Having caught the Half-Life bug again with the release of Black Mesa, I’ve been digging out old mods to re-evaluate in the light of the team’s amazing effort.
I just re-installed Half-Life to play my favourite old mod ‘Someplace Else’, which I thoroughly recommend you play if you never have - it’s short but tough, has a great ambience and is set in a superb modified Xen setting. It’s by Adam Foster, who did the acclaimed Minerva mod for HL2, which is a sort of a sequel to Someplace Else - it’s next on my list as I’m not sure I ever actually played it!
I also aim to re-play the superb Poke 646, and also it’s follow up Vendetta, which I also don’t think I ever played.
These mods are all set in the Half-Life universe but are only loosely related - you don’t play Gordon Freeman, are not set in Black Mesa or City 17 and they probably have ‘non-canon’ content, but they are all very good quality and really stick to the Half-Life formula.
Oh, I’m also checking out the Decay port, which I only just found out about.
Anybody have any suggestions for similar mods? I prefer something shortish with a bit more depth, puzzling and story. I played quite a few very disappointing combat heavy grinding gruntfests back in the day and would rather avoid that sort of thing.
Any suggestions for other quality non-universe mods also accepted
I will have to look some up. I remember playing a horror mod for half-life that was very well done. It was a zombie mod that was pretty popular and I think made by some company.
Azure sheep and its sister mod, poke 646 series, sweet half life and the other mods made by that team, timeline series, todesangst series, vengeance and rebellion, and tons of other ones I don’t remember off the top of my head
Never heard of that before, but have checked it out and it looks ‘interesting’… lots of good reviews but maybe a bit wacky. Will give it a go though. Thanks!
Was it They Hunger? I played all 3 of the games in that series. Pretty good stuff but not ones I’d go back to.
You know what, I think I played all of them too, apart from Timeline. I recall Todesangst as being pretty good, and enjoyed Sweet Half-Life.
Talking of Poke 646, I just replayed the original and am currently on its sequel, Vendetta. They are excellent and have stood the test of time really well in all respects - graphics, sound, level design and storytelling. I can’t believe the first one is over a decade old, and Vendetta often looks like a Half-Life 2 mod. They really pushed the limits of the GoldSrc engine with that, especially the texturing and effects.
Years ago I played a single player mod for HL1 where you were like… a janitor or something. You know, one of those guys who drive the fork lifts. I can’t remember what it was called but it was really fun and really well done. It did some clever things with Xen and even had a sequence where the level was flipped upside down. It was a lot of fun.
azure sheep
earthquake center
earthquake center 2
gut reaction
blackops
case closed
peaces like us (written as is, it’s japanese)
point of view
visitors
half-quake
half-quake amen
hazardous course (2)
heart of evil
poke646
poke646 : vendetta
someplace else
sweet half-life
they hunger
uss darkstar
half-life 2 :
mission improbable
nightmare house 2
precursor
research and development
Wha- You just listed all of my favorite HL1 mods. Now I have nothing left to contribute!
Oh, wait, I do. Check out Combine Destiny, and its unreleased sequel. The original had some surprisingly fun combat and exploration, while the WIP CD2 has some intriguing squad-based gameplay.
Point of View. Probably the only mod to take place at Black Mesa I’d say actually fits in well.
Afraid of Monsters. Awesome, and the best scary mod for HL.
Poke646. The only sequel mod worth playing.
I remember a half finished mod where you played as Black Ops. You woke up in the back of a truck being revived. It was such high quality with new weapons and awesome level design. If it had been finished it’d of been my favorite by far.
I am a very big fan of Sweet Half-Life, I’ve actually replayed it several times. Maybe 3 times?
Very imaginative, hilarious (and complicated) scripted sequences. Just be sure to save frequently in different save slots because sometimes a scripted sequence can screw up and you can end up getting stuck.
Also you can have problems if you use the Steam version of the Half-Life High Definition pack, as it doesn’t have some essential animations needed for a scientist to jump over a table. I think that is fixed if you use my Fixed Half-Life High Definition Pack. (Which was something released by me back when I was with Planet Half-Life.) Also some custom “super definition” modelsbased on the Playstation 2 version of Half-Life have problems due to scientists having a slower, more realistic running speed - if a certain scientist can’t outrun a Gargantua, you get game over! To be honest, I think Sweet Half-Life is best played with the old original low definition Half-Life models, since the new models (new soldiers, new scientists in HEV suits, new weapons) are in that old style as well. And you avoid any bugs that way too.
Here’s a pretty cool video someone made, showing off the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Idfla5lC7nQ
And indeed one of the youtube comments is “lmao this video made me buy half life years ago”. Sweet Half-Life is over-the-top badassness.
I used to write mod reviews for Planet Half-Life, and Combine Destiny was the only thing I ever gave a poor score to. I was rather disappointed by it as it was very long, but the developers didn’t seem to have many interesting ideas to justify a mod of such a significant length. It was mostly made up of grey/brown corridors full of barrels and crates. Oh and loads and loads of zombies.
I did like that it gave multiple paths and encouraged exploration… but then in some parts it punished the player for exploring - like giving you a hole you can jump down but with no way out, and a message telling you that were dumb for jumping down the hole. I also recall a big dumpster which tempted the player with a medkit at the bottom, but then had no way to climb out of the dumpster.
Also it had bits where you get to team up with Combine soldiers, but then you have very small elevators and doors and tight rooms which makes it a nightmare to try and get them to move around or to follow you. I actually had parts where I was trapped in a room by my comrades and had to use noclip to get past them. If you are going to give the player a squad of teammates, perhaps make the rooms and elevators large enough for several people to stand in rather than have doors and corridors so narrow that you have to go through them single-file and tiny elevators only large enough for one or two people. Getting to be part of a squad of Combine soldiers should have been awesome but ended up being frustrating. I know some people really like Combine Destiny though, I don’t want to crap all over it, it’s just I wouldn’t put it on a list of “must play” Half-Life 2 mods because I think the only thing really notable about it is that it is long.
I really love Half Life 1 mods. Maybe because I love that GoldSrC, IT’S BEAUTIFUL. But there’s one mod that I really loved, it’s extremely well made, and funny. Half Life: Visitors.
They Hunger, Poke 646… Azure Sheep was pretty meh, but the last level’s design was pretty good. Need to try POV, though. Absolute Redemption was amusing and had pretty good ideas and gimmicks. Afraid of Monsters is fucking terrifying.
Zombie Edition looks pretty cool.
Oh, does anyone know the mod where you’re a lawyer who was eating in the cafeteria when the Resonance Cascade strikes? I think it was by the same guys who did Case Closed.
I liked Azure Sheep. The ‘Old Black Mesa’ level in particular had a really nice theme and aesthetic that I loved.
POV was a lot better, though, with the only real flaw being that there weren’t many weapons at all, (and then most of them had limited uses) and the energy attack wasn’t very fun to use.
Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.
