What are the best Half-Life 2 mods?

September 8, 2006 1:22 PM

What are the best Half-Life 2 mods?

I just installed Half-Life 2 on my Mac. I didn't realise there were so many mods for the game beyond Counter Strike. Zombie Panic looks cool. What are some of your favourites?

(An aside: how long do you think it'd take to finish the original Half-Life?)

posted by chunking express to computers & internet (15 comments total)

Check it.

Oh, and about 45 minutes if you're speedy.
posted by utsutsu at 1:35 PM on September 8, 2006

Accidental backspacing meant that I neglected to point out one item from the exhaustive list. Goldeneye: Source is great if you were ever a fan of the N64 classic.
posted by utsutsu at 1:38 PM on September 8, 2006

Garry's Mod is not really a game per se, but is still cool for interacting with the physics engine.
posted by zabuni at 2:19 PM on September 8, 2006

Black Mesa looks like it's going to be good, when it gets released. It's a re-do of the original Half Life that will take full advantage of the Source engine.
posted by fvox13 at 2:43 PM on September 8, 2006

Not exactly a mod, but this map (video here) of Frank Lloyd's Fallingwater house is pretty cool. (via)
posted by kaefer at 2:55 PM on September 8, 2006

Definately check out The Hidden - Source, it's the most enjoyable HL2 mod I've played so far. SourceForts is also fun.
posted by crypticgeek at 3:08 PM on September 8, 2006

Day of Defeat Source is quite possibly one of the best games I've played, & doesn't quite have the same CS 13 year old following (although there are still a good number of them around). DOD-Avalanche is quite possibly one of the best maps ever invented (still not sure if I like the pre-Source or Source version better, though - the Source version has some funky angles that I don't think were completely playtested like the pre-Source one was).
posted by devilsbrigade at 3:11 PM on September 8, 2006

A second vote for Garry's Mod. It's a bit daunting at first but you can have hours of fun even knowing very little about how to use the different tools. (And then, more hours of fun when you do know how to use everything.)
posted by Monster_Zero at 5:08 PM on September 8, 2006

Not quite mods, but if you want to play more single-player experiences, try the two episodes of Minerva (available through steam for free), and the surreal Mistake of Pythagoras (available for free but not through steam).
posted by Durhey at 5:40 PM on September 8, 2006

I cannot believe I am the first to list SMOD! It totally rocks. I think I've done at least as many playthroughs with it enabled as I have without.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 8:46 PM on September 8, 2006

Cyrus, SMOD looks pretty cool, I hadn't heard of that - thanks for pointing it out.

Also, chunking: I second Day of Defeat. There seems to be more 'mature' people playing it, for the most part. I began playing CounterStrike when it was in its earliest release, which was what, 1999 or so? I loved it and was pretty good at it, but now when I try to play it's a bunch of little children screaming over the voicecomm... and I get pissed off getting pwned by 8 year olds. :-)

At any rate - two more suggestions: Half Life 2: Episode 1. Not sure if you were aware of this, but instead of making "Half-Life 3", they decided to make a 3 part 'episodic' game released more frequently. Half-Life 2:Episode 1 is already available - it covers the aftermath of the Citadel getting taken out.

The other, and what I'm anxiously awaiting: Half-Life 2: Episode 2, which covers Gordon escaping City 17. This release will be bundled with 2 new badass games (single player only): Portal, which seems like a totally new type of game altogether.

Also - Team Fortress 2. This was an incredibly popular game for HL1, and TF2 was reportedly in development for years - it was the #1 'vaporware' program for a few years. It looks incredible, and I like the 'cartoony' look to it.
posted by MarkLark at 8:04 AM on September 9, 2006

Pilotable Strider Mod is fun, deathmatch with striders, helicopters, APCs, and so on, though there are not a lot of servers or players.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 10:34 AM on September 9, 2006

A note of historical interest only - Team Fortress 2 is by far more vaporware than even Duke Nuken Forever: the original scheduled release date for TF2 was January of 1997. It was supposed to be a Quake 2 mod, as the original Team Fortress was a Quake mod.

The Half Life mod, Team Fortress Classic, was made by the Team Fortress Software people, after Valve bought them out to work on the original Half Life.

The TF2 in those trailers is very much not what TF2 was supposed to be. Battlefield 2 is approximately what was promised - and in 1997, that would have been quite incredible, as there were no other games with drivable vehicles, let alone half of the other features promised.

And now I'll stop being bitter about the mutilation of the game that almost made me flunk out of high school and go back to waiting with baited breath for Portal. That has to be the most awesome game concept ever.
posted by DoomGerbil at 4:47 AM on September 10, 2006

Thanks for all the replies everyone!
posted by chunking express at 11:06 AM on September 11, 2006

Nobody's mentioned Dystopia? Wow, you guys are missing out.

Assault(*) maps, player classes, and one of the upgrades you can spawn with is a cyberjack that can be used for adventuring in the very-William-Gibsom cyberspace arena, which is necessary for some objectives.

The mod is very well-tested and polished.

(*: if you're unfamiliar with the term, it's team based, attackers vs. defenders, with a series of objectives that the defenders have to protect. As objectives are lost, spawn points move around the map to keep the respawning fast. When the attackers succeed, or timer runs out, the teams switch sides and the former defenders now have to do a better job than the attackers. Asymmetric, and yet well-balanced.)
posted by Mozai at 7:06 AM on October 2, 2006