HECU House

This is a really solid little gruntfest map pack, it has to be said. I loved how it started out with the player largely having the upper hand, with the first handful of grunts being caught unawares. This is the best way to handle gruntfest maps while your loadout is a little light. Too often you see the player taking on large squads with only a crowbar and pistol. As the maps progress you start to take on larger and larger squads in more open areas, with smaller groups appearing in claustrophobic hallways towards the end. I played on hard and for the most part I was sitting around 25 HP and 20 armour. This meant that later engagements had to be approached carefully and executed flawlessly in order to survive. Finally, the map doesn't appear to end. I found barney but from that point was given no sign as to whether I needed to backtrack or the map simply ended there? In the end, I just closed the game. If there is a genuine end point to the map, it needs to be signposted better.

The architecture throughout is basic, but in a classic sense that fits the Half-Life theme really well. There are only a few parts where the brushwork is a little obscure, making it hard to discern what a particular object is supposed to be. There are a few instances of what I assume a prefabs that have been flipped and don't behave correctly.

• A vending machine full of cockroaches that appeared to pull me towards it where I assume it was intended to push the roaches out.
• A toilet with a flush handle that rotates in the wrong direction, away from the cistern...
• Another vending machine where the buttons jump outwards towards the player when pressed.

Texturing as again fairly basic which fits the bill nicely given the simplicity of a lot of the environments. It also has a few of the same pitfalls, with one object in particular that looked like a glass block in the back of a truck which was supposedly made of meat??? No idea what that was meant to be.

Ambience is good throughout with plenty of ambient noise in the background and no area comes to mind that was completely silent. One odd moment concerns a mortally wounded guard near the prison sells who simply and calmly says he had a long night and is going to wait where he is, only to die moments later...

Lighting is probably the lowest scoring factor in the pack for me. The outdoor sections are fine, with the start of the map being dimly lit and brightening up as the sun rises in the later maps, but the interiors lack variety, often using a sickly yellow light and nothing else. This looks terrible in my opinion. For the interior spaces in future, consider putting smaller coloured highlights up towards the ceilings, under grates in the floor or in shadowy corners just to add a little variation in the colours on display.

Thank you so much for reviewing my map! I'll take the feedback to improve my later maps that i'm going to make.

• The map does actually have an ending, you just have to walk up to barney, but the ending is nothing special, it just shows a message saying "you saved barney, thanks for playing" and kicks you out into the menu.
• The "glass" block made of meat in the back of the truck in the beginning of level 2 was actually supposed to be a body bag, i couldn't find a suitable texture for a bodybag so i just resorted to a glass texture.
• The guard near the prison cells says that line because i just wanted to use that unused voice line somewhere in the map.

Ah, OK. That ending didn't trigger for me for some reason. I walked right up to barney and actually had him follow me back outside... Haha.

I'll need to try this one

simple but really good
really tough hit scanner combat, be ready for it
Tried to save barney but nothing happened (really annoying herding him though doors)
Feel like I should have given him a real rescue (he didn't even buy me that beer)
Over all cool mod but a lame ending

thanks for the review! i'm glad you liked it

Really a good simple map
I like it
But really, a lame ending after rescuing barney from the HECU Soldier

Known bugs: The doors can get stuck on stuff like corpses, so you will have to destroy them if the door gets stuck. I don't know how to fix that.

Maybe you make those HECU Soldier that died on the door disappear, like check the box that named Fade Corpse on the section name 'Flag'

that could work, thanks!