You play a scientist going about his day as Black Mesa suddenly becomes infested with aliens.
Find any weapons you can and try to reach the surface.
Watch out for enemies, they come from all around you!
Good Luck.
- Title: Residual Life
- File Name: hl1-sp-hl-residual-life-1.9.7z
- Size : 94.8 MB
- Author: Radiation Studios (Korean)
- Date Released: 07 March 2012
- File Updated: 18 July 2022
Download version 1.9 [94.8 MB]
- Copy the Residual_Life_pub1.9 folder into your Steam Half-Life folder.
- Restart or start Steam.
- Half-Life: Residual Life should now be listed in your Library tab.
If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.
Please Note: Panoramic images only are available in full screen mode. You can either open one by clicking the image link above or by saving it to your computer and then opening it locally.
How to use: Once the image is open and your cursor is on the image, press and hold your left mouse button and move around the image. Use your mouse wheel to scroll in and out of the panoramic image.
Click on the thumbnails below to open a 1024 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
-
24,101Overall
-
5Today
-
34Last 7 days
-
85Last 30 days
-
1,091365 days
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 26 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 8 Hours, 19 Mins
Shortest: 2 Hours by Peter_Brev
Longest: 99 Hours by yagnos
Total Time Played: 224 Hours, 25 Mins
If you believe this release is missing important tags, please suggest them in a comment?
This is an absolutely fantastic piece of work!
The authors have made something that in many ways is just as good as the original game.
The tram rides, the large power sections, the new enemies, the headcrabs coming from the sand, the vistas, the action, the whole thing oozes quality.
The detail of the layout and the planning all are clear and to be honest I don’t know why the whole modding community isn’t going crazy over this.
Some people on ModDB gave this a 1 out of 10 and I have no idea why.
Probably the best Black Mesa mod I have played in years, if not ever.
I will play this again this summer and really take my time.
Highly recommended. PLAY IT NOW!
This mod is simply amazing. I played the 2 demos, he released before the final version came out and even they were pretty awesome.
NOw to the mod itself: Pretty balanced weaponry and combat. The mapping is simply awesome. The only thing, that disappointed me a bit, was the ending:
(SPOILER): BAM, Connection lost, and that was it. Still a personal favourite.
am I supposed to extract this into a folder named hl1-sp-residual-life-mod? It shows up in steam library but it gets to “starting local server” or something like that and it locks up….
Arh, sorry, looks like I screwed the installation instructions. Yes, create a folder within your Steam “Half-Life” folder, with any name of your choice and copy the contents to it. Restart steam and it should work.
I have updated the file and instructions to reflect the update
Wow, finally decided to stop simply downloading maps and start reviewing and what a way to start. This map was absolutely amazing to play, it was just plain fun.
The mapping was fantastic, the environments kept me interested in what the mappers had crafted next, and that is something I don’t see much nowadays. The headcrabs in the sand surprised the hell out of me in a good way that is.
Just play this mod now, it is great.
I’m surprised by all the bad votes here. I loved this mod. The mapping was even better than Valve mapping. I found it odd that there is a lot of stuff (mostly models) still left in there but never used (like the Ngrunt). I’m giving this an 8/10 because of the ending. It just cuts to black in the middle of a sewer. Wtf. Also the mod was pretty short.
Extra: I was given a special thanks 🙂
Im playing it, so far I can tell WOW, is absurd this get 1-5 grades in the MODDB recomendations, soon i’m going to give mine.
did anyone get all the achievements? If you do, you get to visit a neat bonus area. I have a savegame of it too, I think. It’s fairly hard to get to it
Sure it is fantastic. Don’t reading, just playing this mod anyway.
I’m not going to use words like ” Wow or fantastic” I’ll leave that to others, but I will say this is the best release this year in my opinion! Now the problem I have is do I follow the flock and give it a PF?
From the start this was familiar BM territory, it could almost be part of the original, but because of all the PF’s so far I had to think, were others looking through rose tinted glasses, but it appears not. Unless I missed something, proportions and architecture were spot on i.e. no doors the wrong shape or size or other common mistakes. The look of this was near as damn it original HL, but looks alone are not the be all and end all of a good game, the gameplay was consistent with the environment the author/s used within the the HL universe.
For me however gameplay is the deciding factor and the gameplay has to be fun, for me this delivered in both.
So at the end of the day I’ll rate this on my own view, this is one of the best mods so far this year and I don’t give PF’s lightly.
Nope, just a blank screen or nothing at all, tried both of the above.
Play this. Play it now. It feels like black mesa. The scripting is wonderful, the pacing is good, and the gameplay is fun.
Although it is not exactly in half life style, this makes it feel fresh. There are some seemingly quite large vistas, which gave a little information overload, yet were nice to look at.
This mod was actually a little hard, with my health getting low quite often, dying a few times and using strategy to kill enemies, reloading etc. this reminds me of my first half life playthroughs. This is good because easy mods have boring combat.
I noticed a lack of music, but 5 minutes later some creepy ambient music played, and a big scary [spoiler]gargantuan destroyed the door![/spoiler] Although I was a bit disappointed as we didn’t get to stay in this area very long. The ending was odd, maybe I didn’t pay attention to the story.. well, it deserves a re-play 😉
The spacing between combat and calmness was very well done, like an art. There was an interesting part of gameplay, involving [spoiler]many ceiling turrets.[/spoiler] But you will just have to experience it yourself!
Help Please,,
game originally wouldnt run under HL’s normal 3D graphics, and now ALL HL maps freeze at loading screen.
as usual Steam wont let me reload HL by itself, is there a config file I can delete?
I feel like having wandered in the desert for months and found water. Where did this come from. 🙂
Its an incredible piece of work for HL1, and yes, I think in spots it is better than the original. I put it up there with mods like the Dav series, Edge of Darkness, USS Darkstar, Todesangst, Xeno, Resistance and some others I can’t recall right now.
I do hope the author keeps going and creates more mods. I could care less about the limited graphics quality of HL1 when I get a mod like this!
tried this 3 times now, new folder and moved the seperate files to it, time before the whole folder to it…plus the original instruction, but still won’t play…help ?
Okay, let’s go back to the beginning.
1. Delete any previous installations you have of this mod.
2. Restart your computer (just to be on the safe side)
3. Launch Half-Life (just to be sure)
4. Download the file again, as this now has the correct file structure.
5. Copy the folder into the Steam/Half-Life folder.
6. Restart Steam
7. Find and Launch mod via the Library page.
Now, I have little hope this will work, as I am sure you tried like this before, but it’s an elimination process, so we have to try.
Please report back the error or result.
I promise to do my best to help you get this working. please add me on Steam friends (planetphillip) and we can try to be online together. I am in GMT plus 1 hour.
I’m GMT + 2. I don’t use the steam friends thing, never have, bit of a FaceBook messenger user though, or Skype. I’ll do as you suggest and get back to you, cheers.
How about trying without Steam?
1. extract the RL folder to your HL directory with the complete file and folder structure
2. create a HL shortcut on your desktop (if you haven’t)
3. right-click this icon, click properties
4. in target line, add “-game hl-residual-life” (without quotes) after hl.exe so it looks like this:
C:\HL\hl.exe -game prisonerofevent (foldernames can be different of course)
5. click ok, start HL via the shortcut on desktop
6. start new game, it should load RL instead of original HL
7. to play the original HL again just remove the “-game hl-residual-life” command in properties again, to play a different mod just replace the gamename, for example “-game hl-residual-life” to “-game ussdarkstar”
(the modname needed here HAS to be to mod’s folder name, so if a mod is called Poke646, but the foldername after installing it is p646 it has to be:
“-game p646”
I hope this helps.. report results please.
@Technic, regarding Point 4.:
4. in target line, add “-game hl-residual-life” (without quotes) after hl.exe so it looks like this:
C:\HL\hl.exe -game prisonerofevent (foldernames can be different of course)
Where does “prisonerofevent” fit in the equation?
FYI,
C:\SIERRA\HALF-LIFE\hl.exe -game Decoy -dev -console (works!) but,
C:\SIERRA\HALF-LIFE\hl.exe -game hl-residual-life -dev -console (not working!)
I play HalfLife, exclusively, without Steam:)
@Phillip, why is there no “maps” folder in the download?
Oops, how embarrassing! Of course “prisonerofevent” doesn’t fit here, it was a mistake as I just mixed mod’s names (yes, I was replaying “Prisoner of Event” lately, for writing a review here), so the correct 4. is:
4. in target line, add “-game hl-residual-life” (without quotes) after hl.exe so it looks like this:
C:\HL\hl.exe -game hl-residual-life (foldernames can be different of course)
Thanks Anon!
I just wonder why it’s not running for you too, even with this method.
Any error message? I usually activated mods ingame via the custom game menu until many mods crashed, so “my” method with point 1. – 7. always worked for me afterwards, I always do it like that. Weird..
There is a maps folder in the RL folder, but it’s empty as all maps are “hidden” in the pak0.pak file.
Ok! Point 4. understood.
I ran the RL Mod through the “Custom Maps” menu, but it hangs at a start screen screenshot, until I Esc back to main menu and quit:(
I’ll just have to accept defeat, and register or download HalfLife on Steam, even though I have a 100% genuine copy (1990s) of HL incl. serial nr., but what if Steam rejects my registration?!?!? Then I’m screwed…
Cool picture of my HL & OF CDs:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/545/myhalfilescds4.png
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/804/myhalfilescds1.png//
Did you read all the points, from 1. to 7., not only 4.?
I also did use “custom game” all the time before, but since mods started crashing I only use the method I described above and it just works fine!
Every mod runs without problems, no errors etc. 😛
Residual-life still not working, whilst all other HL mods/maps work, for me. Strange! Another hl-mod not working for me is the Cry_of_fear mod (Steam exclusive?!?!). I’ll try and reinstall half-life and see what happens, before I throw the towel to Steam…lol!
Nope, all I get is the same freeze and the error message ‘this programme is not responding’
Okay, please add me on Skype as planetphillip and we’ll see what we can do.
Although, for some reasons some mods just don’t work for some people.
This’ll be good, I’m GMT + 10 LOL!!
plus mines now a global HL1 problem,, nothing runs,,
But how come this mod is working for others ? Is there a patch or a different file structure I could try ? Would even be good if you could just load the bsp’s and manually start it via the console…I really want to play this..
I found a little guide on moddb.
Perhaps you want to try it
I created a new folder: Residual life public
extract the files from the zip file into it.
Then open pak0.pak with GCFScape and select all and extract to the folder Residual life public
(or extract the pak0.pak into the modfolder and place it in your half life directory from planetphillips download)
This mod starts with cool cutscene about someone who seem to say “No” to G-Man. I especially appreciated the showcase of dark part of Xen from where Freeman went to Nihilanth and great camera work in the part of Black Mesa which was transported to Xen.
We start in the room where our hero lives. The announcer voice about military personnel hints that the disaster is probably already happened. The mod creates atmosphere of tension by reusing dialogues from Blue Shift and showing soldiers behind locked doors. But if the disaster has already happened and soldiers are behind the door, why are people still trying to work instead of implementing defensive measures?
