Freeman’s Return 2

for Half-Life

2nd November 2014

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Just when you thought it was safe to go back to Xen…

Suddenly you find yourself on Xen again. Worry not though, as after you solve a simple puzzle you will be returned to Earth.

The trouble is, that’s when your problems really start.

Basic Details
  • Title: freeman’s Return 2
  • File Name: hl1-sp-freemans-return-2.7z
  • Size : 848KB
  • Author: Jiøí Polcar
  • Date Released: 22 April 2004
MapTap Users

Download directly into MapTap [848KB]

You MUST have MapTap installed before using this link.

Download Options

Download to your HDD [848KB]

You can still use it with MapTap once you have downloaded it.

Manual Installation Instructions
  • Copy the fr2 folder into your Half-Life folder.
  • Restart or start Steam.
  • freeman’s Return 2 should now be listed in your Library tab.

If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.

Videos

The playthrough/walkthrough below is provided by PlanetPhillip. See more of my playthroughs on this site: VP: PlanetPhillip.

Screenshots

Click on the tabs below to select the size of screenshot you would like.
All sizes are the same screenshots, just in different resolutions.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
Sorry, the order of the screenshots got a little mixed up.

1024 x 576

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

1366 x 768

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

1600 x 900

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Reader Recommendations
Avoid It!
Think Twice
Maybe
Play It Later
Play It Now!
5 recommendations, average score: 2.4 (out of 5), standard deviation: 2.24 (what's that?)
Total Downloads
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Meta Review Data
Statistics based on 6 comment(s) with meta review data.

Installed:
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 4 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 41 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 30 Mins by 4erep
Longest: 0 Hours, 55 Mins by PlanetPhillip
Total Time Played: 4 Hours, 5 Mins
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Half-Life HL-Mods Play
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Jump to a review
Phillip says Play It!Avoid It!Avoid It!Think TwiceMaybe?

9 Comments

  1. PlanetPhillip
    Phillip says Play It!

    Well, as I finished the video I said I would probably give this a MAYBE Recommendation. I changed my mind.

    Besides the one section that requires you to have more health than I had (I had to cheat) this was a lot of fun to play.

    Yes, many of the areas are quite bland and often there are too many enemies, but the fact is that I did enjoy playing it.

    Amazing really, as this is over ten years old, so there is still a lot of fun to be had from good old HL!

    Installed:
    Using Gauge
    Difficulty Played At:
    Easy
    Playtime:
    55 Minutes
    Reply
  2. dougjp

    Is it normal to have, in MapTap, all the bsp files showing and no folder? This applies to both downloads (FR1 and FR2).

    Reply
  3. Zekiran
    Avoid It!

    I don’t give very many Avoid It reviews, but this mod is absolutely the worst I’ve ever tried to play.

    Not because it had errors (which it did) and glitches aplenty (which it definitely did), and not just because most of it was the same crappy pitch black narrow corridors filled with too many monsters.

    But because this mod can be summed up in one statement that hopefully a few of you will get.

    “Vindictive Game Master Syndrome”

    It felt for all the world like the mod maker was attempting to throw every single thing in the book against the player, *for no reason other than they could*. That’s not a fun thing for anyone playing.

    Everything about this mod, from the very start with the glitchy and poorly executed ‘puzzle’ to get in the rest of the maps, to the quantity of enemies in places where they cannot be reached, to the lack of any ammunition or even any weapons from the very start of the game, to the changes in hit chance and damage even on EASY mode…

    The maps … were poor. Blocky to say the least but also nonsensical and badly lit. Like the prior installation, the maps were basically mousetrap-game level traps the entire way through. The lighting was awful, and the flashlight does zero to help that. I was tempted to try using a fullbright command but I don’t even know that works in hl1.

    I noclipped my way through portions of this, and had god mode on from the first portion of the attack map.

    How do you reach some of the vents you’re supposed to crawl through? Why would I ever want to do so, why would I need or want to approach certain portions of the map *at all*? Were there weapons? Were there key cards or buttons to push? I notice in several places in Phillip’s video that he has opened a gate or gotten a weapon that I never found. Hell, I would never have found the *crowbar* if not for the video. I ran past those barrels twice (dying) before watching the play through.

    The gate at the end of that “daylight” area never opened for me, there was nothing to push, there were no tripmines or satchel charges that I could find anywhere (and had blown myself up at least twice when crowbaring my way through crates earlier, because, dark).

