Tired of taking your sweet time to traverse the map in Half-Life 2? I wasn’t either, but that doesn’t make the latest update to Mobility Mod any less awesome. The mod has been with us for a little while now. However, the latest version adds plenty of new features and improvements. Not only can you wall run as you do in Titanfall 2, but there are new melee controls, improved HUD, and much more.
Big Changes
Be warned, the mod changes quite a lot. If you love that classic Half-Life 2 feel, this may feel strange. The controls are very different, the gameplay is very different, etc. Of course, it’s still a bucket load of fun, so it may still be worth giving it a shot.
Release Notes
New Features
Based on the Episode 2 Engine
Combines Half-Life 2, Episode 1, and Episode 2 into one mod (just keep scrolling on the chapter menu to get to the episodes)
New melee controls:
melee key for a quick crowbar attack
hold melee key and press secondary attack for a crowbar slash attack, which hits multiple targets and does more damage, but is slower
hold melee key and press primary attack for a rocket-boosted surge attack, which pushes you forward, hits as soon as the target is in range, and does a lot of damage.
Surge attack while in the air lets you fly a short time, or change direction. Surge attack while crouching will trigger a slide even if you weren’t moving.
Very basic tutorial for the new melee
The airboat rockets seemed to please the personnel last time, so now there’s a portable version. It’s called the EGAR (Everyone Gets A Rocket!), and you can get it by typing give weapon_egar in the console.
Like the airboat rockets, it regenerates ammo.
Hold secondary attack to target enemies, and release to fire rockets.
Press reload to lock all remaining rockets onto the last target.
Unlike the airboat rockets, press primary attack to target whatever is under the cursor, even if it’s just a spot on the ground.
A nice side-effect of this system is that if you hit primary and secondary attack at the same time, it fires one rocket at whatever you’re looking at, so it’s like a quake-style rocket launcher.
Movement enhancements
Time-to-duck has been reduced, so sliding is much more responsive.
Console variable to lock direction while sliding, so you only slide in a straight line, no matter which way you’re facing (set sv_slide_lock to 1)
Console variable to limit sliding, slide-jumping and wall-jumping to only boost you to sv_maxspeed. Normally these speed boosts are cumulative and not limited (set certain_restrictions to 1. I recommend this setting. It makes the game feel less crazy, and more consistent.)
lessclip – it’s like noclip for invisible walls. Use with caution, because it turns out there are a lot of invisible walls and ramps that you need.
New HUD features:
artificial horizon (can be turned off or set to a custom opacity with cl_horizon console variable)
crosshair hit markers (diagonal lines. Can be turned off, set to a custom opacity with cl_hitmarkers, made bigger or smaller with cl_hitmarks_scale, faster or slower with cl_hitmarks_fadetime)
shotgun hit markers (circles showing hit pattern. Can be turned off or set to a custom opacity with cl_shotgun_hitmarks, can change the size of the circle with cl_shotgun_hitmarksize, can change the size of the pattern with cl_shotgun_hitmarkspread)
New grenade count display. In v1 there was a big row of grenade icons along the bottom, but that would clash with the vehicle locator display in ep2, plus it was a bit ugly.
Destroying an APC ejects the driver up into the air.
Unlocked a door in Nova Prospekt so that you can skip the first conversation between Alyx and Eli.
‘CONTINUE LAST SAVE’ button on main menu – loads your last autosave.
Returning from version 1
Wall-running
Double-jumping
Power-sliding
Ledge-climbing
Grenade button, ability to cook grenades
Unlocked Field-of-View (In HL2 the max was 90)
Tutorial and mini-campaign (only a tiny change from version 1, so if you played through it already, you’re not missing anything if you skip it)
Reduced bullet spread of automatic weapons while crouching and not sliding
Louder, bass-heavy bullet impacts on hits (possibly too much so)
Cheat modes – exploding bullets, extra enemies, floor lava (just damage over time when you’re on the ground), Mario mode, tough citizens
A whole lot of console variables to customise just about every aspect of the mod. Want to slide longer? Wallrun faster (or slower)? Jump higher? It’s all configurable. Look in ep2_mobility/cfg/mobility.cfg.
Bugs Fixed
driving the buggy over a cliff no longer crashes the game
fixed some near-clip problems when using high field-of-view
Also fixed mysterious rising into the air (if you started climbing, then turned away so that there was no space to move into, you would just keep climbing)
fixed voice lines in the tutorial being counted as music, and controlled by the music volume slider
Where to Download?
Head on over to the official mod page on moddb.com here.
Peter Donnell
As a child still in my 30's (but not for long), I spend my day combining my love of music and movies with a life-long passion for gaming, from arcade classics and retro consoles to the latest high-end PC and console games. So it's no wonder I write about tech and test the latest hardware while I enjoy my hobbies!