Your friend and fellow scientist, Bob, is missing. Rumour has it that he fled the country after selling company secrets, but you know he would never do such a thing.
Last time you saw him he was talking of “nearly exposing the administrators’ malpractice” and “preventing an accident that could destroy this world”. He wasn’t very specific about anything but he seemed sincere.
Black Mesa might very well have caused his disappearance.
The last Black Mesa announcement, only minutes ago, said something about a “minor accident”: “…to assure employee safety, all non-security personal is to remain at it’s working station until further notice.
If this incident is the thing Bob feared so much, you’d better find him… FAST…
(If you wonder what he looks like, there’s a picture of Bob on the rec-room message board.)”
- Title: Saving Bob
- File Name: hl1-sp-saving-bob-mod.7z
- Original File Name: savebob.zip
- Size : 2.46MB
- Author: Bastiaan van Gestel AKA RandomError
- Date Released: 30 June 1999
- Copy the savingbob folder into your Half-Life folder.
- Restart or start Steam.
- Saving Bob should now be listed in your Library tab.
If you require more help, please visit the Help page.
Click on the thumbnails below to open a 1024 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
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2,929Overall
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169365 days
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 4 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 46 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 13 Mins by DannyDeVito1945
Longest: 1 Hours, 45 Mins by PsyWarVeteran
Total Time Played: 3 Hours, 3 Mins
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Not a bad shooter. Mostly grunts, a few aliens. Some puzzles. Your mission is to save Bob the scientist. When you find him you must deliver him safely to the waiting humvee. Unfortunately, Bob has the annoying and permanent desire to spawn inside you when you use him for the first time. This makes the mod freeze. As you need him to open a door, the fun stops there. Pity cos it’s not bad otherwise.
ok – a bit short – check out piledivers comments above.
It’s a commendable effort but lacks any particularly well-built or designed areas.
It’s nice to see an author trying to put a reason for playing into the mod, and the general idea translates well into the mod itself, although more than once I think I did the right thing through luck rather than judgement.
Just so you know, Bob is the Black scientist. In addition you need to lead him outside before the final sequence will start.
Talking about leading, I had awful trouble getting one scientist to a door – I’m definitely not using that mechanic when I make my mod!
Oh! BTW, check out two of the screenshots to see what happens in Bob runs into you. In screenshot 21, this is what it looks like to be stuck inside him. 22 shows what happened after I noclipped out.
Anyway, it’s quite fun to play but lacks that polish that separates the okay from the great.
Yet another of the 100 that was good but could have been so much better!
There’s no doubt that this is reasonable fun and the look and feel worked OK, but it just didn’t show anything that stood above the parapet. I’m not going say this was boring, however it was borderline.
The overall impression from this is that it was a technical exercise to show what the author could do with gameplay being a secondary consideration. An example is the inclusion of the Gluon gun, apart from a target to shoot at there seemed no reason or use for it!
Today we are looking for our missing friend and colleague.
We start in the offices, which are square rooms with prefabs.
In the room with the suit we can jump into the ventilation and see that there’s nothing in there, dead end. But it looks like our way to the exit goes through the ventilation.
Looks like it was made by a beginner: the design is not pleasing, and there are a bit too many enemies and scarce health and energy.
I liked the interactivity: in one room we can pull out and push in the drawers in the cabinet, but I can’t say that the mod features interactivity, because I didn’t find it anywhere else.
There is some baseness: elevator which falls when we try to use it, empty vat which requires usage of the console in order to get out of it, doors that make us lose health when we touch them.
I got stuck in the Bob too, and I hadn’t the time to reload or noclip out, because the game crashed.
The last level has two good cutscenes, but the disappearance of the car should not have been shown.
I think that this mod is below average.
Yeah there’s not much worth seeing in this pack. It’s not terrible but the frustrations and bugs with escorting scientists in Half-Life alone might steer you away. Outside of that, there’s no real attractive mapping here, though the layouts are pretty good.
The only bug I encountered was mentioned above, Bob teleports inside of you when you “use” him at the top of the elevator, but for me the game didn’t crash and I could noclip out. The main problems I came across were 1) that scientists are very very finicky when they have to follow you, and 2) there are a couple of retinal scanners that are thrown in as decoys so that you can end up leading the scientists all over the place just to find that you brought them to the “wrong” scanner.
