Commented 16 years ago2008-02-07 00:41:14 UTC
in vault item: Ren_Test2Comment #16344
Loved the rotating room. I was able to suss out the solution. However, this map suffers from the same problem as many amateur maps - random chance bolloxing a valid solution followed by a punitive rerun of several steps to restore the status quo. The energy ball solution is too prone to bad clipping, odd angles, and arbitrary timing. On one of my attempts, I had solved the puzzle, but, the energy ball burst mere inches from the target, requiring me to retrace my steps again. Then, the ball bounced at an odd angle as it entered the final chamber, and clipped out into the void. Not fun. However, the design is far above average.
The gl_wireframe 2 option will highlight all the visible leaves that the enginee has to render at that moment. As from my pic you can see that almost all of your leaves highlighted. This is because of the layout of the map. The brush based entities dont block visibility, thats why the enginee has to render the leaves of the rooms when you are outside. Your doors are in bad places, replace them and use coridors to block vis. Plan the layout with this end in view.
Dont place boxes, they are ugly, be more creative, place a car model or columns or desks with computers or anything else then wood create boxes... To know that they are in good places from the tatical view of point, I think this can be only figured out by testing the map, and planing the choke points at the begining.
You can easily see how tall the player by placing an info_playerstart.
I just now realised that you can run through the trees, it can be an exasperating camp positon and thus you can also go a place where the skybox is the border.
Commented 16 years ago2008-02-06 07:32:22 UTC
in vault item: Ancient BoxComment #16332
Nice map, I only have a few complaints:
The textures on the columns should be a bit more aligned to the edges of the cylinder
You can see thin black lines on the end of those plants on the top of the columns...probably needs better aligning, or you didn't apply a transparent texture to the edges
Huge r_speeds, peaking around 2700 wpolys, which I can understand with all those cylinders and sharp textures all around the map, but I think you can chop them down a little bit
Besides these minor problems, the map is a quite solid piece of work. The light beams, sprites and ambient sounds fit in the theme perfectly. As for the gameplay, I can't say much, since I didn't playtest it, but yeah, it pretty much looks like a killbox
Commented 16 years ago2008-02-04 18:51:26 UTC
in vault item: The CitizenComment #16329
Overall, it's a nice mod, but there were some moments that really annoyed me.
Anyway, visually it ranges from ok-ish (too narrow, cramped and linear parts, such as the flooded city part) to pretty good (other city parts - great backgrounds!, the convention center). Technically, it also fluctuates: some parts were neatly done, others were buggy and easily broken (convention center - elite mask was pitch black? tv show room shields didn't open, nothing happened?). The same goes gameplay-wise. Some parts were fun and had good combat and puzzles. Other parts were horrible (strider + sniper + assault afterwards, without even pointing at the RPG?!).
There's some points I'd definitely change:
Leeches in sewers? That water is fairly shallow, while HL2 learned us that leeches only inhabit deep water. Don't break HL2 'rules', or if you do, make it obvious that you do.
Instantly killing the player when he steps out of the shop early in the game is not fun nor necessary (just put a sniper somewhere, or a raid car with machinegun or such, that'll get the message across to stay inside without the frustration of an unforseen instant-kill).
Providing endless supplies of manhacks can be extremely frustrating, especially when combatting soldiers and trying to find some sort of button or whatever else will open a door. That's when I see cheating as justified, heh. Kudos to ent_remove. Stupid manhack spawner.
Provide more sense of direction. Some parts are just guesswork for a newcomer. Various area's don't focus on where to go next. With lighting, architecture and scripted events, a player can be 'guided' to a next area.
All in all, a fair mod, but some points just hold it down. Some fixes and tweaks here and there and I'd really enjoy it, but for now, I'm sorry, it doesn't really do it for me.
Commented 16 years ago2008-02-03 19:43:35 UTC
in vault item: Ren_Test2Comment #16327
Challenging? Yes. Too difficult? No. You just have to analyze the hand you're being dealt with the energy ball. You may get lucky on switch 3 trying to place the blue portal on a "portable" spot just before the energy ball hits but don't bet on it.
Also I still never figured out how I got the "booth" to pop up for switch 2. I knew it would eventually show and took it then.
Great Level! Portal rocks m/ and so does this level. Can't wait for valve to release a Portal II - Thx
BTW - After making me go through that to get all of the final three switches I was expecting an add'l puzzle when I got through the door. In the words of GLaDOS, "You broke my heart."
