Have you ever seen what a "Half-Life 2" level looks like as one continuous path? Jasper, creator of Noclip.com, has put together a complete picture of "City 17" using a web-based map viewer.

Not to be confused with the documentary series, Noclip is a nifty site that lets you load up levels from Dark Souls, GTA III, Psychonauts, etc. and examine how they fit together. The library also includes all the maps from Half-Life 2, so last week Jasper decided to try loading the entire game at once.

This is not the first attempt to piece together Gordon Freeman's entire journey, from overhead maps to stitched-together 3D models. But as far as I know, it is the best representation of the game's environment pieced together in one continuous form.

It is also shockingly consistent. Routes through the streets, sewers, canals, and rivers of City 17 never overlap, and this is the first time I've seen serious crossing problems in the jeep section along the coast (apparently set a few dozen feet below the canal).

Granted, "Half-Life 2" is a big movie, and even Jasper's tricks can't fit the whole thing into a single image. However, with Noclip's isometric view, City 17's districts and waterways contextualize each other more clearly.

Sadly, the publicly available version of Noclip does not allow dozens of levels to be dumped into the browser at once. However, you can get a peek at how your favorite game worlds are constructed, or in the case of "Half-Life 2," the invisible trigger blocks and small maps within the map that form the skyboxes of each level.

Cheers, RPS.