You play the young lawyer Dr. Alan Green, who was sent to the desert as a safety evaluator to carry out a safety report of Black Mesa.
After a brief walk towards your temporary office you suddenly find yourself in a situation you are not prepared for.
Can you use what you have around you to escape this nightmare?
This was November 2021’s Classic of the Month mod.
- Title: Half-Life: Visitors
- File Name: hl1-sp-hl-visitors-steam.7z
- Size : 29.3MB
- Author: Kim Graefe, Sam H. Noshari, patrick Brand, Thomas Normann
- Date Released: 11 September 2004
Download directly into MapTap [29.3MB]
You MUST have MapTap installed before using this link.
Download to your HDD [29.3MB]
You can still use it with MapTap once you have downloaded it.
- Copy the visitors folder into your …\Steam\SteamApps\common\Half-Life\ folder.
- Restart or start Steam.
- Half-Life Visitors should now be listed in your Library tab.
If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.
Half-Life: Visitors impresses you with 7 levels of increasing difficulty. 25 maps ask for cleverness and tactical meditation. Furthermore: 1 extra level invites you for a ‘chill out’ in calm times. Adds three new weapons and two new usable items.
You are playing the young lawyer Dr. Alan Green:
- First name: Alan
- Last name: Green
- Age: 28 years old
- Occupation: Lawyer
- Gender: Male
- Home country: Alabama, USA
- Location: Administration, Sector A
- Visit Black Mesa
- Security system failed
- Detours
- Breedings
- Black conspiracy
- Illusion or reality
- Mankind strikes back
- Final obstacles
Dr. Alan Green published his book ‘Black Mesa Background’ in August 2003, just one year ago. This book is about his one-week job in the Black Mesa Research Facility as a state-controlled safety evaluator within a fact-finding commission to carry out a safety report. But the job changed his life completely; and after the publication of his book his life was changed again.
Alan Green was forced to maintain silence in years over the incidents since August 1998. But five years later he brought himself to tell the public about all incidents in the deepest desert of New Mexico and the deaths and disappearance of hundreds of people.
Only a few days after the publication of his book in 2003, Green was posted as missing by his wife and after only a few days the police put the case to file as unexplained.
Since then Alan Green is all times disappeared, but obviously he knew the danger he was in with his book. Some people told, they saw him on the streets, but other people are sure of that the organisations are responsible for his disappearance which Green mentioned in his book.
The truth, and if possible a second book about all incidents since 2003 will let on with Alan Greens comeback.
The playthrough below is part of the Classic of the Month Event, run by Don AKA Unq.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
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7,216Overall
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349365 days
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 10 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 3 Hours, 50 Mins
Shortest: 1 Hours by yagnos
Longest: 10 Hours by John
Total Time Played: 53 Hours, 40 Mins
If you believe this release is missing important tags, please suggest them in a comment?
n1 Mod!!
Definately one of my favourite mods out there!
very good this mod!! very long!
when I start the game on the intro it crashes I get this:
The instruction at “0x01d9e3be” referenced memory at “0x00000424” .The memory could not be “read” PLEASE HELP !!!!!!!! a can load another map > console but after short play it crashes again
the game crashes after few minutes play same error message *12 (thats me) can this be repaired
This look like great mod I load some of the maps through console but the game still crashes
If someone els have this problem try to change some settings OpenGL or Direct3D
if this don`t work find a folder named “cl_dlls” delete the files “DemoEditor.dll” and “GameUI” and then tray changing the settings again
Enjoy!!!
Maybe that happens in Steam HL, because I played it and it was a hell of a mod: new weapons, models, “enemies” (Black Ops, a variety of Zombies), effects, AI behavior, and even PARTICLE EFFECTS!
It’s almost a must play (because this crashing issue D=)
Very good game, quality game, good action with a nice balance to the gameplay. One or two small bugs.
A really nice game! You need to be clever and to notice the small details, it’s funny…but after all, you are a lawyer 😉
this game rocks
nothing else to say
I havent played this mod in 2 years, so I cant remember if my statements are accurate. Anyway, I am LOST on the part in Mankind strikes back where I think you have o put something in or fire a laser (SHOOP DA WHOOP)into a huge purple hole, can anybody help me?
