This single player story is set in the ruins of an “ancient South American civilization” (a mix of some of them to be precise). The story is quite simple. Scientists have detected a strong energy signal coming from those ruins and have established themselves there to investigate.Unfortunately they are not alone, and things start going wrong…
Not a bad little mod. I enjoyed the scenery a lot, I think it was a tad difficult (on hard anyway), the puzzles were mostly OK and I generally had fun.
A fun and well designed mappack that takes place in an ancient, South American temple. The mapping and brushwork is pretty nice, even though it's not long, the developer put a lot of effort to every available section. Besides the usual run and gun, we also have some light puzzles. Finding and pushing buttons, pulling levers, grabbing two separate items and combining them to open a door etc. Not very original but always a plus that compliments the usual "shoot anything that moves" gameplay. I appreciate the work that went into the textures too.
That being said there are some inventive sections and nice details included here. You can break an urn and oil will spill on the floor which can catch fire. My favorite was climbing a ladder and finding out you've came out of a big pot, cool stuff :)
Overall, this is an enjoyable, short mappack that takes place in a unique environment. Gameplay-wise it's nothing special however that doesn't really take away from it much. If you're looking for something similar, you can also check out the creator's previous pack called "Sandscroll".
The maps are visually pleasing and artistic with nice mechanics. That's about it. The combat consists mostly of spamming enemies, little to no weapons or ammo given and claustrophobic battles with large enemies. No new weapons, no new skins. Puzzles were mediocre and the plot was weak. I expected more.
It's around 8.5, but I'm giving 10 to balance the fake negative reviews. 10 not only for that reason - the only jungle setting I've seen for Half-Life!
A short review:
The mod doesn't add any new weapons, entities or etc. it only adds new maps. So mostly like a map pack.
So the review will be mostly on the maps' design.
From the artistic point of view, the maps are pretty great. They look beautiful and have a couple of cool features in them which I will not spoil.
From the story point of view there is barely any story. You're just dropped to this place empty handed to look for some people. It is never explained who the Xen creatures are or why the military is here. Kind of annoying since you have no idea what you are doing.
On the gameplay side, the maps are pathetic. While some enemy placements are static, most are "Monster Closets". Are you not familiar with the term?
The Monster Closet name came form the DOOM games where you would walk into an area that was empty. Then once you did something, a wall would move revealing a few enemies who now swarmed you. This technique is known for it's cheapness and how badly it affects the gameplay.
This game uses Monster Closets a lot. Not in the same way, but in it's own way. Where you would walk up the stairs only to have 2 Vorigaunts teleport infront of you. You pick this up, enemies spawn around you. You pull this switch, enemies spawn around you. It's not fun and leaves you most vulnerable.
Same with the marines. They just kept rappling in out of nowhere.
And the areas which you face a Gargantua are confusing, unbalanced and frustrating.
I wish I could have given the mod a better score, but gameplay comes first. And the gameplay in this mod is not fun at all.
I remember this mod to be very good, you had a limited array of weapons and there were some pretty hard puzzles to solve.
The ending was a bit strange, but other than that...
Beautiful mod.
I recommend it.
Contains slight reminiscence of Serious Sam: The Second Encounter and Gunman Chronicles...
9/10
Well, first I have to say, Kasperg is a really versatile Modder, if you see all his portfolio of HL1,2 maps and mods, you’ll see what I mean.
Now I know this little cool mod was launched back in 2007, so is natural that some recommendation just don’t place this in better places. But my recommendation just wants to stand out that this is a pretty nice mod from Kasperg made for HL1, is the natural enhancing and improvement of the “vilcabamba” map, and here we have a coherent story nicely told inside the mod, with a great pre-Columbian architecture and textures all the way.
I also believe this kasperg’s mod deserve just more recognition that the one poor-average it has had so far, some scenes into the mod are just clever, and is a show that you don’t necessarily need lots of combat and mayhem in order to have a great mod, instead some clever puzzles and cool story.
Overall I’d say Idol Hunt feels like a classic work form a classic modder as Kasperg is, and now in 2013 I’d love to play more of his work for HL1 I hope he would be able to mod in HL1 some maps at least again, that would be pretty cool.
Nice i like the gameplay :D