Todesangst introduces the new sinister character Dr. Jack Newell, expert chaos theory mathematician and Director of Black Mesa R&D. Gordon Freeman and Dr. Newell have always had an adversarial relationship at best, and Gordon’s hero status following the containment of Xen only served to inflame Dr. Newell’s hatred and jealousy of him.
The story is set shortly after Gordon Freeman’s successful return from Xen. The episode opens with a cut-scene of Mr. Blackstone (a.k.a. the G-man) arriving at Dr. Newell’s office. As we soon discover, Dr. Newell has had Mr. Blackstone in his control all along, and has his own intentions for the exploitation of Xen’s biological uniqueness. . .
Its up to you, Gordon, to stop your evil colleague from unleashing the horror of Xen on humanity… if its not too late…
“The scope of Todesangst was to make a new single player episode that felt like a natural extension of the original game. This was made much easier by Valve’s inclusion of so many different textures, sounds, and entity definitions within the game that developing a mod like this did not require a steep learning curve or lots of programming or graphic arts experience.
That said, I did manage to exploit the game’s characteristics in creative ways. For instance, some of the features of Todesangst that I consider most significant include:
- Introductory and intermission cut-scenes, which enrich the plot progression of the episode.
- Extensive use of scripted sequences for character interations.
- New character voiceovers and face textures.
- Useable heavy weapons including a tank rocket launcher and double barrel gatling gun.
- Multiple component entities (ie: elevators with moving doors and grate floors that you can see through).
- No jumping or arcade style puzzles to detract from the game flow.
I also spent considerable time refining the architecture and lighting dispersion in each map to obtain the best realism possible and to keep the frame rates high (ie r_speeds low).
- Title: Todesangst 1
- File Name: hl1-sp-todesangst-1.7z
- Original File Name: todesangst-1.zip
- Size : 8.13Mb
- Author: Daryn ‘Peppy Fool’ Waite
- Date Released: 22 Spetember 2001
- Copy the todesangst1 folder into your Half-Life 1 folder.
- Restart or start Steam.
- Todesangst 1 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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Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 6 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 2 Hours, 38 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 45 Mins by Dmitry
Longest: 10 Hours by fleetlord
Total Time Played: 15 Hours, 50 Mins
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Rating: 4/5
Good: Cool name; great idea that is well executed; nice new content.
Bad: Nothing amazingly spectacular; new models are slightly modified originals.
Review:
Another good mod. I guess everything from Germany is good. Good cars, good engineering, good HL mods…yeah. This is a good mod. The story is nice, all the items are placed logically throughout the maps and as a bonus, and there are two episodes! The only things I didn’t about is that the campaigns were somewhat short and there weren’t many things too spectacular about it. But anyway, here’s the story: you are Gordon Freeman, and after coming back from Xen, you are practically a hero. However, your boss, Dr. Jack Newell, an expert chaos theory mathematician and Director of Black Mesa R&D, thinks otherwise. He doesn’t like you for all that you’ve become. In other words, he’s jealous. So you, the intrepid Gordon Freeman, must stop Newell from unleashing the Xen beasties into the wild of Earth. Good story, eh?
Copyright:
This review was written by Kyle Johnston and first appeared on Mod Resource and is republished by permission.
This is a short game which is lacking in combat content, however finish this off and go straight to Todesangst 2 which is a classic.
I think Mel must have this confused with another mod, because there is plenty of combat and lots of everything else too.
The mod features a new story and plenty of variety but also a bit of repetition too.
I enjoyed it, but was quite pleased when it featured. I am left with a slight sour taste in my mouth as the author makes Gordon speak – which for me is a Cardinal Sin of Hl modding – more on that another time.
The voice acting itself isn’t that bad but the voices are. Of course, being ten years old it’s easy to pick holes in things like this.
Overall, it’s a good mod, was fun to play (for a while) and tries to be different. Go play it, you’ll probably enjoy it.