Commented 16 years ago2008-02-02 23:38:35 UTC
in vault item: war_coop1Comment #16324
Texturing 3/10 I think I saw two textures, but at least they suit the theme
Weapon Placement 3/10 Aside from the hidden weapons, it's good to have a weapon stash but you could have spread it over the entire map instead of all in one spot
Design 7/10 The maze-like layout was interesting and fun but got kind of boing towards the end, it's also too easy, I did it on my own in just a few minutes. If your're thinking of a coop map I think players would have more fun killing each other and the barneys because you didn't add info_nodes!
Ambience 5/10 Music was cool
Map Skill 2/10 Very bad rock formations and the map is basically a killbox, and not a nice-looking one either
Total 3/10 (2 stars) A bit of fun but you really do need to improve your skills
Commented 16 years ago2008-02-01 16:03:53 UTC
in vault item: Doorknob exampleComment #16318
sorry, CAN i use it in my mod? (cuz in my previous post, i asked if it would be possible to use it in my mod, and not if i can take the entity setup you used and put it in my mod.)
One doesn't usually see plenty of bigger Christmas-special projects, mostly because the Spirit of Christmas Mapping comes late, mostly by mid-December, and it's usually impossible to create anything half-decent in such a short period of time. However, Hlife_Hotdog seems to be getting the aforementioned spirit somewhat sooner and has already managed to provide TWHL with solid Christmas mods two years in a row. Not only does the sequel to Santa's Revenge, Santa's Revenge 2: Xmas Meltdown pack your sleigh with gunpowder-filled snowballs, it also hands you an extra pair of mittens.Following the story - some evil kid arranged a whole kindergarten Wehrmacht against Santa (you) because someone didn't bother making presents for this Christmas. So before you know it - elves are being slaughtered, your Grotto's getting some extreme TNT-induced makeovers and worst of all - you're forced to finally get off your comfortable Santa's throne and haul some obnoxious arse. This is where you're introduced to the witty and creative replacements for weapons, items and monsters, plus a new Santa's interface. Ironically, even if default weapons are replaced with their toy counterparts, like a squirtgun for the 9mm Pistol and scale Dodge Viper models for Snarks, the kids (formerly human grunts) you fight bleed for real and don't seem like they're going to be OK once gibbed with the Christmas tree Crowbar replacement. To counter that, the fact that you're using toys as weapons is made pretty clear when it takes shitloads of ammo and patience to take out even the weakest enemies. I understand trying to make things challenging, though unless you've got a couple of "just-in-case" Santa sleighs stuffed with explosives parked behind the back, you'll most likely be spending 3 or more frustrating minutes Christmas tree-bashing or squirt-gunning those bloody steroid-stuffed snowman zombies. Adding to the frustration factor, the absolute lack of autosaves often forces you to replay the same hard-as-hell sections over and over again. Another amazingly annoying thing deteriorating the experience was the use of dense fog in large battle arenas with less cover. Fog, being just a client-side visual effect in Half-Life, only limits the player's view distance, leaving any other monsters with perfect, clear vision. In the park level, this results in being raped with every projectile imaginable from all four directions at once, while running around desperately frantically looking for who and from where is shooting at you. Impossible? More like to-hell-with-this-shit-hard.There were also some other annoying nitpicks, like unrealistic fall damage in the rooftop area, where a 3 meter fall kills you instantly, or the booby-trapped present placed in the barn outside the Grotto exploding in your face once aproached. Not leaving any kind of notice or warning (you could've gone ala The Citizen with a large "DO NOT TOUCH" sign) turns a trap with loads of lulz potential into just another reason to quickload. Surprisingly though, monsters were placed quite well throughout (with the exception of the park level), along with ammo and powerups, which would've made gameplay quite enjoyable if it only wasn't for the godlike strength of your enemies. I also enjoyed some parts, like the parachute sequence, swinging on huge metal support beams from building to building in the rooftops and of course the final boss encounter (that little bastard should've been armed with the Egon, or at least crowbar! ;> )Much like gameplay, architecture was, even if mostly quite diverse and clean, often lacking that "something" to make it really bloom. Santa's Grotto, for example, like any fairy tale-like imaginary place, lets the mapper leave his usual coherence or realism constraints behind and simply go nuts making up the craziest, most inventive and maybe even surreal environments for their respective made up occupants to prosper in (or not). However, even if having a rather unique style for its interior with red ribbon-like supports and trims, it was still a set of boring blocky grey concrete corridors, broken up by the occasional open area, often stuffed with crates. A bit of the usual details like pipes, gratings and random gadgets, plus some Christmas trees