There’s a very challenging part near the beginning that you might have to play a few times to survive (assassins in a warehouse, with no explosives). Other than that you get a mix of grunts and aliens, and my main advice is to totally clear out your path before bringing Bob with you. A couple annoyances like doors that hurt you, breaking catwalks, and an elevator that drop you and Bob to your deaths litter the maps. And there’s one extraordinarily difficult jump (screenshot 16) that took me about 15 tries to nail (radioactive vat). Honestly I’d be surprised if everyone playing can make that jump – maybe there’s another way around that I just totally missed.
Don’t bother with this one. It’s mediocre maps combined with some frustrating escort missions and a couple annoyances.
Didn’t you have the long jump module by then? I am pretty sure, even though it was only a few hours ago!, that I had it by then. In fact, I am pretty sure it’s in the room just before the training area.
Ack, totally missed the long jump module. 🙁
The long jump was in the training room area, but it’s possible to completely miss that section of the mod if you go down the stairs instead of up. For anyone else who may be playing this, when you find the staircase make sure to go up before you go down
Yes, I know it’s possible to miss it, but I got the impression that the gap was not suppose to be possible without, thereby “forcing” the player to go back and look. I am not defending the author, because I feel it’s a mistake, just expressing surprise that Unq didn’t have it by then.
Not a great mod by any stretch of the imagination, but it had some good moments. I enjoyed the scenery on the walls as much as the gameplay. I didn’t really like the last part because I wasted a lot of time and effort getting both Barney and Bob to the last retinal scanner when in fact it didn’t do anything. I also led Barney outside only to have the doors shut and I couldn’t get back in. Finally I led both Barney and Bob outside and got the ending. Alas, it didn’t end well for Barney, which was actually a nice bonus!
This got boring towards the end of the mod, although it was never really that fun.
This mod relies way too much on the player leading scientists and barneys around a building to use retinal scanners which quite often don’t work. The gameplay was pretty meh and nothing really stood out, the mapping wasn’t great either but it was fine apart from the killer doors.
There were many dead ends in this mod which will frustrate the player, one of those times for me involved getting Barney, Bob and a scientist into a lift (which took about 5-10 minutes to do) only to find that it breaks and all three die. Also as stated above by Unq, it is possible to miss the Long Jump Module quite easy, although I didn’t do so myself.
Also don’t bother taking the Barney and other scientist with you to the end of the game, because things will just get frustrating without any special ending.
Not really worth playing unless you’ve got nothing better to do.
While I did have some issues with this mod, it wasn’t so terrible that I think I’d say not to play it. It suffered from the “means well but doesn’t come together” problem. It wasn’t hard to see that the mod could have been much better, but it was still challenging and pretty fun in places.
After the third or so time gibbing Bob in the elevator doors, he finally went in where he was supposed to be…
Like a lot of older mods, it lacks both polish and clear instruction to the player. However, we’ve been playing these things for a long time now, and can figure it out. 😉
I thought that certain parts were pretty clever, unless you had to do them twice: the training room to see whether there was anything else in there, for instance, just can’t be exited unless you go the right way.
Still, it was clever enough that I don’t mind that I got a bit frustrated while playing. I’d say grit your teeth and go for it. Think of it as a challenge more meta than in-game.
Come on!!, I think this it was not that bad!!, I think indeed it worths the effort, I mean it has a perfect lenght, and u can have some cool battles on it, but I understand that definitely has to move the black scientist which is known in the popular culture of some hl mods as “Luther” is a pain in the butt I know, but I think that detail adds the spicyness it is required, the story well, is the case again of the author who didn’t have to write it at all, but it can be ressumed, as found the scientist, and get the hell outta there!!, I mean a pretty classy plot in too many HL mods, so i’d say u can play this later and u will end the mod it in the perfect time with the taste of ok combat in there.
This mod is the defenition of a mixed bag.
mixed bag
noun Informal.
Saving bob
I feel like I should defend this mod, since it is one of my favourites from back in the day. It has its faults, but there is much to enjoy about this particular map, and I think it deserves more credit than it has gotten from everyone here. That this got a lower rating than Operation Gargantua (which had some good looking parts, but REALLY last minute, tossed in gameplay) seems crazy to me! The construction is often somewhat bland by today’s standards — but then again it’s a pretty old mod. Although the settings can be sort of plain, there are actually some nice, well thought out areas, and some surprisingly nice firefights to be had in this map.