Quick switch to very tall room looks stunning. If you try to talk with the scientist, you notice improved behaviour, there’s even a chance that he will stop, look at you and listen what you have to say. This is a welcome addition. Later we’ll notice that soldiers” chatter is also changed, which is welcome, too.
The train ride follows. Reminds of Blue Shift at first, then becomes fully original. The design and idea to arrive in the Lambda complex are original. I think I saw Lambda Complex’s part of Transit System in Return To Lambda Core mod, and here it looks a lot more original and interesting than there.
The weekday that starts in Lambda Complex is a great idea. Some interesting exploration there. The medkits lie below. I thought that they hint that we will return to these places soon, and it won’t be as peaceful as it’s now, but this didn’t happen.
Very fun scripted scenes happen after we enter the elevator.
The fights are hard: the author predicts what you will do in the situation, and spawns another monster which breaks your plan and kills you. The fact that some monsters now have more health is annoying for me, because I don’t like to find out that something is worse than I expected. The addition of fast headcrabs is a nice idea, though: due to slow speed these small monsters became easy as the time passed. Ninja Zombie is a great idea and it’s realised very well. We don’t meet it often, but some monster has to be rare in order to achieve proper variety.
At first we go through interesting and original locations, but later there are more and more bland rooms and corridors. Rectangular rooms and corridors with flat walls and props? I’d rather have a shorter mod with more detailed and interesting design. Some places will require us to pay attention in order to find the exit.
Teleporter activation looks really stunning. Seems like it’s possible to find a hidden entrance to Xen there. Xen is made well, with a nice original idea – remains of human buildings that became part of it. I got to Xen through .bsp file editing (removed things that prevent from loading it with console), and now I can’t be bothered to waste time searching that teleporter chapter for a hidden way to teleport there. Just finding out an answer from someone is something that I don’t want even more, because it would make me feel bad. I don’t think that hiding levels is a good idea, especially considering that good Xen levels is something that this mod really lacks for.
Despite all these Personal Favourites, don’t be in a hurry to play this mod now, because there’s no guarantee that you will enjoy it. Play it later.
Well, good observation about it. But I think we can only especulate, and remember Black Mesa it was a huge almost never ending facility with huge distances between the many complex it has, so I could think a theory that some scientist weren’t really aware of the “disaster” or mess that has turned into it, maybe the xenian invassion was not the same in the whole BM compound, so the military irrupted in some parts of the compound in a pacific way, and the scientist being so square in their duty didn’t noticed as something that may interfere with their jobs, well that’s my theory.
We have to recognize properly the good stuff that rarely is released, and I am glad PP and its community recognize propperly this mod as deserve it, opposite to the really offensive bad reviews this mod has had in MOD DB.
This is a great mod, despite of you like some thechnical aspects of it or not, is a great mod because some developers take the effort and the time to do a mod for HL1, and that’s really relevant because I could feel that HL1 mod production is in a really bad danger of extintion. So sudenly this mod appears and show some basic lessons of how doing a classic HL1 mod.
I loved it because the nostalgia is deep, but also so well done, it feels like a professional add-on, the tram sections and the new enemies are a great point for this job, I frankly don’t understand how more mod developers are not taking the roots again and develope some more mpas for HL1, forget about Cry of Fear here we have a really cool classic HL1 old school mod, and is great, I could say this is in the same level of the great Sweet Half Life.
And I have to accept the fact: it is great is 2012 and we have this release making a classic mod for HL1, I guess this shows that HL modding is never enough or is dead at all, i’m glad that this kind of jobs shows HL1 Pure Black Mesa modding is not extincted after all.
I stronlgy relate this mod to the recently Black Mesa PP competition, that was practically dead because of the lack of more entries, and I have to say it, maybe a reedition of that competition with more publicity and sponssors would be so much more improoved and we could see some really interesting maps coming out of that project, maybe is needed another Project Quantum Leap or Reissues initiative again in order to enjoy great HL1 mapping again.
Ok so back to the main gamplay of this mod, I enjoyed the combats and the enviroment all the way, I asume the story is simple so I don’t really worry much about that, there are some really amazing parts in the mod that hugeness of BM is definitely present and well done, I also love the part where you can see a shatered tunel heading to “Black Mesa East”, that was a clever touch betwen the HL1 and HL2 worlds I tought and I really like that smooth but clever detail on this mod.
Finally what more can I say?, well nothing more that as a gamer, i’d love to see more mod production for HL1 because I enjoy it, second more mod production in both engines Source and Gold SRC relating the details of this 2 universes in HL that we love to explore!!!, come on!! there’s alot of cool sources for moders to be creative and inovative, is great that a simple HL1 mod has even more aceptation than some Source old fashioned CMB world maps, I really liked this mod, was like a very different fresh air in the middle of more strange common and highly repetitive puzzle mods nowdays.
New mod of the Korean mappers behind “Residual Point” (worth playing).
You’re yet again in some very neat looking BM facility, being an engineer who just is about to start his working day as suddenly…yeah!
The only way to escape this hell on earth is, right again Sherlock, to escape..
As the story is once more boring and actually just the same as in so many other mods already, it’s neglectable.
However, if there’s none what else does a good mod need to be awesome then?
I’ll tell you. It’s supreme, detailed leveldesign with awesome architecture and lighting, combined with a very good atmosphere and pretty nice combat action which is very well balanced. Overall it’s VERY high quality!
The maps feel like directly made from Valve and create a catching and oppressive atmosphere as you’re like always asking yourself: “Oh no, what’s next? What’s around the next corner??” – most excellent!
Combat is not too easy and not too tough, the enemy placement is well thought out and the fact that sometimes at places where you expect combat there just is none! And then, suddenly… pew pew pew! That’s what I call the opposite of boredom.
Unfortunately, there are almost no puzzles, which could have been making the mod even more great, and also adding some playtime.
But don’t worry, the playtime is quite long (minimum of one hour to about 2,5 hours depending on your skill etc.)
The reason I “only” give it a “play it later” is, that in my eyes something is missing and I can’t tell what I mean exactly…
Maybe it’s the puzzles or something special to await, but never came. Maybe it’s also the half-hearted end… I dunno.
Nonetheless, it’s a must-play for everyone – except puzzle and story-lovers who will be disappointed here.
Already the detailed graphics and design is worth for at least taking a look!
Pro’s:
-Extremely professional mapping, varied design and lighting – very detailed and just high quality
-Great combat action
-Very good balancing – never too hard, always fair
-Interesting feeling and good atmosphere
-Customized enemy hitpoints if I’m right, also new, scary enemy model
-Escorting guard and/or scientist does work without any problems (only needed once)
-A few nice scripts
-Good playtime (1-3 hours), but way shorter than “Residual Point”
-Expect the unexpected
-No bugs, no dead ends
Con’s:
-Almost no puzzles
-Neglectable story
-Loses lot of it’s charme when playing a second time
-Quite many locked doors
-Disappointed end – that could’ve been done way better! (but it makes hungry for more of course..)
-No rocket launcher 😛
O Ohhh
Never install HL into steam I use it separetly and didn’t taught I would need to do this with steam but there is a custom.mpk file created that make the game freeze
So it may sound stupid but how to install hl in steam ?
Steam Library-Games-Activate a product on Steam-enter your cd code.
so simple thanks Brett 😉
Just wanted to say:
The mod loaded and worked fine for me…everything is cool
but,
Just wanted to point out that for some, like me, it may be a bit confusing at first as this will show up as Half-Life: Residual Life Public 1.0 verses the old mod I still have installed Half-Life: Residual Point Public 1.0. Obviously they are two different things but it confused my old brain for a minute.
Also, I was temporarily delayed looking for “Residual xxx” in the Steam Library but don’t forget it is listed under “H” for Half-Life: Residual Life Public 1.0 ……just thought I’d mention it…….
I saw in the game mod that have a problem in the map. the map is rk00 file. please fix the game and relocate the file.
thanks
from ben el :))
What do you mean? All maps are packed in the pak0.pak file in the RL folder, not in it’s map folder. The mod runs very good, no errors to me.
I sure that the file pak0.pak is located in my folder but the game not know about the file and giving an error.
And what does the error say exactly? Something like “couldn’t load map rk00” or what? It really did work fine for me, played through this mod twice already..
it says to me “couldn’t load map rk0”
Odd, as they are all in the pak0.pak file, maybe download a pak explorer tool and check if it’s there or rename it there? I don’t know, sorry..
>Some people on ModDB gave this a 1 out of 10 and I have no idea why.
Because it’s a recycled piece of crap. He took the best parts of Half-Life, and its expansions, and remade them. It’s another generic, mindless shooter with hundreds of clone corridors with poor gameplay. It’s almost bad as Residual Point. There isn’t any single improvement.
5/10
This was loads of fun and a good length. Got stuck on the slanting lift once or twice, but that’s par for the course with HL1. Not too close to the original to be boring. The mapping, texture and lighting qualities were very good. I was impressed with the originality of the new enemies. The headcrab Ninja was especially nice.
There’s something odd with my installation of the mod – when looking at a scientist from the side, they seem to have… two faces on. From the front, they look more or less alright, but their noses are slightly larger and askew, and the Bennett/Kleiner model has these weird opaque glasses.
What’s up with that? Running a standard Steam-HL1 installation, no HD pack installed.
The models from the mod were decompiled and remodelled which makes the skins shift slightly. It’s not a problem with your installation.
sorry, given up on it…I guess I’ll never know….
….except…aha !!!! It works on my lap top running Vista…but still not on the Tower running XP..I don’t know why an operating system would make any difference, probably doesn’t, but at last I get to have a look at this mod. 🙂
A worthy mod no doubt but too generic as too often I found myself thinking that I’m revisiting Half-Life, which isn’t bad in itself as Half-Life rocked but too many areas seemed copypasted from the original which does devalue the overall impression. As far as attention to details and architecture are concerned, this mod is top-notch and I liked the flow of its gameplay. It just lacked originality. I loved the Garg scenes near the end but the ending itself was awful.
I was not as impressed with this mod as others seem to be. The flow and direction was good, but I felt the design was such that the enemies had a lot of help, so the tactics to take them down were not that fun. Also, the player was only given a few select weapons, so there was not a great deal of variety in the combat.
The ending was also very disappointing; at first I thought I had gotten a bad ending and there must be a better one, because it was just so abrupt and had no meaningful conclusion.
All in all, the mod had a lot of good points, which have been brought up by other reviews, but I just felt that it wasn’t as fun to play as it could have been.
Good mod, but not really amazing for me. It has its own style, but sometimes it looks like just a clone of HL or other mods. It needs some more special and original features to be a real masterpiece (cool ending at least). But mapping and gameplay here are very good, so I can recommend this mod for any HL-fan.
I know this mod for a very long time as the author released like 7 demos in the past before he finally decided to release the final version.
