Basic Details
- Title: Portrait of Freeman
- File Name: hl1-sp-portrait-of-freeman.7z
- Original File Name: pof11.zip
- Size : 19.5Mb
- Author: Jack Amano
- Date Released: 19 April 2003
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Walkthrough
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
Reader Recommendations
Total Downloads
Please note: These statistics are valid from December 2010
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Meta Review Data
Statistics based on 2 comment(s) with meta review data.
Installed:
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 2 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 3 Hours
Shortest: 2 Hours by monster_urby
Longest: 4 Hours by Martina
Total Time Played: 6 Hours
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 2 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 3 Hours
Shortest: 2 Hours by monster_urby
Longest: 4 Hours by Martina
Total Time Played: 6 Hours
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Can anyone find a walkthrough in English for this one? After turning on a power generator in a room that requires a trick to get into, I’m stuck in there…. The author is Japanese I think. I’ll be e-mailing him however its been 8 years, so doubtful 🙁
I’m in the same place, with the same problem…
Can anyone help us ?
I found it !
Before jump in the tank with acid, shoot (once or twice) the hatch in the floor.
The acid will flow off and we can access the tunnel above.
The puzzles here are quite difficult, but logic.
All Jack Amano works have 4/5 or better ^^
But this use Spirit of HL, and have new enemies.
It’s not a walkthrough but it give some good hints to the puzzles. Japanese translated into English.
Potrait Of Freeman Walkthrough Images
Sorry try this. It’s a Google search……go down to “games” entry and click on “translate this page”
Thanks billynut. Good find. I’ll email the author and request permission to post it here on PP, to save readers going through the long process.
Regarding Portrait of Freeman,can anyone help me? I start the game and I get the beginning cut-scen,then it pans out and the screen goes blank and thats it! no game?? does anyone know if there is a fix for this?
Hi, Mark, try changing the video setup to openGL. It was the only way that it worked here (in the *.txt of the packgage I was told that openGL is a must for this mod).
Hi Everyone, great site,planetphillip,thanx for all the effort you put into this!! Ok,regarding this Portrait of Freeman mod, I’ve tried all modes of VGA and it just will not run. The guy walks down the stairs, turns to the toilets,then the camera pans back ,screen goes black and that is it!!! Nothing. Any other ideas,please guys?
Well, this definitely a new favourite of mine. An excellently crafted mod that’s long, (2-3 hours.) eventful, exciting and damn fun. With only a few minor niggles, it holds out as, overall, one to keep!
Gameplay is fast and furious. The first half of the mod is spent fighting aliens, whilst the second half issues a variety of enemies to fight, including grunts, aliens, turrets and even security guards! (They’re actually damn tough, too!) At that point, there are even friendly grunts that occasionally appear to help you out. Not once throughout the mod was I bored. It flows well, sets a reasonably good pace and is simply a rush and a half!
For the most part, enemy placement is done well. However, there are times where the author has chucked a bunch of the same enemy into a small space, or simply throws tones of soldiers out to greet you. It sometimes comes off as tiring — Even repetitive — But it shouldn’t bother most players.
Nonetheless, there were many smartly placed enemies and there were a number of clever ambushes placed throughout. They’ll be sure to keep you on your toes!
A number of boss battles are placed throughout. don’t expect anything spectacular, but they’re still pretty neat. (Although the first garg battle was way too easy.) Puzzles are used quite a lot throughout the mod. They’re both logical and practical.
There is one huge negative in terms of gameplay. Near the very end of the mod, there was an absolutely annoying bottleneck involving grunts and two stationary machine guns. Thing is — it’s damn hard! It was absolutely annoying to have myself cut to pieces by machine gun fire, especially when they weren’t set to fire at the friendly grunts that were fighting with me. I was being killed time and time again… It was increasingly frustrating.
Another problem with gameplay involves one of the ” new” enemies — A zombie. It was horrendously overpowered and with a very high amount of health. They weren’t used too much, but they came in large numbers.
Here’s a tip: On the second encounter with these buggers — Just ignore them and run straight past ” em. don’t waste your ammo.
Despite a few flaws, gameplay holds up as extremely fun and I doubt you’ll ever be bored. Thumbs up!
Design is excellent. it’s clean, consistent and very detailed. Brushwork, trimwork, lighting, texturing — It all falls together nicely. For the most part, the mod’s level design retains a nice, fresh style, while still retaining the norm of militaristic environments. it’s very much a contemporary look.
There were a couple of times where the mod shows some generally bland looking areas, or at least shows some rather un-contemporary design, but you can’t look past this mod’s excellent consistency. (Compared to some other mods, at least.) Set-pieces are place sparingly throughout. Some are quite humorous. They are still done very well. Overall, thumbs up for the design.
There’s quite a lot of custom content. There isn’t too much you’ve seen before, but there’s plenty of new textures, models etc. The author has retextured a number of breakable crates labelled with a red cross for health and energy, and ammo for — well — ammo. He’s also retextured the grunts with a red vibe to it, to constitute the ” evil” grunts you’ll face halfway through. Arguably, it’s nothing special. Just a very simple recolour. It would’ve been nice for the author to add more to it, at least to make it more recognisable. (Although there shouldn’t really be a problem with recognition between the friendly and enemy grunts.)
The new zombie model — as stated above — is actually pretty crap. While I’ll admit that the crowbar through the head looks cool, the skin is horrible. If you look at the textures in the HL Model Viewer, it looks very much like the author took a solid black brush and scribbled over it like there’s no tomorrow. The freaky, orange face is decent, though.
Another thing — which is rather more nitpicking that a real problem — is that the walking animation is the same for the scientist/security guard. It looks odd to see a zombie walking ” normally.” doesn’t exactly come off as frightening, does it?
