Mankind found an entrance to XEN world. an investigation team met with the uncanny alien in that place. Then, mankind succeeded in becoming a friend with them. After that, a scientist team built a joint laboratory in the world of XEN. But, something bad there was approaching…
This was September 2021’s Classic of the Month mod.
- Title: Peaces like Us
- File Name: hl1-sp-peaces-like-us.7z
- Original File Name: wca_hl.zip
- Size : 5.32MB
- Author: Koumei Satou
- Date Released: 19 April 2000
- Extract the wca_hl folder into either your \SteamApps\[username]\half-life or \SteamApps\common\half-life folder (whichever is relevant to your particular Steam installation).
- Restart or start Steam.
- PEACES LIKE US should now be listed in your Library tab.
If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.
A walkthrough for this mod is available. It is in PDF format. You may be able to open this directly in your browser, depending on which one you use and its version or alternatively you can download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader
- Peaces Like Us Walkthrough PDF (611Kb)
The playthrough below is part of the Classic of the Month Event, run by Don AKA Unq.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
Please note: These statistics are valid from December 2010
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7,115Overall
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2Today
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11Last 7 days
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44Last 30 days
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343365 days
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 8 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 2 Hours, 10 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 50 Mins by ê’Œ Ð ΔТΔÐ Σ 14 ê’Œ
Longest: 4 Hours by Martina
Total Time Played: 17 Hours, 20 Mins
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This is my favourite Half Life mod.
Rating: 5/5
Good: Fun story; Xenizens are friends; decent length.
Bad: No new models; textures are old; lacks new concept.
Review:
Peaces Like Us is by one of the same people who brought you Sweet Half-Life, KS. The story is that after the fall of Black Mesa, mankind and Xen became friends. Thus, there is no hostility between the two races. So who do you fight? The Marines! They’ve come to Xen with a vengeance and are out to kill you, your fellow scientists, and the flora and fauna of Xen. Suit up Gordon, you’re going to take a bruising.
I’ll start with the story, since I liked it. I’m not a huge fan of duking it out with aliens, so fighting only Marines was a nice change. It was also really cool seeing how the Xen creatures acted without hostility toward you. I mean, we’re all very familiar with the alien slave’s green bolts of electricity, but did you know they can also operate computer terminals? Or the friendly Big Momma. She can destroy crates that are in your way. But I digress. Another thing I liked about Peaces Like Us was the length. It’s not as long as some of the others, but its long enough to net you a couple hours worth of playtime. You can only pack in so much gameplay into an 8MB package. The maps are constructed well, and there certainly is a variety of maps for you to explore. Inside a building, it seems like you’re on earth, but take one look out the window and you’ll realize the environment outside is not one to venture to without an HEV suit. Later in the game you will run into some maps that could make you sick. I’ll just say things are spinning and get to be upside down before you know it.
While Peaces Like Us is constructed well, has a good story, and is a blast to play, it lacks some originality. How many mods are there where you are Gordon Freeman, and have to kill everything in order to save yourself and your colleagues. The only different thing about Peaces Like Us is that Xen is friendly. Not that it isn’t fun, but Night at the Office was a great mod that took a different approach. That said, there aren’t any new weapon models or enemies for you to fight either, and the textures used in the mod are pretty dated. I’m pretty sure they are from 1998 when Half-Life came out.
Like Sweet Half-Life, Peaces Like Us was built for the non-Steam version of Half-Life, however, creating a folder called “wca_hl” (its in the readme…I didn’t name it) under the \half-life\ folder in the Steam directory, and unzipping the contents into it, will allow you to play Peaces Like Us on Steam.
In the end, if you’ve played all the other Half-Life 1 mods, and want some more, I say download Peaces of Us. You’ll have a good time.
I don’t think the story is after the Black Mesa Accident, I think it is a completely different story.
The only thing I liked about this mod is the Gargantua helping gordon.
probably the best mod ever!
