The premise of this upcoming mod has been developed from a very early idea thought up by my good friend TunaDavid several months ago. The idea was fairly simple: To make a HL2 mod similar to Opposing Force wherin you play as Gordon's enemies.
Upon playing The Citizen, it became clear that the best option would be to play as a regular combine foot soldier and unlike the vast majority of single player mods, make the game mission-based rather than a linear following of a story.
That makes up the core plan.

Now for some details:
THE ORANGE BOX WILL BE REQUIRED TO PLAY

Overwatch will be a single player Half-Life 2 modification. Overwatch will follow the path of an innocent citizen - Alan Milligan - who gets combine surgery and becomes a Combine foot soldier.
Rather than the standard linear story following gameplay seen in most HL games, Overwatch will be mission based. The player will be able to choose which missions he undertakes, and completing missions will unlock harder ones.
The player will choose weapons from an armoury before going on missions, with more powerful weapons being made available as the game progresses.

There will be 3 stages of 4 missions with each individual mission being anything up to 4 maps long. Each stage will be designated a rank, but simply put, they are Easy, Medium and Hard.
After first recieving the combine surgery, the player will play a combine boot camp style training mission before being sent to the Easy stage mission select room. The player can choose any of the 4 missions in the easy stage, but must complete at least 3 to advance to the medium stage.
In between the stages there will be special missions which will be unavoidable and will drive the plot.

I don't really want to say any more for fear of spoiling, but if you have any questions about my thuroughly incoherent post, just write a reply and i'll get back to you.

Here's some very early media:
Click thumbnails to expand

Alan's bedroom (1440 x 900)

Alan's kitchen (1440 x 900)

Alan's appartment (1440 x 900)

Alan's bathroom (1440 x 900)

Alan's appartment block hallway (1440 x 900)

Alan's appartment block (1440 x 900)

Dev Team:

? Project Leads:

The Hunter
Tuna David

? Additional Support:

Livewire
Demonic Puppy Games

? Cast:

Natalie Smith
Andrew J S Morris
David McFadyen
John Martins
Douglas Pollock
James Archibald
Craig Toghill
The Dom

Not a fan at the moment.

1st shot:
? Too clean, especially when compared to the other shots.
? Ridiculously empty.
? Skirting around the door is too thick, and the texture is a dirty concrete texture? That's what it looks like anyway. Looks silly to me.
? Dirty heater looks out of place.
? Put a trim on the floor in the doorway please. The abrupt change from carpet to tile is annoying. This is also a problem with other screenshots.
? Nice TF2 poster.

2nd shot:
? Add some kind of trim or something on the wood so it doesn't just abruptly end into the tiles.
? It would be a good idea to align the counter with the floor texture. I just think it looks odd, atm.
? I think the counter should have cupboards/draws instead of just plain wood.

3rd shot:
? Add a trim on the roof connecting the arches. Also a trim on the floor between the arches to get rid of that awful abrupt change from wood to tiles.
? Thick skirting around the door again with the same texture. Still not a fan.

4th shot:
? Floor tex is highly scaled and misaligned.
? Reflections on the shiny props look weird.
? Toilet paper roll is ridiculous. This is source, man. Get it modelled or at least add more sides to that bad boy.

5th shot:
? Trim on floor in doorway pls.
? Align floor tex pls.
? Add some trash or something lying around on the floor. It looks empty, rather than 'lived in.' It's like nobody has ever been there before, and greatly contrasts the dirtyness of the wall textures.

6th shot:
I'm not going to critique this screenshot because it is of nothing. There is literally nothing to look at.

At the moment, the project is looking incredibly generic, and not particularly great looking. A lot of amateurish mistakes which I wouldn't have expected from you, Mr. Hunter, such as texture alignment issues, have found their way into your first media release.

I suggest you work on increasing the quality of the level design before you show the public any more media.

Bye bye Hostage Situation for good, hello yet another Half-Life 2 mod. Least that's what it's looking like

Sounds interesting, but if that's Huntey doing the mapping, I gotta say I'm not impressed. I mean, all you've done is slap together a couple generic boxy rooms and filled them with generic HL2 props and textures that don't blend into the environment. Honestly, whoever is making these maps, they suck at creating realistic architecture.

boring map is boring. what happened to HS? is this an official announcement of its death?

Yeah, not even a bye bye to your loyal team members?

Or, maybe this is one of those things where you're going to pretend to be juggling two mods at once, when in reality one of them is dead, you just don't want to admit it.

They hadnt planned on officially starting mapping until this summer. It'll get better I'm sure. But yeah, i agree that HS isnt going to happen.

Haha at the banner. What's Hostage Situation?

The media is lacking at the moment...And to be honest Trapt has summed it up so well I'm going to steal his comment as my own.

Although keep us posted. Perhaps my main complaint is lighting...Needs a mix of colours.

]

lulz guys don't have a fit.
Hostage Situation is not dead.

And this, the only map in existance for this mod is so distressingly pre-beta that there wasn't really much point in showing you, but i know that WIP threads without media never really do too well.
Have faith.

I see flying props.

The handwasher in the bathroom is not attached to the wall, and neither is any of the radiators.
At least, that is what it looks like, keeping in mind that the shadows in the old source engine fools you from time to time.
Other than that? I have no comments since it is pre-beta.

in the appartment, connect the arches with a thin 2 or 4 unit piece and move the arches down to accomodate them. it looks funny with the arches not connecting to anything, that or change their texture to match the ceiling.