Its really grteat, nice to se grunt vs black ops actuon. although I am rooting for the grnts since they are bad ass unlike the black ops.
Someone made reference to this mod in the latest survey. Are there any download links? I’m downloading the link mentioned in the post above however its for the steam version which I don’t have, so I don’t know if it will work.
Can’t remember much except it’s a very well done German mod with many puzzles, some decent combat and a great BM atmosphere combined with nice and detailed leveldesign and layouts! Must play!
In short, Half-Life: Visitors is a fairly enjoyable and fairly long pack that is well worth the download. It suffers at times from uneven pacing and poor game design decisions, and lacks originality overall, but generally it’s a solid, fun experience.
As you can read in the provided story, you are Alan Green, a safety inspector sent to do a report on the Black Mesa Research Facility. In a completely unforeseen plot twist, something goes wrong and all hell breaks loose, so you’re forced to fight your way out of Black Mesa and back to daylight. How very original.
Actually, that’s a little more harsh than I meant to be. Visitors really is a fun mod to play through, despite the cliched story and setting. It’s obvious that a lot of work was put into this mod – not only is it long at 27 maps, but it also includes two new weapons as well as some enemies from Opposing Force. There are a number of puzzles and some challenging combat situations for you to conquer throughout the pack.
The overall design (as well as the basics of the plot) are mirrors of the original Half-Life. And actually, therein lie most of the flaws of this pack. But I’ll get into that later. Overall the maps in Visitors are well designed. They are not extraordinarily attractive, but their design and layout (with some exceptions) are solid and make for some fun gameplay, be it combat or puzzle-solving. The architecture is generally fine, and the lighting is good, with a handful of memorable, very nicely-lit areas. The path through the maps is generally linear, but with a number of optional areas to explore (and you’re usually rewarded for exploring) and a number of places where you loop back onto previously-visited areas. The puzzles are prevalent, at least in the first half of the pack, and are fairly clever, although a number of them boil down to push-the-crate-into-the-right-spot. The combat starts out extremely slow and easy, but picks up pace and culminates in a pretty good final battle. In fact, the combat in the last 25% or so of Visitors is very enjoyable and pretty challenging.
The other aspects of this mod are well-done. The new models (both for the new weapons and for some characters) are decent, and the new textures are respectable. The CD music is used to excellent effect throughout the pack as well.
Half-Life: Visitors not only borrows from Half-Life’s plot and setting, but the general progression is very similar. However, that is the main drawback as well. The train ride in Half-Life was atmospheric and interesting. But the opening of Visitors, which consists of a camera fly-by, followed by a mundane train ride, drags on way too long. The annoyance doesn’t end there, though. The next chunk of maps is extremely slow, even after the classic (and well-done) Black Mesa Disaster (TM) occurs. In fact, it isn’t until more than a third of the way through this pack that you find a weapon other than melee weapons and the 9mm pistol, or get to fight anything tougher than a zombie. The original Half-Life employed this type of pacing early in the game, because it was an unfamiliar game world for players, and the opening maps gave them a chance to learn about the weapons and enemies. But the same pacing applied to Visitors really hurts it. There are a lot of puzzles early on to occupy your time, but I kept waiting for something to happen.
Furthermore, once you’re past the opening chapters, the pacing of Visitors is uneven. I expect a few lulls or quiet spots in a pack this size, but there are so many goddamned vent crawls in this pack that I found myself repeatedly attempting to summon the forces of Lucifer and set them upon the mapper responsible. That didn’t seem to work, though. Instead I decided to visit him in Hell for a while just to escape the maddening vents. All kidding aside though, Hell was a pretty nice break and there’s not a vent in sight. Low humidity, too.
OK seriously, the vent crawls got to me. They are frequent, and often really long. When I say long, I mean several minutes at a time, and some of them are rather labyrinthine as well just to piss you off. These vents ultimately are huge interruptions in the flow of the game. Normally some vent crawls don’t phase me in the least – but the last few in Visitors really sent me over the edge.