Another great mod… one of my personal favorites, in fact. This one is built on the premise that you immediately established peaceable relations with the Xenizens after the resonance cascade. Excellent and innovative mapping and gameplay abound in this mod… many areas feature hybrid Xeno-Human technology that’s very interesting to look at. The areas in which Xenizens actually actively help you or fight alongside you are well-done, but are too few and far-between… I would have liked to have seen many more. There are very few parts of this mod that I would actually consider “bad.” One of them is a pump station in which you have to complete a jumping-type puzzle that seems more suited to a Super Mario Brothers game. Another is the transition into the “Anotherworld” chapter. While the chapter itself was very interesting, I felt that the transition into it was fairly jarring… in addition, the level itself was obviously not as serious as the rest of the mod, which seemed fairly out of place. Overall, Peaces is a very satisfying gameplay experience. And if you like it, go check out its spiritual predecessor, Half-Life 2’s “Mistake of Pythagoras.”
Pardon, that’s “spiritual sequel.”
😛
niiiiice mod!
played this agian,been a few months or more, this mod ROCKS! creative,fun,good story & puzzles.like to get this in a HL2 version.
Right on, dude!
P.S: This mod needs a Xen crystal as a main energy source for the lab! Why don’t we make OUR own sequels? I’d like them to be for HL1.
Great mod I had a blast with it, fun as hell XD
Very fun and interesting mod with a set of the really original ideas. One of the best for HL.
This is a weird classic. I never liked it that much and it’s hard to describe.
The beginning is quite interesting and cool as the Xen aliens are your friends!
Mankind built a joint lab on Xen as suddenly soldiers invade it…
There are many things I like, but also many things I dislike, so it’s a “maybe?” recommendation.
As I wrote I cannot describe the mod decently, I’ll just post the pro’s & con’s, sorry! It’s also wasn’t really fun to me, except for the start…
Pro’s:
-Very good leveldesign, architecture and lighting – also some neat, unique ideas
-Challenging, tough combat
-Some very nice scripts, also some nice cutscenes, occasional music
-Good balancing in combat
-Interesting story (for the start)
-Some good puzzles
-No bugs
Con’s:
-Many confusing design oddities and placement of enemies, buttons etc. etc.
-Some ridiculous and/or annoying design flaws
-Story gets boring and pointless quick
-Weird atmosphere later in the game
-No hints what to do, or even why do something!?
Playtime: ~1 hour
Those of you who came to Half-Life fresh from the SPQ2 scene may well be familiar with a previous Q2 effort from KS, Weird Comic Art 2. This new release is subtitled Weird Comic Art for Half-Life and does have some of the same spirit as its predecessor: things do get pretty strange at times.
Here, however, the good news is that it’s all good. Weird Comic Art 2, for Quake II, was a very odd beast and I can’t say I enjoyed it much; nor did Jiang, as illustrated by his less than glowing review. KS has had a long time to polish his art inbetween, of course, and the results are quite something to behold here.
One of Peaces Like Us’ major strengths is its completeness: like a good story, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end, each of which is individually very strong. The introduction sets the scene perfectly, effectively capturing the kind of environment suggested by the background story. The ending, too, is extremely well-conceived, and I’m quite sure it’s one of the best I’ve seen for any FPS.
The middle, filled with much of the combat you’d expect, holds up very well too. A quite novel twist is that the aliens are your friends, apart from one departure to another dimension in the latter stages. Dave Waters attempted a similar idea in Mission of Mercy and though those levels were good, it probably works better here, mainly because of the way KS has planned out the maps. It’s not possible, for example, to force aliens to fight grunts without attacking the player as well, and this was a problem for Dave; this author, however, has made some very clever use of scripted sequences and has otherwise set up the maps so that you’re always convinced the aliens are on your side against the marines.
This level of creativity is maintained throughout the level set and that’s another one of its many qualities. Weird Comic Art 2 for Quake II had a lot of imagination but KS didn’t have the mapping skills to back that up. Here the ideas are more disciplined and he’s developed many of the necessary abilities to do his creations justice. There’s about a million different elements in these maps that you won’t have seen before and it always had that kind of offbeat Japanese feel to it that is common to much material translated from their culture. It’s quite frustrating to try and write this review without listing some of the things you’ll encounter in this chapter because illustrating the novelty of some of this stuff is very difficult otherwise; you’ll simply have to take my word for it.
