This mod continues exactly where Hard left off – you on the tram and the track exploding!
Can you reach the spaceship?
Can you save humanity?
Only one way to find out!
Basic Details
- Title: Hard 2
- File Name: hl1-sp-hard-2.7z
- Original File Name: hard2.zip
- Size : 29.0Mb
- Author: W. Broisch
- Date Released: 01 Septemebr 2003
PlanetPhillip Download Servers
Installation Instructions
- Copy the Hard2 folder into your Half-Life folder.
- Restart or start Steam.
- HARD2 should now be listed in your library tab.
If you require more help, please visit the Help page.
Screenshots
Click on the thumbnails below to open a 1024 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
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Time Taken:
Average: 30 Hours
Shortest: 30 Hours by mx
Longest: 30 Hours by mx
Total Time Played: 30 Hours
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 1 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 30 Hours
Shortest: 30 Hours by mx
Longest: 30 Hours by mx
Total Time Played: 30 Hours
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I played it for a short while before quiting. Like the title suggests, its very hard 😉 That’s OK and I enjoyed it initially, however then a time limited objective which is unclear happens. And after being in a barrel processing room about 15 times when everything (including me) blows up, I made the wise decision to exit the game….
IMHO, its one of those “games” where the develop er missed the “point” of making it in the first place, and instead said “look at me, I can make a super difficult game and get you mad!”
So if you share the developer’s view in terms of what a game should be, then maybe you want to try it! Otherwise, I suggest you take a pass on this one.
Here’s my Five Words Or Less review:
Lengthy variety after initial head-scratching.
You got to read the texts: you need a code (two numbers in the office behind the picture, then read carefull the new text for the other two numbers: on the pipe…”
So you are in the barrel-room en there you enter this code and the door opens again and you can hide between the two doors
Like how the mod starts, let’s begin with the annoyances/irritants at the beginning. This includes, but is not limited to: an absolutely horrendous start (complete with crappy keypad functionality!), early triggers that require you to be at a certain spot (and if not, it’s noclip time), invisible barriers, maps that create draw distance problems, and waiting for NPCs to walk very slowly through a preset path to activate switches, and the ending is pretty meh.
There’s also some bizarre game design, like calling in air support… to blow up a door, and the aircraft that comes isn’t even human (it’s those alien fliers that look like sting rays). Yeah, weird.
Fortunately, and oddly enough, most of it is crammed at the beginning. However, once you get into the bulk of the mod, that’s where the fun starts. But like the name says, this mod is a hard one. So get ready for some extremely conservative playing.
There’s also a really fun little side-area that really stood out from the bland switch-finding majority of the mod. Well, you still have to find buttons/switches, but it’s set in a three-storied building, packed with love rooms, a theatre, and a disco room playing electropop… Very cool.
Oh yeah, not that I play these mods for story or anything, but the storyline from the first Hard is pretty much moot here, and it just gets pretty random at the end.
8/10, would’ve gotten higher, but the design inconsistencies and terrible start bog it down.
Although, I *do* wonder why there’s urinals in the women’s washroom =P
LOLOLOL
It’s really not that hard. But it’s very long. I would rate this mod somewhere between mediocre and good.
There are some really annoying graphical errors, that you normally only see in beginners” maps. They occur in the beginning, and somewhere just before the end. There’s an absolutely ridiculous overuse of ninja’s. Some parts are clearly recognizable copies of the original hl1, with a few modifications. e.g. the canyon climbing part. There’s no story at all. There’s no logical progress, you just go from one area, to the other, totally different and unconnected. Fighting and solving puzzles of the door-switch-scientist-keycard kind, mostly. None of them very hard, I didn’t get stuck once. You teleport, from outdoor area to labs to spaceship etc. Every few maps you get a big spider, gargantua or helicopter thrown your way. No challenge their, either. You usually have about 10 AR grenades and 5 rockets, and plenty of room to move around, or a safe position to attack from.
However, in between the boring parts, there are also some good parts. Nice architecture, interesting set-up. Or puzzles that have you looking for a while. This could have been a lot better, if the author had gone for quality instead of quantitiy. And if he’d tied it all together, to make some kind of logical story, or give it some kind of sense of progression. Maybe even at the expense of throwing large parts out. Even though it all works well, and is quite playable, you get the idea that the author just wanted to try out everything he could do with the editor, in totally random order.
