Metropolice Outpost

This was a great little map, and an interesting concept compared to the usual Half-Life maps. I love non-linear level design, and the way you've linked all the areas up in this map was really well done. Opening up clever new routes and shortcuts was good fun, even if it gave the enemies more ways to reach me. I found the two (are there more?) big secrets, shutting off the gas trap and inputting the code.

I feel like the barricade and ladder placement parts felt a little rough, as I only found out I could do them by stumbling into the walls and seeing the transparent markers appear, but there's probably not a whole lot you can do about that in Source.

It was quite challenging at the start. I wandered into the poison zombie tunnels and metro cop stations with nothing but a crowbar and pistol, which left me pretty low on health for the first half. I think had more trouble when the Combine reinforcements arrived then the headcrab canisters after them. It almost seems like those two should happen the other way around, with the Combine being the map's big crescendo, but otherwise I really like the way you kept repopulating the same area with new threats.

It also looks really nice. The detail is well done throughout, I especially like the pipe work, and you have some very nice dramatic lighting in places. Really well done.

Hey! Thanks for playing. And i appreciate very detailed feedback from you, this will help me to improve my mapping skills.
Good job with finding code, and finding second secret. There is actually a third secret and it's a well hidden room which really hard to find, maybe even impossible if you don't know about it's existence. In this room is a result of my experiment with monitor, camera and combine scanner.

I was prettycurious about this "non-linear" design and let me preface this review by saying, that part was awesome. At first, I was extremely confused and disoriented - being presented with several paths to go instead of one, I got huge FOMO upon picking one. But I soon caught up on the way the map works and it was pretty fun. During my (brief) playthrough, I had several "OHHHH so I'm back here!" moments and I found the map to be a textbook example of how to pack loads of mapping and gameplay into a seemingly small space.

But. Big big but (pun intended).

The combat is extremely poorly managed. More often than not, I'd find enemies swarming out of every direction, with no indication as to a wave was over or where the next attack would be from, trying to take cover or retreat for a few minutes only to find there were enemies behind me as well. In addition, I fought through the majority of the map with a pistol only, as munition for the other weapons was extremely rare. I had to quicksave every few moments (and use godmode once, after saving only to get shot in the face right after). In the end, I ragequitted after dying for the tenth-or-so time in the same spot (trying to kill half a dozen combine plus two shotgunners when you're on 10 health and only got a pistol is kinda hard).

There's huge potential in this concept, but I think going over the combat and re-doing that would really benefit the map. Maybe a more traditional approach to staging assaults would be good, with more obvious indication where to expect enemies from, and places to retreat to for some licking-my-wounds. That being said, this is still a pretty cool map, and the layout and visuals are certainly en par with any campaign map.

The level design is great. Everything looks and sounds great, and I love it conceptually. The difficulty is just a major turn-off, I've always got too little ammo for too few guns on too low health. Didn't finish this map even though it deserved to be finished just because of how anti-player this gameplay was. I'd love to see this map edited to let the player start with more weapons/armor, anything just to even the odds against the enemies.

Thanks for feedback everyone.
I've updated the map a little by adding some weapons, ammo, grenades, health kits, health chargers, armor charger and armor batteries around the map, so it's should be a lot more fair for now. It's kinda problematic cause when you test your own map it feels too easy, especially when you played it a ton of times.
Also added ambient occlusion to lightning.
And thanks for playing