or lights (as seen in Santa's Revenge 1) would've spiced things up just right there. More areas suffer from similar problems, like the rooftops, which are, pretty much, plain concrete surfaces with a vent or two desperately trying to break them up.It's not all coal in your stockings with architecture, however. Even if the interior had its issues, the first room with Santa's throne was rather spectacular. With its superbly crafted large toy soldier statues, overall good detail and a cool destruction sequence in the end, it was really close to how the other areas should've ended up looking like. Adding to that, the Grotto exterior and surroundings, even if nearly unplayable with wpolies going as high as 3000 (thanks to the awesome idea of killing leaks by putting a skybox around the entire level), was also nicely built. Having quite nice (yet poorly optimized) scenery and decent detail, it probably was my second favorite area after the throne room. Another and, again, very laggy area, was the park. The canal looked very convincing thanks to awesome reflections, paths were nicely curved and detailed; Only thing I think it lacked architecture-wise was more height variation in terrain. Even with the huge r_speeds in that area, some extra hills and trenches for cover, if properly optimized, would've pretty much saved gameplay there and made the park much more believable and interesting to explore.Though it's ambience and lighting that were the weakest aspects of this mod. Ambience, even if not completely overlooked, was very lacking and, in most places, left out. Bland corridors were even more boring without a single ambient sound to at least somehow spice them up, outside areas, where ambience is usually the main thing making that place feel open and borderless, had either a single silent wind sound in the background, or no ambience at all. Some other key areas, like the throne room also suffered from this problem. It would've been fun to hear some more subtle Christmas-themed ambience aswell - that alone would've added a lot to the holiday atmosphere.As for lighting - there's not really much to say. Apart from the single half-decent-lit area, the park, where you couldn't see any of the lighting due to the dense fog, almost every other single room was lit with the usual plain boring yellow. Hell, even blue texlights lights emitted the same bloody color. Lighting usually saves average-looking boring rooms and makes them at least somehow more interesting. In this case, though, it just added to the dullness and deteriorated the Christmas atmosphere.Bad things aside, texturing was refreshingly solid throughout the mod. I found no serious issues and even if there were any minor alignment issues or scaled up faces, these were mostly compensated by a nice array of custom textures. They weren't anything too spectacular, yet did their job right and with all the other cool custom content, made Santa's Revenge 2 feel even fresher (add some motivational posters for the elves inside the Grotto next time! ^^ )
Bottom Line
Even if lacking in most areas, this is an awesome piece of work for a Christmas mod. With the hilarious new content and some of your patience, Santa's Revenge 2: Xmas Meltdown could probably be considered the best way of bringing a bit of Half-Life to the holidays.
Despite it's flaws, Santa's Revenge 2 is still great fun to play. The concept is original and funny, it's executed well, making this mod a nice little time waste on the cold winter holidays.
All in all, this is a nice gimmicky mod to play over the holiday season but its obvious bugs and glitches would make it a little intolerable throughout the rest of the year. However with a few minor updates this mod could quite easily become one of the more unique and entertaining games available for the dated Half-Life platform.
Upon playing this game a second time, I forget why i have this such a high rating when voting in the first place. Of course, this is a full mod, through and through, and at TWHL those are very rare. So initial kudos and bonus points are awarded for the mod format itself I guess. For starters, the difficulty select screen burned the shit out of my eyes with its bright yellow and red screen, and combined with me crying over the fact there was no Santa-training level, I had to take a nap for an hour or so to rest my eyes before continuing. The intro is nice the first time around. The lack of auto-saves made the second and third time watching the intro very aggravating. The helicopter's rear-rotor blade is busted, and i couldn't help but just stare at it while it twitched. Although the entire introduction camera scene was very well scripted, i couldn't help but to cringe every time i saw an error due to off-grid vertex. Each one of the 5 or so pillars had about 4 blinking lines on it that really took the polish off the first level, and many others to follow. In fact, i think this mod's biggest problem is the off-grid vertex issue. It's apparent in each level, and while it does not affect game-play at all, it's very hard on the eyes. The HUD was also a little bit of a problem for me. The brightness of the levels mixed in with the yellow of the display makes it very hard to see at times. The pistol cross-hair sprite had an error, and me being the ammo-conserving whore i am, used the aqua-glock throughout