Thread: Good HL2 mods?

Originally Posted by vexle

Riot Act is one of the better single-player mods, taking place in Nova Prospekt parallel to the story of HL2. As a prisoner there, your cell door opens due to a power outage, and you fight your way free.
http://www.moddb.com/mods/riot-act

Riot Act was... decent.

Map design was mostly okay, some of it was seriously lacking. There's one section about halfway through where you need to fight a bunch of Overwatch, and then eventually a scene happens where some Resistance members slam an APC into the other APC, and then apparently an Antlion Guard comes out and knocks a hole in the wall, which you're supposed to go through to continue on. Issues with this: Overwatch spawn constantly and infinitely through the entire process. I spent most of the time inside a room, behind a door, exploiting spotty enemy AI (they open door, I blast them in the face with shotty secondary fire, duck behind a corner to chamber next rounds, rinse and repeat.) I heard lots of explosions and shooting, but because I couldn't go out there - I only had about 40 HP and no armor, and I always play on Hard - I never saw what happened. Eventually I started running out of ammo so I made a break for it, died, and saw the hole. Loaded the game back up, waited till all the bangs, and then sprinted for the new hole in the wall. Poor map design.

The other major issue is at the very end, where you have to go across a bridge while dodging a Strider's fire, summon a trolley, and then presumably fight the Strider while riding the trolley to the other side of the bridge and presumably the end of the campaign. Major issue with this, that may be due to a bug: Once you reach the little shack that houses the switch needed to call the trolley to your side of the bridge, the Strider will stop using its gun and switch to the laser cannon. A direct or semi-direct hit from this cannon is completely fatal, regardless of HP/armor (I've got 100 HP and about 65 armor.) This laser also goes through walls, doors, and even the bridge support columns - I'm pretty sure this is a bug. While I have 3 rockets, a Strider on Hard takes a minimum of 8 rockets to bring down, and usually more like 10. Killing a Strider isn't very hard, even on Hard - it just requires patience and a lot of available rockets. There are more rockets on the trolley and probably some more on the other side of the bridge, but because I can't even make it to the trolley (remember, the second I leave the shack to go down the ladder to the trolley, the Strider uses its laser), that's not much help. Again, I think this is a bug, but even if it is, it's still bad map design and not enough playtesting before releasing it.

I'd recommend MINERVA: Metastasis. The guy has created some amazingly complex and realistic maps, the fights are well designed, and the plot and general concept's pretty good, too. Just one more reason to recommend it, the guy that made this campaign, Adam Foster, was recruited by Valve and is now working on Episode Three, so I'm expecting great things from ep3 with him on the team.

Originally Posted by Pineapple!

I jsut finished playing Zombie Panic! for about 2 and a half hours straight. When you have a team that works together, it's really really fun. A little slow if you don't know what you're doing, but once you get the hang of it, it's a blast.

dewd i definitely love zps, havent touched it in a while though. It will tide me over until left 4 dead next month.

Well, I tried the new version of Synergy a very little bit With swift last night, and they REALLY shaped up the mod with the latest update. If we are still on for this Synergy thing, people can recomend dates for it to Happen, beause this will be fun! They also allowed other games to be used, like other SP mods, which to me, seems pretty cool.

I'm going to try Zombie Panic Source, I really want Left4Dead.