffling and some mean combat, even on easy. I took many hits but the med and HEV chargers were close.
Some pipe walking, and falling off, led upwards to more gunplay. Exploding barrels are always fun!
Gave the flying menace wot-for with the rocket launcher, but only a single reload. Very stingy!
Thee last roof-to-roof jump was a piece of cake, after two dives to the street first! An elevated runway! Hint…..
Then drop in for a quarrel and your done.
A very small map, not as graphically challenging as some, but seemed to have a lot of action in it. It was quite tricky at times, but Very enjoyable with it. 7/10
Imprudent trek above the streets
by Samuli Jääskeläinen. 9/10
I am glad this won as it so deserving of merit, its plays like its part of “HL2″. A very good part!
it’s a puzzle combat fusion starting off with a rather large opponent. A ” Strider” to be exact, stalking the small cul-de-sac between the buildings. You have to climb through a destroyed building avoiding the strider’s gaze and firepower! Very tricky climbing and some mean sentry gun placements do not help!
After all the trouble trying to dodge the striders fire, it is a pleasure to dispatch it when the right weapon is found,
Some combine, snipers and light zombie activity keep you on your toes. Damn those annoying, churping “frog-mines”!
Some more fiddly climbs and traverses lead to a rubble arena, which you know is going to be trouble.
The last section up on the roof seems a little low-calorie in the textures dept, but the rest is rich and realistic.
The ending combat did seem a little too easy after playing ” Above the Clouds” and did not seem to validate all the hard work getting there. But a class act! So it’s a 9/10………
sorry, as it gets to the sky-bridge in Overcast B2? I can not find the way!:(
describe where you got stuck, perhaps I can help you.
I got through the scaffolding, I have activated a switch that I have opened a door which takes me back to the starting point and most do not know where more to go!
ok, calm down. you say you took the scaffolding? was this after the manhack encounter?
Rooftop Retreat was the best of them, though I have to admit that it really doesn’t fit the correct criteria. But DAMN was it not only original in its game design but its art direction as well. Such an amazing contribution by Leon. Please make more of this sort because I absolutely loved it.
Above the Clouds was the one that made you feel the most high up, and it did have a unique take on Combine architecture. Still, it was crude and a bit confusing.
Overcast B2 by Jared Goodroad. 9/10
This map is a real mean combat simulation with a dull overcast making it seem bleak and inhospitable. It is!
Looking out of the windows seeing buildings floating in a fog of simulation is odd, but the surroundings are nicely rendered. it’s combat from the start, with an ambush or two. Then stuck in a dead end with two openings you can’t crawl through. “Agh!” Count to ten, engage brain, look around and the solution appears.
The laundry rooms flooded and there’s bodies floating everywhere, “it’s gonna get ugly”. It does.
Nasty surprises jump out at you from time to time for those cheap little scares that make you smile.
Some nice weapon & ammo caches help with the fighting, but a surprise swarm of manhacks did not!
I ran and hid and picked them off one by one.
Combine and hunters made the going tough, so I thought, but a terminal activation opened a new set of woes.
Back to the beginning, with the odd manhack reappearing and the walkway doors were now open.
A large ammo cache spelt trouble, so I tooled up and charged down the corridor, gun blazing. A hunter stood over me as I gazed up through that read death haze!
Late night combat always ends badly!
Finished the next day. The short dash to the chopper and simulation end was a little too easy with the health I had left!
I played on ” easy” but the combat was still tough and I enjoyed the struggle. There was just the right amount of ammo and health to survive. I loved the layout of the map. You could see the bridge but couldn’t see how to get to it, but you could tell you’d be there soon.
A fantastically fun combat simulation map! 9/10
Senescence by Jacob Heywood. 9/10
I had no trouble running this mod, but there was one or two moments of slight stutter in the rail terminus.
I am running WinXP.
This was a graphic feast of a mod and in my opinion the best textured of all. Set at night, its dark gloomy atmosphere and rich coloured textures make you feel “there”. The views from the rooftops were so good I wanted jump down and investigate!
A whole section involving snipers was very tricky involving a lot of crawling and swift feet. Sightseeing caused me many a swift death!
Lots of climbing, roof drops, narrow aerial gangplanks and a mad building-to-building leap made this map a treat.
Combat was challenging at times, trying to shoot those red or blue eyes in the dark at distance, but just right for my level of play.
It was so good visually and aurally, with excellent use of lighting, I kept pausing to look around. Loved the wind sound!