the gist of the game. Needless to say, it got on my nerves a bit. It took me a while to figure out that the SMG replacement wasan automatic water gun, as i thought for a moment it was a knock-off of the good-ol Bio-Rifle from the Unreal Tournament series. I thought the shotgun was a minigun, and i had absolutely no use for my christmas tree. Though it was somewhat useful to take down the minions fighting for you to get some extra ammo. I wish there was a grenade sprite-replacement for the HUD, but the bloodthirsty dodge vipersnarks more than made up for that. The fact that Hotdog took the time to replace the models is well worth the score. The only negative points here are the glitch in the shooting animation (Had me confused the first time, and rolling with laughter the second time), and the HUD. While hard to see at times, the HUD fit the theme of the mod well. Obnoxiously Christmas-y.Architecture was really the only factor that brings this mod down. As the levels were laid out well, the clipping errors due to off-grid vertices severely hurt the score here. Since the issue was so prominent throughout the entire mod, i can't really give a much higher score than this. There were some minor problems with maximum view distance, and also with the outside level (with the gas station and the hanging I-beams) there was a black... thing in the middle of the map which to me is a huge eyesore.Gameplay, on the other hand was entertaining the whole way through, the mind games were simple enough to conquer easily yet not too easy as to be fully obvious at first glance. I played on normal the first time through (easy the second, just to get a refresher) and i had a welcomed sense of difficulty. Plenty of action mixed in with beautifully scripted events and camera sequences make this one of the strongest factors to support this mod. The lighting was... good. There were no errors that i could see, but at the same time, there was nothing that really 'stood out from the crowd' so to say. Areas that needed to be well lit, were. And areas that needed to be darker worked well with the low light levels.As for ambience, I somewhat enjoyed the small voices of the kids and your elves. The grenade bounce sound was brilliant, and the songs included gave me a good chuckle. I guess i was looking for a bit more when it comes from the sound department. In my opinion some greater ambience could have been added in the rescue scene, and some machine sounds would be nice too. I cant quite remember the last time i heard a snowman snarl at me either. The snowman sounds did not fit the models, i was a wee bit disappointed.Texturing was all in all good. There was plenty of custom textures to go around, and they were all used very well. My only complaints come from the over-stretched transparent grate textures, and the elevator doors were not transparent. Yet they were used exactly how they were supposed to be implemented; to give a good sense of surrounding. And that they did.
Bottom Line
Overall, a very well put together mod. Everything from the self-install, to the splash screen, to the end credits were fit perfectly together. Definitely a must-play mod. Christmas season or not, give this one a go.
This should not get as low a rating as I'm going to give it... But what can I do? I couldn't even get past map 4, but don't get me wrong. For a full mod made for the christmas season which was released on time - it's wonderful. I just really wish i could play it.
Commented 16 years ago2008-01-30 20:04:04 UTC
in vault item: Wall GlitchComment #16311
The problem I found is with the wall itself as well as the walls around it. Without going into too much detail, It's not typically a good idea to mix faces like null or sky faces with normal textured faces on the same brush. That being said, simply removing the null texture wasn't enough, afterwards I deleted and remade the wall from scratch and it worked fine. That's it, just delete and remake, and don't use the NULL texture for the back side.
Commented 16 years ago2008-01-30 17:02:19 UTC
in vault item: war_coop1Comment #16309
Did you just rate a firstmap 4/5? Dude, honestly it looks like shit, and Im just looking at the screeny, but I can tell how the rest of the map looks. All firstmaps looks like shit, and it does not deserve a 4/5.
Commented 16 years ago2008-01-29 23:18:32 UTC
in vault item: war_coop1Comment #16308
Nice map, challenging but fun! Me and my friends checked it out in Coop and had lots of fun! Nothing really needed to be changed but the stuff you put. Great job!
Commented 16 years ago2008-01-29 22:40:25 UTC
in vault item: war_coop1Comment #16307
for the guys that like the map i working on the 1.1 version comment any bugs for fixing on next version
some things already done
-more weapons rpg and gluon gun -different alien controller positions -more itens -more walls -more enemies -more slaves "sniping" -zombies included -grunt on the wall bug fixed -assasins in the headcrab area removed (now they are grunts)
Commented 16 years ago2008-01-28 09:13:37 UTC
in vault item: as_resident_evilComment #16298
One bigger screenshot would be better, but it is very sweet and has nice ambience. In the office there are two plants almost at the same place, but I liked the laser room...Are those models created by you or just collect them, because the toilet looks awesome...