You can definitely get bored at some times with this mod, despite a large number of areas that keep you entertained.
I just finished the game, it seemed I could only make it work without steem and without high definition pac.
I played it on the medium setting, caution in saving ammo and maintaining health was nessesary. I used noclip 3 times to get through doors that seemed to have no other way, or I guess I could have just run out of petiance to find the switch. It lasted a long time and was enjoyable and challenging. Recomended to play
I’m surprised at some of the negative reactions. I thought this mod was a delight – varied gameplay, plenty of sudden twists (you think you’re heading for an obvious destination, then it turns out that you’re actually going somewhere quite different), varied environments, tough but fair gameplay – it’s really good. The only negative I can see is the lack of a storyline, but that doesn’t bother me as much as it does some others. I receoomend this one highly and have no hesitation in giving it a “Play It Now”.
Following contains SPOILERS.
This mod certainly lives up to its name in parts, the beginning I found difficult and for me the mod did not start until the 3rd map (map Hard34). I guess the first map was not too bad one of those jumping sequences that at times works first go, which it did for me, only to try again for this review without succeeding. The second map again is jumping about and I know I completed it once but for the life of me could not do it again. Unless you are one of these players that love jumping puzzles you could give these first two levels a miss.
The next two levels 35 & 36 are the blue print for the rest of the mod which is a fine mixture of puzzle solving and hard combat. The puzzle routines take the form of multiply tasks to progress often doubling back to find the next open door, as such they can be a bit confusing but if I can manage them then I am sure most players will.
This is a very long mod I think 40 maps, and I needed to noclip about 5 times, three of these occasions where due to just getting frustrated with jump routines of which I don’t have much patience, the other occasion were two small map containing that Big Spider thing spitting little spider things, never did like the bloody thing. Anyway I could not find a way to beat and finish these two maps, not even doing Impulse 101 and throwing a whole arsenal at it, I guess I never followed the correct sequence to throw the right triggers.
There where times when I got stumped only to double back and find a door now opened, I was never sure whether this was due to unknowingly triggering something or just a case something not working first time.
We get a continuing change of surrounds with each map, not always big changes but enough to keep at bay those; I’ve seen this before, been here already, I am getting bored feeling. For set design, texture and incidental content the author does a fine job without ever reach any new heights in mapping and/or architecture. If my memory serves me right you get to engage every form of HL1 foe, with plenty of very hard encounters against tough and challenging deployed troops and aliens.
To sum-up, it’s hard, it’s long, it’s frustrating in parts but its worth the effort if you can get by the first few maps to were the game settles down to a familiar format of combat and puzzle sequences. If you like short sharp maps this is not for you, if you like a story with action and depth you may think twice about this, but if you don’t care about a story and enjoy battling against every thing HL1 can throw at you while at the same time puzzling over the way forward, then this is for you.
I found my system freezing after starting this custom game in Half-life 1.10, wine.
Again, I was torn. I didn’t particularly enjoy this because there were too many hidden doors and obscure puzzles.
Too much felt like it was taken from some UT deathmatch maps or at least some sort of MP design.
Even though it’s called HARD, that’s because of the character you play not its difficulty. That said it is very hard and as others have said I think it would have been better if it were easier.
The spaceship scenes are silly, but I suppose the author is showing us what he can do, which 8 years ago might have been cool, but not now.
There is so much potential to this mod and I would love to see some really experience modders re-cut this mod and make it what it could have been.
I can understand why some players would love this but not me.
The beginning is frustrating and that sets the tone for the rest of the mod. The tram jump is kinda cool but there’s no actual replay value in stuff like that.
A easier condensed version of this may have made a WOW for me, but not as it stands.
Be prepared for lots of ups and downs, because this mod will certainly supply them.
I had a much better time with this one than I did with the first instalment of HARD. Unfortunately, this mod still suffers from many of the same problems I encountered in the first one.
After the initial confusion about where I was supposed to go and story continuity errors (like where did the HEV suit go to), I thought that the various areas I was fighting and puzzling through seemed to be of a much higher quality. Most of the early maps appeared to be very detailed and felt a little more like Black Mesa than the previous instalment.
The only problem was that the levels slowly started to decline in quality and coherency. By the end, I had no idea what I had started out to do. If it wasn’t for the linearity of the level design I would have been very lost. In fact, I would say that this mod could have been completely separate from the first and it would still have made as much sense.