Those two issues were really the main weaknesses of this mod. There were a couple other minor annoyances, however. There are a few invisible walls that you run up against, which is kind of a cheap trick to control the player. Also, in quite a few areas there are places you can easily jump to (for example, jumping down right after the disaster sequence), but again the authors don’t want you to go that way, so you either die immediately, or the game loads up your last saved spot automatically. If there are places I can see and obviously get to, I want to get to them!
Overall, Half-Life: Visitors is a medium-high quality, enjoyable mod. There are some flaws in the overall design and flow, but they aren’t really showstoppers, just (sometimes intense) frustrations. By the way, beware the headcrabs! They are everywhere in the first few sections of Visitors, and they seem to do double damage.
Notes
This review is republished here by permission and was originally published Wednesday, 7th September, 2005 by Unquenque.
This review was originally posted on the Ten Four Website, which is now offline. Permission has been granted to republish the full review and more details can be found on the About page.
As you can see, I have added screenshots and a working download for Steam installations. IF readers want a WON version, please let me know.
I’ll finish playing the mod and add a proper review.
Thanks Phillip! I don’t think I ever managed to get this working! Hopefully I’ll get chance to play and review over the weekend.
Fingers crossed.
After launching and making sure my brightness options were correct, and starting to play, I cannot bring up the main menu. It pauses the game, but it won’t do anything else. I had to cancel the hl1.exe process to get out of the game. So far it looks *incredible*, but in the set of screenshots I don’t really know where some of the first ones are, and never saw them. Maybe they’re from the area I couldn’t reach by an invisible wall blocking a perfectly open area. :/ I really want to play this, it looks awesome, but without the ability to actually save or load from a menu, or even quit the game, it’s kind of difficult to justify.
The UI in the menu is so dark, I couldn’t see it at all before. Located it, managed to use it. …. How did you get the crowbar? where were those other images, with the plants and streamlet, taken? Before the disaster or after? argh!
I can’t remember where the crowbar was but I know that it took a while to find it. If I get time, I’ll replay that part and let you know. I have to finish the mod and post the rest of the screenshots first.
The images come from the Training map. I always test the training map on big mods. Often they have something new.
spoiler for Zekiran…
” to get the crowbar took me a while too, just go where there is a vent that’s on the floor you have to green toilet doors, you can enter the men door (screenshot 38) in this place there is a open vent in the corner and you reach screenshot 39 then follow the path ;)”
Ahh, well, yeah. Never got there, I just noclipped. A lot of times I’m finding myself doing that. Will finish up at some point and post my fuller review regarding that aspect too.
And dangit, training room. I don’t DO training rooms, because too many mods *don’t* use that aspect. I don’t expect that out of something that has an already established story before you even go in. Yet another thing I’ll post when I’m done. 🙂
Thanks for the hint though. I might replay at some point and might remember to keep searching.
I remember this one. I downloaded it from ModDB and for some reason this release probably was not relevant back then in PlanetPhillip, I guess this post is renewed because some comments date from 2007 and so on.
So as far as i can remember by some screenshots, this is a fairly good mod. I like the fact we are a Lawyer inside the BM incident, through mods we’ve been a scientist, a janitor, a soldier, and many other characters, and here a lawyer, well that’s a nice touch as make feel the HL1 universe kind of real and related to real life persons involved in the HL1 storyline.
Overall the mapping is good and I can’t remember any big flaw regarding the gameplay, so I think is a fair enough Play it Now. Is just a classic mod with the quite cliché but classic, escape from Black Mesa whoever you are!!
It was, I just hadn’t had time to add it properly.
I see. It looks that many good old classic releases were kind of miss. It’s good to see them back alive.
I’ve added another 98 screenshots.
I have to admit that my timing is a close approximation based on the timing of the screenshots.
All in all, this is a fantastic mod and those who visit regularly know I love Black Mesa settings. There’s plenty of variety and having new content is always nice.
My problem is that it is a very long mod without story telling. Having a background setting and a new character is NOT the same as telling a story. I have different objectives but I have to figure those out myself.
A little voice acting would have made a huge difference in my opinion.
The path forward is not always clear but some of the puzzles are pretty clever.