One thing should be clear right of the beginning the author rocks as he successfully recaptured the game & mapping style of Black Mesa. This must be the first mod where I really felt comfortable right on from minute 1. All areas were smoothly made and I can’t even think of any area in this mod which I disliked.
The story is the same as from Half-Life this time we just see it from one of those scientists or Janitors wearing the NPC (nuclear-biological-chemical) protection suit.
This mod comes along with some of the old Op4 monsters such as Otis and Black Ops and even adds some own additions like a female Black Op fast Zombie etc.
It is obvious that this is already a cult mod such as Point of View, Azure Sheep, Sweet Hl, Poke etc..
Play it you wont regret it!
I seem to not be able to get a scientist to follow me.. I’m at the 81st screenshot and the scientist that let me in now won’t get out of a corner, it’s like he hits invisible walls when tries to run. I must say it’s not the first bug I encountered in this mod and I’m surprised someone even mentioned bug free in his pros; must be some reason why mod is acting different for all sorts of players.
So any help on how to get the scientist to move? I have to activate the reactor/generator I think, cus there’s nothing behind the 2 doors in that room.
You are right you have to backtrack turn on two switches and a consul switch and the scientist will move good luck although you may have it by now.
OK ty, nige, for pointing that out, it’s been a long time since medium backtracking was used in a hl1 mod (or I just haven’t played enough of those in a while) but I still think it’s the author’s fault for making it look like a bug and not hinting us that [spoiler]’hey there’s no power, why not go back thataway and turn it on'[/spoiler] as the schema on the walls did not seem that obvious to me that [spoiler]it would interact.. as in light up if I did something[/spoiler]. But in the end I got to the end, so to speak.
I actually found 2 odd endings with the same “Out of range” message, and from the comments I seem to have finally finished this particular mod that didn’t leave me quite happy. I kind of feel like I wanted more from it? But in a bad way. Like OK I’ve seen this, done that, but where do you keep the good stuff? Despite having a new enemy, new models (for me), marvelous layout/mapping and I want to say new mechanics but I think they were just small artifices or fireworks if you may, I, for one, found it lacking, boring overall and hard in places. For eg, too few or no h-packs after having my a** zapped by never ending spawning vorts or dying a lot by the hands of auto-trigger-assassins. And the empty chargers? Not funny. Try frustrating.
That doesn’t mean I enjoyed most of the combat, it was engaging and I loved the effect of [spoiler]using gargs without us actually having to fight them[/spoiler], they did scare me. And the intro credentials are charming but they don’t actually let in on the player’s clear objectives (other than get out alive which is overused) and are not followed by a proper story. And as others mentioned, no puzzles, which for me is like minus two points, not one.
And it was bit buggy and seen enough to say it needed proper betatesting, but: it did entertain me for a few hours yesterday, I did have that drive to not go to the bathroom but play and see what’s next, and could’ve finished it in one sitting if that scientist wouldn’t’ve looked so funny while trying to follow me, so this brings it up from a maybe to “Play It Later”.
I thought this was a terrific mod in terms of look, pacing, and difficulty level. It is also massive in scale but the progression is very steady. It’s too bad it didn’t have custom voice acting as well, especially for the radios, but it didn’t dampen my enjoyment. The best part was the [spoiler]mutant black ops[/spoiler] that you see a few times.
Sorry for my bad english but im spanish… Good Mod but the ending was inconcluse..?
Inconclusive? It yes it was, that’s one bad point several players also mentioned here, however, overall it’s a very good mod!
WOW This Is The Best Mods Ever I Played!
Somebody Outthere Must Try This Mods!
This is one great fun long mod.
I was hoping that in the white suit I would have had some underwater activity or something in an environment that the suit would have given me a benefit.
The ending leads me to say, when is part two coming out?
Manually
Medium
5 Hours
Problem…it runs fine but only a small square of the screen is visible and the rest of the game is blacked out. It’s not a small screen, just a square cut out and showing, nothing else visible. I have never seen this before. Any ideas? Using Windows 7
Are you running it on HL WON or Steam?
I’m really not seeing what everyone is so impressed about. The mod tries to mirror the original Half-Life almost exactly, it seems, and ends up boring and derivative as a result.
First, we start with a tram ride into work. Er… why? Does the author want us to admire the facility? He realizes that this is GoldSource, right? It looks good, for GoldSource, but the engine really isn’t impressive enough anymore to warrant the sightseeing tour. This was a theme that I noticed arising several times: long stretches of exploration with few or no enemies or puzzles.
Next you have to deal with the misdirection. Right from the start, it seems, the mod is filled with long paths that dead-end, forcing you to back-track. The introduction (prior to the accident) is the first example, but not the last. Others mentioned the reactor room, where the power is out and there’s no indication that you need to backtrack, which leaves you floundering in that room for, in my case, ten or fifteen minutes, wondering just what the hell I’m supposed to be doing. This wasn’t helped at all by the fact that most areas seemed to be open for backtracking, up to a point, so it was never clear when you were supposed to backtrack, as opposed to when the author thought it would just be cool to let you go back into the previous area.
Also not helping with the misdirection was the fact that most objects and buttons in the game are given what I’m going to call “token interactivity.” That is, if you “use” them, they make a noise. The glut of “use”-able objects then makes it unclear which, if any, of those objects are important or necessary for you to progress.
Finally, the author seems to get off on making his levels circular. (You progress to the end of a level and unlock a door to find that it spits you back out at the beginning of the level.) This can be cool, and is fine IF the circular design keeps you moving forward. In Residual Life, though, I often found myself back at the beginning of an area without any clear way to progress, forcing me to backtrack into the level looking for the way out. I hadn’t moved forward; I’d just gone in a massive circle.
Level design aside, the mod is still pretty unimpressive. Headcrabs are turbocharged, moving faster and taking more hits than they did in the original. This serves to make them even more obnoxious than they already were. The Black Ops make an appearance, but as they fill the same niche as the HECU soldiers, they add absolutely nothing to the combat. There is one new zombie variant, which appeared twice. It was… interesting.
The story can’t decide what it wants to be. The grunts and Black Ops don’t appear to have any real goal, even the radios are ordering them to evacuate. At one point, we spy a couple undead-looking soldiers in glass cases (visible in one of the screenshots), but then that avenue is never explored and the soldiers never appear again. It ends up being just another escape-the-facility story – and one with an abrupt and irritating ending, to boot.
So, to summarize: It looks nice, for GoldSource, but the level design can be irritating and confusing. The Black Ops and the new zombie variant added nothing new to the combat. There was no story.
Whatever everyone else sees in this mod, I don’t see it.
Manually
Medium
3 Hours, 30 Minutes
I think this is one of the best I’ve ever played for half-Life 1. First of all, It changes your already-seen HEV suit for another one which it’s cooler in my opinion. The game it’s well thinked I didn’t find any bugs) and it’s long enough, but I didn’t think it would end that way.
5 word review
Cool mod with very surprises.
Manually
Medium
2 Hours, 45 Minutes
Prompt where you can find Manuals-Guide?
Passed all the levels to finish. The game is interesting, that ends abruptly. Probably planned ending but now it probably will not wait.
I was excited to play this release, after all the praise it received here.
But I feel like a victim. A victim of too much hype.
The level design has some nice areas, and is clearly inspired by the original. But most levels bleak in comparison. It attempts non-linearity, but just adds confusion. It suffers from the classic problems of locked doors and dead buttons. It lacks any memorable battles, intriguing story, or light hearted moments, that can make up for an otherwise mediocre release.
And why is there a desk in nearly every closet?
This mod receives a “Maybe” rating from me. I could give it a “Play it later”, but in that case it should be near the bottom of your todo-list.
Manually
Medium
4 Hours
It’s true mods can sometimes be a victim of their own success. I have thought about implementing a system that would allow registered members to hide recommendations etc. That way people could play maps and mods with no preconceptions about its quality – maybe one day.
The result were… abortive.
Once again, a train ride. I would like to remind you we did these rides multiple times in Half-Life, Blue Shift and Opposing Force, ergo it is redundant especially on GoldSrc nowadays.
When I step out, the atmosphere was really good, but it is not that original because it sticks to what Valve did for Half-Life but I appreciate the custom level design.
Perhaps some people do not like this but I do; when you have an open facility and you can interact/visit some places, offices, etc…
Arriving at the elevator, it was axiomatic that something was going to happen, especially when you can see what is going to happen.
I was sometimes confused to what I had to do, but I finally could complete the game.
Nothing really caught me during the whole playthrough, that is why it receives a “Maybe” on my end.
Manually
Medium
2 Hours
This mod was a blast to play. Most of the levels are really well designed and for the most part (except for one occasion) it was obvious what was needed to progress.
The atmosphere is very good, as it stuck extremely closely to Half-Life’s style. The level design also has traces of Half-Life’s design.
The mods difficulty ramps up nicely and for the most part each encounter is well designed and difficult, while staying fair.
The ending, however, felt very rushed and abrupt, with no warning that I was at the end, which left a sour taste in my mouth once I finished the mod.
This is a fun mod that will last for a few hours, has many well designed areas, but still has some flaws. I give a “Play It Later” rating.
Manually
Medium
2 Hours
This mod is better than “Residual Point”, but not by much. While it is more focussed and is thankfully avoiding the unjustified longevity trap of its predecessor, it does – in many ways – still suffer from the same problems: no story, no puzzles, no really memorable or surprising moments, and a very poor ending – which is why I am quite surprised by so much praise and so many PF ratings.
It simply needs more than solid level design and gameplay to make a very good or even great mod. There’s nothing really special about “Residual Life” and all in all I found it quite generic and in parts even boring. The overall high technical quality justifies a PIL rating, but for anything better it needs more special and original features – and something you could call a “soul”.
Manually
Medium
3 Hours, 50 Minutes
I was overall very happy with this mod. As one of the view HL mods I’ve played (I play mostly HL2/Ep mods) I thoroughly enjoyed it.
First of all, this mod’s level design looks like it’d fit right into a Half-Life game. The amount of detail gone into the mapping makes Half-Life still shine. I especially enjoyed the transit ride at the start of the game where you get to see other parts of the facility and the lambda complex. Everything looked right, and what that means is that I hardly ever noticed something that would be out of place in Half-Life.
However, one flaw in the design of the levels (it is part of the gameplay too) is the incessant use of backtracking, causing overall confusion. There is something I like about how the maps never really have a locked door that you can never get to go on the other side of. In this mod, every part of the facility all loops back around and you’ll end up unlocking doors from the opposite side and getting very confused as to where you’re meant to go with all these choices. Unfortunately, this made some parts frustrating as I kept going around in some of the same circles and trying to find an actual end to the loop of hallways.
The gameplay was fun and had some tough parts. I think I especially liked the first few areas in the mod after the resonance cascade happens and you are left to head through a previously unseen part of the lambda facility. It was good fun.
The ending was unfortunately very anti-climactic, but I later found out that the mod isn’t actually finished (I think) but hasn’t been finished for quite some time… development has been abandoned. I was actually confused and thought the player was caught in the nuke of the facility, as sirens were heard moments before and it was clearly quite far into the black mesa incident.
