100 Half-Life 1 Mods: page 4

Breakdown 2: Afterwards

Breakdown 2: Afterwards is a direct continuation of the events in the first part. In it, the soldiers managed to capture you (Dr. Jonathan Wood) and lock you into an improvised prison cell, which was poorly chosen. When you woke up, you managed to escape, but the path to your rescue will not be easy. You are in a completely unknown part of Black Mesa, and thus have limited access clearance, additionally, you have no idea where to go. Unlike the predecessor, the second part has a story, which has some flaws, but regardless of them, I liked it quite a bit. You uncover it with the help of video sequences, monologues and through reading the notes that lie around. Custom speech also provides some information, but I wished it would be recorded in better quality.

The predecessor did not really impress me with the mapping quality, but the second part improved in practically all areas. The maps are more complex, they contain more detail and new textures, they have an excellent layout of elements and lighting, and everything is nicely rounded up by the good connection of parts. The levels contain quite a few alternative routes to your target, there is some backtracking, and there are also tasks that can be done in any order. All this greatly increases the feeling of non-linearity. Playing is very diverse, because the set of puzzles is quite varied and it includes everything from pressing buttons, searching for access cards, guiding NPCs and also jumping challenges. I didn't like that some puzzles were made too obvious, and I also didn't like the innovative, but otherwise boring, car ride.

The set of opponents is quite diverse and contains a vast array of creatures from Xen, among which you will find some reskinned or otherwise modified enemies. The more resilient and dangerous Houndeyes impressed me the most, as they were no longer cannon fodder, but a serious adversary. Later in the game, soldiers with machine guns join the list, and at the very end you will also encounter very dangerous soldiers with shotguns. The difficulty curve is much more flat than in the predecessor, despite numerous scripted surprises and excellent ambushes. The weapon set is very limited and it is gradually unlocked. Unlike in the predecessor, you can pick up the pistol very early. The absence of a shotgun to the very last part is noticeable, and it forces the player to play more tactically. The amount of bullets and healing packages will allow good players to enjoy the mod on Hard difficulty, but to everyone else I recommend playing on Medium. I needed about 1 hour and a half to complete the game.

Cleaners Adventures

In Cleaners Adventures, you play a janitor named Bryan Anderson, who works in Black Mesa laboratories. While driving to his work, his tram breaks down and our hero faints. After awakening, Bryan discovers that Black Mesa has been flooded with extraterrestrial monsters, and the clock is already counting down minutes until the cleanup soldier squad arrives.

The maps in the mod are fairly diverse and are well integrated into the original story, mostly because of the similar visual style. Alternative paths give a sense of non-linearity, which is just virtual, as there is only one way through the game. Here and there you will find side paths which will reward you with bonuses, but this it's not a game a explorer would like, because there are simply too many empty boxes. You will spend a lot of time inside ventilation systems and pipes, maybe too much. There are no traps too, so keep saving often. A big fail is the NPC with the shotgun, which is incapable of surviving a lift ride due to GoldSrc engine bugs. Consequently, you will not be able to play the last third of the game (Xen) without using cheats.

The enemies are not plentiful, so they won't be a grave danger, but they will often teleport behind your back and surprise you. Most of them are already known from the original game and expansions, but they have some adjustments that make them more dangerous. The weapon set is standard, and it's gradually unlocked during gameplay. Ammunition is plentiful, the same applies to healing packages. There are no batteries or charging stations, so you will need to pick up equipment worn by security guards for protection.

The visuals are definitely the main selling point of the game, not only because of the beautiful NPC and weapon models, but because of the visually stunning level design. Scripted events and background music also contribute to a good impression. The modification also includes speech in Russian, fortunately, the inscriptions and text in the game are English. I spend about 2 hours to finish the playable part of the game on medium, and if you manage to save the NPC with the shotgun, then you can stretch the gameplay time for another hour.

