Here at PP, soon to be RunThinkShootLive, there have been intermittent end of year awards, but from now on, there will be an award ceremony every year.
Each category will be voted upon by readers but the initial list will come from the Recommendation System.
IMPORTANT NOTE
I included a mod released in 2012 (Year Long Alarm) and thanks to JellyGal pointing it out, I have now removed it and reset all the votes, so if you voted in the Golden Hunter and The Freeman votes, please vote again.
Only maps and mods actually RELEASED in 2014 will be eligible for consideration. Maps and mods are updated and lots of older maps and mods are added within any given year but those won’t be considered.
Hopefully, there will have a least 5 releases for each category every year.
In addition, the categories are not one for each game, but one for each engine and then an overall one.
For this year’s awards there will only be three:
- The Golden Headcrab: Best GoldSource Release of the Year
- The Golden Hunter: Best Source Release of the Year
- The Freeman Award: Best Release of the Year
Next year, there will be a total of 6 awards (more on what kind of awards next year!) and Phillip will start collecting potential releases for each new category from now on.
Voting closes Saturday 17th January 2015.
So, without further ado, lets get started!
There were only three releases in 2014 for GoldSource games which is a shame but I suppose we should be grateful people are still making GoldSource mods at all.
There might have been some releases that were missed, but this is the list.
Hopelessness
A classic “escape from Black Mesa” mod.
Taking you through a variety of different areas, you encounter stiff opposition to your progress.
Freedom awaits for those smart and brave enough to continue forward.
Good Luck – You’ll need it.
The Gloom
This is a single Player remake of de_storm.
There are two keys needed; a silver and a gold key.
Can you find them and progress?
Will you find all the weapon and ammo caches?
Only one way to find out…
The Returning
In this 15-map mappack, you get to revisit the Black Mesa Research Facility.
Of course, nothing goes the way you expect it – that is if you expect it to go smoothly!
You will need to fight your way through and solve puzzles along the way to reach the waiting helicopter.
Are you smart and determined enough? Let’s find out.
Time to Vote
This category features a full 5 entrants.
Obviously, there were a lot more releases in this category and in many ways it might have been one of the best recent years for releases – you decide.
Forest Train
What a beautiful day! Shame you’ve got nothing better to do than hang around monitoring the radio.
Well, today is your lucky day. You get a message to help some citizens reach White Forest.
Can you help them?
Only one way to find it!
The Masked Prisoner
Oh BOY! You’ve been captured and taken to a Combine Prison.
Your mother was right, You are special.
Follow the instructions and do what you do best – cause trouble.
Watch the story unfold right before your eyes.
DiamondDogsVille
For this competition, entrants had to create an area from which the player must escape.
This “Escape” is most probably accomplished through the solving of some puzzle and/or combat.
The Forgotten Journey Mod
A malfunction with the teleporter sends Gordon Freeman to a new location.
This mod features all 7 entries for the Interlopers.Net mapping competition.
Some maps have been updated.
RavenholmVille
Eight maps, all set in Ravenholm, with one simple objective: Escape.
Look out for traps, hiding places, and anything else that can save your neck.
Each map offers something different and fresh, so make sure you take your time and enjoy the screams!
Time to Vote!
Now for the final award, The Freeman Award. The voting for this contains all the entrants from The Golden Headcrab abd Golden Hunter Awards, plus the option to add your own selection.
I won’t re-list each entrant, but just let you get straight on to the voting.
Good Luck to all entrants and vote now before the vote closes!
Time to Vote
If you haven’t played version 1.1 of Forest Train yet, go and check it out. I made a lot of bug fixes and changes based on your feedback and my own observations, especially to the battles at the end.
GoldSrc :
Hopelessness (part 1 and part 2 : the afterlife) is my winner. It has a gloomy, dark ambiance, some good puzzles, hard fights, I was really surprised to see some people still trying to do something interesting, without doing total conversions, on half life.
Source :
By PP standards, Forest Train should be the winner, but Masker Prisoner wins IMHO. First of all it tried an experience by releasing the mod numerous times as “alpha” and correct the mod by the feedback gained on moddb.
Then, the setting was cool, some good fights, nice story with good twist in the end. To me it was more surprising than Forest Train who was more a very very well done mod using only known fields.
Freeman Award :
Citizen Returns, he’s not in the list but I chose him because 4 years of freakin’ waiting, because it ended very well that cool side story which can be considered “canon” AFAIK in HL story.
