By Alec Meer on June 8th, 2009 at 5:19 pm.
Update! Now with non-hideous video!
Sometimes, you just don’t need to think up a funny headline. In this cause, the subtitle does its own job. The sauce… OF DEATH!
If you don’t know the John Woo-inspired mod Action Half-Life, you should immediately go and read this. Once you done that and then finished lamenting that there aren’t more mods with the same kind of fun!fun!fun! ethos, you can then go and nose trepidatiously at the just-released sequel, which relocates the kung-fu, Max Payne leaps and strangely gentlemanly brutality in the Source engine.
It’s early days, with obvious compromises, very few official maps and some key features missing, but the rudiments of AHL’s delectable blend of stupidity and balance are there. I’m worried it’s not yet doing enough to warrant its own existence (i.e. that there should be this as well as AHL1), but hopefully the community will gradually build it into something special, rather than the crude, if entertaining, skeleton it currently is. Happily, however, it has these things:
- An introductory movie that made me funk-shuffle around my bedroom whilst air-punching and yelling “FUCK YES”.
- G-Man with a porn tash.
Oh, just go and play it, would you?
Can’t find much in the way of videos yet, bar this one, which I believe stems from some beta tester rather than the creators. The unnecessary ow-ow-ow soundtrack and hyper-editing doesn’t sell it very well, alas. Honestly, you probably shouldn’t even watch it. I’ll stick a better one in once I find one.
Horror-video removed, and replaced with a proper trailer. Don’t panic about the first 10 seconds – this isn’t a real Rick-Roll. We wouldn’t do that to you.
08/06/2009 at 17:25 Thirith says:
What a ghastly video. Exactly the kind of video after which I forget that I’ve ever heard about the mod.
08/06/2009 at 17:25 Nick says:
Terrible video (awful mix and makes the mod look pretty bad).. but I have fond memories of Action Quake 2 so I might give it a try.
08/06/2009 at 17:30 Jaffo says:
Yep, shocking vid (with the exception of the Gman dive across the screen, ending up next to exploding barrel bit in the middle!). Never played AHL but did play a lot of AQ2 on Wireplay back in the day.
08/06/2009 at 17:36 derFeef says:
I think the creator has not evolved a bit since back then. Horrible… horrible. But I must admit it has some retro feel.
08/06/2009 at 17:48 The Fanciest of Pants says:
I also am an old AQ2 stalwart, so giving this a go. Judging from the vid the weapon models/animations are pretty meh. Maybe I’ll redo some of em.
08/06/2009 at 17:49 Reverend Speed says:
WHERE IS THE SPECIALISTS FOR SOURCE?! WHERE? WHERE? WHERE? WHERE?
…
WHERE?
08/06/2009 at 17:52 Die Happy says:
love that this game is back , it is prety much the same as in HL1 just much less polished but still great fun
the guy in the video is really pro he can kill people with the HC
08/06/2009 at 17:52 Ging says:
It’s not going to happen Reverend – not unless some other team does it!
08/06/2009 at 17:54 Zero says:
I wish two things upon seeing this video:
1) The creator would stop spamming the damn sawed-off shotgun so I could see how the other weapons behave.
2) That game modelers in general stop using these weak-ass punch animations. Those jabs toward the end of the video look like they’d almost hurt — almost.
08/06/2009 at 17:59 cyrenic says:
Take that video down! My poor eyes and ears.
08/06/2009 at 18:02 c-Row says:
That music! That horrible horrible music! Aaaaaaaaah!
*runs away and pinches eardrums*
08/06/2009 at 18:05 Empyreal says:
Yeah, most people are going to completely ignore the game once they’ve seen that video. You should probably take it down.
08/06/2009 at 18:06 kobzenbluten says:
BMOP BMOP BMOP
Party like it’s 1996!
[hoov] [hoov] [hoov]
08/06/2009 at 18:19 teo says:
I really don’t like the source engine
08/06/2009 at 18:19 Paul Moloney says:
I’m giggling at how bad that was.
P.
08/06/2009 at 18:24 BigJonno says:
Yay! I may start playing online shooters again!
08/06/2009 at 18:25 Lord_Mordja says:
Well they do have a trailer you know…
http://www.moddb.com/mods/action-halflife-2/videos
08/06/2009 at 18:28 zombiehunter says:
ohooo my gawd! that music makes we wanna kill…. the guy who made that vid ^^
i’ll wait with my judgement till theres a better vid up, i think you should seriously consider removing that one :D
08/06/2009 at 18:31 KindredPhantom says:
Ooh mod coverage..more please.
Also try out modular combat, i played that yesterday it is pretty fun.
08/06/2009 at 18:37 RogB says:
AQ2 was legendary in our offices. Utterly amazing fun flying kicking people through plate glass windows.
Oddly, I didnt think much of the other versions. AHL was funny for a bit with its insane woo-jumping, but didnt quite have the same feel. In AQ2, Hitting someone up close (crouched) with the Handcannon so hard that they hit the top corner of the skybox, then fell to their death was mucho amusing.
It also had the best sound for a headshot evar.
08/06/2009 at 18:39 Tom says:
The amount of hours i lost to Action Quake 2 doesn’t bare thinking about.
It was My Game… if you know what I mean.
08/06/2009 at 18:44 abhishek says:
That video is designed to kill any sort of passing interest one might have in the mod, right? Right?!
08/06/2009 at 18:54 Malagate says:
I like the intro…but that’s as far as I get. Then I get a lovely little Engine Error: module failed to initialise.
Then a memory read error.