Another map pack that I recently finished not too long ago. An old but very enjoyable experience with some good level design, combat and decent custom voice acting.
As mentioned the pack features some good combat with a blending of human grunts, assassins and a sparse number of aliens. In essence, it’s your typical gruntfest but that’s not necessarily a bad thing as the actual combat areas are, in short, well designed and fun to take part in. Towards the end, with just a crowbar in your possession, you’ll fight some wretched abominations of humans mixed together with alien flesh but they are fundamentally just reskinned alien slaves.
It can be challenging depending on your choice of difficulty but normal is definitely recommended.
It also has some pretty good cut scenes throughout that are well constructed and enjoying to watch. These also help with providing and advancing the story. In short, they are very good and fit perfectly within the maps. Some might be turned off by the long intro but personally I didn’t mind it.
It’s not terribly lengthy but for its duration it’s solid and fun throughout. Very much recommended.
This just misses a “Personal Favourite” from me and is one of the best in the 100SDoN so far.
This mod has loads of nice little touches which makes it as good as what it is. Generally the unique things such as the Headcrab in the vending machine and the final fight with the Vortigaunts. there are actually too many to name but if you look around you will see them.
This is another mod which has good gameplay, it constantly differs between loads of action, slight action and no action which I thought was executed pretty well because it is nice to have a short rest in between fights. The difficulty wasn’t too hard but it wasn’t exactly easy either.
This had a great story in my opinion. Nice to see a completely new character as the bad guy instead of either Gman, grunts or Nihilanth. Also the voice acting of him was also really well done and you get a feel of his evilness.
There were also some areas that were poor however. There were a few areas where you have to take damage to proceed, which is always something that annoys me. The lack of any Xen creatures apart from Headcrabs and Slaves was also annoying as well as Gordon Freeman talking at the end.
This was a great mod, so play it.
I remember this mod from when I first played it. Good quality throughout and there is a bit of a story to keep it interesting.
I remember played this about more than a year ago, and it’s good is a cool mod with great mapping layout and really cool combat so you can’t regret it, is also interesting the controverssial moment of hearing Gordon speak, but I think is part of that hollywood kind plot the mod develops.
Todesangst is a pretty solid map pack that sets you against a new villain, Dr. Newell (not Gabe). The author uses cutscenes (a lot) to keep you updated on Newell’s plot, which mainly consists of killing you since you’re a loose end and probably also a loose cannon.
The combat and gameplay here was decent but not great. Most of your enemies are grunts, with a handful of the weak aliens scattered around. The memorable outdoor battle is with an Apache, but you’ll have a neat mounted rocket launcher to use against it (though the battle is still tough). Overall I found the combat pretty easy, but if you take serious damage in a fall or in combat, it might be while before you heal up since health is kind of scattered.
The mapping is a bit of a mixed bag. There are some really nice looking areas – I really liked the silo filled with water and ickys, for example. And the outside landing pad near the end was cool. But in parts, Todesangst suffers from “rooms connected by long boring hallways” syndrome. The hallways are not only dull to look at, but they also interrupt flow sometimes (see below). The ending section was an odd choice of a series of finale battles…[spoiler]you lose your weapons and have to fight a handful of slaves with only a crowbar.[/spoiler]
What bothered me the most was the flow of the game. After an excruciatingly long introduction, you have several long interruptions in the action for cutscenes. Yes, they help to tell a story and set up Newell as a really bad guy. But they also take you out of the action. They bother me in other games, but particularly in Half-Life mods since they are like pies in the face of the design of the original.
To sum up: the sequel is better. Play it instead if you only have time for one.
I didn’t play this one long time ago, but I heard that it was famous for its cutscenes and I’ve seen a tutorial about cutscenes written by the author. Storytelling through cutscenes on Half-Life engine looks very impressive to me, considering that the cutscenes would be easier to make on DoomScript (idTech 4 engine), and much easier on UnrealMatinee (Unreal Engine 3).