Personal note :
PP will be named RunThinkShootLive? What the hell? After more than 8 years being named PP, we’ll call that RTSL?? Not buying it. But I will adapt…
Overall, it was another year where no one seems to care no more about modding in HL/HL2, it’s worse each year passing, indeed, because that damn VALVe company basically give the finger more and more to its longtime fans.
The only big TC project was Gate 2 which turned to be one big mess of a mod.
The Greenlight thing seems to have burned off some people’s minds as such interesting projects such as Lost Squad, Paranoia 2 Savior, Silent Escape are now turning into stand alone games running on other engines or even on their own engines.
Still, mods you may want to watch in the future :
Half Life :
YELLOW SHIFT : Not dead but sloooooooowly developed…
TIME’S END : No updates but KingDaniel is a one-man army working slowly but surely… I’m not anxious about this one, it’ll be released. (but he said “2014 or bust”…)
THE CORE : updated regularly, but yet no release date. Sounds like one of the greatest mod’s ever in Black Mesa Incident, tough.
PARANOIA 2 : February 2015!!! (total conversion)
THE VOLCANO – maybe 2015?? Will be released in 4 parts.
MONORAIL QUEST – beta announced in march/april
HALF LIFE DELTA – demo released only in russian sites. still WIP.
CAT LIFE – still waiting after a more than 10 year long development…
Half Life 2 :
UNDERHELL CHAPTER 2 – will come anyway, but it’ll be hard to see when.
HL2 EPISODE 3 THE CLOSURE (Leon/SPY maps) – Q1/Q2 2015 maybe. It is now a 25 map mod running more than 18+hour.
BLACK MESA/GUARD DUTY – Have moved into a “when it’s done” release date…
LOST SQUAD – Barney’s lost story : now an indie project looking very promising. Will be released in 2015.
WILSON CHRONICLES – long-time project… this Fall for beta, then Q1/Q2 2015 for final release.
BLACK MESA HAZARD COURSE, XEN… – whenever wherever they want…
GSTRING V 2 – 2015… Maybe?
And numerous Beta HL2 mod’s called the Origin, Missing Info, Dark Interval, Dark Skies, Raising the Bar….
Full details here: Moving Domains
Oh yeah, G-String. I bet that will be released in 2015. I haven’t been watching the news on it, but if she’s getting voice actors it can’t be much longer now.
Sorry, but G-String won’t be released for a long while yet, at least that’s the impression I got from Myo, maybe not even in 2015.
Damn, this is her lifetime project.
I’ve also some news about :
– Dangerous World 2 : the developer is too just with is work “from dawn till dusk”.
-Combine Destiny 2 : they uploaded new videos on their YT account. Is it reborn?
Wow, let me say this is a great initiative in PP.com. To summarize the whole relevant modding work during the year and then vote for the best of the best is just great.
So without too much wordiness here are my thoughts about each category:
The Golden Headcrab: Best GoldSource Release of the Year
In my opinion this category is the hardest to assess. Because we really don’t have any relevant mod that shows real high quality. I know maybe hopelessness is going to win, but is far to be my favorite as I wrote in the recommendation of that mod. The returning was not my cup of tea neither, so I give my vote to The Gloom, because although is a MP map adapted to SP, I think is the one I like the most from HL1 this year, I also think it was a great SP adaptation.
The Golden Hunter: Best Source Release of the Year
Boy, we may have not too much releases this past 2014 year, but we definitely have some great WOW! Personal Fav ones!!!
So in that logic I voted for the terrific “One Year Long Alarm” Because was just beautiful, it oozes quality and some parts are just wonderful to glance at, almost Valve quality. I absolutely don’t regret to consider this the best HL2 mod of 2014, because frankly deserves it.
Now I have my personal honorable mentions, and those are for; The Masked Prisoner, The Forgotten Journey, and Forrest Train (I also recommend those as PF). The first one is brilliantly developed and have some great moments and is the best ending scene for a HL2 mod in 2014 but open areas felt quite artificial and not very natural so I guess that’s why I don’t consider it a winner. TFJ is brilliant too, a compilation mod of many entries but we have some great and memorable ones like the now classic overflow, but as TFJ is not a single story unified mod, but a compilation I don’t consider the 1st place. Finally FT, another great little jewel, it shows that a very cool one map can make a great HL2 SP experience, cool combat all the way but in my opinion OLYA is better because is bigger and not very linear.
The Freeman Award: Best Release of the Year
I voted for The Forgotten Journey. Because is a great collaborative effort to bring some very fine HL2 works alive. Also we have some terrific entries in there, and I guess we have now a classic, in my opinion I consider this work as The Project Quantum Leap, for HL2. because is as good as that saga and is just a classic. Do you want to play many cool HL1 maps IN ONE MOD?: play TPQL 1&2, Do you want to play many cool HL2 maps IN ONE MOD?: play TFJ. Is simple those are lovely compilation classics now.