The aerial gangplanks were a highlight for me.
I notice the combat violence level increasing from here on with the combine elite getting mean.
I think this is by far the best map I’ve played, but I have a serious reservation about the ending. It was a combat arena, not my favourite thing, but the level of combat was impossible for me to win!
I had to invoke ” god” mode after many desperate attempts to fight
This was the best map, spoiled by an impossible ending…….. 9/10
I do not understand what is manhack, maybe the monster is carrying on his shoulders headcrabs? if that’s what I’ve already killed, though I did everything there was to be done, the scaffolding came down, I went through the laundry room, kill the zombies and turned a switch, then climbed up to the starting point and then ?
Manhacks are the flying metal things that Metrcops normally throw.
ah, I see! then no, I have not yet appeared! What should I do to make it appear?
Damn this mod but it is hard to find the right path. I started again from the beginning but I keep getting stuck after all!
but you can find out what triggers the circuit breaker operated in the laundry?
@ Mario
OVERCAST map
A path finding walkthrough you, maybe others, might find helpful:
[spoiler]Path finding walkthrough only.
An alternative path and a couple of secret areas omitted.
Remove wardrobe from doorway and get Crowbar.
Get Crossbow
“Restaurant”
Up stairs
Collect weapons from desk
From hole slit, shoot bar blocking door on left
Enter room (3 Combine)
Down Ramp
Through open doorway on left in lit area.
Get to Lamda logo for goodies
Get down from there, proceed/do not go back
Down stairs — Right/Right/Right
Water/Enter “Laundry room”
Kill until a door opens
Enter that room/”Use” switch box twice.
Return/Poison Zombie
Poison Headcrab. Now left up the stairs past shut double doors.
Bookcase room
Upstairs/After Hunter get to ladder.
Drop into room the Manhacks* burst out of
*Small flying bots
Collect drum/ out of window.
Get to next roof up
Through gap in fence onto roof
Look right/Get to that room
In that room ” Use” keyboard (white light)
Cutscene
Leave room/Headcrab bomb breaks blocked window.
Through window/Room where the 3, now dead, Combine were.
Down ramp.
Through open double doors from cutscene.
Get ready for WAR 😀 [/spoiler]
Damn, I missed the damn PC keyboard, I thought did not matter at all and instead …..
Jasper Thanks, you were very helpful!:)
Oh I enjoyed this PP competition pretty much!, it was cool, and many maps offered us really good and cool action, so please play it now, the entries I loved the most were: Above the Clouds, Imp. Trek above the streets, Rooftop Retreat, Roof1 and Sencence, In that order:
Above the clouds was really great and I loved to fight so high in those enormous CMB structures they get used to built here on earth; ITAS were really great definitive the best entry that provide that great feeling of playing in a rooftop combat action all of the time 99.99% of it; RR, of Leon’s it was Leon’s style combat with really great fights but like Phillip said here
definitively give me that impression that rooftops were very low comparing to the enormous buildings that were surrounding them that I thought: -I’d love to been having this fighting in those rooftops instead of this midget ones!-, the mine part was cool and as I like Leon’s maps, I’d like to see the finish map (#3) of that entry if it’s possible and of course if Leon could work on it if he can. Roof1 was too good great beginning like in a entertaining urban fight, I’d love to see some kind of “URBAN-FIGHT-VILLE” in the future that’s maybe not a bad idea, although R1 was short I’d love to see more action; And finally Sencence was cool and didn’t give me any trouble on my lap, and despite it’s “darky” style it combined well the snipers part, that made me remain the PP siniperville comp. But I have to say it: -I HATE THE END!-, those hordes of skip Hunters were a pain in the butt especially when I was trying to shoot down the heli, which by the way I reach kick it down till rocket #30..something so that ruined almost all the map for me, but I have 2 say it, it has quality.
So I think that was all, the rest of the entries were OK, but I didn’t feel they were at the level of these ones I’ve just mentioned, some maps seems to be just floating in the clouds, I mean there were buildings, but I couldn’t see the floor supporting them, so come on that’s a basic detail!! u can not miss guys. Anyway I enjoyed overall this competition, hope we sure have more in the future, ask Phillip for it and cross fingers!
i haven’t come around to giving my review on all the maps in this contest, and I don’t have the time right now, hopefully I will do so next time I visit.
i do want to answer to those who want to play the 3th map of the 2 maps I did sent in, and I can tell you that I have decided to make a mini mod out of it, that has a total of 5 to 6 maps. map 3 is already done and map 4 is almost complete. I have opened a page on moddb where you can watch a teaser movie and 10 new screens of it, should you be interested.