I played it few months ago, but almost didn’t remember it. So, either it’s just me or it’s not memorable.
During your journey, there will be some puzzling stops, each of them will end with an “Ah! I see!” moment. The fight with helicopter is cool, but has a high chance to become frustrating, because after I won it, I had only 11% health. Near the first lasers, there is a very hard jump to the ventilation, because the ceiling girders are on the way.
It is fun to recognize the places that were seen in cutscenes before when visiting them.
Very entertaining cinematic experience with fun puzzles. Worth playing.
I thought I’d played this in the past, but after starting it I’m pretty sure I haven’t. Looking at the author’s notes, I have to say that to me it did indeed look and feel like the original, but something did stop it being spot on.
One of the things I didn’t quite get was the scene with the helicopter, you can just go up behind the tank, look right and there’s an open door so you don’t need to take out the chopper to continue!! Game play was a little too easy in places and I don’t know why but I just couldn’t get the feeling of immersion in the game.
Overall it is fun to play but if it had been longer I would have probably put it aside for a while. Looking at peppyfool.com there’s a part 2, which I hope is better.
Finally, who really did eat all the doughnuts? Maybe the answer is in HL2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypWT05b1kgo
Very good mod, not repetitive, good level design, nice story. It is a great setup for excellent sequel and very worth your time.
I’d give this a personal favorite, but I did have issues with things at the very start (by breaking boxes I shouldn’t have) but the whole mod was just excellent.
A very enjoyable if a tad long intro sequence. I… was a bit shocked [spoiler]at the death of my beloved Gman![/spoiler] but still, I could see what was going on.
The progression of levels was excellent. The use of existing materials was very good, new ones worked well. The voice acting was… well, kind of laughable, but still. Good enough. A sense of time having passed was nice, day versus night, and discovering the helicopter pad at night was pure awesome. I didn’t feel as though I was being punished for exploring – even though I died – because it made me feel like the place was more fully-fleshed out than some other maps have been.
The fighting was sparse, gotta say that. But it was still fun, health was an issue a couple times, even on easy.
Overall this was a great little mod. It was long enough to be filled with good action, great looking maps, *climbable pipes!* and the cutscenes were well thought out to say the least. They gave an excellent impression of the layout of the place, I’d actually like to see a full map of the locale, because it seemed to flow very well based on what we saw at the start and during cut scenes.
Definitely a mod I’ll be leaving in my library!
was great fun to play this again. now I shall sit and rest. Maybe I can pass the time by cleaning and polishing my crowbar (i got lots of alien gut’s on it) as I await the release of todesangst 2,and then todesangst 3. oh hum.
I think Mel must have this confused with another mod, because there is plenty of combat and lots of everything else too.
Yes you are right Phillip; I must have confused this with another mod. Todesangst does contain plenty of action, some of it long drawn-out zombie bashing sequences which get a bit boring after a while. The introduction ranks among the longest and pointless imaginable, and coupled with the somewhat poor voice acting, it added nothing to the player’s expectation of what was to come.
For a large part we get seemingly endless corridors, passage ways and stair wells all coated in plain textures with little if any incidental content to break the blandness. For me the mod lacked any memorable moment of action or set design worth a second look.
Health is never plentifully, and you are forced to repeat a lot of the combat sequence in an attempt to improve your health level, this on one hand is not a bad situation, making you think and try different tactics, on the other hand it’s a pain when you are up against zombies or volts with only a crow bar.
I was pleased to finish this one, however, if my memory serves me right Todesanst 2 is much better.
YET another classic.
Classic mod with a decent BM-style story and quite many cutscenes supporting it. I will not describe the story further as lots of the charm will be lost then, read the readme before playing if you want to know more about it, or just watch the intro cutscene.
Therefore just the pro’s and con’s, except it’s worth playing (but only like one time). There is a part 2.
