You are Bob Dewey, Black Mesa janitor. You arrive at the research facility for another day at work: cleaning up the mess those smart ass scientists leave behind, refilling the soapboxes in the toilets, listening to Barney's stupid jokes and reading Penthouse Magazine. It's not the most exciting job in the world, but it pays good and you get lot's off free donuts. As usual, those scientists create black holes and open gates to other alien worlds filled with creatures who eat human flesh for lunch. Nothing special, but this time, they really messed it up and those aliens found a way to our planet. And guess what, you are in the middle of all this. While Gorden Freeman kicks alien arse, Corporal Adrian Shephard fights Freeman and Barney Calhoun tries to save some scientists, you just try to save you own butt and get the hell out of Black Mesa. It's a bigger mess you have to clean up this time...
Case Closed has somehow managed to slip by me all these years and I’m not quite sure how.
A fantastic and lengthy map pack with stunning visuals throughout. I was not surprised to see that the author was also a member of the Quake mapping community. From the insane difficult to the thinly veiled monster closets, this whole thing has a very old school feel and I loved it.
There are occasions where the mod could have done with a little more time in the oven, specifically narrative wise. The player has very little interaction with the Black Mesa personnel at the start of the mod. Then the action just kind of kicks off without much fanfare and you inexplicably have an HEV suit and are ready to roll. Also, Barney and the HECU seem to like calling you Freeman, despite you not playing as him.
There are also occasions where the means to progress is not always clear, with some winding corridor sections leading to a button which opens a door you passed five minutes ago. It’s not always clear that you have to backtrack, but fortunately these moments of confusion were few and far between.
Overall, the look of this map pack is what sticks with me most. It’s got a lot of nice little details and stellar lighting or the most part, with only the occasional bland looking areas in amongst the good stuff.
The main thing to take away is that this is all the work of one guy. Considering the length and the quality of the level design, that’s astounding. There is also a custom .dll file and a mention in the credits for some custom coding, but honestly I’ve not got a clue what was different from the base game.
Play this now. It’s an underrated gem as far as I’m concerned.
A very pretty good mod for 2004, during the golden age of Half-Life mods. The person you play as is an Janitor which is similar to the old old construction NPC's.
Unlike Cleaner's Adventures, Here you have weapons from the start and the battle to escape is somewhat easier but this mod's swan song is it's ending.
At first I tought that it was only gonna be like 20min of shooting aliens and soldiers but the more it went on, the more this mod surprised me. You really had some great ideas. While it only last 2h it was a great experience. Just a backstory would have been great too
The effort put into this mod is obvious, yet the way it feels is not the best. In general, the mod feels quite dark and has a narrow offer of action, lacks specific weapons and so on. But as I said the work is clear - we should consider the way it's made the author's appetite. I consider this a middle-class Half-Life mod.
I will love to give this mod a 7, is fair and good mod to.
The story make the main character is a Worker instead of Scientist, HECU or Security Guard. Some parts are fun, but the ending might be a bit of... lose?
However, this mod is fair.
A kickass mod. Nearly every room and corridor looks great, the fighting is balanced pretty nicely, and it's of considerable length. The only gripes I have are the lack of autosaves (if you die, you start at the beginning of the map. Particularly annoying when it's a long map with lots of fighting), and a good story. The latter point being one of the mods only downsides. There was never any real objective, other than to keep going.
Great mod. One of the first HL1 mods I ever played. Aside from the abrupt ending, this one has some brilliant eye candy like the upside-down segment and the parts of Black Mesa mixed in with Xen. An inspirational and old-school mod worth a play!
I usually love mods that look different to the rest, and this one delivers highly on the detail, each place looks like it was polished to some degree that looks somewhat different from the last, even though most of those places are corridors.
Enemy placement is the main problem, it just doesn’t seem to be much thought or difficulty in it.
Its what makes this mod lower on the scale for me, is that it doesn’t challenge the player. Every encounter seems to be very tame, either one or two headcrabs or Islaves or a small squad of grunts which your always stocked to the teeth with to take on.
You have that crossbow since early on and then grenades, which I didn’t need to use because of all the AR grenades we got piled with mid way in.
And you’ve always got enough health and energy.
It doesn’t have any big battles except one comes close where you take on about 6-7 grunts, but I didn’t have much trouble. The trip the Xen was very short but I sort of liked it, and was far better than any of other mods that attempted it so far.
The upside down angle was also a nice short sequence that I personally don’t like nor think it makes any sense, but I’m sure some might appreciate its novelty.
The color scheme isn’t exactly great either, its rusty canal/water station (which I’ve never liked), a small sewer sequence, and then grey corridors of a storage area and a lighter grey lab areas.
It has no story or scripted sequences but most mods are like that :P
You get a vague notion of being a janitor from the text file, and a texture pack you can get reinforces that, but its just a novelty.
It has no secret places but once again most mods are like that, in fact Half-Life mostly didn’t have much of that unfortunately.
It also has a sort of anti-climatic ending where you reach the surface (again?) but this time ambushed and die by, well an amount of grunts you’ve easily taken on in the passed and are fully equipped to deal with :(
Very good
Cool short mod, easily completable under 2 hours. Features compact and quite detailed maps (especially for 2004) with good and decently difficult firefights. Has its own take and vibe both on Black Mesa and Xen surroundings and do not feels like a small HL clone.
Probably the only few downsides besides small size are its small intro and some areas having inobvious exits.
All in all an instant recommendation. Short, simple and very fun. If you are HL fan sick of mega-projects like Echoes, Residual Life, Residual Point, Azure Sheep or They Hunger, this mod will provide a great relief.