The name of the mod is “Rooftop Retreat”.
(The 2 maps that where in this contest are also in the mod of course, but they will be rebuild in a lot of ways so they will not look to much on the 2 maps in the contest!)
leon
That is brilliant news – I love your maps 🙂
Great Leon many thanks!
I would like to thank you all for the reviews and feedback on my map. From what I read, many people were impressed by the beginning but let down at the end due to the shitty boss and lack of rooftop action and detail (after the combine consoles).
I simply did not have enough time to make it longer or to finish it. I entered the contest in January and had little time to work on it due to all my school projects. Overall, I’m quite pleased with the results under those circumstances.
I’m looking forward to the next competition and this time I will not fail you 😀
Zenith by Matt Hoskin 4/10
Errrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmm! I think I played this map. I remember running, climbing, some shooting, a lever, a helicopter, running back to the start and title screen! It was all over in a trice, just as I was thinking this could be a tough one.
Nice atmosphere but far too short. I mean, wow!
I’m stunned!
Nice and simple map but compared to the rest a disappointedly mediocre effort. 4/10
On the plus side. There is many a mod or game where I wished for the amount of ammo I found here!
Thanks! Thanks! Thanks! Leon,,
Dont Stop!
Why someone is not paying you to do this is beyond me–
as normal,
All new retail quality HL2. 🙂
I have only played the first two maps of this compilation yet, but I wanted to make Phillip aware of two general issues with this otherwise great pack of missions:
– The title doesn’t fit on the screen for resolutions lower than 1280×1024. Yes, people still use them ;), so please don’t choose such a big font for the next revision or pack you create.
– It’s not good style for a mod to include your personal control.cfg. Yes, it’s cool to see what keys you use, but it’s very annoying to have to reconfigure the game to my own settings.
Sorry about that. I’ll make sure the next one is smaller.
The inclusion of the CFG was an oversight. It wasn’t picked up by the beta testers either. Again, sorry.
Always late to the party – life is such a busy little place.
First off, I’ll just state that I love heights ! The higher the better…it’s just one of my things. Naturally this carries into my playing style and I’m always trying to path-find my way up onto places and areas that likely weren’t intended for my occupation and I just love a map with a good vista ( Strider Mountain i.e. ). So naturally, I was really anticipating this pack of maps. Now that I’ve finally managed to experience all the entries, I’ll toss in my brief two cents as well ( playing on Hard ).
” Above the Clouds” – About as high up as you’ll get. Some really decent mapping here with a clear goal and a couple of good problem solving spots. Some good combat ( had a hell of a time getting by those damned Hunters ) here and there with a decent play time. Could have used some accompanying ambient tracks for maintaining added interest.
6/10
” Hostile Rooftops ” I had a damned lot of fun with this map right from the start. A nicely put together classic ” use your head and look around a bit ” map, well worth the play. It was just too short for the fun !
7/10
” Imprudent Trek Above the Streets ” – Just plain great mapping all around ! Suited my preference for nice and tight, close quartered spaces and progression paths marvelously. The combat was well balanced for me and that frantic finale was just a “swearing it up” good time ! Marvelous work and congratulations.
9/10
” Overcast_B2 ” – I honestly tried, but I couldn’t get past the bothersome feeling that I’d seen these unpolished barren, drab areas a dozen times. I did not finish it out of lack of interest.
3/10
” Senescense ” – I just simply adored this map ! It suited my tastes to a tee. Great visual mapping style ( luckily no lagging ), room for some nice tactical combat, good atmosphere throughout, clever progression paths ( love those external plank paths ! ) – just a great time. I did find the final combat scene just sadistically insanely and I admit I had to back down the difficulty. Loved it ! A true contender.
9/10
” Zenith ” – I have little else to say besides, ” what the hell was this ? ” ( no direct offense intended )
1/10
” Roof1″ – A visually nice, quite decently constructed short map. Good change-up in the beginning, which after a few minutes, staled into little more than a simple forge ahead to the next point shooter. I did enjoy playing it through though.
6/10
” Rooftop Retreat ” – It’s common knowledge that I’m a big fan of his style and always enjoy Leon’s work and this submission was no exception. I agree with Philip in that it technically conceded to the other entries regarding the theme, but I loved it just the same – rushed or not. Always a pleasure to play ( x2 ), but it just wasn’t meant to take the prize home here.