Overall, definitely play it. A very well crafted mod.
Using Gauge
Medium
3 Hours
Hey im having an problem here
if i start the mod the loading page will block in there and the game doesnt start
what should i have to do
(sorry for bad English)
Hi
For me the mod is crashing
when i take a newgame the loading page just block the mod and the mod doesnt start
what should i do
(sorry for bad english)
There is an update version for this game, maybe post it here?
That is the first HL mod, what i finished. And this mod is very good! It was a little hardet than HL for me, but its good.
Manually
Medium
2 Hours, 20 Minutes
It was ok. Some levels felt a bit claustrophobic at times, and at the chapter Ground Zero I didn’t exactly know where to go or what to do. The gameplay also felt harder than usual.
There were some rather funny mismatches with the Half-Life story, but that’s ok. And the ending was kinda disapointing imo.
And every NPC is in HD.
But otherwise, as I said, it was an ok mod.
Manually
Medium
3 Hours, 30 Minutes
I wanted to do a review of the 1.4 version which isn’t on this website.
1.5 the final version is still being worked on and you can follow various updates here :
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKTFeILPxs-nmRDj018AX9A
https://www.facebook.com/Radiation.Studios/?fref=ts
Ok, this has become HUGE. Last time I played was 1.0, which ended on an underground tunnel during Countdown.
Numerous new map’s, and some of them being “bonus”, are now gigantic and nearly maze-like… there is really some great work here.
The most impressive feature is that numerous map’s are interconnected, and you can go back to the beginning of the mod even when you’re nearly the middle of the mod.
For example, because of that system, you can keep a companion Barney alive until the portal in “ground zero” just before “between world and chaos”/”no way out”. Because there is a ladder he can’t pass, before that portal.
It’s just a little challenge… And it can’t be done if you want to get all achievements because he can’t go on “one is all, all is one”
Now you’ve route 1 and route 2; 2 differents ways to end the game. Route 1 is long, very long, and very Difficult where you fight against the new Alien race you designed, I was a bit disappointed by the final fight, I was really expecting to see the leader of this race, or the Gman, at the “center of all things”… but it seemed to be worked on for 1.5.
Route 2 is shorter but provides the player with a boss fight, a different way to fight a well known enemy…
[spoiler] it’s a Nihilanth re-skinned as a giant black ghost!! And you have to travel to various dimensions to weaken him [/spoiler]
Each route leads to the same final part, a strange variation of the beginning and then an epilogue at this point still unfinished (map rl03o1 is missing).
Anyway. This was already one of the best HL mod’s so far in 1.0 and now this has ascended on the top 10. Maybe more.
Work a bit more on a better way with route 1 to end “your” story in a better way, because I think there’s really more to see at center of all things, more than just running into the map and get téléported away.
I’ll of course play 1.5. Good luck. It’s great.
Manually
Medium
5 Hours, 30 Minutes
As 1.5 (final?) version has been released, here are some final thoughts on this version :
[spoiler]
Not so much new things as I thought in RL 1.5 :
-the main new content is the Center of All Things which has evolved into a full map with hard battles against Black Ops and the new Alien race.
-the final part also removed the subplot with Gman and the nuclear bomb, instead we have to do… stuff… anyways, the ending is still the same as 1.4.
Still a pleasure to do again the mod.
Route 2 like Route 1 has changed, too, more huge maps, and more fights.
“Ruins of Chronos” is now larger and bigger, and a new map was added, “Ashes of Lautrec” (???) with some Xen-like places and a Combine-like structure.
The main change is that there is no more final fight with a re-skinned Nihilanth as a Black Boo ghost, we go back to Route 1/Center of All Things with the same ending.
In the end, RL 1.5 changed the situation of RL 1.4 (not available anymore, shame) with Route 1/Ending 1 and Route 2/Ending 2,
to Route 1.5/Route 2.5 and same ending (upgraded) in both cases.[/spoiler]
I don’t know if it’s the final version of the mod, but if it is, it was a good ride, and this mod is definitly in the top 10 of HL1 mods.
As far as I understand the Korean author’s ambition, it was to be as close as possible to the stories of one of Marc Laidlaw’s book, The Third Force (I’ve never read it).
Erratum :
After watching recent playthroughs of the mod 1.5 on YT, it seems that we can still do the ending 2 with route 2 (and so still do the “boss battle”… which has been enhanced with some monologue from the boss!), IF you find some McGuffin… located on some place I would never have thought.
It has nothing to do with the secrets/easter eggs to find, tough, it’s on the level just before the Combine-like installation.
So in the end, the options you have are :
-Main game to COUNTDOWN – route 1 – ending 1 (Center of All Things).
-Main game to COUNTDOWN – route 2 – ending 1 (Center of All Things) if you don’t find the McGuffin.
-Main game to COUNTDOWN – route 2 – ending 2 (Altar of Sacrifice) if you find the McGuffin (during “Ashes of Lautrec”). Is it the “real” ending? I can barely understand What the heck the author wanted to so.
And the same epilogue in the three cases.
Here’s an unofficial update of the map’s, since 1.0 :
IMPOSSIBILITY DREAM : Intro/Tram Sequence (No achievement)
BLACK MESA INBOUND : Get your suit (No achievement)
ROUTINE WORK : Resonance Cascade occurs : ACHIEVEMENT : (Lost Battery) Get all batteries in Routine work.
STATE OF EMERGENCY : Escape this mess and find weapon(s) and allies : ACHIEVEMENT : (Demon Slayers) Find and clean-up vent in Emergency State.
LEGAL DEFENSE : HECU are in the place : ACHIEVEMENTS : (Circle of Death, Chaotic Butcher) Find alchemy circle, Neutralize two crab fields
ONE IS ALL, ALL IN ONE! : Bonus Level : ACHIEVEMENT : (Dark Golden Energy) Get the Gravity gun in Surface Storage (Require: Chaotic Butcher -or- Difficult level)
GROUND ZERO : Lambda Reactor-like Level (No achievement)
BETWEEN WORLDS AND CHAOS : Xen-like level (Bonus Level) Get all achievements complete.
NO WAY OUT : Surface Tension-like level (No achievement)
COUNTDOWN : Surface Tension (2) (No achievement)
[u]ROUTE 1 “XEN”[/u] : save the scientist, get the door opened and find the nuke :
NUCLEAR PORTAL : Weird mess between real world and Xen world.
RUINS OF CHRONOS : Xen level.
ASHES OF LAUTREC : Xen level + Combine-like installation.
If you find “Talisman”, then it’s ALTAR OF SACRIFICE : final boss level.
If you don’t find “Talisman”, you go back to Route 2 “HEART OF NIGHTMARE”.
[u] ROUTE 2 “BLACK MESA” [/u] : Jump in the “sewers”/tunnels instead of saving scientist :
ASHES TO ASHES, DUST TO DUST : tunnels/maze-like level.
HEART OF NIGHTMARE : Big battles in larges areas with giant crystals and radioactive stuff.
CENTER OF ALL THINGS : the final battle to stop the new alien race and the crystal processing.
[u]AFTER ROUTE 1 AND 2 [/u] :
IMPOSSIBILITY DREAM (again) : Epilogue.
CREDITS.
Aaaaand… it’s done.
And about the story, what can be summarized between those mod’s and the wikia of the mod’s (in Korean…) :
Residual Point is a “remake”/”interquel” about the same time as the HL events, where the player ventures through Black Mesa and then Xen fighting aliens, Marines, but also the new alien race looking like zombie HECUs.
Residual Life seems to begin where RP left us, with that red teleport… In fact, it seems RP and RL are “iterations” of the same story/HL events, but re-told with another character each time. It seems the Gman places us on a “loop” where the events begin all again : a fact acknowledged by the intro and the outro where Gman utters “we’ll meet again”, “you’re not supposed to be here, forget about all this”.
The wikia tells us that the adventures of Kim, the protagonist (female), are around the same time as HL1 but in a different place. The Resonance Cascade occurs and Xen aliens comes up, and HECU cleans up the place blablabla…
The main story is that Gman with the help of Black Ops, harvest the power of a giant crystal (giant to the point of spanding across 3 different maps) in order, in his own words, “to be rich”.
That crystal seems to be directly linked to the new alien race, which is hostile to everyone including Gman and his goons.
If the protagonist takes Route 2, she tries to stop the process of that harvesting, but is placed in spatio-temporal isolation for her attempts. Gman escapes with “military personnel” and is briefly seen with a Hunter from HL2.
If the protagonist takes Route 1 and “talisman”, she encounters a Nihilanth-like being which seemingly acts as an alien God and is helped by Xen aliens, so it’s safe to say this one is, in the same vein of the Kingpin in Sweet HL, another commander to the Xen forces. He utters some nonsense and gibberish about “void key”, “make us whole”, and other things.
In the end, Kim destroys it but is again placed in spatio-temporal isolation for “destroying talisman system” (whatever that means… It seems Route 2 took suddenly a whole different story which has no links at all with the Gman, Crystal, and new alien race).
In the end, both routes end with a “loop” backs to the intro where Gman – acting as a Barney – makes us “forget” about the story and then the credits…
And maybe yet another iteration of the story for the next Residual?
I have updated the file to version 1.5.
Thanks 🙏 !!
I played Residual Point and enjoyed that for the most part, with the exception of the very sudden and unexplained ending. I feel that Residual Life is somewhat better, but in a lot of ways is about the same.
Overall the mod is well made, and the mapping is the strongest part of it. It makes use of some great custom models from the community, as well as its own reskins. In terms of actual craftsmanship, I can’t fault it. It’s a well put together mod.
My biggest problem with it is I have no idea what I’m doing. There definitely seems to be some kind of plot, maybe? I feel like my character is supposed to know what they’re doing, but I have no clue. While I really enjoyed the final boss fight, I had no idea why I was doing it or what it was. I was just super confused the whole way through.
Long story short: play it, but don’t rush to download it (And go in expecting to come out on the other end with more question than you started)
Manually
Easy
4 Hours
I personally did not enjoy this mod. I found the level design, while attractive, tended to focus on throwing enemies at you, which is my biggest problem with the mod. Despite playing on medium difficulty, I found it very very difficult, as the black ops soldiers that are crammed down your throat deal massive damage per second, something I found frustrating even in Opposing Force.
Right off the bat, I didn’t understand any of the lore changes to the original half-life. You’re in Black Mesa, but its not the Black Mesa we know and love. I’m sure the story could’ve been adapted to fit somewhat into the half-life universe, even if it varied from canon a little. Also, the over-sexualized female guards are not to go unnoticed. I hated those.
A lot of the original ideas were pretty great. The possessed soldiers were kinda genius, as they were this spammable, weak, yet late game enemy that just worked. And the scene with the gargantuas in the parking garage is extremely memorable, although the floods of Black Ops forced me to flee the area before the full scene could play out.
Those last few areas really crank the difficulty beyond humanly playable limits. The amount of black ops that are around every corner give you 0 breathing room, and I swear I almost ran out of ammo in every single gun trying to take them out.
