Incline Half Life and Half Life 2 - List of recommended modifications and mini campaigns

[octavius]

So which is most popular with modders? HL1 or HL2?

 

[tormund]

Ninja Destroyer (or anyone else in the know)
Is Paranoia 2 worth playing? I noticed how there is very little talk about it around compared to the first one, and it has pretty mixed rating on ModDB.

I just finished first one for the first time, and I really enjoyed it. Great production values and level of polish too. But, it was shorter than I expected, and I was a little disappointed by how little horror there is in it, initial encounter with terrorists and build up that led to it were IMO a lot tenser and "scarier" than parts with zombies & mutants...

 

[Riskbreaker]

Heads up: this

Dead Sector – Another horror themed mod. There are some nice outdoor locations mixed with the inner facilities. It was made by Czech guys and never translated but it’s worth a try for it’s atmosphere alone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4e_IiaNm30&list=PL07A36E104E9748D1&index=42

was finally translated to English.
http://www.moddb.com/mods/dead-sector-remod

I intend to check it out soon, here's hoping that it won't disappoint!

 

[lightbane]

"This file can only be downloaded by registered users"
of moddb. I'm not sure if something changed, but I swear I was able to download half-life mods without issue. Did something change, or has it been always like this?

 

[Jaesun]

Just register with a throw-away hotmail or gmail account? Big deal.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

I intend to check it out soon, here's hoping that it won't disappoint!

There isn't much text from what I remember. I had only to look on the first screen to remember of which mod we are talking about. The zombies were more difficult to beat, the gameplay was horror+killing+puzzles triple combo. Plus some elements from adventure games (find a fuel for a forklift, etc.). There are some big sections where you even won't fight anyone. Dead Sector is taking place on the island, and what surprised me it really felt like on and wasn't just a made up them that was abandoned at some point.

Ninja Destroyer (or anyone else in the know)
Is Paranoia 2 worth playing? I noticed how there is very little talk about it around compared to the first one, and it has pretty mixed rating on ModDB

I even didn't know they've made the sequel of it. Paranoia had that high "wow" factor because it was a big overhauled mod with so many custom new items and textures. Although it was too short because of that. You should try the second part and let us now is it worth a try.

 

[tormund]

I will, I was disappointed by Paranoia's length, so I can definitely use more of that (sadly, from what I have read elsewhere, Paranoia 2 is even shorter).

Right now I started playing Black Star, campaign set in Russian take on Black Mesa. I'm liking it so far, it's fun and balanced, and I even encountered some surprising jumpscares. It looks good too, environments are pretty detailed and author did great work with lighting (I will post bunch of screenshots later, it could almost pass for a Source mod). Only part that annoyed me so far was figuring out how to distract that guard early on.

"This file can only be downloaded by registered users"
of moddb. I'm not sure if something changed, but I swear I was able to download half-life mods without issue. Did something change, or has it been always like this?

They do that on random from time to time. It's not permanent, I tried logging off and dling some larger files and it works.

If you don't like ModDB, you can still find most HL mods with dl links on http://www.runthinkshootlive.com/

 

[Astral Rag]

What are some good non-lulzy Sven Co-op campaigns?

 

[skacky]

There aren't many campaigns, unfortunately. I have good memories of Black Mesa Nightmare though.

 

[tormund]

So, one of those 1.000+ attempts at remaking classic They Hunger in Source actually surfaced... and it is apparently p crappy http://www.moddb.com/mods/they-hunger-again
Supposedly pretty buggy, with some p amateur mapping and maps that are generally smaller and simpler than ones from original TC.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

Preview of Half-Life from Interaction Magazine, Fall 1997. Newell looks a little bit like Trump in that picture.

Spoiler

 

[octavius]

Preview of Half-Life from Interaction Magazine, Fall 1997. Newell looks a little bit like Trump in that picture.

Nah, Trump looks like he's always shouting something obscene.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

Preview of Half-Life from Interaction Magazine, Fall 1997. Newell looks a little bit like Trump in that picture.

Spoiler

Back then final version of each game always looked much better then early screenshot, now we got superavesumshit on the beginning and a MASSIVE downgrade around release date

 

[Excidium II]

Good times when a PC game was a PC game and a console game was a console game.

 

[tormund]

Back then final version of each game always looked much better then early screenshot, now we got superavesumshit on the beginning and a MASSIVE downgrade around release date

Some of them even look like they were taken while the game was running with software render, take a closer look at that one with scientist and bull chicken.

 

[tormund]

Gggman did a video review of that They Hunger "remake"

It definitely looks like a waste of time in its current state.

 

[octavius]

"Remake" for HL2?

 

[tormund]

"Remake" for HL2?

Yes. This wasn't the first attempt to port or remake TH in Source, but it was the first TH Source project to be released in any state.

BTW, MotherMachinae are you that SpecShadow guy that is always commenting on Gggman's videos?

 

[Baron Dupek]

yep, it's me.
Got maybe few channels subscribed that have any sort of quality or don't upload more than 15min on single video cause I don't want to bother with them despite lot of free time.

And it's pity that They Hunger sucked, remember some old one reminding me of TH and got nice impression.

 

[DraQ]

I've been browsing this thread and fuck, there is a lot of pure here courtesy of SMA - sadly not that much from almost anyone else.