By the same token, I’m damned glad to hear that he’s continuing on to finish the originally intended 3rd map and expanding the pack all together.
7/10
Looks to have been another successful gathering for this competition with some fine maps. I’m glad you host these Philip – I truly enjoy the variety of imaginative creativity which are always ( for the most pat ) a lot of good play. Also, to all those who submit their work, I thank you. Don’t ever stop.
Lots of the maps is highly unlikely to finish! I got stuck in some of the levels. A couple of the maps were good, and the rest were just okay. Make a ScannerVille next!
Roof1 by Radu Iceman. 8/10.
Another very short map, but this one showed talent.
The purple colour grading was a nice touch for the urban environment this map was set in.
I must say the beginning was shear genius! Dropped straight into a firefight, armed and ready for combat with your rebel comrades! The train passing was a nice touch as was the ample cover, giving you a chance to duck and think, “What the blazes”!
Combat was straight forward, with some ducking and diving amid the scenery. I even found a headcrab to shoot amongst the combine!
When stuck behind a forcefield, I always click the “use” key on any consoles, even if they do not have the usual red button, just in case. “Bingo”! It worked here.
Not too much roof action again, but neither had the completion winner’s and a similar ending battle. Except here there was one combine gunship, not two and the other difference. NO ENDING!
Via a “noclip” to get up a ledge, I travelled back to the start, found some stores, nice, and a rebel left at the beginning. She said “Sorry Freeman” when I walked up to her. Maybe she meant the missing ending!
An ok map with a blockbuster of a beginning and a neat hue…..
8/10. (Mostly for the visual colour and start)!
An amazing collection of maps to play, replay and enjoy.
This has to be a personal favourite!
Above The Clouds by Sam Petty. 8/10
Sky-high fun! Lots of combat, some seat-of-the-pants ledge work and plenty of chance to fall great distance!
The highest of the maps.
Hostile Rooftops by Lauri Mäkinen. 7/10
A small action packed roof top map. Add a few big jumps, a gunship and combines galore and you have fun in such a small package!
Imprudent trek above the streets. (Comp. Winner).
by Samuli Jääskeläinen. 9/10
The climb up through a ruined building, while dodging the attention of a strider is a major highlight of this very polished entry. And lots of roof action both combat and spiderman! (Climbing, etc). Richly textured and detailed for that professional look and feel. A winning combo!
Overcast B2 by Jared Goodroad. 9/10
A high, misty combat simulator with shocks and surprises galore! Standouts include a dark, creepy flooded laundry room, a swarm of manhacks and a tunnel of death. Glorious combat mapping at its best!
Senescence by Jacob Heywood. 9/10
My opinion the best map of all. The dark textures and lighting was rich and beautiful. The combat was varied and there was a vicious sniper section to keep your head down! Mapping excellence let down by an impossible to win ending area! A real shame as this map should be a 10/10 and the winner.
Zenith by Matt Hoskin 4/10 — changed to — 6/10!
I think my mark is a bit harsh as the map looked very promising and the combat was good. The fight in the barracks was actually quite outstanding! But two roofs! Not really what the comp. Was about.
Roof1 by Radu Iceman. 8/10.
The grand climatic opening was the outstanding start of all the competition entries! With the colour grading adding an emotional shift, this felt epic!.
A nice little short map, with a bit of a roof work and interesting combat leading to the final battle; and ?
No ending?
Rooftop Retreat by Leon Brinkmann. 7/10
I’ve always liked playing Leon’s work and this was no exception. Richly textured details as always and interesting play right from the start. Nice added twist of multiple pathways for added replay value. So professional looking as were the combine soldiers at shooting me!
I am starting to get fed up seeing that bloody mil mi-8 helicopter in mods, since you can’t fly it or get in! it would have been great to crouch in and fire out from the side door or rear clamshell doors.
I found a room here with three floating machine guns, so I shoot one and it bled! A dead combine appeared and died so I shot the other two!
Combat was heavy, but ammo and health was provided and ample.
The roof top aspect of this map was a little suspect. Yes I could see the chimneys, but the buildings and scenery towered above me! And then I fell down a deep shaft and ended up swimming into a mine system!
Roof tops aerial — mines subterranean!
The poison antlions were a bunch of (very rude words & gestures) and I died lots of times before I found the exit to run through. Ending up facing two very big wotsits with hardly a bullet left!
