HalfLife 1 mod - Echoes"

Halflife 1 mod - "Mod of the Year" according to Jared from Subway Dragon.  See his review here.  Another Black Mesa/Halflife 1 mod but with the added bonus of assets from Halflife 2.

ModDB - Official ModDB with latest version
RTSL - Alternative download link with mostly positive reviews
ModCorner overview

….and full playthrough below.

Wolfenstein3d Source and Halflife 2 de-make

A remake and de-make...

ReWolfenstein 3d - A source mod

Halflife 2 - a "De-make" on GoldSource

Classic HL Mod: Absolute Redemption

Really old mod.  Can't seem to remember playing this but it came out in 1999 and it is touted by mod aficionados as a classic, so I dunno - judge for yourself.

Download via Planetphillip

Halflife Wikia Entry

A cute HL mod - Minimicus

A short, clever Halflife mod called minimicus - where you play a scientist who steps into a shrinking ray.  It's kind of old, but it's still one of my favorites just because it doesn't try too hard and it's funny.  It can be beaten in under fifteen minutes.

Official ModDB page
Planet Phillip Review with download

Sweet Half-Life - A long HL1 Mod

This is a pretty lengthy mod.  It's long, it's difficult, and for some reason, easily forgettable in my book, especially after playing hundreds of Half-Life mods through the years.  But this one has new weapons, new enemies and new code.  Normally that is what attracts me to playing new mods - seeing new content, but this mod came out long after HL2 was already out, so I was already burned out on Black Mesa-themed mods.  But I appreciate the effort that went into after all these years later, and it has some funny bits of humor thrown in near the end.

Here is a speed run, where, I'm pretty sure, the guy must have played through the whole game in slow motion and sped it up to normal speed.

Quick Mod Rundown

Mods or maps that I never finished but were impressive enough to warrant a mention.

The Citizen 2 - (Source Mod) Really good sequel to 'The Citizen', with impressive level design, annoying voiceovers, and overall great presentation.  Annoying cutscenes and voiceovers though.  The game got stuck for me after about fifteen minutes in, when I got to the hockey arena and the guy who was supposed to open the door at the ticket booth started spazzing out.

Castle Creep - (Halflife 1 Mod)  Puzzle-style maps with basic blocky level design.  Started out really atmospheric with lots of combat later on.  I ended up getting stuck on the map with the big office desk and the array of buttons (which I presume is to open some door somewhere).

Parasite Eve 34 - (Halflife 2 map) Very blocky map.  You start outside a massive castle/cathedral.  Also brought my system to a crawl.  It had some epic music and colorful lighting.  It kind of reminded me of an Unreal Tournament map. The interiors are very dark and some textures are missing.  Definitely needs work, and possibly categorized as unplayable, but I'd like more maps to at least have more attention-grabbing, wide open areas.

Residual Life

Another Black Mesa simulator, but this is actually fun.  Level design is true to the original Halflife and there was enough interesting things to see in the intro that made me keep playing through.  Fun mod, one new enemy type, no new weapons, and good, consistant level design.  There were a few memorable combat areas and clever puzzles. All in all, a good, solid Halflife mod.

A short review - Vengeance

I know I haven't updated in a while, but I've had this Halflife mod installed in my Steam folder for a while now, called Vengeance.  It's just another HL1 mod, set in Black Mesa, that is no different than any other mod of similar nature.

It starts out with text that fades in and out, along with camera cuts that fade in and out.  The text is in broken English, and the title states that this is 'Episode 2' or 'Part 2,' I don't remember.  My gameplay experience consisted of waking up in a dorm room or something, walking into a train car, then seeing a three minute cutscene of a train slowly making it's way across an underground lake, and finally I got out.  I walked my way into a series of rooms with bad design, came across a very narrow hallway with a scientist walking through it, and my adventure ended when said scientist plowed right through me, squashing me into chunks of meat.

So why am I bothering to showcase this?  I have no idea, but after months without playing a Halflife mod, I thought I might as well.  Maybe it gets good after that, but probably not.  I think what probably drew me in was the 62 mb filesize.  I expected maybe it would have some interesting music in it, or some new enemy models or weapons, but nope.  There's about 23 maps about 3 megabytes each.  I hate to judge a map based on a short playtime, but I think I just lost the will to play any mod that is set in Black Mesa or that doesn't contain new assets.

http://www.planetphillip.com/posts/vengeance-half-life/

"The Evil Thing," by Nathan Ruck

Following PlanetPhillip's 100 Day's of Halflife Maps, an old Halflife map pack titled "The Evil Thing" appeared.  I remember this map pack very vaguely, but I remember that it was funny and the unique ending.  I remember it was one of the first custom maps I played for Halflife and I thought it was original and fun at the time.

I guess I must have played hundreds of Halflife maps that are basically set in the same setting (IE: desert, lab, etc...) and I just grew tired of the same thing because I found this mapset hasn't aged well.  The humor seems very "Beavis and Butthead"-like, the environment is pretty bland (lacks ambient sound effects; lots of silence), and even on easy mode I found myself with very little health left and having to fight rooms full of grunts that kill you with three bullets.

I just wanna post this here because it is one of the first Halflife maps I've played and it inspired me, at the time, to start learning VALVe Hammer editor.  Oddly enough, after mapping for years, I haven't released a single map to date.  On a related note, you should check out "Little Skyscraper of Horrors," and "Heart of Evil," two very good map packs, the latter being really long, and both by the author of "The Evil Thing."