The long-jump module is meant to be mandatory to progress, and as such I don’t see it as a mistake. It is of course possible to get past this section without it, but you’d be missing out on some HEV poweruppage anyways, so take the time to explore.
I do have to admit that the warehouse assassin part is way too hard — be prepared, and play very carefully after getting your suit to save as much health ammo and batteries as you can.
With regards to Bob, I never had the teleport issues. I pushed him to the back corner of the elevator, and then when we arrived on the upper level he simply walked out and scanned the door.
Unq is right with regards to keeping Bob – and the other scientist — in a nice quiet corner while you carefully scour the terrain — double back in some cases, even! Was anybody able to access the crossbow, by the way? If it is unaccessible, I’d say this is a weak point.
It seems as if I’m ” apologizing” for this map, but that isn’t the case — I believe this is a good pack. Not great. But definitely worth playing — and sticking with despite some difficulties — until the conclusion.
the section in screenshot 13 is another nice little area- forethought, and some sense of place.
What the Hec? 😉 After there’s everything said in the previous comments about the mod, I totally agree to Hec and Drew here. At first it seems to be an average mod, but then it kicked bum! 😉
Yes, it has flaws and bugs, especially escorting Bob, the scientist.
But there are also many positive things in my eyes which makes this a go(o)d mod…wait !?
God mod, good mode? Get it? xD
Pro’s:
-Very good design, architecture and lighting – realistic
-An comprehensible story
-Nice combat action
-A few puzzles
-Good balancing, maybe a touch too easy (combat, puzzles)
-Cutscenes and / or surprising moments
-Good Mesa feeling – just some music is missing
-OK playtime
Con’s:
-Bugs (escorting, clipping)
-Too tight rooms for escorting – annoying
-Dead(ly) end (elevator) / Instant death at one door if rushing in too fast
-Longjumps required (1-2 times, with 1 only really necessary)
-Disappointing end somehow
-It’s made by an Dutch author! (Yes, we Germans..) 😀
Squeezing some originality into your levels is probably one of the most important things you can spend time on while editing. Even if they’re not the best maps in history, the novelty factor will compensate quite a long way. Bastiaan has used an idea here that hasn’t been used very much before, especially not in single-player games [apart from a dire earlier Half-Life level and … erm … well, Fade To Black]. He may well have been inspired by the Hunted level in TFC but it’s a nice refreshing change in this context. As the title suggests, the idea is to rescue a certain scientist from deep inside the facility.
Although he’s used this novel approach, the level is more straightforward than you might expect from the description. Fortunately, it also stands quite well as a regular Half-Life level. It’s not going to win any awards but it’s a decent solid production. It’s certainly a step above most authors’ initial releases.
Looks are probably about average. There are no noticeable visual errors but, on the other hand, it’s not exactly dazzling. The relatively plain design does help keep the r_speeds down pretty low, however, apart from in an area right at the end of the map.
The unit also plays very nicely, with a good mixture of human and alien adversaries. Ammo and health seemed to be provided at perfectly spaced intervals and some of the areas had layouts ideally suited to the combat there; the penultimate area of the unit, for instance, was a marvellous little arena in which to fight off the few remaining marines.
I thought that the rescue theme was somewhat underused. It would have been much more satisfying if Bastiaan has introduced puzzles which you had to get Bob past, for example. As it is, you don’t even get to meet the guy until quite late on and, even when you do, he doesn’t have that great an effect upon proceedings, apart from being there to give you a quick health boost from time to time. There wasn’t a single situation where he came under threat from any enemies which really defeated the point of having him there. Admittedly it would have been very difficult to come up with some decent puzzles or some places where you and Bob came under fire without making them really frustrating but it is a bit disappointing that so little use is made of the novel premise.
There are other miscellaneous problems in the map, probably the strangest being a decoy scientist that I was sure must be Bob – even though he didn’t look like he was supposed to – because the level restarted if I killed him. None of them are too serious, however, and they don’t manage to detract from the experience too much. The fact that it crashed Half-Life after completion was a little annoying but that’s as much Valve’s fault as this author’s.
Saving Bob is definitely a worthwhile download because it is a quality level, especially considering that this is a new author. It’s just a shame that Bastiaan didn’t make more of the interesting storyline.
