Military Duty

The cover art is a bit of a cluster, but a very cool cluster! Can't wait to try it out, downloading it now!

Ya it is.. It's one that somebody created on game banana "free to use"
I like it..

http://hlof.gamebanana.com/guis

Crashed at map 6 like everyone else with an 'out of sfx_t' error while trying to pick up the battery in the locker. There also seems to be notable nerfing of enemy health; it's very obvious with the alien grunts. I like how the ally military presence is very strong; something you rarely see in OP4 mods. There also seems to be some other miscellaneous bugs and stuff. But I know that the most important part of your mod is the gameplay/combat. And there seems to be plenty of that. But it only makes the nerfed enemies more noticeable... not sure why you did that. I think I'll upload a video of the first five maps playthru. Please reply and tell me whether I should keep playing (heard theres another crash on another map down the road) or wait for your patch, thanks.

Only the Alien Grunt is nerved on easy he is actually dead in a trigger_hurt only for him.. Tried to have him dead near that Hornet gun at the end of the corridor on hard though he simply wouldn't wanna die without exploding into 100 pieces I may remove him entirely for the patched version.

As for the crashes that other guy did play it on WON... At the current state this mod is not fully WON compatible. I've tested it myself yesterday and get the same crashes.

Feel free to keep playing for the patched version I will just fix few texture glitches & brush glitches I've overlooked - 1 model disappearing in certain angulars. Apparently remove that Alien Grunt and and try to get it WON compatible per pak. file and a light version of the named crash maps.

What an enjoyable experience!

Overall this is an incredibly impressive mod. Locations are unique and interesting, whilst still feeling extremely routed within the Half-Life universe. Vanilla assets are used alongside custom content in such a well-balanced way that you instantly accept the world you’ve been dropped into.
The facility feels like it’s alive and NPC scripting and detailing is at an exceptional level. There’s always loads to look at, and that really helps keep the mod fresh over its surprising and impressive length.

So please keep in mind that I am a huge fan of this mod, but I’m now going to focus on a few reasons why I’m not quite putting it in the ‘personal favourite’ category.

Firstly, there are repeated occasions where level transitions are rather jarring. This happens most notably in the intro, but also several times throughout the mod as a whole. Huge changes occur between maps that could be better hidden with a fade or with a more enclosed level change. It’s a minor gripe, but it occasionally left me a little disorientated and unclear on what had happened around me.

Second, I was slightly disappointed at the lack of actual puzzles. The closest we really get to a puzzle is finding a button, pressing it and then only finding out what it unlocked afterwards. More signposting for where you need to go would reduce the feeling of “I wonder what that button did”. Also, more carefully thought out puzzles in general would be welcome relief from gameplay which is unfortunately just combat from start to finish – to the extent that around half way through I was finding it quite grating (though it got a lot fresher again towards the end).

Though there are exceptions, I found the lighting to be somewhat lacklustre throughout. There are some beautiful examples of good lighting, but for the majority of the mod, the lights are simply there to illuminate rooms, rather than to add atmosphere and character to them. The biggest exception to this is in the loading bay where the tram ride finishes – it’s absolutely stunning in both design and lighting. More of this!!

Aside from what I’ve already said about lacking puzzles; gameplay-wise the mod is very strong, albeit with a few irritations. I constantly only just had enough ammo and health to proceed, and that suggests that it’s fantastically balanced. It was a genuine challenge, but never utterly ruthless. Fantastic. The irritations were firstly an overuse of unfair monster spawns right behind you that required quick loading if low on health and secondly a major overuse of barnacles. Barnacles aren’t a challenge, and they’re ok to have occasionally, but in the quantity they’ve been used here they are really annoying.

Finally, though it was clearer towards the end, I felt like a more overarching purpose would have made the mod more enjoyable. You’re told at the start that the objective is to kill witnesses to the Black Mesa disaster, yet doing so actually fails the game at least once (killing a scientist needed for a retinal scanner). This leaves the player somewhat lost for purpose, and lowers their guard when Barneys are first encountered.

