A HD pack for the classic zombie horror Half-Life mod, Survive in Catacombs 2! This mod tries it's best to improve some aspect of the original Survive in Catacombs 2, these includes the models, sounds, sprites, along with text translations of the original.
Half decent mod but worse than the original
- Zombie barney with gun . Zombie with gun ! how terrifying! Funny enough he is the most challenging enemy in the entire game cause his range & hitscan pistol.
- Infinite respawning zombie in the farm section. THis is at the beginning of the game when the player have very little weapons and ammo.
- Illogical map design :
+ The Train section is very much deathtrap. There is very little space to move on and it easy to fall off the train. The ladder will shoot you off the train if you use decenst and press jump to get off ladder. The author may not understand all the nuance of the Goldsource engine yet. The thing about Goldsource physic is that doesn't handle moving object very well.
+ Unlike the predecessor there is less emphasis on finding key as you must use dynamite. Always have at least 5 dynamite pack on you. Don't go use them all on the zombies or you will be forced to load earlier save.
+ The mining area is another of the author lack of forsight in map design. At 1st you when you look at the road to Roseville. You though it would be the way to go except it wasnt'. THe author but a hidden tentacle and traps there to kill but if you just walk silently to the left then you could pass him easily. Except that there isn't anything there for you to go.Nothing but skybox.I Bet you the author didn't know the tentacle are blind. Actually You have to kill all the zombies then a zombie barney will open the door to the quarry to fight you. If you managed to throw a dynamite pack at him cause there is no ******* ceiling to stop it then you are stuck.
- The language. Zikshadow did his best at translating all the text to English except there is no subtitle for the voice acting which could make objective hard to figure out . Granted making subtitle are hard but the WON version of Half life does support subtitles except that this mod was not make for WON.
- It easy to get stuck in the geometry of this mod
- It crash randomly . Especially with D3D
*The most disappointing thing is the ending. Just like the last time. You barely accomplish anything.
I really enjoyed the first mod, even though I couldn't understand a single word of the story or characters. Gameplay was fun, maps were varied and there were tens of zombie skins, each better than the other one.
But I'm sad to say I did not enjoy this part 2 half as much as I enjoyed the first one. Why? Let's break it down:
Maps: My biggest issue with this game was the maps. They were uninspired sometimes and completely bad in terms of "HL Mapping standards". Wpoly was too high in few points, with one point actually reaching +2500! Gamepaly aspects of the map were sometimes awful too.
Other issue I had with them was that they fell out of place. They didn't really feel in place. One minute you're running out of a cave and the next thing you know you reach a cliff and jump into a portal which leads you to some citadel like rooftop with another teleporting thingy.
Also I did not enjoy the train part. Yes, it was fun in Blood, but that doesn't mean you have to make it here too. There was nothing original about it. You did the same thing here that you did in Blood.
Weapons: The new weapons and their models were refreshing, but the pitchfork was just awful. It's slow attack speed was just painful. I know the idea of the pitchfork came from Blood but I've played Blood and in there it hit twice as fast as it did here. In terms of difficulty, it did make killing zombies harder, but that's not the problem. The problem is that it was the melee weapon you use to break open crates. And to stand there, poking a crate for 10 seconds to finally break it was just painful.
Language: Same issue with the first one but it mattered more here. All the text is in another language and so are the character lines which end up confusing. For example, a character walks up to a door, says something, then runs back with full speed to another door (which was locked) goes inside and locks it again. I spent 10 minutes running around, trying doors, windows, everything until I realized that I had to blow up the first door with TNT. Only way I could have known this sooner was if the game was in English. Funny how all the description of the mod here is in English and yet everything in the game itself is in another language.
Flow: One of the important things in a video game is the flow of its gameplay. Unfortunately SiC2 has a very bad one, in terms that it goes normal, then you're stuck in one place for 10-20 minutes trying to figure out what you have to do, then normal pacing and then back to the 10-20 minutes of being stuck again. I guess the fault goes back to the mapping design and foreign language again.
Length: Surprisingly the mod was really short. Even shorter than I could think of. And the ending was sudden. You're running from a crowd of zombies and blow up the gate, then run inside and the screen goes black, playing a few sounds to try and paint a picture. Then you're standing somewhere while holding your gun without being about to do anything but move. I did not understand what happened and what was going to happen. Maybe if the langiage was in English the texts may have helped but I'm still not sure.
Conclusion: A disappointment comparing to the first one. The author got away with some rookie mistakes and bad designs in the first game but in this second part they're all over the place. I cannot recommend this to anyone.
10/10 for yhe "remod part" of the mod.
For the real mod, I think it deserve a 7/10.
Don't have lots of things to say, a little sweet mod that is fun and fair, maybe a little awkward or strange at some points but it's ok.
There is a They Hunger feel to this mod, I can't qualify it, it's good for the ambiance and bad because its not well done.
It's still a nice mod and I liked the "Blood Style", I played Blood 2 and found this game really funny, so it's a nice "easter egg"