Claustrophobia is an Action/Adventure/Puzzle type mod in which you play a rebel in the Half-Life 2 universe fighting and solving his way through areas to get to safety.
It really amazes me that so many people give this mod a 8 to 10, i really can't give more then a 5/10.
I noticed quit a few errors, missing models, textures, sounds and scripts, (that is what the console said at least).
Then, the level layout was sometimes really good and in other places a real mess, sorry but i simply can't say it better. It really looked like the mapper really liked mapping on the first levels, but the further he went in to the project the worst the levels looked. Specially in the last few levels there were many rooms and hallways that simply had 1 texture, for floor, walls and ceiling!! And these places were filled with as it looked random placed models.
The back tracking was awfull, every puzzel i had to walk around and around, simply to see if there was a door opend somewere. Most puzzels didn't make sence anyway. And some didn't work. There were rooms filled with ammo and weapons, that i only could find after noclipping. Why these rooms were there was a real mistery to me, because the player couldn't get in there. At the end the mod crashed and i had to restarted my pc through the on/off button!!
So, all in all i think a 5 is even a bit high for this one.
What did surprice me most is that it seems that this one was already released 2 years ago or so. ANd now the mapper did go over all levels and fixed a lot of stuff. Does me wonder how they looked then back 2 years ago.
So, sorry. I do see you did put in a lot of time in some places. But in the same amount of places it really looked like you tried to get this one as quit released as possible.
a fellow mapper/modder,
Leon
Parts felt unfinished. Had a difficult time, even on medium. Had to use noclip twice because of no possible way to get through two parts (not fighting, but just area navigation). Key system didn't work too well because it is hard to see the keys. One part was impossible to solve until I looked online how to solve it. Otherwise, it felt like it could have been a potential game.
This review will not contain a traditional pro/con review, but rather just a semi-length text review. It also contains spoilers.
At first glance, you will notice that the download size of this mod is not that large. But, thinking that this mod is short because of the download size is extremely erroneous. This mod is best classified as a puzzle solving one. A majority of your time playing through this mod will be spent by backtracking once you gather something in order to move on to the next puzzle. Let me say this now, the mod creator definitely loves his keys LOL.
In order for the backtracking to work, one has to spend time thinking about how they are going to make their maps work with backtracking. The creator of this mod definitely thought out the maps. The maps themselves are traversed logically. The puzzles can be solved. I did have to read the included walkthrough more than once, but never did I have to noclip out of someplace.
You will also notice that concepts and assets are taken from a majority of the official Half-Life games, to include Half-Life 1 and its expansions. I noticed that the keys were probably taken from a Half-Life 1 mod. Some of the sounds were Half-Life 1. The tram was taken from Half-Life 1, btw I LOVED the fact that the creator included the tram sequence. A tram sequence was also taken from a Half-Life 1 level, where you are on the tram and there are guards, elevated, on your left and right. The antlion from Half-Life 2 is present, and you know when it is going to come. Enemies from Episode 2 are also present. The ending text was taken from Blue Shift when Barney Calhoun was also considered OUT OF RANGE.
I love that the Episode 2 engine was used. You can definitely tell that the lighting and overall graphical appearance is better and sharper, respectively.
Since you are underground a majority of the time, you will cherish your time aboveground. The funny thing is, the only thing that scared me, appeared aboveground. LOL.
<3 the mod.
Like Philip already mentioned, the mod includes a lot of switches in terms of quality.
Nethertheless this mod makes many things great, nice areas where you can really see that the author put some thoughts into the mapping.
Also this mod includes so many good ideas, simple things like the wood that blocks the door.
Or that funny part with the dispenser which explodes after you got the nade from it ^^
Still, there are some things that I missed, some sort of ectase in combat, the levels are mostly the same, the enemies are placed very well, but you keep fighting the same ones, only in the last one you meet a bunch of new enemies.
Also the keys are so goddamn hard to see, just making the key red or yellow can't really be that hard.
Anyway, I give it a 8 cause of the funny and good ideas, and the very high quality of the map layouts.
good
Endless mazes in search of some useless objects.
The design of this mod is average, not excellent. There are huge waves of enemies, especially headcrabs, and not always enough ammo. It was easy to get lost especially with all the locked doors and keys, so I had to noclip many times. There are framerate drops in some maps. But overall, nice effort. It reminds me of my own mods.
A mod that could have been good, but lacked a good understanding of level design.
I wanted to like Claustrophobia because I felt like the developer cared and tried, but about halfway through I just decided to stop. As far as I could tell about the entirety of this mod is wandering around trying doors until one opens and you find a key, then trying all of the doors again until you get the next key and doing this over and over. The level design is senseless: The transition between the first two maps has you drop from a sewer into a hospital...somehow. The enemy placement is poor, the player is consistently lost and bored, and so much more. It doesn't help that parts of the map seem impossible to pass. Like many others, I found myself using noclip to find rooms that seemed only accessible through noclip, rooms that the player could get to, but the door was hidden behind a prop and basically impossible to see, and so on. On top of all that, the mod was not very pretty either.
Overall this is a prime example of a very basic mod that was plagued with design issues that ruined its enjoyment.
"Claustrophobia" is a fairly-well made user mod that is aptly-named: Most of the levels are fairly (though not 'exceedingly') "claustrophobic."
Many of the maps require too much 'backtracking:' That is, finding keys, levers, etc. and then going 'back' to parts of the map previously explored. For me it was necessary to use 'noclip' cheats MANY times throughout this mod...as certain doors didn't open that I'm sure were supposed to....and many instances of keys that I was absolutely unable to find -- even though I looked carefully for them....I was 'thorough to a fault.'
The map design of this mod is anything but 'predictable' -- it was also, however, a little too 'disorganized'....and in many cases it was too easy to get lost...
The combat level of difficulty was for the most part 'just right' throughout.....however, in stretches it was clearly too difficult.
"Claustrophobia" -with its many script errors and many required instances of utilizing 'no-clip' cheats isn't quite a 'keeper' for me, unfortunately.
I rate this mod a 7/10.