Commented 16 years ago2008-01-27 07:16:14 UTC
in vault item: dm_tylanComment #16295
The map if fullbright (you didn't compile RAD for some error, probably because of a LEAK), so it can't be placed in Completed Maps.
Look through your compile log (a .log/.txt file in the folder with the .rmf file of this map) for any errors and/or warnings and post em' here, or make a thread about them.
Commented 16 years ago2008-01-26 15:18:04 UTC
in vault item: aim_sewerzComment #16293
Nice little killbox. I don't like that u can't access the outer roofs, although it should be physically possible. Also the dark sewer tube, where u can't go further although there is no obstacle visible. I always put obstacles where I don't want ppl to go. Makes planning maps more difficult sometimes but gives a better feeling of realism imho. In your case u could simply make two story buildings all around, since u don't have a 3D skybox we won't miss the view.
Missing pillar.wad
fix please...
http://twhl.co.za/tutorial.php?id=41
Reading visibility determination was very helpful for me at the begining to see how things work in compile.
http://collective.valve-erc.com/index.php?doc=1038660504-05211700
The gl_wireframe 2 option will highlight all the visible leaves that the enginee has to render at that moment. As from my pic you can see that almost all of your leaves highlighted. This is because of the layout of the map. The brush based entities dont block visibility, thats why the enginee has to render the leaves of the rooms when you are outside. Your doors are in bad places, replace them and use coridors to block vis. Plan the layout with this end in view.
Dont place boxes, they are ugly, be more creative, place a car model or columns or desks with computers or anything else then wood create boxes...
To know that they are in good places from the tatical view of point, I think this can be only figured out by testing the map, and planing the choke points at the begining.
You can easily see how tall the player by placing an info_playerstart.
I just now realised that you can run through the trees, it can be an exasperating camp positon and thus you can also go a place where the skybox is the border.
ME DOWNLOAD WHEN ME GET TIME!!
ME GOTTA LEARN ENGLISH FIRST! xD
- The textures on the columns should be a bit more aligned to the edges of the cylinder
- You can see thin black lines on the end of those plants on the top of the columns...probably needs better aligning, or you didn't apply a transparent texture to the edges
- Huge r_speeds, peaking around 2700 wpolys, which I can understand with all those cylinders and sharp textures all around the map, but I think you can chop them down a little bit
Besides these minor problems, the map is a quite solid piece of work. The light beams, sprites and ambient sounds fit in the theme perfectly. As for the gameplay, I can't say much, since I didn't playtest it, but yeah, it pretty much looks like a killboxAs you put, a nice looking killbox. Well done.
It is fixed in the update, along with many other things.
The update is back on track again, and will be released pretty soon.
Anyway, visually it ranges from ok-ish (too narrow, cramped and linear parts, such as the flooded city part) to pretty good (other city parts - great backgrounds!, the convention center).
Technically, it also fluctuates: some parts were neatly done, others were buggy and easily broken (convention center - elite mask was pitch black? tv show room shields didn't open, nothing happened?).
The same goes gameplay-wise. Some parts were fun and had good combat and puzzles. Other parts were horrible (strider + sniper + assault afterwards, without even pointing at the RPG?!).
There's some points I'd definitely change:
- Leeches in sewers? That water is fairly shallow, while HL2 learned us that leeches only inhabit deep water. Don't break HL2 'rules', or if you do, make it obvious that you do.
- Instantly killing the player when he steps out of the shop early in the game is not fun nor necessary (just put a sniper somewhere, or a raid car with machinegun or such, that'll get the message across to stay inside without the frustration of an unforseen instant-kill).
- Providing endless supplies of manhacks can be extremely frustrating, especially when combatting soldiers and trying to find some sort of button or whatever else will open a door. That's when I see cheating as justified, heh. Kudos to ent_remove. Stupid manhack spawner.
- Provide more sense of direction. Some parts are just guesswork for a newcomer. Various area's don't focus on where to go next. With lighting, architecture and scripted events, a player can be 'guided' to a next area.
All in all, a fair mod, but some points just hold it down. Some fixes and tweaks here and there and I'd really enjoy it, but for now, I'm sorry, it doesn't really do it for me.PS: Is the elite suit supposed to blind you? ...
Also I still never figured out how I got the "booth" to pop up for switch 2. I knew it would eventually show and took it then.
Great Level! Portal rocks m/ and so does this level. Can't wait for valve to release a Portal II - Thx
BTW - After making me go through that to get all of the final three switches I was expecting an add'l puzzle when I got through the door. In the words of GLaDOS, "You broke my heart."