Did anyone else notice the blatant reuse of big chunks of the maps from Half Life and Opposing Force? The lambda core is almost completely reused for some reason, and the parts before the bunker are extremely reminiscent of Foxtrot Uniform and When Worlds Collide. I get that its a mod, so they get some leeway, but at times it felt like maps were copied and rehashed just to extend the games play time.
Last part that really ticked me off was how much sound was going on. Every time you press a button, you get 6 seconds of beeping before it produces either an error sound or the door opens. Not to mention the alarm part with the turrets. That nearly killed my eardrums. And add all this to the endless gun fire of the blackops soldiers, and you have a pretty good excuse to just turn off the sound.
TL;DR: Enemy spam, sound spam, weird redesign of the story, and reuse of big chunks of original maps, but there were some solid ideas buried under that.
Manually
Medium
4 Hours
The dev is currently working on 1.8 version which will feature a final boss. Stay tuned
RL 1.7 has been released :
https://www.moddb.com/mods/hl-residual-life/downloads/residual-life-playtest-version-17
After playing a lot of bad mods recently, I decided to try one “good” mod to change the routine a little bit, I found Residual Life on moddb between the most popular mods and while it had mixed reviews I was a bit surprised when I played it, though it certainly is far from perfect
From the start, it follows the same formula as the original game, which can be boring for some, you are a scientist (this time you are a girl, although it doesn’t make a lot of difference in the end) going through a usual day in the job when suddenly everything goes wrong, I usually find these intros boring when done wrong, but the mod had a lot of attention to detail, making some of the maps fun to explore through the first two thirds of the game, although there are a few bland maps too, there are some nice surprises here and there, good setpieces (Gotta love that map with the gargantua) new models for some NPCs (although some don’t fit too much, like the new female guard, which you never see in action either, and the scientists look… off) and even some new enemies or old enemies with a different behavior, the only problem was that many maps work like a circle were you can get back to the start it, many times without any reason to do so
These new enemies make the mod lean more to the hard side of the scale, for example, the assassins now are slightly invisible, making them harder, and oh boy, this mod loves assassins, you’ll find them a little too frequently, another change is the vortigaunts, which I feel that they are more sturdy this time, taking sometimes even 3 shotguns blasts to kill them
About the new enemies, the black ops from opposing forces return and now there are more zombie variations, like zombie grunts that can use weapons and work as a team, I found them very similar to the normal grunts though, another new addition is a zombie assassin, which I found very refreshing and fun to fight, though they only appear like… 3 times? and lastly, a new kind of vortigaunt that looks a bit bigger, is more resistant to damage and can charge their electrical attacks in a very short time, yikes
But anyway, this mod is really fun, and is pretty long too, though it starts to lose steam near the end… and a lot of it, you see, you’ll eventually reach the obligatory Xen levels, and just like the original Half-life, they are a mixed bag, there are some good pieces here and there, but most of the time you’ll find yourself exploring this cave were is pretty easy to get lost, it even has a lot of hidden passages that can leave you wondering were are you going
Thankfully, I managed to get to the end where I found this weird structure, and oh boy, I feel that the quality was only going lower and lower, because you are now in this big and dark open space filled with invisible black ops and assassins, if I didn’t found the Hive hand previously I would have got really frustrated at this area (and it was in well-hidden spot) I think the creator of the mod thought that too because it seemed that the Hive hand didn’t have a reduced firerate when “out of ammo”
After activating a portal (and dying instantly when I tried to enter it too quickly, welp) things got weird, but thankfully, I was transported back to earth and the gameplay got more “stable” again, but not for too long as I was near the end and the difficulty only got higher and higher, nothing too bad, until I reached the last map, and damn, trying to reach a train filled with trip mines and turrets, with a few assassins and a rocket launcher at the end, it was no easy task, and next, fight a lot of alien controllers and the new vortigaunts that can kill you quickly if they get you unprepared
But after a lot of tries (and being confused for a few minutes on what to do in that last room) I finally managed to get to the end of the mod, but the ending was so abrupt that I thought I got some kind of bad end, my final thoughts? I think this was a great mod but with some questionable choices, especially on the last third of the game, but overall it was a fun and challenging and it definitely is worth a try, I wish I could give it a score between “Play it Later” and “Play it Now”, but I think I’ll choose the former, as it got really messy near the end, as if it was rushed and not as polished, the rest of the mod makes up for it though
(After reading the comments, it seems that I’ve missed a second ending and some kind of achievements, I played the 1.5 version that I downloaded from moddb so I’m not completely sure how much has changed compared to earlier versions, and it seems that there’s a new version in the works, but meh, the last levels left me annoyed so I’ll probably won’t replay this in a long time, until the “last” version is released at least)
Manually
Medium
5 Hours
I had to make a damn flow chart to make sense of this mod’s alternate routes and secret areas. If you’re interested I uploaded it here. http://oi66.tinypic.com/2en0r5e.jpg
(I know it’s a crude MS paint creation) 😛
This is my first review on this site and I’m choosing this mod to review first because I spent a lot of time and effort trying to figure it all out and in the end I was pretty impressed!
It’s worth noting that the version of RL released in 2012 is not the current version. The original version had an abrupt ending in a sewer but this has long since changed and the game was extended quite a bit beyond that in v1.5. Not only that but the author of this mod is releasing yet another update soon that makes it even longer and polishes off some parts. I highly recommend waiting for and getting v1.8 when it comes out. My review will be on the beta version of that, 1.7, which was released a few days ago.
I don’t see why this mod has gotten so many negative reviews. People are saying he just reused areas in Half-Life but I am not seeing any of that in this mod. Sure, he recreates Black Mesa to feel very familiar, but his maps and details are his own. The fact that people think he’s just remaking Half-Life should probably be a compliment as the setting in the mod feels very fitting to fall into the original story line.
My favorite (and maybe least favorite) thing about this mod is it’s alternate pathways and achievements. Some of these are very hard to find and are required to unlock alternate pathways through the game. The longest route through the game takes a good few hours to get through even if you’ve already beaten it. I actually was so confused and determined to see all the pathways that I replayed it several times and made a flowchart for anyone interested in what is required to see all of the mod.
Flowchart –> http://oi66.tinypic.com/2en0r5e.jpg (this is based on v1.7)
Although this mod is far from perfect I gave it a PF because the work done was very impressive and engaging. It’s biggest flaw is how it sort of falls flat toward the end and the story is a bit confusing. This may be fixed in 1.8, though! There are also very few Half-Life style puzzles and in some areas things get difficult to a point where it’s more frustrating than fun. Even on easy mode you will get wrecked near the end if you aren’t careful. I have not been able to finish this mod on hard because of how rough the end bits get.
Overall you should definitely play this! If you want to feel like you’r back in Black Mesa this mod will do it for you. If you really wanna see all the secrets and get the achievements I advise you to check out my flowchart above!
Manually
Medium
8 Hours
This SP mod expands on the Black Mesa setting, and includes some new enemies along with a great deal of emphasis on the Black Ops faction this time… These guys compose a large part of the human enemy combat in this campaign. I also suspect the author(s) to have a crush on the Assassin♀ in particular, since they’ve went so far as to add a panoply of custom animations, and then even going so far as to derive a new enemy from her in the form of a Zombie Assassin (which is basically a reskinned Gonome upon closer inspection)…
The quality of the maps you’ll find here is top-shelf material, no doubt about it. Special attention is spent nearly everywhere from the tram rides to the offices of this imagined part of Black Mesa, and you’ll hardly find a boring part in here (except maybe for the Xen maze near the end of the mod). Enemy placement can sometimes be a little over the top, with swarms of Alien Slaves teleporting in one after the other while you’re out in the open. This is even harder on Hard difficulty since you’ll barely have time to find cover from their ambushes.
A new type of Xen-corrupted variation of the HGrunt was added to this mod. While not an unwelcome addition by any means, I found that it could’ve been developed much further; you’re already swamped by Male Assassins and HGrunts throughout the campaign, so why add in yet another HGrunt variation if you’re not going to create interesting scenarios for them? For example, why not have them fight the other Human enemies once in a while? Because right now they don’t have any role in this mod other than to teleport in to harass the player with full auto machine gun fire. I question their inclusion if that’s all they were meant to accomplish.
Some other weird art direction has taken place with the author(s), too. Calendars sometimes feature Korean girls and anime, a radio you come across plays Kpop music (I guess it’s just the author sharing with us his tastes in music, but still)… The weirdest one of all, though, was to include the Kate model for Azure Sheep to represent the female Security Guards in the BMRF, complete with her showing off her navel while on guard duty. The final boss also seems to be a silly-looking giant black Boo-like creature from Mario fame, which replaces the Nihilanth model.
This leads me to believe that this mod maybe was not meant to take itself seriously. But hey, that’s completely fine, as the mod itself was a very enjoyable romp through the BMRF setting for me. Other than a few difficult fights that border on the sadistic side with the Alien Slaves and female Assassins, I would be ready to rate this SP mod quite high along with the other ones we got this year (such as Half-Life: Echoes).
Manually
Hard
3 Hours
Did you try the alternate path? The final boss fight is less strange and the path to get there is longer and overall more fun IMO. Also, the version of this mod on this site is way outdated. Newest version 1.7 is up on moddb.
I promise to update the file very soon.
Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll definitely try the updated version once I find some time.
I’m trying to complete the Route 2 [Xen] path, and I’ve run into a problem on map r01f. There’s a canyon you have to jump across. I’ve seen it done on YouTube vids, but just can’t manage it myself. I’m not above using cheats to get past it, but can’t access console even though I have the -console command added to the launch properties in Steam. Any ideas on how to get past this?
As far as I know, that map requires lower gravity to make it across, which is what you’re probably missing. I think there’s something amiss with your game.
Hmmmm, could be, I guess. The mod played fine everywhere else, though, including Route 1 to the end. Guess I’ll just have to miss this part.
After having completed 1.7’s new maps, they’ve all confirmed what I’ve initially felt in my previous run: it’s a very brutal mod that is very much focused on pushing the player’s tactical abilities to its fullest, but most of all, their patience when it comes to dealing with overwhelming numbers of enemies.
Previous versions only gave you the appetizer; the newer maps now pushes its sadism to its zenith with the new chapters “Heart of Evil”, “Center of All Things” and “Sun-Eater’s Pillar”. Imagine yourself being stuck in a large, open area side-stepping 3 or 4 Alien Controllers’ attacks, while several Alien Grunts drive you further into a corner with their hornets, and then off in the distance, you see Alien Slaves and Super Slaves (my nickname for the customized Alien Slaves with a faster firing rate found in this mod) waddle in to complete the encirclement and zap you to oblivion with rapid-fire zaps… Sounds vicious, doesn’t it? Well, this mod’s purpose in life is to deliver the most absurd challenge to you – with its equally absurd storyline – straight to you. Whether you like it or not will entirely depend on your willingness to handle the punishment and then devise your own strategies to beat back the overwhelming odds.