Cthulhu

Cthulhu is a scary modification inspired by the books of H.P. Lovecraft. The latter created the Cthulhu Mythos of horrible extraterrestrial monsters, which can make you mad if you only look at them. The story takes place in 1928, and you play Ranulf Stafford, an occult researcher. Your adviser Sir Henry wants you to meet him in his country house. When you get there, you discover that Henry was abducted by the Occultists, but he was quick enough to reveal their goal. The story is interesting, you uncover it by reading books and listening to your monologue while driving in a car.

The levels are dark and mysterious, and they provide a good view on the world in the Cthulhu mythos. Unfortunately, the quality of the maps didn't impress me. There are too many dark labyrinths, rooms are too simple, there are no secrets and awards for people that like to explore. On the other hand, you can't overlook that they contain quite a few traps, scripted events, jumping challenges and well placed advancement paths. The enemies are pretty diverse and consist of Occultists armed with various weapons, extraterrestrials and other monsters. Since most of them are only skinned standard enemies, some of them have trouble moving and attacking. The biggest stand out are definitely the knife-armed Occultists.

Against such a diverse range of enemies you can fight with an extensive set of weapons, which are quite awkwardly arranged in the slots. Along Stick and knife you also wield a pistol, a double barrelled shotgun, a machine gun and a rifle, and there are also molotovs and dynamite available. A notable specialty are magic weapons such as, for example, a snake conjuring stick and spellbooks. The latter are extremely powerful not only for attacks, but you can also regenerate your life with them (fairly buggy). Unfortunately, they drain your sanity with usage. If you empty the latter, you will go mad and the game will be over. Fortunately, it restores itself on certain events. Ammunition for classic weapons is plentiful, the same applies to just right amount of healing packages.

Appearance wise, the models are really nice, but the layout of the map elements didn't impress me. There is also a recorded speech in the game, and the background music is also turned on some occasions. To finish the mod, I used about 4 hours and a half on Medium difficulty. If you get stuck, a walktrough is also available in the modification folder.

Dav Sub

Dav Sub is a direct continuation of the Dav Train mod. In the latter, you managed to avoid G-Man's evil plan of erasing your memory by escaping with the Osprey air carrier. During your escape, an attack helicopter begins to track your aircraft and damages it critically. You survive the crash, but you are now stranded on enemy territory and will have to find an alternative mean of transportation that will allow you to escape.

The map design follows the recipe from the predecessor and upgrades it, offering a much more interesting gaming experience. Architecture is again good with quite a few details, but unfortunately, the maps still contain unrealistic long and curved corridors, which are somewhat claustrophobically narrow. There are a lot more side paths and alternative paths to the goal, which give the impression of nonlinearity. As in the predecessor, there are virtually no puzzles. There are quite a few occasions in which you will need to find a keycard to unlock a door. When you back track, maps can change, and new enemies appear. I thought the included flooded levels improve the experience, but they could be made much more interesting. I also liked numerous very well executed scripted events, which enrich the gameplay.

The way to your destination will again be hindered by combinations of soldiers, female assassins and various monsters from Xen. The positioning and abundance are again very good, with the cherry on the cake being hard fights inside the submarine. It's a pity that the pace of the action fluctuates too much. The weapon set is more diverse this time, but it is still limited to human ones. Ammunition and healing packages / batteries are numerous enough to play on Medium, but I do not recommend a higher difficulty due to the challenge inside the submarine.

The visuals of the game mostly do not stand out, but I liked that the background music was sometimes switched on. I spent about 1 hour and a half of gameplay to complete the game.

If the game crashes in the hlsub2 map, the solution is to find out in which direction you need to look to trigger a crash, and then simply don't look there at next reload :P.

Deliverance

Deliverance takes place after the events in the Half-Life: Uplink demo. By aligning the antennas you've contacted the outside world and found out that the government wants to mask the Black Mesa incident as a terrorist attack. You have also learned that the army has captured two of your colleagues and that they are forcing them to develop a super weapon based on the Black Mesa research. Your task is to infiltrate the complex and save those scientists.