And why did you leave the menu on when taking your screenie? You can barely make anything out now.
I think I saw two textures, but at least they suit the theme
Weapon Placement 3/10
Aside from the hidden weapons, it's good to have a weapon stash but you could have spread it over the entire map instead of all in one spot
Design 7/10
The maze-like layout was interesting and fun but got kind of boing towards the end, it's also too easy, I did it on my own in just a few minutes. If your're thinking of a coop map I think players would have more fun killing each other and the barneys because you didn't add info_nodes!
Ambience 5/10
Music was cool
Map Skill 2/10
Very bad rock formations and the map is basically a killbox, and not a nice-looking one either
Total 3/10 (2 stars)
A bit of fun but you really do need to improve your skills
You may not want to just copy paste my door, try to learn the entity setup so you can make different knob styles, and different door styles.
Glad to see you found it helpful
Texturing — 8.5
Ambience — 4.5
Lighting — 5
Gameplay — 6
Review
One doesn't usually see plenty of bigger Christmas-special projects, mostly because the Spirit of Christmas Mapping comes late, mostly by mid-December, and it's usually impossible to create anything half-decent in such a short period of time. However, Hlife_Hotdog seems to be getting the aforementioned spirit somewhat sooner and has already managed to provide TWHL with solid Christmas mods two years in a row. Not only does the sequel to Santa's Revenge, Santa's Revenge 2: Xmas Meltdown pack your sleigh with gunpowder-filled snowballs, it also hands you an extra pair of mittens.Following the story - some evil kid arranged a whole kindergarten Wehrmacht against Santa (you) because someone didn't bother making presents for this Christmas. So before you know it - elves are being slaughtered, your Grotto's getting some extreme TNT-induced makeovers and worst of all - you're forced to finally get off your comfortable Santa's throne and haul some obnoxious arse. This is where you're introduced to the witty and creative replacements for weapons, items and monsters, plus a new Santa's interface. Ironically, even if default weapons are replaced with their toy counterparts, like a squirtgun for the 9mm Pistol and scale Dodge Viper models for Snarks, the kids (formerly human grunts) you fight bleed for real and don't seem like they're going to be OK once gibbed with the Christmas tree Crowbar replacement. To counter that, the fact that you're using toys as weapons is made pretty clear when it takes shitloads of ammo and patience to take out even the weakest enemies. I understand trying to make things challenging, though unless you've got a couple of "just-in-case" Santa sleighs stuffed with explosives parked behind the back, you'll most likely be spending 3 or more frustrating minutes Christmas tree-bashing or squirt-gunning those bloody steroid-stuffed snowman zombies. Adding to the frustration factor, the absolute lack of autosaves often forces you to replay the same hard-as-hell sections over and over again. Another amazingly annoying thing deteriorating the experience was the use of dense fog in large battle arenas with less cover. Fog, being just a client-side visual effect in Half-Life, only limits the player's view distance, leaving any other monsters with perfect, clear vision. In the park level, this results in being raped with every projectile imaginable from all four directions at once, while running around desperately frantically looking for who and from where is shooting at you. Impossible? More like to-hell-with-this-shit-hard.There were also some other annoying nitpicks, like unrealistic fall damage in the rooftop area, where a 3 meter fall kills you instantly, or the booby-trapped present placed in the barn outside the Grotto exploding in your face once aproached. Not leaving any kind of notice or warning (you could've gone ala The Citizen with a large "DO NOT TOUCH" sign) turns a trap with loads of lulz potential into just another reason to quickload. Surprisingly though, monsters were placed quite well throughout (with the exception of the park level), along with ammo and powerups, which would've made gameplay quite enjoyable if it only wasn't for the godlike strength of your enemies. I also enjoyed some parts, like the parachute sequence, swinging on huge metal support beams from building to building in the rooftops and of course the final boss encounter (that little bastard should've been armed with the Egon, or at least crowbar! ;> )Much like gameplay, architecture was, even if mostly quite diverse and clean, often lacking that "something" to make it really bloom. Santa's Grotto, for example, like any fairy tale-like imaginary place, lets the mapper leave his usual coherence or realism constraints behind and simply go nuts making up the craziest, most inventive and maybe even surreal environments for their respective made up occupants to prosper in (or not). However, even if having a rather unique style for its interior with red ribbon-like supports and trims, it was still a set of boring blocky grey concrete corridors, broken up by the occasional open area, often stuffed with crates. A bit of the usual details like pipes, gratings and random gadgets, plus some Christmas trees or lights (as seen