This really is an exceptional piece of work and I don’t hesitate in recommending it for a moment. I thought that it had many things in common with one of Neil Manke’s releases, at least in a fairly abstract sense, and was certainly as much fun to play through. I really couldn’t think of a better antidote to the endless parade of Half-Life gruntfests.
Notes
This review is republished here by permission and was originally published Friday, 5th May, 2000 by Morgan.
This review was originally posted on the Ten Four Website, which is now offline. Permission has been granted to republish the full review and more details can be found on the About page.
awesome game, really nice posters now and again. I’d like to play a HL game with Georgia Freewoman sometime…;) Also some nice riddles and difficult jumpng around on moving parts.
Thanks makers!
Manually
Medium
4 Hours
This mod is fun, creative, and just the right length for what it’s about. This is another mod I’ve known of for years but only just played recently. I feel like it runs its course before it starts dragging, and the whole dynamic of humans and Xen creatures working together just makes me smile.
One concern I had going in was that simply fighting soldiers alongside the aliens would get old after a while, but thankfully they offer an interlude at one point that gives you a bit of a break (in a rather trippy fashion). I feel like the challenge level was just right, and there was a perfect amount of enemies and obstacles throughout the various maps.
My only real gripe is I feel some of the areas felt rather uninspired or amateurish in how they were put together. However, some of the more impressive structures definitely outweigh the bad ones.
If you’re looking for a change of pace or are just a xeno lover, than I say go ahead and play this mod!
Manually
Medium
4 Hours
That’s a nice mod, with a lot of jumping puzzles, but surprisingly they weren’t all that hard or annoying to me. Mapping seems to get worse after the ‘weird’ part, and overall it’s pretty short.
I’m not really a fan of HD models, nor anime stuff, but otherwise I had fun playing it.
Manually
Medium
2 Hours
I loved this episode! So much that I just had to say again what Morgan already has: Pieces Like Us rocks!
But it’s not all good. However, the unique style just engrossed me so much that the overriding feeling after I finished was that I just played a very good add on. The more I get to know Japanese culture the more I see how cool it is (exceptions are the brief kiddy sensation, Sailor Moon and the hopefully soon ending Pokemon craze); I discovered The Powerpuff Girls just a couple of weeks ago and now I watch every single episode on I see on TV, it’s just too offbeat not to laugh uproariously over. Like this offbeat addon, as Morgan described, I recommend the show to anyone who is open to new experiences.
But enough raving about a TV show. Where I felt Pieces of Us is flawed is the ending. It is a tremendously cool novelty by itself, but I all of a sudden I was teleported to the radical new theme, I was like, “what the fuh?” It just completely severed any previous notions of how I felt this episode would’ve and should’ve ended. I also absolutely abhored the rotating rooms. Another complaint is the fights; I felt they were a bit too overwhelming and I died once at practically every single fight. Fortunately, there is just enough health and ammo and Pieces Like Us is beatable on the hard skill if you are very careful because K.S. has some devilish surprises in store.
Despite the beef I hold against some of the areas in Pieces Like Us, this addon is simply amazing as a whole. I never found the secret the author hints at in the text file and I most likely will come back to this just to find it. Oh, and before I forget… Finally, Pieces Like Us confirms the fact that houndeyes are just too damn cute to be the badguys!
Notes
This second opinion review is republished here by permission and was originally published Saturday, 14th October, 2000 by Jiang.
This review was originally posted on the Ten Four Website, which is now offline. Permission has been granted to republish the full review and more details can be found on the About page.
This mod is alternative Half-Life story. What would happen if Xen Aliens and Humans were in good relationship from start? This mod has an answer to that question! Mod is good , but there are 4 things that bother me (one of them is not related to mod itself): First is that Military had no reason to attack , Second is that this mod should be longer , Third is that i can’t use E option (they can’t follow me or help me) on some of NPCs (Scientists and Aliens). Fourth , not mod related , is that this mod is NOT MUST PLAY and SHOULDN’T BE IN HALL OF FAME!!! There are better mods that aren’t in Hall of Fame. One weird thing is Anime Girls in Another World part. Why Creators put Anime Girls images in Another World part? Maybe it is because this mod creators also made Sweet Half-Life (Half-Life in Anime Style). CONCLUSION: This mod is good , not bad , but not best and because that you should “Play it Later”.