Before playing this mod, I’ve rarely ever employed very desperate measures such as falling back to a previous room and sometimes laying down a trail of Tripmines behind me in order to thin the enemy’s numbers before mopping up the rest of my pursuers. In this mod, however, it’s entirely encouraged. Even worse for you, but the author seems to be entirely aware of these strategems. In a move rarely seen by mapmakers nowadays, the author sometimes makes sure to teleport in a couple of enemies in specific areas when the player is found to be backtracking or spending too much time within an area. What this means is that you shouldn’t be surprised when you suddenly get jumped on by a teleporting Alien Slave as you search previous areas that you thought have been cleared, or were empty. (The best example I can remember is the flooded basement in the chapter “Legal Defense” as well as the lobby room leading to it.)
Of course, these ambushes also apply to the newer maps too (namely the ones that feature a Combine-like theme). Those levels mostly involve running the player through a sadistic gauntlet of Xen enemies as described in my example a few paragraphs back. In one particular part, I would cross a threshold that would spawn numerous enemies charging towards me. Seeing as I was overwhelmed, I would fall back to the previous area, only to see that it now had Alien Controllers and an Alien Grunt that were probably placed to intercept my escape. As such, I would have to run even further back, all the way to the beginning of the map to first take care of the swarm of Alien Controllers and then finally fight my way back to the area that I ceded to the enemy previously. A very different kind of fight, indeed… It definitely added a change of pace from always going forward and feeling invincible, to making you feel little and having to employ guerilla tactics to bring down a seemingly endless army of Xenian troops.
My most disliked encounters in this game have to be the ones with the Black Ops, who represent the main enemy humans you’ll fight against. The game gradually increases the difficulty of enemy humans starting from your average HGrunts, to the faster and more durable ♂Assassins accompanied by their ♀Assassin friends. Later on in the game they will be upgraded with cloaking abilities and most of them will even be armed with sniper rifles that can knock you out even when you’re at full health but no armor (on Hard). Also, you cannot pick up their sniper rifles in this mod (picking them up only gives you 5 bolts for your crossbow). Any close-range fight with them is highly unadvisable and less seasoned players may have to restart numerous times before they can prevail against some of those encounters. (I would recommend using Satchel Charges and Tripmines whenever possible, and keeping them at range with the Revolver or Crossbow to take them out quickly before they can do too much damage to you.)
As far as mapping quality goes, the newer maps seem to have taken a dip in that regard unfortunately. The map design of the new maps is now mostly utilitarian and, while they do convey the theme of most BMRF areas, the size of the rooms are usually gigantic boxes with little else in terms of micro-detail, such as the office areas at the beginning of the mod. Instead, they seem to serve more as widely-spaced arenas for the very bloody fights that are soon to ensue, as well as give room for Alien Controllers to maneuver in.
Storytelling is still non-existent in 1.7. The established story has not changed: you are a Korean cleansuit scientist trying to survive the outbreak of the Resonance Cascade and that the G-Man had some involvement with the research done on the yellow crystals that fuel the portal technology. The author also seems to have brought forward the idea that alchemy is one of the main reasons for the Xen invasion, but all of that never seems to be developed any further. The ending and the bonus levels don’t seem to make an effort to elucidate things for you either. So I guess that for those who are looking for a sensical story, this may not be the mod for you, and I would add that this is another weak point for the mod. See, storyline may not be important for most people, but to me it’s the closest thing to an incentive for overcoming challenges (which this game has plenty of), and it’s disappointing that the narrative has not been developped into something of substance. Or at the barest minimum, given to someone else for proof-reading.
In the end, I would probably categorize this single-player campaign along with the likes of Half-Quake… Excellently designed in the areas they were meant to excel (in this case, the combat) but the concept of a challenge pushed to an extreme *may* turn some players off, as well as the non-sensical story. You’ve been warned. Me, however, I believe I’ve found myself a new favorite SP mod that’s focused mainly on combat, and just so happens to have great replay value with all of the alternate paths and secrets contained in it. It is also well-made enough that I can overlook the shortcomings in all the other areas. If this sounds appealing to you, then maybe you can also find yourself another Personal Favorite for your own collection in Residual Life.
Manually
Hard
4 Hours
In this mod, there are a few hidden secret spots that need to be triggered in order to access the bonus Xen maps after the chapter “Ground Zero”. It contains several goodies and some platform action. This guide I’ve written is meant to complement user Nozzy’s flowchart that can be found further above in his own post (big thanks for the chart, btw). However, he didn’t exactly provide the details nor the locations of the secrets, so this is what this guide aims to cover.
—
Chapter: Routine Work – Secret : Lost Battery
Take the elevator to the next map. Get your cleansuit/H.E.V suit. Take the elevator back to the previous map and then look for the batteries that are located in the side offices. There are 2 in total.
State of Emergency – Secret : Demon Slayers
This secret is located in a ventilation shaft, at the top of the stairwell, right outside the room where the scientist gets teleported away by an Alien Slave. Simply jump on the light fixtures to reach the breakable vent grate, then go in and kill the weird Headcrab at the end.
Legal Defense – Secret : Circle of Death
This secret is divided in two parts. The first part is located in the restrooms you come across with the scientist alone in it. The third stall from the left in there appears to be locked, but is actually held down by a wooden plank. Toss a grenade in the third stall to destroy the plank and then examine the spraypaint.
The second part of the secret is in the dark, flooded basement. If you’ve done the first step correctly, there should be another room right past the zombie that will be now unlocked. Go in there and examine the wall for the last alchemy circle.
Legal Defense – Secret : Chaotic Butcher
Another secret with two parts. This one involves killing an army of Headcrabs and Super Headcrabs that pop up from beneath the sand. The first Headcrab pit is in the same area as the Houndeyes you come across. Simply walk around in the sand and kill all the Headcrabs you can find until you hear the prompt. It’s recommended to bring Barney here as he can help you conserve some ammo. Also be patient, as the Headcrabs can take some time before they continue spawning.
There’s a pipe with a broken grate that leads to the next chapter “One is all, all in one!” in this area. But don’t take it yet… Proceed through the offices on the other side of the sand pit and on to the next map.
The next Headcrab pit is past the zombie HGrunt and the leaking gas pipe, down the stairs. Again, kill all the Headcrabs in this pit until you hear the prompt for the achievement. If you get a message that says “Go back, and then ‘get back!’, it means you didn’t do the previous part correctly. You’ll have to go back to the previous map, make sure to clear all of the Headcrabs in the first pit, and then return to this area to unlock the secret.
Once that’s done, proceed down the brown pipe located in the first Headcrab pit to “One is all, all in one!”.
One is all, all in one! – Secret : Dark Golden Energy
A staircase should lead up to a room named “Surface Storage”. In there, you’ll fight several HGrunts and Alien Slaves already engaged in combat. You’ll have to rescue the Scientist and then get him to access the retinal scanner near the entrance, while making sure he doesn’t get sniped by Assassins along the way. In the locked room, you’ll collect a Gravity Gun prop (not usable in any way, unfortunately).
This completes all the required secrets for the bonus maps. If you’ve done all the secrets properly, a final prompt should play as soon as you enter the map with the portal machine in “Ground Zero”. From there, just continue playing as you would normally. The teleportation sequence should take you to the bonus chapter “Between Worlds and Chaos” instead of “No Way Out”.
That’s it!
Thank you for this.
I’m glad there are a few “core” fans still willing to follow and play this mod until exhaustion.
I’ve discovered also, thanks to another member who decompiled all the maps, another access to a “cut” level,
in ASHES TO ASHES, DUST TO DUST, the place where you manipulate the tunnels “A/B/C” there is a locked door but if you noclip through it, you can access to new and unseen before levels, I’ve taken screenshots you can see on the moddb page.
The answer is :
“There are 5 ways to get to that path.
And they are activated by 5 env_global entities with globalstate:
ch_sm_comp_white
ch_sm_comp_black
ch_sm_comp_golden
ch_sm_comp_red
ch_sm_comp_blue
Anyhow, you need to unlock this door in rl02u1, this is where you get to that path:
https://i.imgur.com/VlcYowL.jpg
To activate this door, you have to:
1a) rl010:
– Take this battery (world_items entity)
https://i.imgur.com/52IRP8h.jpg
1b) rl02f:
– Collect the, so called “Gravity Gun”
1c) rl02p:
– Bring barney with you from rl02o to open this door in the water filled area:
https://i.imgur.com/SnFZQ5f.jpg
When Barney has finished his animation to open this door, he has triggered it for you – all set for you to move on now.
1d) rl02w:
– Kill the “monster_xenocrab” in the vent here:
https://i.imgur.com/My1mjyg.jpg
1e) rl02l3 + rl02l2:
– Clear the crab fields.
Along the train track in rl02l2
https://i.imgur.com/MDBqPqz.jpg
rl02l3: https://i.imgur.com/HY71kdp.jpg
When these crab fields has been cleared, walk here:
https://i.imgur.com/0Nwjsdx.jpg
You will hear a Holo speak a sentence followed by “Nice job!” and this text message will pop-up “Chaotic Butcher : Success!”
Now you have unlocked the door in rl02u1 to access these levels.
But if you receive this sentence “Keep trying, you’ll get it” and text message “Go Back and then ‘Get Back!'” that means you haven’t cleared all the crabs from rl02l2. Go back and do that and then go back to this trigger_once in rl02l3.”
I’m glad my flowchart has gotten some use! 🙂
I intentionally left out details for achievements as to not ruin the challenge of figuring them out, but honesty, some of them are very hard to figure out (Circle of death is one of them and even chaotic butcher can be rough if you don’t know how to make all the headcrabs spawn) I actually had to scour the internet to figure out a lot of these and most of the results I got were in broken English and on a website in Korean I believe. I finally found a video on YT that showed how to do circle of death and after piecing it all together I made that flowchart. Also thank you to DarkShift, your posts on moddb helped me tremendously and I’m glad you are as much of a fan of this mod as I am. If the final new maps get polished up this will truly feel like a sort of legit expansion to HL, even if the story is sort of wonky.
Speaking of which, there is SOME attempt at story telling in this mod but I feel like it falls apart toward the end. Maybe someone can get a hold of the creator and ask if he can make a written version of the story to clarify things. Keep in mind we are still waiting on a final version and once that arrives we can make our ultimate judgements. Mod deserves to be put back on the front page after completion, though so people can write more accurate reviews.
Thank you for your chart, the dev’ noticed it and posted it on his faceb**k page. I’ve uploaded it on m*ddb.
Also, the story, I know, I’ve tried my best to see everything the dev’ posted on m*ddb and fbk, it seems the story is a conversion of a book writen by Marc Laidlaw called THE THIRD FORCE, a tie-on novel to a VG of the 90’s called GADGET.
He seems also to use some content from manwha (Korean manga) but it takes some weird turns here and there…
For example, the “final boss” that maybe we’ll see on 1.8, is based on the main villain from the manga Full Metal Alchemist, called “the Dwarf in the Flask”.
It’s just a patchwork of various influences, I think. The “epilogue” levels are based on Korean military barracks, etc.