So, in reason that “Year Long Alarm” has been removed from the poll due to this mod dated from 2012. I only announce I voted “The Masked Prisoner” as the winner of the Golden Hunter Award.
Though I still consider the YLA mod was better, I am absolutely convinced that TMP it was the best HL2 mod release for 014, because its brilliant story and mapping combat developing.
Yes, that’s correct. I didn’t look carefully enough at the dates when I made the initial poll.
I’m still here, I’m just waiting to do more recommendations til the switch over to RTSL. I have played all the mods shown here.
I think the golden headcrab should go to Hopelessness. I enjoyed The Gloom but it’s not very long and is a DM remake (kinda) and The Returning, while enjoyable, wasn’t as high quality as either of the other entries.
The golden hunter IMO should go to The Forgotten Journey, it has some pretty amazing little gems in it (my favourite is Overflow). Most of the maps in the pack are very good if not excellent. I would’ve voted for Year Long Alarm but that actually came out in 2012 so I’m not really sure why it’s listed here. My second place is The Masked Prisoner and my third place is Forest Train, both excellent but kinda short mods. RavenholmVille was pretty good but some of the maps felt unremarkable, and DiamondDogsVille was alright.
Overall, the golden freeman should go to The Forgotten Journey in my opinion
Please don’t do that. The switch will use the same database, so any comments, reviews etc you make will carry over to the domain and theme switch.
The other reason is that I’m a bit caught up in a personal project currently, but it should be finished sometime Q1 this year.
Also, the reason I didn’t write recommendations for all these mods is that I usually play mods twice, once just for fun and twice to look at them with a critical eye.
(edit) Yes I am JellyGal, I just forgot to log in. Derp.
OMG, How did I miss that? Anyway, I have removed it and reset all the votes.
IMPORTANT NOTE
I included a mod released in 2012 (Year Long Alarm) and thanks to JellyGal pointing it out, I have now removed it and reset all the votes, so if you voted in the Golden Hunter and The Freeman votes, please vote again.
This is a very interesting additition to the site and I look forward to more awards.
Golden Headcrab Award:
This one was the hardest to choose, since only 3 mods are participated. The Returning kept crashing and The Gloom was interesting, but the winner has to be Hopelessness, which is a more realistic approach on the “Escape BM” genre, so I’ll think I’ll choose this one.
Golden Hunter Award:
This year had a lot of PP competitions, and I was very close on voting for the Lost Journey, but the mod that I think should win is The Masked Prisoner. I loved, loved, LOVED this mod. Everything was PERFECT; the design, the storyline, the fights, EVERYTHING. I LOVE IT!!!
And now, for the GOLDEN FREEMAN AWARD I choose…
THE MASKED PRISONER!!!!
Yes, this mod deserves it. It was AMAZING. For those who haven’t played it, JUST DO IT. It will be unforgettable.
Well shoot, without Year Long Alarm and not wanting to vote for myself, what am I left with?
To be honest, I was reluctant giving the nod to The Masked Prisoner, simply because it’s unfinished. The blocky Minecraft hills are really distracting because I know it wouldn’t have taken much time to mold them. And even if the author couldn’t, he should have released the VMF files so someone else could.
But this is in dead heat with Forgotten Journey. True, not all of Forgotten Journey’s maps were hits. But if its best maps were standalone entries, I think we would agree that they would deserve to rank at the same (if not higher) level.
Well, for some reason my votes aren’t being registered, so here goes:
The Golden Headcrab Award
My vote goes for Hopelessness. Both parts were great: visually pleasant, didn’t have any game breaking glitches and were fun to play.
I didn’t play The Gloom and have yet to finish The Returning (still struggling to to play it all the way through to the end).
The Golden Hunter Award
Gotta give this to The Masked Prisoner. It may have a few blocky things and lacked visually at some parts, but had nice longevity, a small story and was really fun to play. Forest Train was also nice but small, but I’d say not as fun.
The Freeman Award
I will give my vote to a community effort on this one: The Forgotten Journey had some really good maps and I wish all competitions were like that one. Great work all around, with a great number of maps too.
RavenholmVille was also good, but I think nowhere near as fun. DiamondDogsVille wasn’t much for my taste.
Thanks to everyone who worked on and released just one more bit of Half-Life entertainment for us. Happy 2015 everyone 🙂
Thanks to everyone who voted!
So, how does this shake out? Did I get half of a Freeman Award? XD