I found the combat a challenge and sometimes the placement of the enemies was very clichéd: two zombies either side of a doorway.
You should definitely play it but it’s possible it will feel more like a relief at the end than anything else.
Using Gauge
Medium
4 Hours
lil stuck on Visitor. I have no idea what to do after the scientist unlocks the armoury room.
Help!
Take him downstairs in the lift, just around the corner and get him to open one of the doors.
Definitely a quality mod that needs to be played one day.
Sure there are a few minor bugs, but the whole experience is agreeable.
Manually
Medium
4 Hours
This is a really good HL1 mod with some puzzles that require real thinking. The enemies do a lot of damage to you so I spent a lot of time looking for health kits and creeping around corners. The weapon selection is pretty good, except you get a large pipe for some reason which you don’t need since you have the crowbar. Definitely a PIN.
Manually
Easy
4 Hours
I think I have played this mod long time again but never finished it, So I decided to give it another try I used map tap for installation method but needed to bring down the console to launch the first map.
I think it’s a must play through it’s whole experience, balance between fight exploration and puzzling where immersive and challenging but like Phillip already said if you experience isn’t enhanced by some story telling through voice acting or simply on text message (Like in someplace else for exemple) it let a feeling of missing something especially when the experience in long
Note: I experience some mirror bug the one which was quite frustrating was the fact that I could reload my hev suit with the battery power ups…
Using Gauge
Medium
4 Hours, 10 Minutes
I recall playing this years ago, which helped in a few spots where its not clear where to go. A top notch mod, lots of playing time.
Using Gauge
Medium
4 Hours
After a couple tries I realized that the UI was black on black, which meant I couldn’t see it for crap even after adjusting my brightness/gamma. That was kind of the first frustrating step in playing.
I don’t typically do ‘training room’ levels, because as I said above in another comment they’re usually not even present – I’d prefer to have such a thing just be integrated into the introduction of the mod itself, rather than have an entire map that isn’t obviously connected and won’t get played without prior knowledge that it even exists.
Straight off the bat though, visually this mod is *beautiful*. The areas are interesting and very well suited to the job of displaying Black Mesa to us in fits and starts. Wandering around them really put me in the Black Mesa mood. Wondered when anything would happen, and then heard someone summoning Freeman on the loudspeaker… and I knew that it would only be a matter of time.
After that though – nothing much made sense. I’m playing a lawyer, a little voice over or even on-screen text might have been good to have as hints. “Head to the temporary office we gave you, we’ll send someone up to greet you later”, or “someone left a message on your temp office’s answering machine to meet them in the Cafeteria, hope to see them there”. I more or less figured the spots that we saw on the slow-slow ride into the facility would reappear at least at some point – and while it did, it was *so* late in the game it was hardly worth mentioning, and not really integrated very well. I wanted to try and find my car, get the hell out of there, but it wasn’t even in the spot that it should have been. (at least, I didn’t see it.)
Early on, I had to start noclipping. That was a problem, and it was a consistent theme through the entire game. While there’s something to be said about exploration, there’s also a lot more to be said about not killing the player before they even have access to their first weapon or any form of armor. I think I spent more time with my health in the teens in this mod, than in any other single mod I’ve ever played. Noclipped to get the crowbar, and finally felt like I was on my way.
The mood of ‘running through a hellish nightmare of a facility where everything was already dangerous’ was certainly present the whole time. And there is another of the problems – when I should have felt at least a little comfortable to relax and think about what to do next, the environment was killing me. The inability to jump across even small spaces without missing the target or landing and dying, was more than enough for me to ragequit on numerous occasions. And, that was also the source of why I continued to noclip. I couldn’t reach most of the vents or air ducts as presented, even with the knowledge that you SHOULD be able to jump into them or onto them in some way. Having such a narrow margin for error was a serious flaw.
The fights were dramatically difficult – which on one hand would suit the mood of ‘I’m not really supposed to be here’, but on the other made it a needlessly difficult task to move through an area with say, just ONE headcrab in it. That one headcrab would do more than enough damage to kill me, and there’s so little health anywhere that those slower sections were basically me ‘bleeding out’, and wondering what would kill me when I go around the next corner.