I give this a 7/10 because it really was brilliant but lacked any real relevance to the competition.
Me too! “…Ending up facing two very big wotsits with hardly a bullet left…”. On my part, I had no bullets left, i.e. (Rooftop Retreat) I can’t complete it
SPOILER AHEAD
he key to the last section in the mine is to flee past the ” antlions” and get through the door to the next section as fast as possible! don’t try to take them on. I did and died and died!
For the guards try jumping on the car near the caravan as you enter. I managed to take down one from here without being attacked. Then jump down; grab some more ammo, retreat and shoot. Use the cars for cover.
I had to use ” god” mode to find the way past the antlions before I realised where the exit was!
Okay, I played the first four maps now. “Above The Clouds” and “Imprudent trek above the streets” were great, each in it’s own ways. I’m not so sure about “Hostile Rooftops” and “Overcast B2”. Especially the latter suffered heavily from two issues that could stop the player from continueing: 1. If you don’t “awake” and thus kill all zombies in the flooded room the door will not open, it should be unlocked regardless of enemies. 2. The light on the computer keyboard is very inconspicious, the screen should show the door that is affected by it.
I’m having problems with “Above The Clouds”. I’m trying to move on the the next bldg. Can’t find any button to deactivate shield or a way to create the bridge needed to get to the next bldg. Can anyone HELP? Everyone is saying that this is a great group of maps trying to find out how great.
Check my post above on the battery placement.
Just out of interest, did anyone find the Easter Egg on my map ‘senescence’, where you can shoot the explosive barrels suspended beneath the large wooden bridge at the start?
Or did I make it too obscure?
Yes, I did. Nothing seemed to appear or happen though.
What did I miss?
Thats odd
It’s meant to make all the barrels explode and the bridge fall down
How strange
That happened. Just something you would expect rather than an Easter Egg.
Seems I drastically underestimated the observance of most players.
I half expected most to run over the bridge as fast as they could without pausing to look
I noticed the gaps on the wooden bridge but I assumed it might collapse so I pegged it across!
I was too preoccupied looking out for an attack to give the bridge another look. I did wonder about the explosive barrels though when no attack came!
But I’ll go back for a peak next time.
First off, thanks to all the authors for some great maps to play. I appreciate all of your efforts in putting these together for the competition.
Above the clouds….Nice layout, good combat and a good objective, enjoyed playing it but I did get to some areas I shouldn’t have and needed to no clip out. One sure thing about most HL players is if we think we can get somewhere we sure will try. Overall well done.
Hostile rooftops….Fair amount of combat, plenty of nice explosions and use of propane tanks, that was fun. Again with this map I was able to venture to the street level (some combine down there at first and thought I needed to take them out) I dropped a few health kits from the roof and jumped off the ladder but no way to get back up…F6 is your friend. It took me a few minutes to realize what the red lever switch did.
Imprudent…..Not my favorite but a good map, I really liked the sniper area that was challenging but IMO it lacked overall gameplay I found the the gunship and strider a little too easy to take out but well done.
Overcast….good combat but a little confusing to me as to where to go at times, some backtracking. not a bad play through but didn’t seem to fit the rooftop concept and the ending was too abrupt.
Senescence…..PF this would be my winner. Great combat, stealthy needing to avoid snipers, nice environments, good game play flow and a tough final battle. to me this fit the criteria of the competition. Yes there was a lagging, choppy problem to it but that was explained and covered by the author and didn’t cause so much of a problem that I got frustrated Great Map!
Zenith…..It certainly had potential and could be expanded but until coming to the reviews I didn’t know if I had really finished it. It made no sense to me. point A to point B back to point A.
Roof1….This map too started with a great deal of potential but faded out quickly. Wasted a lot of time “trying” to find an end. jumped down balconies, went building to building etc etc…definitely one of my biggest pet peeves when there is No End I would give this entry my lowest score.
Rooftop Retreat…..As a stand alone map this would for sure be a PF for me, I loved it, But it didn’t fit the criteria to rank in the competition. I’m just so happy that Leon took the time to put this gem together and enter it. I respect Leon’s decision to move on as he has stated previously to do other game mapping but thank him for giving us this.
I think I found a great aid folks. Answers are on Youtube. Use a little imagination.
A mixed bag of really enjoyable maps (obviously “Imprudent trek above the streets”, “Rooftop Retreat”) and total crap… For me personally single levels don’t work at all and this compilation does only little better… Too bad!