Maps take inspiration from the original, but they are well-adapted so you do not feel like you are playing something already seen. Architecture is good, quite diverse and contains many details. The only exception are certain empty and boring corridors and stairs, which can ruin the good impression. The maps are well connected to each other, and you will often have to make a detour to get to the destination, and sometimes even back track. There are also some secrets where you can find goodies and secret weapons. Gameplay is quite diverse, because you must solve interesting puzzles and overcome some jumping challenges. The key part of the game is certainly accompanying two scientists to their rescue.

Most of the enemies come from all kinds of soldiers who often have the aid of machineguns, and at the beginning, even a tank and a helicopter. The Xen creatures are somewhat rare, and mostly involved in fights with soldiers. The most memorable types of Xen enemies are the Headcrabs, which will surprise you numerous times and, of course, the annoying Snarks. Opponent positioning is good, and there are also some sneaky surprises. The difficulty curve is not good in my opinion, because the overwhelmingly difficult game start is followed by a fairly easy middle, with tons of ammunition and health kits. Later, almost at the end, the difficulty increases slightly again. If you manage to get through the beginning, you'll definitely enjoy the game more on Hard than on Medium. Another minor problem with the game were the scientists, which were responsible for some frustrating moments. In some cases they can be left behind, but sometimes I had to become a human shield to absorb the damage, and this did not make me happy.

The visuals of the game do not stand out too much, but the scripted events are extremely well executed. If you overlook some rude surprises, you will definitely love them, as they greatly enrich the game and give the feeling that the complex lives and something is happening in it constantly. I also loved the modified speech. I needed around 1 hour and a half to complete the game, and completing both endings. The idea of the split is interesting, but I did not like the execution. The maps for the endings were taken from original, the difficulty difference was too big, and the harder of them was bad (sad).

Half-Life: Black Guard

In Half-Life: Black Guard, you play a security guard named B. Brad, who works in Black Mesa. The events in the mod are pretty nicely intertwined with the ones from the original, where the failed experiment caused the Black Mesa incident. The game attempts to familiarize you with the story via video sequences, scripted events, subtitles and speech cut from various sources. Although all the techniques used look promising, I have had difficulty following the story. Video sequences and scripted events were annoying because they take control of your character and lock you in a area via invisible walls, the subtitles are written in hard-to-understand broken English, and listening to NPCs is often difficult due to loud background music that can not be made quieter. I'm not quite sure where the Intro (Hazard Course) series of maps fits into the timeline, but it certainly looked as some kind of a pre-employment simulation.

The level designs are clearly inspired by the original, but most maps are unique enough, to avoid the feeling that you are playing something already seen. The maps are very good in terms of architecture and have numerous details, and they also have commendable complexity. There are giant branches in the road in some places, which give the impression of non-linearity, and there are also some secrets. The branches are not optional, but mandatory, because you will have to perform an action in them, or pick up an access card. Additionally, one of the branches also contains the way forward. This decision is poorly thought out, because if you choose wrongly in the beginning, you will need to return to the previous branch, and then go all the way back to the second branch. An additional poor design choice are also duplicate sections. In addition to the aforementioned puzzles, you will also find some that require pure luck to be solved, puzzles in which you will use explosives, do hard jumps, enter codes given by announcer via the keypad, guide NPCs for absurd lengths, and I could go on and on.

As far as fighting is concerned, the game very quickly switches to a higher gear. Very soon after a very peaceful start, hordes of Headcrabs, zombies and mutant dogs will start attacking you, and soon after this their ranks will be joined by other Xen monsters, soldiers and female assassins. The opponents are largely unchanged from the original, the exception being zombies that release Headcrabs when they die, and a more durable form of zombies called Gonome. In addition to good positioning and regular scripting surprises, the main trump card of the enemies is their abundance, as you will be mostly attacked by at least two enemies at once. Difficulty is fairly constant and rather high, but your battles are made easier by a varied weaponry with plenty of ammunition, and a wide range of medical packages and armor (batteries can't be used). Although some parts are quite difficult, I could finish the game on the Hard difficulty, as the amounts of goodies were high enough.