The old engine shows its worst points in this mod, with the ladders. Oh my god I died altogether too many times flinging off the top of them, or not being able to click E to reengage on them while falling. Their placement in certain portions of the map was absolutely nonsensical, and led to yet another spate of being killed not just by making a slightly wrong mouse movement, but by being shot off the thing by the many enemies I couldn’t even see for fear of turning around and falling off the ladder.
At least twice in this mod, you’re given a fade-to-black that wakes you up apparently somewhere else without weapons or any idea of why you’ve just been knocked out. I’d won battles, not had any other enemies nearby, but apparently the creators didn’t feel like giving me any particular reason to head to the next area by myself? I don’t know whether the fight in that one office with the Gman watching over, was bugged to hell or what, I kept getting hit by the Controller and spinning around, maybe I was meant to lose that battle? I don’t know, I went into that whole area with single-digit HP and god-moded it because I wanted it finished.
I’m sure that some of these issues could have been solved by having playtesters other than the same people who wrote the mod, but I’m not really positive of that. Some of them just seemed to be basic flaws. There were far too many spots where it was just completely impossible to tell what to do or where to go, what was expected, or any direction at all. Wandering through the facility aimlessly isn’t really fun.
All of that said, it was still worth a play through. I did like the use of some of the dialog options from OP4/BS and the added/changed scientists faces, and like I said the environments were visually good. They just were poorly designed for flow and direction.
Manually
Medium
5 Hours
Half-Life: Visitors is one of those mods I’ve seen kicking around that for some reason or other I had never gotten around to playing. Having finally powered through it, I see that I wasn’t missing a great deal.
Don’t get me wrong. It is very impressive to see such a long mod completed within two years. (Makes me think I ought to pull my finger out) The quality of the mapping fluctuates throughout however. Some areas are fantastically detailed and take me back to the days of Opposing Force and Blue Shift. Then there are sections where you simply run through bland, empty hallways, or find yourself crawling through another bloody pipe or vent. Azure Sheep had this problem as well. For the most part however, the mapping is very nice.
As far as gameplay goes, it’s simply Half-Life from another perspective. It’s a tried and tested plot and I still love returning to the ever expanding Black Mesa (This place must be bigger than the entire US by now with the number of official and unofficial expansions that it’s had). The problem I have with Visitors however, is the complete lack of narrative. At no point are you given directions or a specific objective and it all boils down to running around and pressing buttons in occasionally creative ways. Though I was able to deduce from the layout where I was going, I had no idea why. I only realised I was heading to my car when I happened to notice it in one of the combat arenas. Everything else just seems to boil down to “Well I’m here now so I might as well do this.”
A prime example is the “Mankind Strikes Back” chapter. Launching a rocket into a portal (which was glitching out like a mad one for me) to hit back at Xen. At no point was I aware that I was heading for this rocket and it’s operation was in no way explained. I guess I was supposed to justify it myself. “Well, they trashed my Merc. I’m going to launch this nuke into their dimension.” Once again, this just comes down to a series of buttons to press that trigger a light show before you can move on. It’s basically pressing a button to open a flashy and long winded door. Worst part is that it is totally inconsequential. With no voice acting or even text on screen to convey the plot, the supposed destruction of Xen goes totally unrewarded, with aliens and grunts still battling it out to no end.
This also reminds me of a cut scene in the later part of the mod showing the apparent destruction of a city. Then I was dumped in the desert, bleary eyed and unarmed with no idea how I got there. It’s like the mod author got me utterly wasted and dropped me in some random location for his own amusement.
Overall, the mod is worth playing for the mapping alone (most of the time) but don’t expect anything ground breaking. Also, do not try this if you are looking for any expansion of the original plot because Visitors will leave you feeling frustrated and lost.
Using Gauge
Medium
2 Hours, 25 Minutes
Did you manage to visibly *launch* the rocket?
I think my play through it just exploded, at least that’s all I saw. Never really sure what was going on in that part.
It wasn’t launched as such, probably due to engine / entity limitations in GoldSource. It just kinda vanished when it reached the entrance to the portal. I assume it was meant to portray a launch when the screen flashed white for a few seconds.