Residual Life 1.8 has been released. The final version is announced to be 1.9 or 2.0
https://www.moddb.com/mods/hl-residual-life/downloads/r182-test
List of changes
1.7 > 1.8 fixed list (2018/9/25 ~ 2019/4/05)
rl00s1 – Train lift loadsave trigger on.
rl010 – Script fix.
rl01a1 – Warning lgt fix, sector signs changed. (coolant filteration)
rl02g0 – If you’ve less than two score(archives+hard), go to rl02s2(credit level)
rl02o – Vent + pathway add, not important.
rl02p – Wounded otis is now stand up.
rl02l2,l3 – Headcrab burst door bug fix (Sometimes door didn’t sunken)
rl02h2 – Lift door fix & female assassin add.
rl02j – Hgrunt add, engage script fix.
rl02r2 – Black osprey add (Kesenium warhead way, only hard)
rl02s2 – Autosave + credit add.
rl02u2 – Water flow control switch fix, gonome add.
rl02u3 – Changelevel door speed fix, zombie add.
rl02u3k – Mgun add (Alien rush & push area)
rl02u3u – Dead end > bonus level (Required : CB (dunno) or hard)
rl02u3v – Alien grunt add (Alchemy circle)
rl02z3 & dusk – Apache way fix.
New (or cutted) levels
rl02g1~4 – Army of the underground (bonus level, to be developed, secrets required : Chaotic Butcher)
rl02u3h,p – Operator no.8
rl02u3o,m – Pathway. (to be developed)
rl02z2_dusk – Bonus level.
rl02l – hgrunt + hassassin + barnacle add.
rl02y – elevator bay light error fix, unused dummy script removed.
rl02u3a – dead end.
rl02u3z – the lift
No.8 is now hidden boss. (collect cells)
Residual Life is a bit step forward from Residual Point’s poor story and gameplay design, it also feels less like a rehash of Half-Life’s storyline.
You are a female scientist, named Sora Kim, who works in the Lambda Complex and as you can expect, things go down and you have to get out. The first chapters seem to pull you in like Residual Point, but it eventually falls into unnecessary longevity part too. Midway through the game, it’s just you going from places to places with no definite goal of why and how.
The new enemies of Residual Point appear here too, but they appear less often, except for the stronger Vortigaunts. I’m glad they nerfed big Headcrab’s health. Very late in the mod, if you choose the sewer route, you will encounter the Vortigaunts that charge their attacks extremely fast. They fall into the same sins in the design like other new enemies, hard to distinguish and the mod seems to relentlessly spam them after you meet them. There’s also this Assassin Zombie who is basically faster Gonome, I find this a nice addition.
Levels are a bit more varied and you are no longer going to be braindead after three hours into the mod. Although, I like some creativity in Xen levels and they actually got me intrigued. The mod is incredibly relentless on using Black Ops units, male and female, and its stronger Vortigaunts. The Vortigaunts also slow gameplay pace from time to time too, they appear almost everywhere and the take-cover-and shoot feels like it stops some progression. They also tend to appear in wide, open areas, or areas with little covers, which is the opposite of how you should use them. I really dislike how the mod tends to spawn enemies behind you too.
There is one point where the mod will split into two paths: that is when you meet a Barney in the tunnels and you have to rescue a scientist. Going down the tunnel will let you stay in Black Mesa, and saving the scientists will let you go to Xen.
////SPOILERS/////
The Xen path is incredibly refreshing, as the Black Mesa setting was getting stale for me. They really expand the lore of Xen by putting some ruins of an unknown civilization in the maps. However, I really don’t like the fact that the Xen boss is hidden as a secret. Seeing the strange Citadel-styled area caught my attention. The end boss based on Nihilanth and it is more fun to fight, even though it is a Mario Boo, due to how varied each teleport is. There are also rocket turrets to use, but the area to activate it is very small.
The Black Mesa path makes the story even more confusing than it already is, why Kim suddenly knows the threat of this crystal and try to stop it? This is where zombie Marines are becoming prevalent and along with fast Vortigaunts, I dislike this path. The path before the crystal is incredibly frustrating, as you are tasked to face two floor turrets, a mounted machine gun, a rocket turret, and trip mines, coupled with female Assassin at the end. I godmoded my way through that. For some reason, I did not get to another chapter before the ending. I watched it on Youtube, and I think it is worse than the boss because you have to deal with wave after wave of Xenian creatures.
The ending is very confusing, I don’t know what it supposed to mean. Also, both paths get the same ending, so there is nothing unique about choosing them in terms of results.
////SPOILER ENDED/////
I also saw that there is a playable epilogue, but it doesn’t load up for me after credits.
Manually
Medium
8 Hours
Residual Life 1.9, the last, final version, has been released :
https://www.moddb.com/mods/hl-residual-life/downloads/residual-life-pub-19-public-final
1.9 public final version is out at moddb!
Is there a way to play final version of this mod in multiplayer OR in Sven-Coop?
If not, will there ever be?
Dedication.
This is how I can sum up the best Residual Life, a 2008 to 2020 project which turned into the longest GoldSrc mod ever, probably more than 20+ hours if you want to try all the paths, endings, and secrets the mod has to offer.
Difficult to the point of insanity but still… possible to achieve without cheats even if it’s thought in a psychotic way, RL rose in 2012 in PP’s HOF at the #1 place of HL1 mods, and you know what? It was only 35-40% of the complete thing.
irst of all, play on “HARD” difficulty otherwise you’ll never finish it 100%, some paths, secrets, doors, will be locked or out of reach. And your 6 or 7 hour playtime will be for nothing.
This is the “1.9”, latest release (feb 2020) of this mod, still made by Korean Radiation Studios, lead by Toxagen, a sequel/interquel of the mod “Residual Point” (2007) and its prototypes “Survivor” (2004) and “White Force” (2002).
You play “W, Sora Kim”, a female PhD, MIT, Theorical Physics Decided Assistant, working as a Reactor Operation Engineer in Lambda Complex.
Her trademark suit is the white “cleansuit” as introduced in OpFor, and not the HEV suit used by Gordon Freeman, therefore the “White Force” in the title of their first mod (RP and RL can be seen as WF2 and 3, in the end…!).
The fist part is regular Black Mesa (this is what you played in 1.0) but as the plot becomes more and more complex, it is better to tell that it’s in an alternate timeline (alternate or even dream-like, in the likes of the Phantasm franchise), where the Resonance Cascade occurs but the Xenians/Combine are a bit different from what we see in the retail games…
We are of course leaving Black Mesa to Xen, like the previous works of the team it’s yet another recreation of HL’s storyline, but this time, for the final time?? Even greater, longer and far more ambitious than ever.
Chapter list, complete :
#) UNUSED SELECT LEVEL ZONE : this is where you select training levels and can see various fun stuff with K-pop.
#1) GREAT ESCAPE : training level “medium” difficulty, in the map’s of Resonance Cascade, just some fighting against vorts and zombies.
#2) MADNESS : training level “hard” difficulty, with various challenges, run/hide/find weapons/fight back and kill enemies with a time limit, in the maps from Chosin Reservoir, chapter you’ll see later.
1) IMPOSSIBILITY DREAM : This is the eerie intro, strarting where Residual Point ended (see RP review), you wake up in Black Mesa dormitories, you can wander around in BM pre-catastrophe but no custom sequences or voice overs.
2) BLACK MESA INBOUND : This is the classic tram sequence, as usual, redone to fit with the Lambda Reactor Coolant system theme (it was Biodome theme in RP).
3) ROUTINE WORK : The Resonance Cascade occurs as you work at the Lambda’s Reactor Coolant System. This is where you find the first secret “LOST BATTERY”, Get the 2 batteries after getting your cleansuit.
4) STATE OF EMERGENCY : you’re rescued (by CPR!), escape this mess, find weapons and allies. Second secret “DEMON SLAYER” : kill the reskinned headcrab in that hard to reach vent.
5) LEGAL DEFENSE : HECU’s arrival, this is the “We’ve got hostiles” rip-off. Third secret “Circle of death” : find 2 circles drawn on walls, Fourth secret “Chaotic Butcher” : you have to clear 2 sand fields of their headcrabs, it can be long, take a Barney with you, helps a lot.
And now for the “fun” : THE FIRST 2 PURPLE CELLS : You have to go back to the previous level!! because we need to find the purple cells, here 2 out of 5, needed to go to the hidden true final boss, at the very end of the mod.You can find also the very first laptop near the second purple cell explaining a bit the background of the story.
[5bis) ONE IS ALL, ALL IN ONE! : bonus level in some sewers. Last secret “Dark Golden Energy” is a Grav Gun. The door leading to it will be locked if you don’t play on hard, or if you didn’t get the “chaotic butcher” secret. DGE secret is not only the last secret but also, later, the only way to “Chosin Resevoir” bonus level for the 3rd purple cell]
6) GROUND ZERO : Lambda Reactor-like level with various teleports to activate. If you get all secrets, this leads you to the bonus level, if not, you go straight to No way Out.
7) BETWEEN WORLDS AND CHAOS : Xen level, bonus level with no enemies, but with ammo and health.
8) NO WAY OUT : Surface Tension/On a Rail mix level with an intro where you have to escape 2 Gargs (like “Power Up”… Yes this time they focus more on a melting-pot of various classic HL1 concepts, rather than a cut/paste experience). You encounter also “Zgrunts”, enemies introduced in Residual Point wich are HECU experimented upon by Xenians, it’s better to tell their origins as the dev’ assume you have played RP before RL.
9) COUNTDOWN : Surface Tension 2, like RP, is full of Black Ops rather than classic HECU.
This ends with the place, where you have to choose between 2 paths, “Xen” or “Black Mesa”. No turning back from that point.
Road 1 “XEN” :
9a) COUNTDOWN, save the scientist, who opens a door, then go to the nuclear warhead.
10a) NUCLEAR PORTAL, melting-pot between real world and Xen world, maybe out of time and space… Did that nuke blow up in your face anyway?
11a) RUINS OF CHRONOS : Xen world but you can see sometimes, the ruins of an ancient and forgotten civilization.
12a) ASHES OF LAUTREC : Xen world, ending with a Citadel building taken over by Black Ops. This is the first glimpse of that Combine GoldSrc buildings you’ll get.
If you got the “Talisman” hidden in the level , it will open the way to the final boss.
If you don’t have it, then the “Heaven’s Door” will stay closed, no text will appear, and you are sent back to Road 2, level “Heart of Nightmare”
13a) ALTAR OF SACRIFICE : The Nihilanth/leader of the Xen forces in this mod is a black Boo. It works the same as the original, shooting lightning bolts and teleporters, which sends you to four elemental (Earth], Fire, Water and Air) places where you destroy each crystals.
In the end, you destroy the “talisman system” whatever that means (maybe the same as the Nihilanth holding the giant portal leading to Earth?)
Road 2 “BLACK MESA”
9b) THE PATH TO ROAD 2, jump in the lower canal.
10b) CHAOTIC BLUE, bonus level, the fire door will be locked unless you got all previous secrets (Lost Battery… to Dark Golden Energy).
