So, I finally broke down and bought Half-Life (five years to late) and am loving every minute of it. I’ve already finished the main storyline and the 2 mods with storylines and am working on the multiplayer mods. My two favorite so far are Team Fortress Classic and Day of Defeat. I’m looking for good servers for these mods and possibly the others.
My favorites:
TFC
Monk’s Server - 207.172.206.43
Day of Defeat
The Ville - 209.242.10.135
I can usually be found as AMP[sdmb].
So what are your favorite HL mods and what servers do you play?
My puny little DSL connection isn’t up to the task of playin on-line, but I did enjoy the three story lines (Halflife, Opposing Forces and Blue Shift). I’m looking forward to HL2 and hoping that it doesn’t laugh at my PC like so many other games have…
I pretty much stopped playing HL after I discovered Unreal Tournament and its “Assault” maps.
When I was playing I was usually found on one of the DM or TDM servers as “Mann_Slaughter” or “Mann Slaughter” using one of my models. (Usually “Megatron” or “Wolverine”) You can find my models here if you’re interested:
Sven co-op is a great mod for cooperative play. There are numerous maps created specifically for the mod, the latest version supposedly allows you to play through the original single player game with partners. The group is also working on a co-op mod for HL2 (details at their site).
Sven is great, though you need to find a good server. And you can’t really claim to have played HL MP until you’ve tried CounterStrike (which is why I can’t claim to I actually do like Half Life DM tho: it’s one of the best mix of weapons and some of the best maps.
I’ve noted it before, but if you want something really new, try Natural Selection.
It’s a combo FPS/RTS that really forces good teamwork and epic struggles for territory (rather than just back and forth). Takes some time to learn (need to learn the interface and the new way of playing and communicating) but it’s well worth it.
And just so you know, 1024x728 direct feed vids of HL2 are slated to be released very soon on STEAM. New media to follow after that.
Earth Special Forces (ESF) is a Half-Life mod based off Dragonball Z and is actually one of the best DBZ-themed games I’ve played (outside the RPG’s). Unlike the Super Famicon fighting games, which are stiff and wooden in gameplay, ESF does a great job of emulating the corny lightning-fast battles in the cartoon show. Characters can smack each other hundreds of feet into the air, shoot ki blasts at each other, the whole nine yards. It is a very fun online mod to play. First saw it at a Lan cafe. Some interesting points-
-The moves are announced by the characters by their dubbed voices. Yeah, the dubbing isn’t that great in itself, but to play a game where the characters are screaming at each other almost constantly is funny.
-Yes, Goku can do the spirit bomb. When fully charged, the blast radius is so big it nukes half the area. Its funny throwing it near someone, and watching them frantically try to outrun the blast effect.
-Frieza has what I consider the all-time cheapass attack, the Frieza disc. This is a disc which he can throw but then pull back to himself (like a boomerang). Thing is, its an insta-kill attack (slices them in half). I got good with this, and was rather disturbed how easy it was to get like 40 kills in under a minute. Most attacks are balanced beyond this one.
-Buu has his candy beam attack. That is, he shoots a purple laser which damages the opponent. It does lame damage, but if you kill the opponent with it, you can turn them into candy then eat the candy to gain life!
-If 2 characters fire ki blasts at each other, the blasts sorta cancel each other out, but the stronger one will ‘push’ the other back like a beam battle. Characters can also block ki blasts, and if they can recover, can hurl the attack back at their agressor. Very funny to rebound a Spirit Bomb.
For a while I played nothing but various HL deathmatches. The cool thing was that you could essentially form teams by giving your character one of a couple hundred downloadable skins. So You’d have several Homers running around, tau cannoning each everyone else.
Then I got into TFC. Played a few clan servers, even though I never bothered joining a clan. I think the one major clan server was called [dong] or something.
Eventually, I found Drippy’s 2-fort. All 2-fort, all the time. But they had some great add-ons. Like “Burrito TFC” where for 30 seconds, players would sponateously fart. Little bubbles would rise up from their asses and everything. I played that for a year or two. Then Planetside came out and that was the end of measly 24-person FPS’s
It’s amazing that a 5-year-old game is still as popular as this is. I played a little CS too, but got tired of all the 12-year-olds kicking my ass and acting like, well, children.
I used GameSpy Arcade to find servers. Never any shortage there.
I really enjoy some Natural Selection when it’s on a good server. I used to play TFC a lot, but I haven’t for a while.
Once in a while I’ll dust off Science & Industry, which only has a couple servers still running but is still fun (before things get incredibly outbalanced in the end).
And I can’t stand Counter-Strike, but don’t want to go into why.
I really enjoy some Natural Selection when it’s on a good server. I used to play TFC a lot, but I haven’t for a while.
Once in a while I’ll dust off Science & Industry, which only has a couple servers still running but is still fun (before things get incredibly outbalanced in the end).
And I can’t stand Counter-Strike, but don’t want to go into why.
I forget where it can be obtained, but it’s a free download – you can probably find it through Google – or possibly through the PC GAMER website. They occasionally offer it, free, on the CD that comes with the magazine.
Just found a real great single player mod for HL. We’ve seen the story from the scientist’s, the security guard’s and the military’s point of view. Now we get to see the story from the Alien’s point of view, and the mod is appropriately called P.O.V. (Point of View).
They Hunger is a great SP experience, though it gets a bit long after all three eps in a row.
I also have to say that Valve is really looking to revolutionize the MOD community with HL2 and Steam. Constant code and content updates to keep the game fresh, a great SDK released a month early (bundled with editor and a free version of SXI) and really supporting all the mods (including giving the best ones money and a contract for retailing their product). Really great long term approach.
There is a new mod out which combines Warcraft and CS. It’s pretty rad in my opinion. The mod is based on CS, but you choose a race from Warcraft with certain abilities. There are four classes:
Undead: Run really fast, jump high, blow up when killed (so you can kill nearby ppl).
Orc: Have chances to deal higher damages to people, higher nade damage, regenerate eq, shoot a bolt of lightning
Night Elf: Entangle ppl (freeze them), evade shots
Human: Extra HP, transparent
I am missing some details in the explanation of races, (http://spacedude.games-fed.com/ here is the website for more info) but it kind of makes CS into an rpg thing. plus it adds a new twist to it if you are already good at CS.
Grab Steam (google for the non-fileplanet) version. You can play SP/DM Half-Life, Counter-Strike (the newest, unreleased 1.6 version), Deathmatch Classic, Team Fortress Classic, Ricochet and Opposing Force all for free (though the last two don’t seem to work yet) after downloading them (you must have broadband). And you’ll be first in line for all the new HL2 media coming down the pipe.
I actually do like Half Life DM tho: it’s one of the best mix of weapons and some of the best maps.