I'd be willing to make some props/weapon models for the mod if you'd like me to . I'm a crappy texture artist, though, so you'd need/want someone else to skin them for you.

I like the idea, but somehow, i don't see this mod being finished. That's just what i feel.

It depends how big he planned it...God knows if I can finish mine o_0

I love brutal honesty

Teeny media update

Alan's Appartment (1440 x 900)

Bisley Street (1440 x 900)

Bisley Street (1440 x 900)

Bisley Street Station (1440 x 900)

Bisley Street Station (1440 x 900)

Bisley Street Station (1440 x 900)

Please note the 0.3.
Comments & suggestions are much appreciated, but please be aware that these locations are unfinished.

I like it, it's fresh, a bit different, combiney, why not.
Oh but try to make the streets a bit less generic, more detail, more ambience, less boring lighting.

Still sucks pretty hard.

sifn't listen to my first post.

Can you please, for the love of god, give constructive criticism without being so damn harsh? - Ant

(01:23:14) (+Trapt) now you need to repost and say 'after trapt pointed out all the flaws in your media, I now dislike this mod. Trapt said he would post what the flaws are for you to fix them, but you didn't listen to him last time because you're a whiny pretentious cunt, and he will no longer be helping you out at all in making your mod not fail.'

That's kinda harsh, but in a way I agree with Trapt. You didn't listen to his suggestions... and Trapt's suggestions are usually invaluable I've found.

? Too clean, especially when compared to the other shots. < - fix'd
? Ridiculously empty. < - fix'd
? Skirting around the door is too thick, and the texture is a dirty concrete texture? That's what it looks like anyway. Looks silly to me. < - just not made the custom texture yet.
? Dirty heater looks out of place. < - model me a clean one?
? Put a trim on the floor in the doorway please. The abrupt change from carpet to tile is annoying. This is also a problem with other screenshots. < - done
? Nice TF2 poster. < - yep

2nd shot:
? Add some kind of trim or something on the wood so it doesn't just abruptly end into the tiles. <- done
? It would be a good idea to align the counter with the floor texture. I just think it looks odd, atm. <- done.
? I think the counter should have cupboards/draws instead of just plain wood. <- done

3rd shot:
? Add a trim on the roof connecting the arches. Also a trim on the floor between the arches to get rid of that awful abrupt change from wood to tiles. <done
? Thick skirting around the door again with the same texture. Still not a fan. <- gettin' there

4th shot:
? Floor tex is highly scaled and misaligned. <- fix'd
? Reflections on the shiny props look weird. <-well...
? Toilet paper roll is ridiculous. This is source, man. Get it modelled or at least add more sides to that bad boy. <- workin' on it.

5th shot:
? Trim on floor in doorway pls. <-done
? Align floor tex pls. <-done
? Add some trash or something lying around on the floor. It looks empty, rather than 'lived in.' It's like nobody has ever been there before, and greatly contrasts the dirtyness of the wall textures. <-done

I'm sorry, but what exactly didn't i listen to?

Looks nice, hunteh, I like the train.

Keep it up!

I like it so far, But i still think, like all of us HL1 mappers, you're still stuck a bit on the gold-source engine. The level of detail that can go into each room is drastically more than it previously was. Especially if you're using the Episode2 Engine.
Which means:
More models than tiny brushwork
Higher-res Textures
More segments in arches, cylinders etc.
Just keep improving. It's all we can ask for at a beta stage.

And.. the storyline kicks ass.

Only thing I don't like so far are the passenger handles in the train cabins. They should be textured with brushed steel texture imho.

Well another thing: Bisley street is too clean and your building looks odd from outside: The quadratic rows and colums look somehow artificial and there are no windows in the ground floor. Imo the row/colum facade and the upper stories don't fit together.

Subway handles look weird. Usually they are chrome. Red doors next to them aren't helping for me.

Looking good, love the idea. I agree with tetsu0, it's basically what we can ask for from beta maps. I'd tell you to use more models, but I assume that's a no-brainer because you're still detailing.

reference image:

It's okay when they're painted yellow, but your current texture has a strange pattern on it.

Ew. Red, white, blue and... yellow?

Painted that way to be as bright and annoying as possible, like something designed for a child it seems.

Hey, it's your subway.

Just know that red and yellow together are annoying.

Also they make people hungry.

your current texture has a strange pattern on it.

mm, it's like rumpled metal for grip.. I'm trying to find a pic..

alas, it would appear that people don't take pictures of train/bus railings in the UK. prats.

That train is hot.
I love it.

Am I the only one who loves the clean look?
I guess that's why I enjoyed the FEAR graphics so much.

You can't see grip details but u can see they have different colors inside.

I like the clean look, I'm just going to want to stab a cheezburger to death every time I play the subway part.

yeah, inside textures for the train aren't done. I've just used HL2 hull textures for the moment.

It'll also look a LOT better when i get rid of the blue flurescent texturelight

Actually the underground is called a tube, not a subway.
Silly londoners.

Actually we just call it the London Underground. Subway is American...or sandwiches.

subway to me is sandwiches.

I called it that because "Underground" didn't seem blatant enough, and it isn't the London underground despite being based off it.