If you manage to free the scientists, they will open various rooms, one with both Tau Cannon and Gluon Gun,
and other stuff linked to the influences of this mod (“Sensorama” from Laidlaw’s GADGET, etc…).
In the end, you can shut down an energy transmitter connected to a mysterious black sphere in another dimension that you’ll meet again at the very end of the mod.
11b) ASHES TO ASHES, DUST TO DUST : Maze-like level full of tunnels, reservoirs, and battles against Black Ops and Xenians.
you discover here the main purpose of this road, stop the crystal harvesting of that giant crystal (you see its “head” here),
it is a “Xenium” crystal, based on Laidlaw’s book GADGET and THIRD FORCE, an endless power source with time- and space-bending properties.
It has only been revealed some days ago that this big crystal is supposed to be part of an ancient alien ship that crashed on Earth thousand years ago (a common SF plot).
12b) HEART OF NIGHTMARE : More battles around the “core” part of the crystal, the “nightmare” is due to powerfuls and countless enemies,
Bigger and faster-shooting Vorts, Cloaked sniper-wielding Black Ops, and Zgrunts.
In previous versions,, Gman was in the elevator with the nuclear warhead, then it was the warhead only, now it is empty.
13b) CENTER OF ALL THINGS : Final part inside Black Mesa at the “bottom” part of the crystal. In previous versions you just had to run to the warhead and it was the end.
Final Gman’s sighting at @02:05:05, with a GoldSrc Combine Hunter.
I choose to do a “maverick” way, going as fast as you can to the big door, and let Xenians and Black Ops kill each other.
This is also the “final” level if you don’t play on “hard” and/or have the 2 purple cells, you go to the outro.
Otherwise, you go to the true final level,
14b) THE SUN EATER’S PILLAR : The topside of the crystal’s harvesting is connected to some mystic energy device in a Citadel-like building.
This level is bigger than anything else in the whole mod and is full of ridiculous battles where you face countless waves of enemies (Of course, it’s their homeworld…).
15b) CHOSIN RESERVOIR : Bonus level in 1950’s Korea war setting. Listen carefully : when you go to that giant structure,
DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING. Go to the little plot in front of the giant door, and if you have Dark Golden Energy secret, you will automatically place the G-gun. The blue crystal sphere will shoot a teleporter to that level.
The THIRD PURPLE CELL is at the very end, and then you go back to the level’s beginning and then to :
16b) THE SUN EATER’S PILLAR (part 2) : Countless painful battles. There are impressive lightning bridges and an annoying unending alarm.
Being a big Xen factory, there are some cells/incubators? for various Xen creatures, rail tracks for alien trains, storage for Manta Rays.
Various laptops attempting to expand the plot.
The FOURTH PURPLE CELL is at “map rl02u3u”, I shot my way in and out with Hornet Gun and music, if you don’t play on hard or didn’t get chaotic butcher, once again the door leading to it will be locked.
This is where it goes completly nuts as the dev assume you can just shoot for hours endless hornet bullets but this is just boring as hell, well, fortunately this is the single part where you have to play like that.
This culminates in a long battle against Black Ops soldiers, tanks, Apaches, air strikes.
FIFTH (and final) PURPLE CELL is in the control room, just before the ending… But then you have to go back.
17b) THE TINY DWARF : The boss’ door won’t open unless you have the 5 purple cells.
It is a mix between Full Metal Alchemist’s antagonist “Dwarf in the Flask” and the Demon Kings from Slayers.
He’ll send many enemies and shoot countless electric waves whenever he sees you, and sometimes, dozen of RPG rockets.
Final laptop is around, explaining about an ancient evil sealed.
The battle is of course incredibly difficult even with 2 healing showers and various weapons around : Run, strafe, hide, heal, shoot the crystals (crossbow is best).
After the bosss death,you meet again the black sphere from CHAOTIC BLUE, after the boss’ death.
Could be “Dark Golden”/”Lord of Nightmares” aka “God” in Slayers universe.
18b) THE SUN EATER’S PILLAR (finale) : even with their leader’s death (replaced by an artifical sun?), you still have to fight, and stop the pillar. The enemies spawn endlessly,
so just activate the plots quickly, hide, wait for the green screen, and run to the teleporter at the center.
The Black Ops send air strikes when the pillar is shut down.
This ends with Sora Kim placed in “spatial isolation”.
———-
19) IMPOSSIBILITY DREAM : Tram outro, empty nighty Black Mesa, you meet a curious Barney… makes you question if this was all real, a dream, or another reboot done by Gman, like Residual Point…. maybe for another story in another Residual mod?
20) CREDITS, feat. all the 500+ faithful followers on moddb.
21) EPILOGUE… Run your way to the spacecraft, set in the same maps from “Madness” and “Chosin Reservoir” in a 1950’s Korea War’s setting, by night… In the end, you find a spacecraft and escape…. maybe?
This was maybe the greatest, longest, hardest HL1/GoldSrc adventure ever made…. I think, it was worth the challenge…
This is dedication. The very soul of it. This is HL’s essence.
Manually
Hard
18 Hours
Hi, can anybody tell me if it is possible to play Residual Life in a No-Steam Half-Life? I use won Half Life version 1.1.1.0
Using Won 1.1.1.0 Missing several .spr/.mdl files.
I have mixed opinions about this one. I absolutely loved the beginning parts, liked the middle parts, and hated the ending parts. It has a really good level design and gameplay for 3/4th of the game but it falls apart at the last quarter.
It starts with the typical Half-Life fashion, you arriving at the facility with a tram ride and some time to explore a bit before continuing the main story. The scenery is beautiful and the facility feels very alive. Then the incident happens and you have to escape the facility while fighting the aliens, the HECU and Black Ops. The parts after that i won’t spoil because it honestly is worth experiencing for yourself.
But, i can’t recommend continuing after you reach Xen. The parts from Xen onwards feel like the developers didn’t know what to add anymore and just said “screw it, let’s just make it a joke mod” so they did. It suddenly loses the Half-Life themes and instead having weird themes that are so out of place in the Half-Life universe like ancient gods, satanic themes, and other themes i didn’t even bother to remember. The game also becomes ridiculously difficult (not “challenging” difficult, but “unfair” difficult). Suddenly there are invisible black ops unit with sniper rifles? Rooms filled with dozens of turrets, rocket launchers and mounted guns? I didn’t even bother trying, turned on godmode and reluctantly continued forward.
Other things i hated about this mod are:
– HD models cannot be turned off
– Too often jumpscares the player by spawning multiple vortigaunts and houndeyes near the player. It was ok the first times it happened but it got old pretty fast and became extremely annoying later on. Also the vorts seem to be really buffed, they can survive a point blank double shotgun to the head and they shoot faster(?). Because of that, it’s very annoying to deal with multiple of them.
TL;DR: Play it until you reach Xen, then leave it. You’re done. The game’s finished.
Manually
Medium
2 Hours
Can anybody upload the very very latest version 2.05? And if possible the previous version 2.01?
And this is it.
RL 2.05 the ultimate final version of the mod is now available on RTSL.
It is basically the same as 1.9 but with difficulty toned town for the last levels,
And with the addition of « mini games » which are 1980s old games turned into short HL levels/challenges.
The main focus is now on Zombie Edition Residual Agent which is still WIP.
An excellent mod! Dilogy is passed in the same breath!
Manually
Medium
5 Hours
Residual Life is a mod that starts off really well and is absolutely something I would of recommended, however the mod loses its charm and descends into complete madness by the end.
Residual Life starts with some great Black Mesa environments but the setup is a bit strange with the HECU already being at Black Mesa. Of course things go wrong and you’re into the usual Half-Life gameplay but you begin realize something is off about the balance, I played this mod on medium difficulty but it gets absolutely ridiculous and down right unfair at times.
Ammunition and health is sparse, enemies have been buffed with even more powerful variants and this mod will constantly spawn enemies directly behind and in front of you. The shotgun was my most used weapon throughout this mod because it was the only weapon I actually had ammo for most of the time and it was garbage! The shotgun has been totally nerfed or something because it does crap damage and you will die reloading after double barrelling a single soldier three times. The enemy spam at times is just awful and I was often bunny hopping around the room in a desperate attempt to just find some ammo. Toward the end of the mod it goes full berserk mode and starts throwing invisible soldiers, trip mines, turrets and super accurate zombie soldiers at you, while its not impossible I had to use God mode at the very last section because doing it legitimately would have taken me forever.
The mods story and setting really goes out the window toward the end. Like I said before, the mod starts off really well but the Black Mesa design gets a bit weird toward the end with random artwork on the walls and a picture of Gabe Newell for some reason, it totally breaks the immersion. You really lose track of what your character is doing because you don’t seem to be interested in escaping. The ending is abrupt and I didn’t understand it. Overall the narrative is just not there despite the very promising beginning.
Another gripe I have with this mod is that every door gives you an “access granted” sound but most of them don’t open, this results in you going around pressing every button and waiting to see if the door will open. Also, almost all of the doors in this mod are not automatic and have a button to the side of them, these doors take a second or two to open and when you add it all up you actually spend a lot of time just waiting for doors to open…
This mod is not awful and there’s a lot of cool stuff here but I seriously recommend playing it on easy.
Manually
Medium
3 Hours, 30 Minutes
2.05 has been turned back to 1.9 as some people have seen.
The reason being some weird… NSFW stuff, “hidden” maybe, in 2.05 with GoldSrc nude woman doing weird animations…
Whatever, besides “bonus” stuff, there is no difference in RL’s 1.09 and 2.05’s main story/campaign/levels.
Can you upload the latest version 2.05 to another place, for example filehosting or torrent?
This mod feels like it could be an expansion pack developed by Gearbox. It uses a convincing level-design that makes you feel like you’re actually playing at Black-Mesa again. My one complaint about the mod is how hard it can be, even when it’s set to Easy or Normal.
I would say that this mod has a similar difficulty progression as the original Half-Life. However when I played this game on ‘Normal’ difficulty, I had a very difficult time progressing. At the end there is an epilogue that you can play through, but I was unable to complete it because you were faced against tough enemies without having any weapons. So if you decide to play this game for yourself, I would highly recommend playing this mod on Easy difficulty.
Manually
Medium
3 Hours, 30 Minutes
Just as difficult as Residual Point but much shorter.
Even better mapping and lots of different foes to fight.
You have to play it on Hard if you want to access all locked areas and finish the full mod.
Chosing route 1 to xen is much more convenient than route 2 because it’s much simpler in the early parts( tough still very difficult later).
Play it, i think it’s worth it.
Manually
Hard
3 Hours, 45 Minutes
Just as difficult as Residual Point but much shorter.
Even better mapping and lots of different foes to fight.
You have to play it on Hard if you want to access all locked areas and finish the full mod.
Chosing route 1 to xen is much more convenient than route 2 because it’s much simpler in the early parts( tough still very difficult later).
Play it, i think it’s worth it.
Manually
Hard
3 Hours, 45 Minutes
NO
Manually
Easy
99 Hours