inselaffe on 22/7/2010 at 21:23

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Okay so i decided to play some half life mods as i found out decay had been ported to pc. S'ok but really doesn't work well single player in certain sections - but it's not too bad for a laugh.

Then i tried azure sheep which is alright although whoever thought it was a good idea to put a coop ai in a game that has such bad path finding that enemies themselves rarely (ever?) make it through a door, i don't know. You'll spend most of the time getting her to "wait" while you clear the area ahead. Better than having her run off and get killed, or shooting you in the back.
Anyway the bullshit finally came at the end of the game having to shoot down a helicopter with only machine guns ammo and magnum and suchlike. Needless to say, a lot of the shots didn't really do much and many times i ran out of ammo but eventually managed it - even if it was a joke - oh and that end cutscene - oh dear. Overall the mod was a nice way to pass the time, but the level design is a bit all over the place.

So, i'm trying point of view now as that should be an interesting diversion. Only problem is you get to the special ops base with the two tiny turrets that you can't even get near and basically you end up shooting them and it doing nothing because the engine's rather buggy in the regard. The only way i managed to do it was by firing the alien bat "rockets" at the turrets, although technically that's kind of cheating as it says they are only meant to fly towards organic enemies - and what if someone had used them all up or not collected them in the first place?



Basically, there are bugs in half life that have been passable because the game is not over difficult - but in some of these mods, the bugs really start to cause a problem.

The first is some hit box or collision detection bug that means when you shoot someone in the head it doesn't always count as a headshot - infact a lot of times it won't. You just have to be lucky it seems :S

There is the "enemy is behind slight cover" bug (a railing or something) and you shoot them and it does nothing, even if you make good effort to avoid the railing with a 100% accurate gun like the magnum.

And then there's its partner bug - the "enemy is in the middle of an animation so invulnerable" bug. What this means with the shotgun in particular is if you unload a double shot on someone and it does nothing is that they basically can kill you or take half your life off. This can really be game destroying in these mods. What you end up having to do is alter the way you play - waiting a while to let them settle a bit before you shoot them - or else risk this bug coming in.

Then there is the dreaded lift bug where you bob up and down on a lift and it you don't jump before it gets to the top or bottom then you get stuck in it and slowly die. This is ok if it's just you in the lift as you can jump (though immersion breaking) but with it happening to npcs then you are basically screwed.

With all these bugs, i seem to remember that all apart from the lift bug were even in half life 2 when i played it at a friends some years ago - i can't believe they didn't fix them in the source engine, cos they are pretty major to be honest.
Is there really nothing that can be done about them?

Also i heard something about different versions having less bugs? Which is less likely to have the lift bug? 1108? I also heard that the steam version (1200 or something?) doesn't actually fix the lift bug and so doesn't help in that regard? I'm on 1110 at the moment although i did install some 1111 patch that didn't appear to change the version number and i have no idea what it does (i have a feeling it might be fan made).

Also, any clues on good mods to play might be nice. I think back in the day i also played absolute redemption (which i don't remember much about apart from having ruins and a fair ground) and then some one set on a submarine or space ship or something.

Anyway, discussion on some nice mods to try would be nice :) And what did people think of the ones i've mentioned so far?

inselaffe on 22/7/2010 at 21:56

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Ah i saw about that. Is it worth playing the normal version too? Or is the directors cut the sole way to go.

Hmm i'll give that a go when i've redone my pc then. Me generations 3 pack gives you 2 keys, i guess the 2nd one was for the included counter strike but i'm not sure.

Does the steam version work with music? One thing that has been annoying me is how crap games that use cd music work - in that it spins up the disc and starts to play way after when it was meant to start up and then just continues on the same track even if you die or something - or the disc can spin up and it won't even play at all. And this is from a pristine condition disc too so i guess cd music in games just doesn't work that well.
I wonder if you can do something like rip them all and put them in your sound folder under a music subfolder with certain file names for each track?

Anyway, yer i started watching some videos of that afraid of monsters and then stopped cos i didn't want to spoil it, but it looked quite good yes.

The section at the start looks abit like that awful halfquake mod that i saw someone do a let's play of. Apparently it has sequels too - are they just as bad?

Harvester on 22/7/2010 at 22:39

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I recommend the mod Paranoia, it's the most professional HL1 mod I've played.
And personally, I really liked Sweet Half-Life, it's kind of a quirky, weird mod (for some it's too weird), but the level design is far better than Azure Sheep, that's for sure.

They Hunger trilogy is worth playing, but damn, the end boss is hard...

Harvester on 22/7/2010 at 23:19

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Yeah you're right. I'd probably start out with the Poke646 mods and Paranoia if I were you, inselaffe. Afraid of Monsters is also pretty great, but I kept running out of bullets, I really suck at survival horror and am not used to running away from monsters instead of shooting them.

june gloom on 23/7/2010 at 03:50

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TH is meant to be played singleplayer anyway.