Pretty hit-and-miss. I remember HunterVille only having one or two dud maps, whereas this had four, five, or six (depending on how harsh you want me to be). Imprudent Trek was of course great, as was Above the Clouds, and I liked the vibe of some of the other maps, but gameplay-wise, they were lacking. Particularly hostile rooftops: I read above that pressing the red button opened a path on the other side of the building, but it either didn’t work for me, or I got too caught up launching m203s at the gunship to notice it.
Overall, I’d say this pack is definitely worth the download just for Imprudent Trek and Above the Clouds, but if I’m going to rate the entire package, it’s getting 3 stars.
great to see that people are still playing this slightly older mapping competition, and also that my 2 maps at the end are liked by most.
i did say back then that there was a 3th map that I couldn’t finish in time but that I was working on it so I could release it as a small 3 sp-maps mappack later on.
well, hopefully it does please you to hear that I have been working like crazy and that (like always) did project did grow from a 3 maps in to a large full mod like my previous mods did.
many new maps have been added now and the total amount of this mod will be somewhere around 10 maps. I have about 75% done of this mod and I am aiming on releasing it in 2+ months hopefully.
(on Moddb you can find screens, movies and info about the mod under the title Rooftop Retreat).
Hmm, I cant rate it yet because I havent played it yet. When I get some time I look forward to trying it, as it does look very interesting. Hopping around on rooftops is a cool concept that we only got a little of in the beggining of HL2 (as phillip mentioned). I’m surprised we dont see more of this type of mod.
Hi Philip et al
I got a 404 when trying to download this today.
Fixed. Sorry about that. Although there’s no guarantee it wills till work after Valve’s update.
Thanks for that Philip.
The link below has a post containing a fix for a lot of the mods that stopped working after the Pipe fiasco, with two options for HL2 and EP2 mods. I found it works quite well.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/420/discussions/0/864971765497379056/#p3
Something else I meant to mention a while ago, when I click my Profile link, it shows a permissions error:
“You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page.”
regards
BTM
Another good set of contest maps in this pack, and you get a good variety of “rooftop” interpretations here. Some really high rooftops (Citadel-like heights) and some clever City 17 style roofs.
My favorite was Imprudent Trek. It’s got a good mix of puzzle elements and combat (you start off next to a strider) and is a well designed map overall. I did also like the mood of Senescence, and the setting of Above the Clouds. Rooftop Retreat was also fun, although it suffered from the kitchen sink approach and much of it takes place in tunnels instead of rooftops.
All of the maps hold something worth seeing and experiencing, though quality and polish varies quite a bit.
In a number of the maps I was able to jump out of the map or get to places I wasn’t supposed to, probably due to this being a rooftop contest, so many of the roofs were located near the top of the map.
Manually
Medium
3 Hours, 45 Minutes
This is my review after playing the level for The Ville Retrospective event and live stream.
This pack was a mixed bag. Some of the levels I had fun playing and others not so much! Over all I gave it a play it later.
AboveTheClouds by Sam Petty
A somewhat nice map that has some serious issues with map boundaries and arena designs. It is possible to get on top of certain clip brushes and “float” around the level which is very unfortunate. A lot of the arena designs allow the player to just stand in position and deal with the threat without moving or feeling any danger. Unfortunate. The level does have some nice sign posting and the vistas feel suitably epic from most angles.
Hostile Rooftops by Lauri Mäkinen
This map had no real pacing and some serious choke points to content with. I did like the feeling of crossing to different roof tops however.
Imprudent trek above the streets by Samuli Jääskeläinen
A worthy winner! Certainly a very polished map with some cool parts and nice designs. I still had some progression issues with it however. It is not always clear how to proceed and some paths are hidden very well which is unfortunate. Looking past these problems however, the map was fun and had some interesting situations in it.
Overcast B2 by Jared Goodroad
Very basic visually and easy to get lost due to poor bread crumbing and the fact that most areas look the same. A appreciate the attempt at a somewhat non linear layout but the issues I just mentioned mean that is falls into confusion and irritation rather than an enjoyable exploration of the space. The combat is pretty crazy but actually in a good way. I found myself enjoying the encounters even though they were getting very silly by the end 🙂
Senescence by Jacob Heywood
Lovely lonely atmosphere in this one. Bit of a Silent Hill vibe going on! Strong lighting guides you around very effectively, although a few areas had problems. For example there are ladders which are not lit or picked out in any way which can be confusing. Combat is a mixed bag, the sniper section I found annoying due to unclear sight lines, the rest of the combat had a slight puzzle element to it which I found refreshing. The final arena was cool but went on way too long!
