White Forest looks and plays great, being comparable to a high-quality vanilla campaign. It also contains plenty of surprises to keep you on your toes in these familiar environs.

It’s set in the White Forest and its surroundings during the Rebel uprising in Half-Life 2: Episode 2, and takes you from the train crash, through the mines, the Antlion nest, the canyon, the bridge, and the forest, and finally ends in a Finale at the White Forest forward operating base (taking place over around a quarter-third of the entirety of Episode 2).

The overall difficulty of White Forest is kept reasonable due to the generosity of supplies provided throughout, and the areas being fairly flat and wide-open. Ammo was a bit of an issue during part of Chapter 2 (just after the Ancient Guardian Tank fight), but this didn’t result in significant issues for us.

Sniper Rifles are notably extremely powerful on this Custom Map, as the wide-open areas with long sightlines allow a skilled player to easily pick off most Common and Special Infected before they become a threat to the team. Especially since the Sniper Rifles have zero damage falloff, even at extreme ranges.

White Forest notably doesn’t deviate much from its source material, which was originally made by Valve. This helps to keep the campaign grounded, intuitive, straight-forward, and easy to navigate and play, just like a vanilla campaign.

The only major difference between White Forest and its source material, is that all elements of the Combine, the Rebels, and other Half-Life enemies have been scrubbed from it, notably including the destroyed Citadel, Striders, Hunters, the Combine themselves, the Rebels, Alyx, the Antlions, the Vortigaunts, the Headcrabs, etc.

White Forest is also missing Half-Life 2: Episode 2’s sounds, ambience, and music (except for one HL2 Episode 2 track playing during the mine elevator holdout Crescendo, which was cool).

There were some minor issues with the Ancient Guardian Tanks getting stuck in several areas in the Mines, but they were badly hurt by that point anyway, which prevented this from being too egregious.

The hardest part of the whole campaign is easily the Crescendo in the mine elevator holdout at the end of Chapter 2 (which is fitting, as I remember this being one of the harder parts in the original game). The difficulty of this long Crescendo is raised significantly when the elevator arrives, and a surprise Ancient Guardian Tank pops out and attacks, as the horde of Commons also continue to trickle in. Especially since the area is fairly confined.

The second hardest part of White Forest is the canyon area in Chapter 3, which has been spiced up with the inclusion of a Crescendo, a Double Tank fight (meant to mimic the Double Antlion Guard fight from Episode 2), and a mini-Scavenge event. Fortunately, all of this is made quite manageable as a result of the wide-open space and the cover/looping areas provided in the canyon.

White Forest’s Finale is a moderately difficult Quadruple Generator Start-Defend-Tank-Defend-Double Tank set in the White Forest forward operating base enclosure. Holding on the partially-collapsed warehouse roof in the middle of the map was quite effective for us, as it gave us great sightlines of the entire compound, allowing us to pick off most Specials before they reached us, whilst also being able to keep an eye on the attacking Commons. The Finale area also notably has guaranteed Laser Sights, which makes the Finale easier overall.

In conclusion, White Forest is an excellently designed Custom Map all around, and was a very good experience. Its difficulty, pacing, and design are all directly comparable to the best vanilla campaigns in the game.

There is also a Gnome present on White Forest, but apparently taking it to the end doesn’t actually do anything at present(?), according to other commentators.


For more Expert Custom Map Reviews and ratings, see my full Collection here. https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2252724380