That being said, the level design was pretty good throughout so the individual levels were fun to play in, even if they didn’t make sense overall.
The combat through this one seemed much easier compared to the first one, simply because there were plenty of medkits and batteries around. Hard 2 still has the same type of enemy placements as the first one so caution and gratuitous use of the quicksave button are essential. There were also significantly less closet monsters and snark swarms, which I thought was excellent. However, it made up for that by having large numbers of insta-kill turrets and snipers positioned in such a way that I had to die multiple times before I worked out why I died. I think the turrets are good for a semi-boss engagement/puzzle but not around every second or third corner.
Most of the puzzles in this instalment seemed to be more straight forward but I think that may be because there was on-screen text to help guide me. I thought the hints were nice but if they were incorporated as part of the environment or story telling, I think it would have been much better. If anything it wouldn’t break the immersion so much.
I liked some of the puzzle solutions because they turned out to be extremely logical solutions. When I realised what I needed to do, I felt really stupid but it was fun at the same time.
I think this mod could been so much better if there was an end goal to work towards and it hadn’t dragged on for so long.
As it is, it’s pretty mediocre overall. I would only suggest this if you enjoy hard combat and don’t mind being temporarily frustrated by being lost and directionless.
As is the case with many recent mods in the 100 Days, this one needed to be edited down to get the filler material out. As it stands as Ripper put it above “between mediocre and good.” It’s certainly not bad and might be worth a play if you like longer packs with some puzzles and challenge.
This directly follows from the end of Hard, although for some reason you’ve lost all your weapons and the HEV which you won’t get back for several maps. Although at the end of Hard I actually jumped out of the train before it fell, oh well.
This is a sprawling mod with some sprawling locations – although it suffers from the same frequent hall-of-mirrors problems as its predecessor when you’re looking over a large distance. Though it’s more of a distraction than a problem as it was in Hard when you fought an Apache that was hidden by the HOM.
There are tons of combat (many tough situations) in Hard 2, but thankfully for the most part you’re armed to the teeth with all Half-Life weapons for much of the time and a load of contact grenades. There was one part where you literally climb a ladder and then all your weapons get taken away with no explanation other than “Shit, you lost all your weapons!” Talk about a goddamn cheap shot.
There are also tons of puzzles. There are only a handful of actual jumping puzzles but some are tough. Most of the puzzles are typical Half-Life, like hit a button to open a door, or get Barney to open a door for you. The author has provided on-screen text hints and tips that will help you throughout and I didn’t find any of the puzzles terribly frustrating, although some are painfully artificial (such as the “find 3 hidden buttons in this building” bit).
If you liked Hard, you’ll like this since it was better and longer than the first. It sports a big variety of locations (generally looking nothing like Black Mesa, with the notable and inexplicable exception of having a nearly exact copy of the cliff from Surface Tension included). Overall I found it solid but not terribly fun, and it was awfully long (although fairly action-packed).
Continuation of Hard adventures of Jeffrey Hard. We start on the mountain slope. It is day, but the author broke the laws of physics and made it dark, to make it hard. The result is more annoying than hard.
Like in Hard 1, hidden secrets reveal themselves. Hiding Barneys and Snarks return too. It’s cool, but the design is the same cubism, albeit the rooms are filled with interesting props. Sometimes the distances are too long in outdoor areas.
The cliff section is as breathtaking as the one in original Half-Life, because it’s a modified version of that section. There is an original puzzle where you have to find a way to make a high jump.
After that section the design gets better. The canal looks good, but it’s possible to see that there’s nothing under the mountains behind the fence, which breaks the immersion. Then, the design becomes mixed. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not.
The pleasing music in the disco reminded me of Vlokam music. When you’ll be there, try to have as much health and energy as possible, because soon there will be place where you’ll have to do a grenade-jump in order to advance.
The puzzles are the same – you need to use or break something. But finding things to use/break is much harder.
Eventually, the mod becomes completely different. We just go through some towns and fight with crowds of soldiers and ninjas. It lasts too long. To aid us in hard battles, we are given the Gauss Gun and Alien Grunt’s Hand. Sometimes the situation makes us find a way to efficiently use them, and that’s great.
There is no story development, and the locations often have no ambient sounds. The variety of locations is bigger than in the first part. We’ll even go outside of Black Mesa. It’s still doesn’t feel like Black Mesa. At some points the author manages to capture its atmosphere, though.
The disappearance of weapons is not explained by the story.