Zenith by Matt Hoskin
This is ok visually but design wise it is all over the place. Huge invisible clip brushes and very basic combat encounters that boil down to “put 50 metrocops in a room with the player! = GAMEPLAY!”
Roof1 by Radu Iceman
Solid intro that goes down hill afterwards! Lack of health and ammo and some clipping issues got me killed a few times. No proper ending left me confused. Nice CC!
Rooftop Retreat by Leon Brinkmann
Visually nice and combat is fun for the most part. This would probably be my number 2 pick for best level however the inclusion of atmosphere shattering “route choices” spelled out by the level designer really hurt this level. It’s a bewildering choice to break the 4th wall so completely when it’s completely unnecessary to do so! Route choices should be evident in the level design without the designer coming in and actively telling you about them in a non-fictional way. Chopper fight was stupidly long! 🙂
Manually
Medium
2 Hours, 30 Minutes
I have to admit… of all the “ville” mapping competitions “rooftopville” is by far my favourite,and none have come anywhere close since this !
all of the entries are outstanding and the maps gave me two days ( but a total of 1 and three quarter hours of gametime ) of sheer fun
above the clouds was a nice map but as another reviewer noted there was some issues with boundries …. this isnt a problem with me allthough it does affect the standard of the map especially since its being judged
hostile rooftops was interesting and ok to play but it didnt have a quality of the other maps … that said a excellent map with decent gameplay
above the streets was a good map allthough i would of judged it second … however it was a worthy winner and was a joy to play …… and it has to be excellent when you compare what its up against
overcast was another map that didnt explode in terms of gameplay and visuals but was nice to play and kept me going ( or in other words i never pressed escape to try another entry ) …. nice map
streetscene intially made me giggle as its the company who empty our rubbish bins in our local council …. seriously though another outstanding map with nice visuals and decent sound …. this is another i would run again
zenith and roof 1 were decent enough maps … as with all new maps they were interesting to play but didnt have the quality of the other entries
rooftop retreat was my winner,however being a huge fan of leon brinkmann i would have to say that …. im sure theres been added area,s the second time around … but anyway a amazing map with the excellent quality expected from the best hl2 mapper/modder around …
Manually
Medium
1 Hour, 43 Minutes
First: all maps are working under Linux, but:
Imprudent trek above the streets:
I was not able to climb up the last ladder. I could not “grab” it to climb so i had to noclip.
Above The Clouds:
Beatyfull, but at the beginning im not able to climb over the last fence to reach the lift, so here i have to noclip.
Hostile Rooftops: no problems.
Sometimes I do wonder if I’m just missing something when I hear some of you guys raving on. Okay, I know it’s each to their own of course. But I really didn’t click with this strange collection. A real mixed bag if there ever was one.. none are exceptional and some look very unfinished. I dunno… nice action but there’s so much better on this cool site. (although I did rather enjoy the odd Above The Clouds. Pretty cool)
Manually
Medium
2 Hours
And here we go again. I love the theme for this one and look forward to seeing what people made for it.
I really enjoyed this a lot! It has a clever layout and some really clever fights. I absolutely LOVE the environment, it thinks outside the box of the competition rules and is amazingly atmospheric. My only complaint is that in the first map, there are a lot of ways to get to places you’re obviously not supposed to. I might’ve accidentally skipped part of it too. But apart from that, excellent map! Highly recommended.
Well, the mapping is very blocky, but there’s nothing really wrong with the map. It’s simple and amateurish, but I had fun playing it. It’s a bit confusing at the end going back to the start and the other building.
This is another great map. It’s well designed, fun and atmospheric. It’s also got a lot of variety, with a strider, a sniper and gunships along with the regular enemies. It looks really good too, reminds me a lot of Episode One. Highly recommended.
This is really cool. I like the floating rooftops environment, and there are a lot of secrets and places to explore. The combat is fun and the atmosphere is good. If I have one complaint, it’s that at one point you are confronted with twenty or so manhacks, which is ridiculous and nobody should be put through that (hmm, this sounds familiar *cough*Ballistic*cough*). Otherwise though, highly recommended.
I like the environment a lot. The problem with this map is that the playing fields are far too large, so you have to run around a lot and shoot things from long range. There’s some pretty fun combat included, but the ending fight is very tedious.
