Friday, November 28, 2008

outwards for Half-Life

***NEW!!!***


Level name: Outwards


Author: Visa "Zandramas" Alanko

Date of release: 11 August 2001

Size: 8 616 ko

Number of maps: 8



website: here


download: At plantphillip.com

Note : this one is recommanded to be played in easy mod except if you are really a good player and don't be bothered buy surronding spawning of enemies. The author told that you may encounter a problem at the last stage when you need to fall down by a vent and loose lot's of health points if you are below 40pts and no HEV points I juggest you to use god mod or simple take the quicksave kindly provide by guilfarry from Planetphillip -> here below



Story :

You are a Gordon Freeman in a time after deciding to take the chance, which G-man offered to you. First he commanded you to carry unidentified materials for researching to Black Mesa Research Facility in New Mexico. You arrive to laboratory and there should be someone to receive you, but you see nobody and hear only blowing wind. Something makes you think there has happened an accident or something like that again.You decide to take a little look around....

Review :

This release seems to have passed trough the wire of lot's of HL sp fan so that it just came out recently at planetphillip. The impression during the playing of this episode was really a mixed feeling, the author created something interesting at start but didn't put enough effort in general layout with oversized places laking details, big place looking to boxy, too much use of copy/paste without any change (the office hallway before the tank attack) but this was mixed with some interesting design and detail and some correct interconnection

Design is intended to be not repetitive but even if the author wanted to make a good mix between outdoor and indoor, the lack of detail and weak architecture design let sometime the feeling of visiting places that look quite similar but with different texturing. The theme is the most visited in hl release (research complex), but doesn't succeed in adding value to the original game, and this even if some place are well crafted and that some events or puzzles seems sometimes intersting (tank attack, 'clark lift' puzzle, end scene,...) they are mostly lost in the mass of the gameplay and doesn't really succed in highlinthing this episode.
Gameplay is really the sad part of this episode all fight and combats are not that easy and quite unrealistic with sad trap that won't let you a chance at the first try, the progression seems mostly obvious and puzzle,even if they seems quite well handled, doesn't add any value to the frustrating fighting gameplay...ambiance and especially sound seems more to lack so that you never really get immersed in the experience.

In conlcusion: this one was lost somewhere on the internet and is really intended for HL fan who likes to play everything, it's really not a priority...because at the end it let more frustration feeling than good memories. But you can only at it's advantage not too difficult regarding gameplay, in easy mode it seems ok and finally it will take you a little bit more than a half hour to be completed if you don't know what to do for this period of time in an evening why not give it at try but don't forget all the weaknesess mentioned.


Playtime: 50 min


Rating: A B C D E (58%)

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