I am not able to reach an air vent, as was mentioned by Zekiran. I hate to use cheats, but in this case it seems to be the only way to get into the required vent. However even that is proving to be impossible. After I jump into the vent, I can’t move, even after turning noclip off, so I am totally stuck. It’s the room where an elevator comes down with a lot of ammo, and you had to get a scientist to open a door to push the elevator button. I have tried everything and if I cant’ get into the vent, game over. Any ideas?
Can you take a screenshot and host it on a image hosting website. I can’t envisage where you are.
Thanks Phillip, Here is the link.
http://www.meetcarolynblake.com/stuck-on-visitors/
The password is visitors. I made it private so my regular readers won’t see it and wonder what it is.
Sorry the photos are small. You can use ctrl + to enlarge them.
Carolyn
I finally was able to move forward after using noclip. It took me many MANY tries! I am a good jumper but this vent was just not accessible for me without noclip.
Sorry, I didn’t reply. I forgot. I’m sorry.
good
Manually
Hard
2 Hours
It is a fun long mod which i actually enjoyed, fighting through all the monsters or exploring areas, but what was super annoying about this was puzzles, what to do, where to go, where to put this, experienced quite alot of bugs aswell and got stuck in many places, overall not a terrible mod or nowhere near that but a 7.5/10 from me
Manually
Medium
3 Hours, 15 Minutes
Yeah, exactly.
I enjoyed this mod! The combats are very fun and the map design is superb. The puzzles are also fun but some puzzles (ex. Use the broken barrel to connect the electricity, Use the box to plug the water hole) are hard to figure out before watching the walkthrough.
Manually
Medium
3 Hours
Well, the barrel puzzle itself was not that hard to figure out, but all the stuff you need to get that one piece, hiding in the corner, was a bit annoying in my opinion. It’s a bad design, the mod creator should highlight that kind of stuff more obviously.
I first played Visitors back when it came out. I also remember reading on a HL website his ‘published’ story about his experiences at Black Mesa.
I didn’t see my review from back then, but then again I might not have done one.
Visitors is a very fun mod that will make you think. One you have no hazard suit to ‘armor’ up. Two the jumping puzzles require a very high level of skill and can make you just want to walk away from it. But don’t it’s worth playing to the end.
Not exactly a glitch, however when you go out of a lobby waiting for a tram it’s actually their. Just get close to the platform by the rails and the game will move forward with you in the tram.
Have fun your back in Black Mesa and a Lawyer.
P.S. when you see the picture of the Employee of the Month. Yea it’s all that guys fault. Just saying.
Manually
Medium
10 Hours
HL1 mods are no longer playable on Linux. Any suggestions???
Quite the fun experience; I really like how, instead of you being a worker there, you, as the name of the mod says, were just visiting the facility in the wrong day, at the wrong time. Had some problems here and there, but I’m not remembering right now, so it really show how important they are (none; they matter not). If you want a good Half-Life experience that uses the same formula, but in a fun way, this mod’s the one
Manually
Medium
2 Hours, 50 Minutes
Annoying puzzles is the bad thing in this mod as are buffed headcrabs.
This has wonderful mapping and length it’s very good.
This one can be really tough, first levels you can just fast run through but then it becomes much tougher. Not to say it is bad thing, but some moment are complete BS in my opinion, especially where you have to climb a ladder and there a bunch of grunts awaiting you on the top, throwing nades while you barely got any health. It would be completely fine if it has more armory rooms, but I can find only ONE through the whole MOD! Not to mention main character DOES NOT HAVE ANY ENERGY WEAPONS! Also try not to waste laser trip mines because you may need to use them as a support structure in ventilation in order to progress.
Also yes, the whole heli-boss (vtol-boss in this case) idea is stupid, in any game. We’ve been through this already in video game history, stop doing this, please!
Complete playthrough:
Part 1 – https://youtu.be/gMZSdTErLw0
Part 2 – https://youtu.be/IhFWkceh5ZY
Manually
Medium
4 Hours
5 star for the lesbian poster.
Manually
Easy
1 Hour