Pro’s:
-Decent leveldesign with some nice architecture and lighting – but also the opposite sometimes
-An interesting story with five cutscenes
-New stuff like textures, modified models, sounds & music
-Useable surface-to-air-missile (SAM) tank and APC
-A few scripts
-Some funny trivialities (see didusee.txt in “Todesangst1” folder)
-Semi-secret areas (pretty obvious though)
Con’s:
-Quite short playtime
-Balancing, it’s just too easy
-Often longer walkways
-Almost no puzzles
-Sometimes poorly detailed, boxy and grey hallways
-Dead(ly) ends
-Less variety in weapons (only crowbar, pistol, Magnum, shotgun, assault rifle)
Something nobody’s mentioned yet, about this very good mod (the sequel is even better).
It’s supposed to be funny…the voice acting is bad on purpose.
Todesangst may be a first release from author Peppyfool but is truly impressive. It has a plot-twisting story deriving from Half-Life, a well-coordinated and entertaining ending, and thoughtfully executed gameplay. Intriguing cutscenes meaningfully convey the story and draw it all to a grand finale (respectively). In between is an experience that condenses almost all of the best parts of Half-Life. The situational puzzles are clear enough so as to not need the walkthrough, enemy placement is devious, and the scripted sequences sprinkled around keep the adrenaline high.
Throughout the 12 playable maps, Marines, aliens, a few female assassins, and even an Apache prove challenging opponents…especially that Apache because it can shoot through a certain emplaced gun’s window. It’s a considerable effort merely even getting to the emplaced gun; the author could have staged a set-up that rendered the player impervious to the Apache’s attacks. Aside from that battles are generally fair and balanced, and set amidst a consistent HL/OpFor backdrop. Everything simply looks and acts in place, capturing the essence of the Black Mesa universe. And game flow is remarkably intuitive considering the amount of side-area exploration.
A few aspects are lacking, however: there could have been slightly more interactivity (not just with emplacements and tanks), more intense and more frequent combat would have been nice, and larger set-pieces are absent. Additionally, it feels relatively short; there’s an impression of over-condensed gameplay in the relatively short playing time.
Considering that Peppyfool did most of this on his own, Todesangst is a highly commendable effort and without question ranks among the best HLSP mods. This one is simply a must-play and should be experienced by all addicted HLSP-ers.
Notes
This review is republished here by permission and was originally published Thursday, 19th April, 2001 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.
This was one of the few mods I had played thanks to a friend, back when I didn’t have inet access, and it might be the reason why it will always have a special place in my heart as a “Personal Favorite’, indeed.
Such a laid back attitude with an actual story to it, a lot of custom content, decent combat and hilarious bits. I actually didn’t mind the cutscenes, they all felt just right, like watching a movie and having some moments where you lay back and take a breather while the events unfold further.
It sets the mood right from the start with a funny “who ate all the donuts” song!
In the next chapter, Sector E, I giggled at the pop machine explosion followed by a crab jumping out of it. Oh and at the “enter the elevator now, please” messages delivered by the ever present announcement system.
In the ‘schlimme bla” German titled chapter we finally get to use a tank and climb a pipe like ladder just like in CStrike, I actually missed that. I also missed the random catwalk crashing under me, it really took me by surprise. And I remembered how over used those were in hl1 mods, but I just haven’t played a lot of them in a long time.
Weird that Dr. Newell complained I killed the 2nd floor specimens AND the ones in this area (I guess I developed a small obsession for steps/stairs) since I didn’t touch the Ichties without my xbow. I think somehow the cutscenes made the mod feel more alive and immersed me even more, since I found myself pressing the mouse button harder and my teeth cringing while spraying a grunt that just wouldn’t die haha
Despite having no puzzles, I really enjoyed the ingenuity of the author when it came to getting the player around his levels, this is just an example, and an outstanding one I might add.
I found it odd that they gave Gordon a voice and indeed there’s a few dead ends where the player can’t escape from without using cheats, and some deadly ends too, but all of those are obvious to spot, really. I just saved before them to check the areas, then reloaded with no issues.