in Santa's Revenge 1) would've spiced things up just right there. More areas suffer from similar problems, like the rooftops, which are, pretty much, plain concrete surfaces with a vent or two desperately trying to break them up.It's not all coal in your stockings with architecture, however. Even if the interior had its issues, the first room with Santa's throne was rather spectacular. With its superbly crafted large toy soldier statues, overall good detail and a cool destruction sequence in the end, it was really close to how the other areas should've ended up looking like. Adding to that, the Grotto exterior and surroundings, even if nearly unplayable with wpolies going as high as 3000 (thanks to the awesome idea of killing leaks by putting a skybox around the entire level), was also nicely built. Having quite nice (yet poorly optimized) scenery and decent detail, it probably was my second favorite area after the throne room. Another and, again, very laggy area, was the park. The canal looked very convincing thanks to awesome reflections, paths were nicely curved and detailed; Only thing I think it lacked architecture-wise was more height variation in terrain. Even with the huge r_speeds in that area, some extra hills and trenches for cover, if properly optimized, would've pretty much saved gameplay there and made the park much more believable and interesting to explore.Though it's ambience and lighting that were the weakest aspects of this mod. Ambience, even if not completely overlooked, was very lacking and, in most places, left out. Bland corridors were even more boring without a single ambient sound to at least somehow spice them up, outside areas, where ambience is usually the main thing making that place feel open and borderless, had either a single silent wind sound in the background, or no ambience at all. Some other key areas, like the throne room also suffered from this problem. It would've been fun to hear some more subtle Christmas-themed ambience aswell - that alone would've added a lot to the holiday atmosphere.As for lighting - there's not really much to say. Apart from the single half-decent-lit area, the park, where you couldn't see any of the lighting due to the dense fog, almost every other single room was lit with the usual plain boring yellow. Hell, even blue texlights lights emitted the same bloody color. Lighting usually saves average-looking boring rooms and makes them at least somehow more interesting. In this case, though, it just added to the dullness and deteriorated the Christmas atmosphere.Bad things aside, texturing was refreshingly solid throughout the mod. I found no serious issues and even if there were any minor alignment issues or scaled up faces, these were mostly compensated by a nice array of custom textures. They weren't anything too spectacular, yet did their job right and with all the other cool custom content, made Santa's Revenge 2 feel even fresher (add some motivational posters for the elves inside the Grotto next time! ^^ )Bottom Line
Even if lacking in most areas, this is an awesome piece of work for a Christmas mod. With the hilarious new content and some of your patience, Santa's Revenge 2: Xmas Meltdown could probably be considered the best way of bringing a bit of Half-Life to the holidays.Texturing — 8
Ambience — 8
Lighting — 8
Gameplay — 8
Video Review
Bottom Line
Despite it's flaws, Santa's Revenge 2 is still great fun to play. The concept is original and funny, it's executed well, making this mod a nice little time waste on the cold winter holidays.Texturing — 6
Ambience — 6.5
Lighting — 5
Gameplay — 2.5
Video Review
Bottom Line
All in all, this is a nice gimmicky mod to play over the holiday season but its obvious bugs and glitches would make it a little intolerable throughout the rest of the year. However with a few minor updates this mod could quite easily become one of the more unique and entertaining games available for the dated Half-Life platform.Texturing — 8
Ambience — 7
Lighting — 9
Gameplay — 9
Guest Review
Upon playing this game a second time, I forget why i have this such a high rating when voting in the first place. Of course, this is a full mod, through and through, and at TWHL those are very rare. So initial kudos and bonus points are awarded for the mod format itself I guess. For starters, the difficulty select screen burned the shit out of my eyes with its bright yellow and red screen, and combined with me crying over the fact there was no Santa-training level, I had to take a nap for an hour or so to rest my eyes before continuing. The intro is nice the first time around. The lack of auto-saves made the second and third time watching the intro very aggravating. The helicopter's rear-rotor blade is busted, and i couldn't help but just stare at it while it twitched. Although the entire introduction camera scene was very well scripted, i couldn't help but to cringe every time i saw an error due to off-grid vertex. Each one of the 5 or so pillars had about 4 blinking lines on it that really took the polish off the first level, and many others to follow. In fact, i think this mod's biggest problem is the off-grid vertex issue. It's apparent in each level, and while it does not affect game-play at all, it's very hard on the eyes. The HUD was also a little bit of a problem for me. The