There isn’t much else to talk about. The mod has a decent story, relayed through text and set-pieces. The ending is very funny!
And now we come to the conclusion: Despite its flaws, this mod comes off as an excellent thrill ride, filled with action, great puzzles and excellent design. But most of all — it’s just damn fun!
My recommendation:
very good game/quality sets and design/good balance and game play
Isnt the new zombie suppose to be a zmfiefied Gordom Freeman Clone fi oyu look at whats in teh tubes.. In the largers tubes there is Gordon Freemans bodparts. and in the cryosleep room its freeman clones.
btw, use crossbow on the turret gunners.
Andi cant figure out what to do when the gman goes into the UFO.
An interesting beginning mod were you are once again Gordon Freeman just on a regular day it seems, until the Gman sends you to Area 51 to meet Dr. Albert. You are willing to help him there as suddenly aliens invade…
Pro’s:
-Very good design, decent mapping and lighting, outdoor areas, nice textures, new models
-Intro and a few more cutscenes
-Some good scripts
-Quite many puzzles
-Good balanced combat
-Not bad storytelling
-Semi-secret areas
Con’s:
-More running / puzzling than action
-Unfair and / or hard puzzles
-Illogical at some places, also odd
-Perfomance issues at some areas
-Bugs (door not opening, getting stuck etc.)
-Partly long walkways / shafts
-Minor balance issues (combat, some enemies have too many hitpoints, …)
-Sometimes being clueless what to do (download and use of walkthrough recommended)
-Many locked doors
-Can get frustrating at some points
Conclusion: Superb graphics are not all, so don’t get blinded by them.
One of the latest trends in HL1 SP is the lack of a story. Well, one that makes sense anyway. Too many releases these days think that they can get by without one and somehow expect to entertain us. Well…they don’t, and Portrait of Freeman is no exception.
Not that your standard game of HL isn’t entertaining anymore; it still is. PoF certainly delivers some classic HL with Marines and aliens in the Black Mesa routine that’s now become old-hat. Combat scales with the settings well so choose appropriately. Labs & offices as usual, but this release gravitates more to cold-concrete settings and empty large areas, somewhat similar to “Blast Pit.” There are some outdoor areas, and some bold & interesting set-pieces, but they’re simply too few and far between and don’t make any real contributions to the level of quality. There are some “puzzles” in this mix too, some of which are pleasantly challenging, but one really sticks out for its annoyance factor. Imagine being in the midst of a radioactive gas that spreads across an entire map and quickly saps your health and HEV power…plus, it’s a race against time to go “operate a ventilation shaft,” never mind the fact you have to go look for such a control. Let’s just say that at least two deaths (read: reloads) will be required.
Level design starts off competent enough and there’s an overall attention to detail that doesn’t go unnoticed, but it becomes obvious the author quickly lost his sense of inspiration, as the design gets more and more incoherent, too soon. We all know the syndrome, it’s appeared in lots of other maps—throwing out whatever comes to mind, for the sake of adding length. In this aspect, the author has used lots of vent crawling (or tunnel-crawling otherwise) to “explain” a number of such transitions—and vent crawling, as we all know, should be used sparingly because it gets boring (unless there are headcrabs to jump out at unsuspecting players, and in PoF, there are none. Whoopee!).
Back to the story issue, this thing is called “Portrait of Freeman,” but it never bothers to explain why, other than the fact that clones of Gordon Freeman appear throughout. The existence of said clones is never detailed, and the brief in-game text relayed to you (sometimes from the G-Man) doesn’t help clear things up either.
Suffice it to say that Portrait of Freeman is like a perfect middle-of-the-road HL1 SP experience. Certain aspects suck it down below par like the lack of story (leading to confusion), and bleh gameplay moments that ultimately make the whole thing teeter towards boring. It’s not “bad” though; a worthy “diversion” for those looking for that kind of thing. Of course, everyone else who’ve been waiting (probably too long now) for something of real quality…keep waiting.
Note to author: next time you want to include Half-Life’s CD music, pull it off the CD instead of converting tracks to WAV and putting them in the PAK. (Talk about an inconveniently bloated download!)
Notes
This review is republished here by permission and was originally published Friday, 29th August, 2003 by Calyst.
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.
I liked it a lot. Some puzzles were hard to solve, but there is a excelent walkthrough on you tube if you get lost. I do agree with a former poster that there are a lot of closed doors wich don’t have a purpose.
What was also funny is that there a suddenly friendly grunts.
And I skipped the boss fight in the end, use granades on the big monster, so you have plenty of the granades left in your machine gun for the final scene.
Manually
Medium
4 Hours
I’m not going to lie. Portrait of Freeman was almost going to get an Avoid It! from me. Between the ridiculous spikes in difficulty and the puzzles that rely on finite ammuntion (especially near the start) this mod can be downright infuriating.
Not only that, but some of the puzzles are nonsensical. Like shooting a red light in a guard tower to open a door on the opposite end of the map. What!?
However, I stuck with it. I’m not going to say that POF is a fantastic mod, but it had its moments. There are times when the textures and brushwork are phenomenal, with even the vanilla textures being used in a way I’d not considered before. The maps are huge and sprawling at times, sometimes a little too much with large, repetitive hallways full of locked doors where your only goal is to find the one that opens.
There is also some kind of a plot going on here, but between the broken English in the translation and the poor conveyance within the levels, I couldn’t tell you what it was about. I’m guessing the cloning of Gordon Freeman, but I could not tell you by whom and why.
Overall, I would give this a Maybe. It’s worth playing (on Easy) to see some of the creative use of textures and brushwork throughout and for every annoying puzzle there’s another that works pretty well.
Manually
Hard
2 Hours