Manually
Medium
50 Minutes
Peaces Like Us takes place in a universe where Xenians and Black Mesa cooperate with each other. This is lovely since I can freely hug Houndeyes and befriending Gargantuars, but then again, the mod still needs some enemies to fill up the gap left by the aliens. The Marines and Assassins are the true villains of this mod, although their intentions are pretty vague, I just know that they follow orders from Gman. They do make the combat fun though, surprisingly since there is now only one kind of enemy for the players.
I feel like the friendly Xenians are used more though, most of the time they are either not attacking or just used for scripted sequences. It would have been awesome to see them fighting alongside you since you just do all the fighting work.
Some set pieces in this mod have some problems, such as when you get a crowbar and a Marine walk out of a closet. You’re supposed to avoid him, rather than clubbing him to death. Another time is when you have to avoid an Apache in a chasm, you’re supposed to use the RPG to destroy it, but it blows itself up because it randomly shoots rockets at walls. Some puzzles are too cryptic, although most of these puzzles are in a dimension you soon get teleported to in the mod. Such as the weird contraption that the mod never tells it’s drivable or when you have to lower the wall and to get to the switch, you must shoot the target on the poster.
The mod’s HUD is a problem since your health, armor, and ammo are all in Chinese characters, which can be infuriating to people who do not know it. There is also a picture of an anime girl there on the screen, for some reason.
With those being said though, Peaces Like Us is still a short, fun experience. It still has some fun combats to even out the flaws stated above. It puts a spin on this friendly enemy concept and it was pulled off nicely.
Manually
Medium
2 Hours, 30 Minutes
just finished a replay of this and what a blast!! keeping this installed for a winter play .good puzzles and agility testing.
Creative mod! I love the concept that Xen creatures are my friends. The scenes such as Gargantua pushes the crates or Vortigaunts open the doors for me are impressive. The 2nd part (another world & ghost creatures) is a little bit tough but fun. I especially like the sexy anime pictures in that part. The ending scene fits nice to the mod. Awesome mod!
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
I love the story of friendship with our former enemies xen, working together against a common enemy. I have fond memories of this bizarre mod from my first playthrough, but coming back to it I found a few areas very frustrating. Nostalgia set aside, this gets 3 stars from me.
Of course, the same author who made Mistake of Pythagoras and Sweet Half-Life. Of course this mod should be very good right? Well I have found some sins in this mod but I’ll get to them eventually.
So the story begins where instead the Xen creatures become enemies, they become allies instead, a good change tbh. You fight your way against an unknown threat with aliens and security guards, not bad. There’s not much to say about the story, it’s just that good.
Let’s start off with the level design. It starts off with Black Mesa in space, really creative. The best level design is the one where you reach the other world. I get so many Mistake of Pythagoras vibes from it, but the platforming can become annoying sometimes. Last but not least back in Black Mesa. Now the weird part is that there are lasers, turrets, and death rays conveniently placed where the grunts are. I have no idea how you’re going through those death traps when you work there. But anyways, it’s just a game. The best part in the level design is finding the easter eggs and boy, they are really worth it. It is very challenging to play this game with one hand.
Now for the combat, it’s well balanced to say the least. Most of the combat in this one is gruntfest because the aliens are your allies. The near end becomes easy as usual, thanks for the hive hand for making ammo conservation easier.
Overall, the mod is probably my second favorite among the two mods this author made. I think Sweet Half-Life is still the best of them all.
One of the best mods of the year. Xen creatures my allies? For sure, first time seing this. I really loved the idea of how he did this. Gargantua fighting for me? Wow, I am really impressed. I never saw this in histrory, it’s the first time. It explains why G-Man come here to destroy us, they envy, aliens help us. This is preatty close to Mass Effect game. So it is close to my idealism too. Aliens do not have to be enemies, but allies. So this is maybe personally top 1 mods because that idea rocks.
Manually
Hard
1 Hour
PERFECT
Manually
Easy
2 Hours