    So… something about this mod was either really badly broken, or … no, no, I’m gonna say this mod is just crap. For the folks who liked playing Half Life 1 on hard because they liked dying a lot, this is certainly a mod to try. But for anyone who wants something more than an endless parade of being killed just before you can open a door or duck away, avoid it entirely. It’s not worth installing. It and its prior installment will be removed from my drive as soon as I’m done writing this.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Easy
    Playtime:
    45 Minutes
    Reply
  4. Hec

    “fr2” folder is not available in the zip file…. neither “fr” in the previous mod, I had to use maptap.

    Reply
    1. Zekiran

      You CAN just … make the folder, as I suggested in another comment about this. It works fine when you manually create the folder where it’s supposed to be. But yeah – it should be in the zip file, and isn’t.

      Reply
  5. dougjp
    Avoid It!

    Much worse than the first version. Saves don’t even save. “Save” yourself the aggravation and don’t bother with this one.

    Installed:
    Using Gauge
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    40 Minutes
    Reply
  6. Hec
    Think Twice

    Geesh! I don’t know why I actually believe 2nd part was going to be better than the first one, but here it seems the author did the same mistakes of the first mod. Again, this is boxy, the enemies are a mess and even worse, in here we actually don’t have decent weapon supplies, in fact I guess this mod is really hard only with the crowbar, and indeed you only find the M16, the Magnum a Shotgun and a glock!!!

    Really crazy, then the whole logic of the maps is weird and the whole thing feels pretty lonely once you kill everything it moves.

    I also had to use noclip as some puzzles were no sense, and god many times, so the whole gameplay is bad.

    Yeah, that’s it, play this if you like to shoot everything it moves in HL in bland and some kind lousy maps.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    35 Minutes
    Reply
  7. 4erep

    It’s better than Freeman’s Return 1, but I don’t enjoyed by this mod.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    30 Minutes
    Reply
  8. DeadCamper
    Maybe?

    Coming in extremely late to the party again. I tried both 1 and 2 recently, and honestly this one made me much happier than the previous one. Visually, it looks nicer and it feels like there’s a coherent theme between the first and second one, though much clearer in the second installment.

    What I’m going to say is probably over-analyzing and wildly guessing the modder’s original intent, but I’m going with it because it paints the mod in the brightest light, I think:

    Both of these mods are the story between Half-life 1 and 2. This is a story of how Gordon Freeman tries to escape stasis, and how the G-Man punishes him and ultimately convinces Gordon to come back to stasis in Xen.

    The element is much clearer in the end of this mod than in the first one, but is explained in the single line “Time to Choose…”; in reality, there is no choice presented, Gordon is bombarded with enemies until he leaves (returns to Xen).

    I feel as though the intent of this mod was to give the player a nearly impossible challenge, giving him something that is similar to the “battle you have no chance of winning” that the G-Man threatened at the end of HL1. This doesn’t translate well in terms of player enjoyment of the mod, and I’m not actually praising the mod for this, I feel it’s bad for gameplay.

    But this mod did have something that the original did not. It had a variety of enemies (instead of the same grunts unendingly), and almost gave the player the space and time to think and plan their way through each encounter. I say almost because I later on reached a point where the game felt impossible and I wanted to stop playing, so I used god mode and essentially gave up.

    I tend to think of this mod as something like Dark Souls, or like the Action Doom mod, or like Puppy Life (if anyone played that). The player is given an insultingly low amount of health or given an excessively difficult enemy to battle, but the pacing is made such that the player can prevail by virtue of the game mechanics being such a way that the player can avoid damage entirely, damage the enemy instead, and eventually fatigue the enemy. It works in this mod in some places.

    Eventually however, this style falls apart as corridors become cramped, ammo is provided in extremely low amounts, and there’s no safe way to encounter enemies via melee. Where the first mod suffered because of a sheer lack of health, this one suffers from a lack of ammo. Scrounging and searching for ammo doesn’t help you here; there’s nowhere to search most of the time.

    I’m not sure if this is what the mod author intended, and it may be a decade too late to ask, but despite not really succeeding, an attempt was made at introducing challenge to Half-life, which is very admirable.

    This mod also has two very well put together puzzles, both which I feel are very original and not something you’d think of often.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    40 Minutes
    Reply

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