The visuals of the game are excellent due to the already mentioned good geometry, color schemes and lighting, and the good impression is further strengthened by high resolution models of NPCs and weapons. Parallel events will give you a feeling that something is constantly going on in the complex, but the authors overdid the amount of them. Continuous earthquakes in certain sections got on my nerves, and I got tired of constant blathering of the announcer, which reduced my concentration in the fights. The nice visuals are quite taxing, as they cause stutter in certain places, but fortunately such moments are rare. I needed around 3 hours to complete the game, and I used more than 20 minutes of this time for the Intro section.

Edge of Darkness

Edge of Darkness takes place after Gordon's successful escape from Black Mesa. After the events he gets enlisted into the Alien Counter-Insurgency Bureau organization, which is trying to protect the Earth against potential new threats from Xen. Your mission is to eliminate the mysterious dr. Smith (G-Man), who tries to take advantage of the portal technology and take over the world with a personal army of Xen monsters. If you have ever seen a spy movie (eg James Bond) or played a game with this subject, then you will quickly familiarize yourself with the story.

The maps are very diverse and contain enough details for the game architecture to be quite visually pleasing. I really liked the parts in which human elements are combined with extraterrestrial ones. Additional visual enrichment of some places is achieved by good color schemes and numerous scripted events. The areas are very well cross-linked, which contributes to non-linearity. The game also contains quite a few traps and time-limited events that, with other challenges, provide a pretty varied experience.

The set of enemies includes both soldiers, as well as female assassins and monsters from Xen, and everything is spiced up by machinegun nests. The positioning of the enemies is very good, so prepare for fierce fights that are made even more difficult with help of scripted surprises. The difficulty curve rises well, so there will be enough action to the end. During play, your enemies also talk to you, which is done through an extremely skillful montage of existing voices. The weapons selection is varied, but taken from the original. There are enough bullets around, and amount of medkits / batteries is just right to play on Hard. On this difficulty you will spend about 1 hour to complete the mod.

Nuclear Winter

Nuclear Winter takes place 7 years after world wide conflict in which the united communist and Muslim forces conquered all of Asia and Europe. In 2017 this alliance successfully executed a nuclear attack on North America by using advanced cloaking technology, which was later followed by an invasion with land forces. Although North America was severely devastated in the attack, they managed to organize an armed resistance and hold off the advancing enemy. In the modification, you play a corporal named Adrian Shepherd who takes part in the resistance. The story is full of clichés, but I kind of liked it. You discover it through video sequences, conversations with NPCs, and through the activation of radio stations. Given the seriousness of the situation, the custom speech should have been less humorous, but the voice from radio stations was executed perfectly!

The levels are fairly diverse and consist of external (canyons, dam, city streets, railway, etc.) and internal areas (hydroelectric power station, military base, tower, zoo, etc.). The maps are architecturally good, with some having very nice lighting and color schemes, but in general they could contain more details and more alternate routes to break up the linearity. Unfortunately, some sections are almost completely dark, which will cause you several problems during your advancement, because the built-in night vision is useless for longer distances, and you do not have the flashlight. Links between thematic parts are otherwise quite good and give the player the feeling of a homogeneous experience. To advance, you will often have to solve creative puzzles, break parts of a map, dive, drive trains, climb ropes, and so on. Some challenges also have to be performed under time pressure, which will surely be a frustrating experience for a lot of players.