I know this seems like a lot of negative points, so again I’d like to stress that I really love this mod! It’s hugely impressive, hugely ambitious and extremely well executed. I’m just being very critical because it’s so close to being perfect!

Congratulations on releasing this, you’ve done brilliantly.

Thank you Archie I'm honored. Also your review is very good - very detailed I like it.. I see that I improve upon the map transitions for the patch. I suspect the most notable map change happens in map2 to map3. I will let it fade in and delay all the spawns etc... Once again thanks for your very detailed review. You're a well known critic within the Hl community when it comes down to game testing. I would have never suspected to get such a positive review from you.

That makes me even more confident to quickly continue on my other mod Firestorm.

Well, the gameplay is good enough, but the mapping is not very detailed. Also there is a common problem for OF, that few monsters are immune for headshots (they cause normal damege only). And a minor lack is that modified monsters (friendly grunts) have badly aligned UV-maps.

Can't say anything regarding the headshot immunity.. This mod uses the default skill.cfg and skillopfor.cfg files the only monster altered is the big momma to make it harder.. As for the models well I'm not a model artist...

Whoa.

Congrats on completing a big project such as this! Will play/rate soon as I can =)

thanks Captain.. Don't expect the world though I know your maps.. Compared to you I'm a pure and lazy amateur.

I probably could fix those models for you... Headshot immunity is also a problem of models, by the way. PM if interested.

Loading this up tonight, nit-picky review inbound!

Spoilers Ahead!
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Custom Splash
Looks great, and I love the custom ico

Training Room
A bit of a letdown, but at least you had something there; I've never done a custom training room either, so...

Intro cutscene
I don't know to what extent you modified the intro scene, since it's been ages since I played op4, but the lighting could and 3D sky could improve it immensely.

Intro map
Nicely detailed and nice custom models and assets. Could again benefit greatly from some tweaked lighting. First battle was very nicely scripted and not too difficult. it sort of reminded me the machines prisoner camp raid from Terminator Genisys: just add scorched sky, purple lasers, and nighttime

Kudos if you built the palm tree models from scratch, but there are much-more realistic ones available. Nice first puzzle, although it took a bit of aimlessly walking around until he came up to cut the door. also easter egg!

Terrain in the battle area could be better, and you have some splits in the brushes, but no big deal. Definitely some more props and detail items out there would be nice too, including you could add rocks/rubble all over. I would not use that metal door texture in the future, or scale it down a bit, and/or add some more segments and detail to the door itself.

First level change
Really nicely done area, and general detailing is great, including garage doors and the trucks outside. Nice dick move denying access to the tower btw. There were some models fading/disappearing too quickly out there.

to be continued...

Looking forward for your next part of the review.. I'm glad you enjoy it so far. At least you seem to enjoy. As for a 3D skybox I never did it before to be honest. No clue how that works wont you need something like spirit for that? That tower model fading was actually a last minute bug and I noticed it while the upload was almost complete. Prior it didn't occur very annoying to say the least.

I will eventually release a patch that addresses this and also improves the map transitions. There are few maps that change to radical due to different lightning etc.

Hi, what do you mean with WON HALFLIFE ? Vanilla HalfLife ?
Also I don't have STEAM (I hate it) but I strongly wanna play your mod.. what do you suggest me ?

Oh no no no, 3D skybox is a source thing, my bad; I meant just a better 2D sky choice, sorry!

One way around Goldsore's lack of 3Dskyboxes is make one in source, compile and play the map including a camera to take up/down/left/right/back/forward pics, and den convert to TGA format for Half-Life. There are tutorials for exactly how to do this floating about

I will try to continue the review tonight, and yes I am definitely enjoying it! Great work so far =)

@komagame: Yes I meant vanilla Hl with WON.. You can play it on vanilla though you will experience a crash in map6 & map14 loading a savegame should fix this issue. Steam users wont crash that's why I recommended steam.

U do need teh Opposing Force for play it?

Nope it's standalone and happy new year to you..