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.

Two quick HL2 mod reviews

I just played two HL2 mods that I think are worth mentioning despite my rants about them.

The first was was called "Final Project Diary", by Leon.  The mappack is long, contains new weapons, sound and music, and a fresh storyline.  The plot is interesting, in that there really isn't one, except you're an addicted HL2 fan making a map pack play-testing the maps you built, with levels ranging from haunted houses, to zombie infestations, to wierd hallucination scenarios, to skyscrapers.  Some maps look good, a few look awful, but overall, a good mappack.

It suffers from the usual disease "Leon-itus," that is, a bunch of obvious invisible walls, cutscenes that freeze the player and make you die, and annoying 'stealth' section.  You'll lose count how many times you have your weapons taken away only to have to re-acquire them.

One thing I liked was the option to choose an 'easy' or 'hard' path at the beginning of each section. The ending was funny and nonsensical, and I'm glad the author chose not to take the mod seriously, because I was starting to get really irritated towards the end due the faults mentioned above.

The next is a mod called "1187".  It's a total conversion that's made like a sequel to Halflife 1 with seemingly little reguard to HL2 (which is a nice, fresh idea, in my opinion).  You start out in an apartment (seriously people, apartments and jail cells are the two most cliched map starts in mod history) and meet a new friend named John.  He is more annoying than Alyx, complains alot, has an annoying voice, and is really worthless.  He isn't Urkle-annoying, but I hope in 1187: Episode 2 they tone down his chatter.

Gateways + The Great Forever Tommorrow

I am not sure how I missed these two great mods, but they're really fun :D  It's very Doom-like in that you have to kill tons of enemies but the levels in the first one are very basic.  I recommend you play 'Gateways' before The Great Forever Tommorrow.

“This is a single player Half Life 2 mod, set entirely outside of City 17. It features6 levels of action, exploring a range of locations (from an underground facility to fighting alongside the Combine on an alien world to floating color-coordinated cubes), non-linear level progression (you start near a nexus of gateways, and may choose the order in which to progress through the levels), a musical score (a total of 8 tracks), some new abstract textures and challenging gameplay. This mod is meant for those who have already completed Half Life 2″
http://www.planetphillip.com/posts/gateways-half-life-2/

What I find most interesting is the "Nexus" map.  It consists of a center with power-ups and health, with portals that lead to other themed maps.  When you complete a theme level you are warped back to the center of the nexus until all levels are beaten which unlocks the final level.  The music is really catchy.  One of my all time favorites.

After you play that, play the sequel, The Great Forever Tommorrow.  It's more linear but the graphics, levels, and presentation are improved.  There are new weapons, more colorful levels, and slightly deeper plot:
http://www.planetphillip.com/posts/the-great-forever-tomorrow-half-life-2-ep2/

Both mods were developed by Kiwi Productions.