Again, the playing fields are far too large. Not only that, but there’s no thought put into where the enemies go, they just stream out. Also, that many combine elites is just ridiculous and not fun to fight. To top it off, you just have to make a mad dash while a helicopter not-so-slowly kills you at the end, which is horrible design. This one’s not good.
Everything is purple! Pretty nice little map. Some fun combat and ambushes, and I like the environment (reminds me, again, of Episode One). There unfortunately is no proper ending, after you kill the gunship there’s nothing to do. Otherwise, it’s a fun map.
Holy headcrabs in hats, how did he get this done in time for the competition? Not only is it a rather long and really good level, but it has branching paths as well! The visuals are great, the gameplay is fun and well thought out, and it feels like a fully fleshed out mapset, all in time for a competition! My one complaint is that the antlion guardian fight was a bit tedious, but WOW this is impressive. Highly recommended!
This is my favourite so far (of the three I’ve played). There were four very good maps I enjoyed a lot. I highly recommend you download this and play at least those four. Next stop, StriderVille!
Good use of the theme and great visuals. Really liked the setting though it felt a bit weird because I couldn’t hear any sound other than the game sounds. Was there even a soundscape? You would think that there would be more wind and stuff when you are so high in the sky. This is only a very minor issue though.
The combat was pretty good. There was a fight against an APC which I quite liked.
It’s quite easy to get out of the map though. You can pretty easily skip parts by walking on the side of the buildings.
Visuals is most definitely not one of this entry’s strengths. It’s very blocky and you can see easily see where the map is ending. Combat is very dull, the enemies move around like they are drunk. After decompiling I discovered why: the creator didn’t even place any info_nodes. I also discovered some more things which I won’t all write down, but I can make the conclusion that this map was made by a beginner. A really early beginner.
From great visuals to great gameplay, this is definetly the highlight of this competition. You start inside destroyed buildings while you are being watched by a strider in the middle of them. After that there is an area with zombies and a sniper, altough I could very easily kill the sniper by standing on another building and shooting a RPG round in the window.
When you finally get to the rooftops, it feels earned. You then finally get to actually use your weapons. There aren’t a lot of enemies though, I was expecting more since you got almost the entire arsenal from the start.
Anyways, it ends with a tough boss battle. Feels very satisfying to beat it though.
This entry had some nice ideas but it was let down by poor gameplay, combat and level design. I was getting lost quite often, I ran in circles for about 10 minutes. The combat is really weak for the most part, even going as far as throwing 10 enemies (including a Hunter) in your face at once while in a hall that’s two metres wide.
The map itself made no sense. Everything is floating in the air, there is no ground. Inside the buildings it also doesn’t look good.
When I stepped on the rooftops and got the view of the city… I loved that. Gameplay wise this map is pretty good. It has some nice ideas that were implemented well for the most part. Only thing I didn’t really like was the final battle against the chopper, which after a while just became really boring because you had to repeat the same pattern over, and over, and over… This was my only major letdown though.
I liked the atmosphere, but that really is the only thing I liked. The combat is atrocious; throwing 30 Combine Elites at once at the player with almost no cover is the worst thing you could ever do.
I was also a bit confused in this map: it’s not really clear that you have to backtrack to the beginning after hitting the switch.
I really like the combat in this entry. It supports aggressive play, which is a plus in my book. I also liked the visuals; the color correcting was on point.
Only real complaint is that the map doesn’t end properly after the final battle.
This entry is HUGE. It’s very long, but not in the sense that it drags; on the contrary, it’s fast-paced action with plenty of ammo lying around. It goes from the rooftops of a city (with a very nice skybox) to a cave. Of course, this is RooftopVille and not CaveVille, but I still liked that it switches things up.
Very enjoyable entry. Will replay this somewhere in the future.
Manually
Medium
2 Hours, 30 Minutes
Above The Clouds: Looks and plays good.
Hostile Rooftops: Looks ok plays good.
Overcast B2: Looks ok, plays ok. Had trouble finding the exit.
Senescence: Looks and plays ok.
Zenith: Weakest of the bunch. Good elements but overall it feels unpolished.
Roof1: Map gets weaker as you progress. Still worth a play through. No real ending.
Rooftop Retreat: Leon never disappoints. Great idea for a map. My favorite.
Imprudent trek: Looks good. Plays good. Not a fan of the ending.