Black Mesa in Hard 1 was a nonsense. Here, the spaceship battles and alien planet are cool, but I think that they and those towns made the Black Mesa even more nonsensical.
Finally, this 40-map long mod is now behind me. “feel all right” – urges the Disco song. Well, I stopped feeling all right sometime after that Disco, because the protraction made me bored and I was impatiently waiting for it to end. As Phillip said, the mod has potential, and it would be nice to see a shorter and more captivating version of it. You might enjoy it more than I did if you play it in many short sittings and don’t expect Black Mesa.
But I don’t regret playing it, because I heard pleasant music 🙂
I didn’t ever have to grenade jump to advance. If you can remember where you’re talking about I can take a look (might have been a longjump?). If you don’t want to bother with this mod anymore than I totally understand and won’t blame you. 🙂
When I used the switches in the theatre, the house near the building with Disco and theatre became accessible. I entered that house, there I had to get to the top floor. Inside it seemed that there’s no top floor, but the top floor is seen from the outside. So I noticed that one ceiling tile in the corner is rusty. I broke it and there was a ladder, but it was under the top floor’s ceiling, so it was out of my reach. I put the chair in the corner, but it was still not enough to get there, so I had to drop a contact grenade under my feet. I had low health and energy, so the jump took many tries.
Well I don’t know what I ended up doing (likely a button) but that ladder should lower down for you at some point, so you could climb right up.
I said Hard 2 worth the effort, and is it because I have no troubles on this mod, and it looks that the developer put many of his work here, and some mapps didn’t feel in a progressive line due to the textures or the environmental feeling, there are 40 maps so it’s a long mod, but it has some cool battles on it, and I liked the like-counter strike mp, maps, the puzzlews were ok but aggain I feel that the author charge many wight on them, instead of trying to polish a little bit more the whole mod.
In few words I liked this one, and the end lines of let’s wait for HL2 were soo nostalgic to me!, and make me wonder how the time goes fast!!
And yet another I’ve come back to when I can be bothered to!
I can only hark back to my review of the first part as most of what I said was the same for this one as well. In some ways this could have preceded part one as some areas were a clear rip-off of HL, which would suggest the author was scratching his head to come up with inspiration.
Most parts if they were standalone had elements that were fun but the length of this mod made it difficult to remember which parts were indeed fun as it went on for far too long. The screen shots promised so much but the game as a whole delivered little of that promise. It was fun at first but became tedious very quickly. This is yet another mod that could have been so much better but wasn’t. I won’t say avoid it, but if it weren’t part of the 100 I would not have returned to this.
This is a very uneven mod.It feels like a bunch of random maps put together to make it.Now the combat was decent and you had some pretty weird locations like a Star Wars level and a area that’s a exact replica of a area in Todesangst 2.The mod does have some puzzles to take a break from the action.Play this one if your bored.
An improvement
How do I get help from the scientist in screenshot #106?
Did noclip to the teleporter in screen #107 and game always crashed…
In fact there are few maps more between you and this teleporter. You should read on-screen instruction carefully when you see this scientist at the first time. It says that you should return to the entrance on surface (this door will open on a previous map after you are turn on a power in laboratories).
I don’t like Hard 2 and prefer a first part instead. In my opinion, Hard 2 is very boring and has a worse level design than Hard. Also there is no feeling of story at all, just a big bunch of illogically combined and low-detailed maps. Puzzles are also boring in a most part, and sometimes you can easily get stuck if you don’t read on-screen instruction which is displayed for a short time on a screen. Enemies” placement is weird – looks like aliens and soldiers are joining together against you – so close they are placed on maps to each other (and same time there are no any place where they are fighting against each other, as I can remember).
Very long and interesting mod with many original idea. Comparable to Blue Shift (but ok, not to Opposing Force).
Manually
Hard
30 Hours
I have removed the recommendation image because the review is not long and detailed enough for such a long mod.
Are sure you played for 30 hours?
Like the first, it’s a series of challenging maps that do not tie into any Half-Life storyline. This one was significantly tougher than the first. Some of the puzzles were cryptic or mazelike, and I got pretty tired of finding a new door just to hear “Sorr-EE, this door is…not…functioning.” Also, similar to the first, the snark spamming was obnoxious. Aside from those things, this mod is very good for a combat challenge, if that’s what you’re looking for.
Very difficult and sometimes frustrating, but that kept me playing. Better than the first part.