brightness of the levels mixed in with the yellow of the display makes it very hard to see at times. The pistol cross-hair sprite had an error, and me being the ammo-conserving whore i am, used the aqua-glock throughout the gist of the game. Needless to say, it got on my nerves a bit. It took me a while to figure out that the SMG replacement wasan automatic water gun, as i thought for a moment it was a knock-off of the good-ol Bio-Rifle from the Unreal Tournament series. I thought the shotgun was a minigun, and i had absolutely no use for my christmas tree. Though it was somewhat useful to take down the minions fighting for you to get some extra ammo. I wish there was a grenade sprite-replacement for the HUD, but the bloodthirsty dodge vipersnarks more than made up for that. The fact that Hotdog took the time to replace the models is well worth the score. The only negative points here are the glitch in the shooting animation (Had me confused the first time, and rolling with laughter the second time), and the HUD. While hard to see at times, the HUD fit the theme of the mod well. Obnoxiously Christmas-y.Architecture was really the only factor that brings this mod down. As the levels were laid out well, the clipping errors due to off-grid vertices severely hurt the score here. Since the issue was so prominent throughout the entire mod, i can't really give a much higher score than this. There were some minor problems with maximum view distance, and also with the outside level (with the gas station and the hanging I-beams) there was a black... thing in the middle of the map which to me is a huge eyesore.Gameplay, on the other hand was entertaining the whole way through, the mind games were simple enough to conquer easily yet not too easy as to be fully obvious at first glance. I played on normal the first time through (easy the second, just to get a refresher) and i had a welcomed sense of difficulty. Plenty of action mixed in with beautifully scripted events and camera sequences make this one of the strongest factors to support this mod. The lighting was... good. There were no errors that i could see, but at the same time, there was nothing that really 'stood out from the crowd' so to say. Areas that needed to be well lit, were. And areas that needed to be darker worked well with the low light levels.As for ambience, I somewhat enjoyed the small voices of the kids and your elves. The grenade bounce sound was brilliant, and the songs included gave me a good chuckle. I guess i was looking for a bit more when it comes from the sound department. In my opinion some greater ambience could have been added in the rescue scene, and some machine sounds would be nice too. I cant quite remember the last time i heard a snowman snarl at me either. The snowman sounds did not fit the models, i was a wee bit disappointed.Texturing was all in all good. There was plenty of custom textures to go around, and they were all used very well. My only complaints come from the over-stretched transparent grate textures, and the elevator doors were not transparent. Yet they were used exactly how they were supposed to be implemented; to give a good sense of surrounding. And that they did.Bottom Line
Overall, a very well put together mod. Everything from the self-install, to the splash screen, to the end credits were fit perfectly together. Definitely a must-play mod. Christmas season or not, give this one a go.Texturing — 7
Ambience — 9
Lighting — 5
Gameplay — 3
Video Review
Bottom Line
This should not get as low a rating as I'm going to give it... But what can I do? I couldn't even get past map 4, but don't get me wrong. For a full mod made for the christmas season which was released on time - it's wonderful. I just really wish i could play it.(not so interesting)
My second map: http://twhl.co.za/mapvault_map.php?id=2211
(more interesting)
Learn from your mistakes.
...and add more rounded corners or angles to your architecture. It's too squarish.
Finally, as the Hunter said, don't compile your map full-bright.
- Breathtakingly blocky. Are those supposed to be cliffs?!
- Laughable lighting. Fullbright?
- Terrible texturing. Repetative is never the way.
- Gutting gameplay. Boring killbox.
- Absent atmosphere. yawns
Well it's very much a first map, and i dislike the fact that someone gave it 4 stars. Keep mapping, but we need to see some MASSIVE improvement.Dude, honestly it looks like shit, and Im just looking at the screeny, but I can tell how the rest of the map looks.
All firstmaps looks like shit, and it does not deserve a 4/5.
MORE MORE MORE is not the way.
comment any bugs for fixing on next version
some things already done
-more weapons rpg and gluon gun
-different alien controller positions
-more itens
-more walls
-more enemies
-more slaves "sniping"
-zombies included
-grunt on the wall bug fixed
-assasins in the headcrab area removed (now they are grunts)
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
It's nice to see an as_map for a change.
Will check it out.
I'm probably using this in an upcoming Flat-Life map I'm working on. ;>
Played it. 'sgood.
i sugest you read up on RAD.
Look through your compile log (a .log/.txt file in the folder with the .rmf file of this map) for any errors and/or warnings and post em' here, or make a thread about them.
As for now, moved to Unfinished Maps.