Practice Levels

Okay, so I've been working with the Valve Hammer editor for a few months now and have managed to build 2 test levels. One of them is set in a prison shower room and there are zombie npc's that are hidden around the corners and are triggered whenever the player walks past. There is a boarded door, in which all the boards must be broken to advance to the next room. The rest is incomplete, as it was my first map and I didn't really have a good concept to follow.
The second level is a complex house in which every room represents a different aesthetic: industrial, hospital, horror movie, construction, old 50's decor, cave, modern/abstract, laboratory. These are all contained in the shell of a modern-type house on the exterior in the middle of the forest at night. I was trying to make the rooms and dimensions as realistically proportional as possible- because most gamesdon't include fine details such as closets in each bedroom of a house, junky rooms with lots of props, or light switches and wall outlets on textures. From the start of production I realized that the game world and reality are different in that players like to have a lot of room to maneuver and take cover from enemies. For this reason, I found it hard to stage a battle sequence in the house because there wasn't really any good places to fight. The house would serve more as an ammunition reservoir to recover from a recent battle and gain background information about the world.
Here are some screenshots of each level:

Prison



House







I realize that the lighing in each is a little dark (I was experimenting with moody and colored lights but I had a play tester run through them and would always revert to using the flashlight. I will make sure and fix this in future levels.

Halo 3!

So Halo 3 has been out for about a week now. I've heard mixed reviews- most of my friends are saying that it was over hyped, but still- it's halo, so it can't be too much of a disappointment (Gamespot gave it a respectable 9.5). I guess they were comparing it to the likes of Gears of War. Still, Halo (to me anyway) was never really about the single player campaign but shined in multi player. Good Times. Moments like these really taunt me to get an xbox 360...