As already hinted in the story, most of your opponents will be of human origin. Most of them are special forces armed with machine guns, and a few are snipers and female assassins. Their ranks will be strengthened by heavy machinery, among which you can find machineguns, tanks and helicopters. The selection of opponents does not end here, as the author successfully integrated victims of nuclear radiation. Unlucky humans have thus become zombies, and animals from the zoo have been mutated into all kinds of monsters from Xen (LOL :). Enemy positioning is great, and they are also pretty numerous, including the start. Although the difficulty is mostly high, the game has some tremendous difficulty spikes that are annoying.

The weapon set is very diverse and includes weaponry from the Opposing Force expansion, but unfortunately, the ammunition is pretty strangely distributed. Shotgun shells are practically non-existent, while the sniper rifle, crossbow and M249 have tons of ammunition. With the exception of the aforementioned jumps in difficulty, you should not have much problems finishing the game on Medium difficulty, because the supply of medkits and batteries is pretty well calibrated. Occasionally you will also be assisted by a team of fellow fighters, with the medic being a priceless addition. I reached the end of the mod in about 2 hours of play time.

Gut Reaction

In Gut Reaction, you play Gordon Freeman, which is employed by G-Man to solve a serious situation in the Lambda Complex. One of the reactors in the complex got occupied by beings from Xen, which now use its nuclear energy to spawn additional allies to the facilities. Freeman's task is to shutdown the reactors and spoil the plans Xenians plans. Unfortunately for him, the army still patrols the complex, making this task a difficult one. The story was, in my opinion, quite interesting, and it's gradually uncovered during gameplay. I recommend that you reset the controls before starting the game.

With very rare exceptions, I really liked the design of the levels. Not only because of the details and good color schemes, but also because of scripted events and the connections between maps. In addition to the variety of ways to move between parts of the levels, I also enjoyed alternative paths that give the game the impression of non-linearity. The way forward is often well hidden, and sometimes you will also have to back track. The puzzles are quite interesting, among them you will find jumping challenges, swimming, pushing buttons and more. On important occasions, background music is turned on, and NPC voices are skillfully used.

The enemies represent a selection of the ones found in the original, which includes all human and a large proportion of Xenian opponents. Very good positioning and map design provide for some nice action, which is additionally spiced up by the teleportation of creatures from Xen and soldier break-ins. There are also quite a few fights between the factions that can be used for your advantage. The battles have a fairly high tempo right from the beginning, but they slow down a lot near the end, as they are substituted with other gaming mechanics. The weapon set is fairly limited and contains only the weapons from the original. The amounts of ammunition, medical packages and batteries are just right for YMedium difficulty. On this difficulty you will end the game in a modest 1 hour. It's a shame that it's doesn't last longer ...

Smart Decoy

In Smart Decoy, you are playing a pilot named J. Freeman, who wants to visit the Atlanta Research Laboratories located in the Hudson Ditch in the Atlantic Ocean. During your journey to the destination, soldiers invade the research center and take control. Their goal is a mysterious machine hidden in the heart of laboratories, which seems to be of great interest for Mr Smith. At the arrival of both submarines to the docks, one of the submarines crews is massacred, and you seem to be next ... The survival instinct would definitely dictate that you should turn back and escape, but some strange force pulls you towards this mysterious machine. The story is definitely not a strong part of this modification, but I was very fond of intro sequence introducing it.

The level design, on the other hand, is excellent. The level parts are perfectly intertwined, many have alternate paths leading to them, which means that the game is extremely non-linear. Nice architecture with a great choice of lightning can sometimes create a very good visual impression. The puzzles are rare and mostly limited to using switches/buttons that trigger a mechanism and enable you to advance. There are also some very good scripted events.

During gameplay you will be attacked by all sorts of soldiers, machineguns, and in one of the levels also female assassins. The Xen monsters are also present, and within their ranks Vortigaunts and Alien Grunts stand out the most. Since enemy positioning is excellent and there are also numerous scripted surprises, you can expect nice battles full of action. Fortunately, ammunition and healing packages are plentiful, so I recommend that you play on Hard. A big weakness of the game is it's length, because I spent only 1 hour playing it.