Anyway, a few points:

• It's true that HL AI has been mythologised to hell and back, however people stressing that tend to be oblivious to how much of fucking incline it was nevertheless. The AI was aggressive, had varied behaviours at its disposal and generally had a lot more situational awareness than was (and usually still is) the norm. Even if four marines were attacking you completely at random chances were that while one was spraying you another one was lobbing a grenade at you, having broken LoS, another was flanking you by the virtue of moving around and the remaining one you were actually concentrating your fire on was probably retreating while setting up grenade trap. That was both challenging and created a pretty good illusion of coordinated tactics. Another point is how diverse were behaviours of different creatures - marines were 'marining', black ops assassins harrassed you by flanking and shooting you while retreating and constantly switching approach direction to shoot you in the side or back (something Black Mesa Blops completely failed at), alien animals behaved like animals, alien slaves easily lost morale and either stopped attacking or pretended to, etc. All things considered back then there were only two FPS AIs that counted, and the situation didn't really change much for almost a decade after.
  
• HL was barely more linear than FPSes of old, which was more than paid off by increased detail, diversity and verismilitude. If HL AI is mythologised and overrated, then so is old FPS map design. Most of those beatifully convoluted maps still forced you to go to A to find a keycard letting you into B to find a keycard letting you into C to press a switch letting you into D and into the next level in strictly predetermined order (with some secrets branching off) or, if you were really lucky, having you move across a large-ish arena any way you fucking pleased while fired upon by anything else on the map. Wide open shooter maps are a relatively modern invention and while modern mainstream FPSes often just drop all the pretense and stick you in a literal corridor of concentrated suck it doesn't automatically make the old FPS maps, fun and well designed as they are, paragons of nonlinearity. The most frequent deviation from linear, folded up path or tree has always been backtracking shortcuts that can be opened up as you reach various points in the level and HL did this all the time.
  
• It can be argued that HL1 was much of an oldschool FPS with another, earlier shooter filling the niche of dudebro popamole and harbinger of the decline - Quake 2:
  1. Like oldschool FPSes HL was highly dynamic and movement centric. True, it was relatively hitscan dominant, but so was Quake 2 or Blood and HL has Q2 beaten in pretty much every oldschool gameplay metrics other than weapon reloading and locational damage both of which are clear cut cases of technological incline. Where HL had you constantly on the move fighting relatively demanding and diverse foes, in Q2 you were popping back and forth from behind a corner (or sometimes in the open, for example when fighting a tank) taking potshots at dumb, almost turret-like hitscanners with hitscan weapons of your own.
  2. Likewise, weapon dynamics - where HL had you constantly cycle weapons due to their distinct gameplay roles, Q2 rarely ever had you using anything other than SSG, then railgun, with MG and later Plasma Gun - like HB getting some screen time in between - both arguably proto-ARs in terms of their gameplay role (which isn't necessarily a bad thing as they were two of the three actually interesting weapons in Q2, but parallels are there). HLs own proto-AR (MP5 with underslung GL) was much too weak for proper workhorse role, unlike those two, and also unlike those two it did little to discourage spraying.
  3. Quake 2 relied on dudebro factor. A militaristic shooter where you play a baldie marine, with monotonous, unimaginative aesthetics and strong reliance on shock factor (graphic damage skins and death animations, flies on corpses, etc.) but simplistic and easy gameplay.
     HL with it's nerd protagonist and military in strictly antagonistic role was pretty much antinomy of that stylistics, even though it did feature quite strong military themes thanks to its somewhat down to earth setting and ongoing military operation as a big part of its backdrop. Dudebro themes have arguably been part of the genre since its inception, but HL features a lot less of those than Q2 or even Doom, unlike modern tacticool shooters.
  4. Quake 2 openly flaunted its discrete mission based nature (tenuous as it might be as it was thin window dressing over normal FPS structure) in opposition to the FPSes of old, HL1 did nothing of the sort opting instead to strongly emphasize its organic continuity and excise anything that might have gotten in the way (like cutscenes - *any* cutscenes).
• As for the scripting, everyone and their mother seem to miss that most of the scripting in HL is going in the background or otherwise fails to interfere with the gameplay in any meaningful fashion. It's basically dynamic counterpart of uniquely designed rooms rather than intrusive gameplay substitute.

tl;dr:
Lots of tryhards, morons and hypocrites ITT.

On an unrelated note - I tried TH once for a few minutes back when it was hot. Guess I already didn't like that zombie bullshit even back when it was new.

 

[Increasing]

 

[tormund]

Gggman did a video review of Paranoia TC

 

[A horse of course]

I was browsing youtube and https://www.youtube.com/user/bolloxedballs/videos was recommended to me. Seems like he does playthroughs of HL1/2 mods. I didn't notice anything from HL1 that I haven't played, but there were a few short HL2 missions/campaigns I was unaware of, particularly the modded beta mappack collections (I played the beta and one of the older jury-rigged mappacks a couple of years back). My only complaint is that bolloxed doesn't seem to distinguish between traditional FPS/action mods and the boring puzzle crap, so I have to click around the video a bit to see if it's worth caring about.

 

[Astral Rag]

The unreleased Half-Life multiplayer mod that you can play now-Valve's version of "Threewave" now works, 13 years after it was first leaked.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

Old photos from Valve during the HL development.