And all that can be forgiven due to the fooken nice outro! that’s also funny! When I think of how groundbreaking and unique it must have been waaay back in the day.. I can’t honestly remember a better credits section in any other hl mod to this day.
The mod is really short and really sweet and passes the time test with flying colors, so you simply must go play it now!
Here is my Meta Review Data.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour, 5 Minutes
And here is a video playthrough https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWPnOGbCY_A
Like the direction it took & like the new security guy i’ve never seen before.
Manually
Easy
10 Hours
atrocious voice acting, bland and disproportionate levels, I don’t see what you people like about this map.
Manually
Hard
1 Hour
Maybe you’re too blind to see the good stuffs in this mod
A slightly-less-than-average mapping and a lot of gameplay problems makes the experience unpleasant and frustrating. The game often kills you or inflicts you damage in a way you couldn’t have predicted if you hadn’t played the game before. The complete lack of autosave is already a problem in itself, but combined with the issue aforementioned it just make the mod unplayable. There are also creates with a breakable-crate texture you can’t break, crates you can break yet are necessary to progress in the mod, rooms you can go in but can’t go back…
Nice mod! I like the modification of the vortigaunts and their usage in the storyline. Combats and puzzles are enjoyable. Cutscenes are fun to watch.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
This mod is close to be one of my personal favorite. Unfortunately there are some things I am concerned about. Custom textures for major characters are well made at least. The plot is very good to me, kind of giving me 007 vibes from it. The level design is okay, it’s a typical Black Mesa type of design. Now let’s dive in to different parts of the mod.
Story, basically a new villain Dr. Newell is having his own exploitation of Xen’s biological uniqueness, I’ll explain that later. So Gordon’s goal is to stop him and his plans, simple as that. He would encounter some various friends along the way such as Joe. I wonder what happened to Barney, but anyways. As he progresses, Dr. Newell would send a bunch of soldiers to stop him but ultimately failed. He would use his experiments which is a hybrid between a human and vortigaunt. The vorts do have an interesting custom texture, it’s creepy, but they sound too robotic. It kinda ruins the creeps. Gordon eventually gets to fight through them to get to Dr. Newell but Joe is already there which is quite anticlimactic. I expect a good boss battle or a finale, but all I get is an anticlimactic ending where Dr. Newell turns into a vortigaunt.
The gameplay is not that hard, just normal. There are times when enemies cramp up in one tight room, some traps and hazards that kill you in almost one hit, and almost no puzzles at all. The interesting part here is that the vehicles are all usable such as APCs and SAMs. Unfortunately, they are broken and very hard to use. Like for example, the SAM tank, I keep firing rapidly just trying to shoot down the helicopter. Now I know everytime you use any turret, the crosshair disappears but why make it so hard to destroy the helicopter? But I guess it’s not even required but there’s no way you could destroy it in like 3 – 4 missiles.
There’s nothing much to say about the level design. It’s your typical Black Mesa like design and there’s nothing wrong about it other than it’s getting way too old and common. But anyways, it’s still a fine design, no inconsistencies or whatsoever.
The voice acting, hate to say but it’s horrendous. The quality of the acting is the worst I have ever heard from all mods I have played so far. But hey, at least I’d give a point for effort, because it’s best to provide voice acting than a huge wall of text like in Timeline trilogy.
So far so good, I’m gonna review the sequel later.
So G-Man is just a businessman and it is eliminated by some kind of stranger we never seen before. It seems the soldier shot some shots to the ground while killing G-Man what a mess of shooter shooting from behind!! That he says no human weapons. Well you just shot this bastard with an MP-5, what do you mean with no human weapons? They don’t even exists in this mod, all weapons are made in USA and are human. A machine mixing aliens with humans? Pff I don’t know, you can heal any person how on Earth you can mix a human with vortgaunt? The form looks like a doctor is wearing a vortgaunt costume and is launching bolts, that’s another aspect.
Manually
Hard
45 Minutes