Comments on: 3 – 2 – 1… Action Half-life.

By: oddjob

oddjob — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:13:46 +0000

As lead designer of this mod all I can say is thank you for the kind word. We had a great team of people who made this happen and it’s great to hear something this long after.

By: WaxNostalgia

WaxNostalgia — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:38:30 +0000

Games were much easier to mod back then. I guess what’s happening with the Indie scene is akin to the mod scene that was flourishing with novel ideas. Qpong, Jailbreak, Weapons Factory/Team Fortress.

I didn’t get into AHL like I did with AQ2. I remember AHL was in beta for a long time (beta 5 was the last one I played?) Then there was talk of A-UT or some other nonsense and the mod slowly died.

I thought the Opera had a lot of potential with acrobatic movement and gun-fu (plus some art from Penny Arcade) and co-op mook mode but it didn’t get anywhere big.

By: Stylez

Stylez — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:21:31 +0000

I used to be the writer for the Mod of the Week on PlanetHalflife, back when “it was cool” as it were. It’s true the mod scene for HL2 isn’t nearly as vast as it was for Halflife. I’m throwing a LAN next month and I intend to play the crap out of AHL again. Thanks for bringing back the memories Quinns

By: Levictus

Levictus — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 23:30:37 +0000

All these HL1 mods make me think how much fun the late 90s/early 2000s were for PC gaming. I am sure a lot of it is due to simply nostalgia and the fact that I was young and the world seemed limitless. I remember all those crazy nights at the local internet cafe, we would play for like 8-10 hours. It was so much fun.

By: killagorilla187

killagorilla187 — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:02:25 +0000

To everyone who use to play this, pick it up again and give it a shot, If more people played it would be so much fun!

By: smeerkat

smeerkat — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 02:51:10 +0000

Thanks for the article. AHL was my favorite online multiplayer game. Although game graphics have improved so much since then, I still haven’t found another game that comes close to AHL in the fun department.

By: Brad

Brad — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:27:54 +0000

Well you never know. The AHL: Directors Cut RC2 source code was looked at again recently at Raven’s LAN. Another release with some bug fixes and who knows what else is a definate possibility.

By: Doormat

Doormat — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:28:16 +0000

Oof. I loved AQ2 and AHL so much. Been playing both since I was 13 years old (I’m almost 23 now).

Seriously, the best gaming experiences of my life. Also, one of the best gaming communities I was ever a part of. Thank you SO MUCH to the A-Team for all the work, and thanks to the community for keeping such great games alive for so long.

Also, thanks for the article! This game deserves so much love! Even though it received it’s fair share back in the good old days, it’s still nice to see others remember it with nothing but awesome memories.

By: ChainSOV

ChainSOV — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:49:36 +0000

thanks for this nice article, it was an awesome read and woke some warm memories and a longing to play again.
Cant wait to get home to istall the best mod of all times – AHL.

By: PiKo

PiKo — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 05:12:36 +0000

Wow I was just thinking about this mod today. One of the great things about this game was definitely it’s maps especially the ones that had the hidden secrets where you had to do a bunch of crazy shit in order to complete it.

By: Al3xand3r

Al3xand3r — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:10:17 +0000

They never competed because AHL is niche hardcore while CS is mainstream fun (even if its fans like thinking of themselves as hardcore). Claiming Valve had any hand in the demise of AHL is silly as they’d actually benefit more from having more popular mod examples to show and more reasons for people to buy their ancient game (they always went for constant sales over the years instead of speedy first week profits). All you can blame is the communities which didn’t give many high quality projects enough attention thanks to the CS style over substance appeal. Even Valve’s own TFC suffered greatly from it. It’s unfortunate AHL broke with a patch, but it was probably done because of its more complex coding rather than some sort of conspiracy or ill intentions.

I used to play all the mods that showed some effort put into them and it was sad to see them go unnoticed but it wasn’t Valve to blame. On the other hand I do think they should have done more for mods this generation because we once again have many high quality projects that get ignored with too few people actually playing any mods at all.

The community needs some re-educating and re-introducing to the wonderful world of “you can have a different unique and fun experience every 20 mins thanks to mods, why play CS:S and Garry’s Mod all the time then?” gameplay. Or let’s just all stop caring and let the whole modding deal die for a few years in order for it to be ressurected in a new generation, like the original HL achieved.

I still play everything decent out there that achieves its own personal charm, but I do feel any mod team expecting success as judged by today’s standards (CS, Garry’s Mod, etc) will quickly be disapointed, there’s no room for them atm unless they manage to create some mainstream concept which will in turn further kill the rest not so mainstream stuff anyway.

That’s why I admire single player modders also, because they know what they create, even if popular, will only be played so many times and then forgotten forever except for some website’s top 100 mods column. And they still go ahead and work so hard for it. It’s too bad multiplayer projects can simply die altogether just because they didn’t enjoy mainstream success. I understand it, I just wish it wasn’t so. of course we can always play our favorites in lan parties but still… Something is missing.

I’ve started ranting aimlessly so I’ll end this now…

By: xeallos

xeallos — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:03:52 +0000

“I’m coming to terms with the fact that the mod community today is unlikely to produce anything like it. AHL was, like so many Half-Life and Unreal Tournament era mods, based on a cluster of simple ideas that were honed over years and multiple releases following community feedback”

Glad there are enough commenters from the AQ2 scene to set all this straight, but one thing that has always bothered me…

CS and AHL always seemed in competition to me for the Half Life player base, and around version 6 of CS (the one with the smoke grenades) Valve released a major patch to the core HL engine that rendered a lot of the AHL code functionally worthless – from what I remember reading they had to basically recode the entire dodging mechanic and animation system from scratch to get back to a stable development version.

It was always my opinion that Valve had a hand in its demise because AHL was ALWAYS the more superior and varied experience in terms of multiplayer FPS combat. It had a rougher visual edges, but CS had a great modeler and that is really the only advantage they had. I think Valve presumed CS would be a better investment opportunity due to the amount of inherent repetition and the lack of any genuine game design “five minute team deathmatch rounds with psuedomilitary hitscan weapons restricted to maps that can be illustrated on bar napkins with a trivial cash mini game thrown in for no apparent reason” sounded a lot more profitable than actually having to do some work and you know, design a game.

I used to run a linux server off my DSL at home and we would play AHL on Crossfire 24/7. Nothing like the sight of all the people diving across each other while unloading dualie pistols as the blast door was closing and the siren was blaring… also, I distinctly remember that if you had a the .357 Magnum any shot to the groin would be as lethal as a headshot but more entertaining because of the inability to bandage the area. I was known in my LAN circle as the “Crotch Assassin” due to my uncanny ability to put a revolver round on your left testicle as I dove off a rocky cliffside into a shallow pool.

There were some genuinely fantastic maps for AQ2/AHL that are more memorable than 99% of the commercial grade “Licensed Property” Quake 3 engine crap we were drowned with for so many years. Much respect.