Notes
This review is republished here by permission and was originally published Friday, 16th July, 1999 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.
Not bad, but playing without crowbar until 3rd map + fight in full darkness against 3 assassins without decent weapon were annoying enough. Also there is no music and some doors have no open/closed sounds. So this mod deserves something between 3 & 4 stars IMHO.
To be fair, I expected worse.
The story of this mod is that our fellow scientist Bob is missing. So you’re sent in a facility (I think) to find him.
On your way, you’ll realize that the combat is surprisingly pretty good! And the areas are not that bad either.
Though, later you’ll get to the most annoying part of all, the A.I. Don’t get me wrong, the original Half-Life A.I. is revolutionary, but in this mod it doesn’t quite work. Apart from Bob, you will also come across different scientists that you need to open doors. Though, when I first encountered my first scientist, he always said that he would stay there. Being a glitch of course, I managed to fix it.
Overall, it’s a good mod. It has a few issues, but they’re not major, at least not REALLY major.
Play It Later.
Saving Bob is a half life mod that proposes the story of your friend bob and figuring out how he went missing. The mod in actuality has nothing to do with that and just feels like a experimental mod as a concept or demo. Lasts too short and the environments feel empty and has a abrupt ending of you jumping onto a helicopter, the game saying congratulations, and then exiting you out automatically to the menu. The first time I played it i actually reloaded the last save because i thought i was missing something and hopped into the helicopter and yup… It bumped me out to the menu.
Overall Saving bob is a not so good little distraction that I would give a ⅖ star score and a think twice for the RTSL score
Manually
Medium
13 Minutes
The link is broken. The original link is this:
https://files.runthinkshootlive.com/half-life-1/hl1-sp-saving-bob-mod.7z
Thanks for the free mod.
Nice.
My major gripe in the gameplay was not the fact that the scientist Bob did not present enough of a challenge keeping alive, hell no, him dying twice (ONE: squished by a door, TWO: a dreadful and sinister last ambush by those marines) was enough for me 🙂 The part that dissapointed me was, as Morgan said, Bastian didn’t make the most out of the cool storyline as it felt like the dreaded gruntfest scenario at times. I think the author spent a little too much time putting those poster girls on the walls and a bit too little time tweaking this very promising level. There were plenty of minor problems, mostly, not getting the scientists and barneys to follow me right, but there were others.
The design had its flaws as well as I felt the lighting was either too bright or too dark, and the use of colored lighting and shadowing left much to be desired. Nonetheless, Saving Bob is one of the funnest Half-Life maps I’ve yet played, and the last huge, brutal skirmish was just the best grunt fight I’ve ever experienced in a addon and reminded me of one of the action pieces in the movie Face/Off. Saving Bob is fresh, innovative, challenging and surprisingly atmospheric. Like Morgan, I will recommend this to you as I think you’ll get a great, and decently lengthy, enjoyment out of it.
Notes
This second opinion is republished here by permission and was originally published Thursday, 13th July, 2000 by Jiang.
This second opinion 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.
Pretty nice old-school mappack. Some people may find escorting NPCs annoying but other than that I didn’t find anything wrong with it. Fun blast from the past.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour, 45 Minutes
This was decent but fighting 3 female black ops in the dark wasn’t fun at all.
Manually
Hard
30 Minutes
This one is okay, the combat is purely gruntfest. The level design is somewhat bad. NPCs have trouble navigating themselves when they follow you. It even got to the point where Bob teleports right inside you. If that’s enough, hurting him caused my game to crash for some reason. That is all to say.
Too many soldiers, low health, too much fight in close. Go for Hard, you’ll suffer.
I have no idea of how open the armory room. Those 10 grenades woulod make so many fights more easier. My god, it would make the hard difficulty more flexible. But, the armory is no way to open is sealed, cannot break anything not the bars not the switch. I broght even the scientist he was standing still. Pressed many computers around the area, nothing. He just left the armory there. This is crap how enemies he designed with so ridiculous health level. This is B.S. and then he says and recommend to play on Hard if I finished Half-Life. Are you crazy? I killed many marines in Half-Life with one hand only, using Mp-5 you crap. All the assassins were killed with stealth. And he advise to play it on Hard? This one needs a doctor.
Manually
Hard
35 Minutes