Suffice to say, I am not a happy bunny >.>
08/06/2009 at 18:56 ChampionHyena says:
Has anyone here actually played the mod? ‘Cause I have.
First try: inexplicable crash whose error message I sadly failed to record. Oh well.
Second try: couldn’t retrieve the server list from the master server. Shut off my firewall, tried again. Nothing. Restarted the game. Nothing.
Third try: tried creating my own server just to dick around in… and hey, didn’t I see bots in the screenshots? Startup took an atrociously long time… then I got the error message that “connection failed after 4 retries.” To myself.
I checked the server list. The server I’d just created was sitting in my History list.
I couldn’t connect to myself.
I COULDN’T CONNECT TO MYSELF.
I COULD NOT CONNECT TO MYSELF.
This game can fuck off.
08/06/2009 at 19:09 marvelza says:
chill
08/06/2009 at 19:10 Heliocentric says:
Opera was a better mod with better maps and better kung fu.
Stupid name though, made it hard to find.
08/06/2009 at 19:35 Eveningfall says:
I’m a big fan of the Action mods (AQ2, AHL, AUT2k4). I played this on a server last night and had a ball.
08/06/2009 at 19:41 Walsh says:
Source engine can do hand to hand fairly well as shown by the elephant punching game, Zeno Clash.
The ridiculous run speed makes this game look all spazzy and unelegant. I remember AQ2 being a bit slower for some reason, but I could be remembering wrong.
It looks extremely retro and not in a good way.
08/06/2009 at 19:41 JonFitt says:
Played quite a bit of AH1 back in the day, it was awesome fun. I’ll be watching this with interest. Along with the new Natural Selection it seems like we’re in for the revenge of the all time great mods.
08/06/2009 at 19:46 TwistyMcNoggins says:
Hmmm, could be a good game, but the maps I played were poop. Lots of wide open spaces, meaning most of the weapons were useless and in close quarters, a throwing knife owned everything.
It also reminded me that no matter how good I am at Sniping in TF2, I’m terrible in every other game.
08/06/2009 at 19:51 Therlun says:
Don’t play this.
I love AHL but currently AHL2 is a waste of time (and from my impression of the creator’s vision that won’t change).
08/06/2009 at 20:15 Kieron Gillen says:
It’s worth stressing the video isn’t the work of the developer of the game, but a fan.
KG
08/06/2009 at 20:19 Ging says:
It’s nothing overly impressive yet – I got into one online game where the server promptly crashed. My run around in the singular map on my own server (I didn’t have any issues getting the game to load, or to start my own server) showed some not overly amazing level design and an irritatingly short jump.
Without more play time, I can’t really say much more – but initial thoughts for an early release are to check back in 6 months.
08/06/2009 at 20:20 Wisq says:
AHL was great, but it’s the sort of thing that just doesn’t age very well. The semi-realistic approach to bullet physics and damage (including surface penetration), the use of real sniper rifles rather than glowing chargy dot things like TFC, the inclusion of combat knives (both slashing and throwing), and the special items and associated tradeoffs — these were all things that were hard to find individually back then (as I recall), far less all in the same package.
These days, it’s common to see several of these in any given game, even if AHL still has that unique combination and frenetic pace going for it. More importantly, even free mod efforts have gotten a lot more polished these days than AHL ever was.
Judging from the screenshots, this just looks like AHL on the Source engine, rather than a real sequel with new and exciting features. It’ll probably excite long-time AHL players who have been stalwartly refusing to play anything more modern, but I really don’t see myself even downloading it in its current state.
… Granted, stealth slippers + kicking people off ledges = pretty darn fun. So maybe I will download it after all, at least during the post-release excitement while there’s plenty of people to play with.
08/06/2009 at 20:27 Nick says:
Oh I totally forgot you could jump kick people in AQ2.. that was brilliant. The sort of spin off mod Dirty (I believe Grim or someone similiarly named got permission to use the AQ2 resources and tweak things to his own mod) was superb too, some nice little coding touches like looking bodies and it keeping track of how many bullets were left in magazines of dropped guns and stuff. At the time that was fairly unheard of even in commercial games.
08/06/2009 at 20:57 FiX says:
Matrix Quake 2 also had a lot of stuff borrowed from AQ2. Christ, to think of the hours spent playing those two, on a 56k line nonetheless. Great times.
08/06/2009 at 20:57 Christian says:
Apart from the horrible, horrible video (and it rather looks (and sounds!) as if it was made by someone really hating the game or at least every other person around, and not by a fan):
I just downloaded it and wanted to give it a try. Couldn’t join any game, it just let me sit in Spectator-mode all the time. But from what I’ve seen spectating, this is nothing more than Counterstrike in fast with a few “trick-jumps”..it even sounds like CS. So rather boring and pointless.
Maybe I’ll let it rest a while and check back in a few weeks. May have potential..but there are far more enjoyable things to play..
08/06/2009 at 21:15 Wisq says:
Christian:
That post made me realise the best way to sum this all up: “AHL was way better than CS … back when CS was new.”
08/06/2009 at 21:31 Nostaljah says:
Does it retain the over-the-top movie feel? That was something I always felt missing with the future Action derivatives. The loud melon-chop sound and long blood stream from headshots, jumping into (jumpkicking)/point blank hand cannon-ing someone and seeing them fly halfway across the map. Getting kills rewarded for causing them to fall to their death, etc. The ridiculous damage numbers you can see you caused if you opened the console.
Hell, even the inaccurate M4 model that Goose ported to CS.
None of this realism nonsense.
08/06/2009 at 21:34 Tworak says:
I played the shiiiiiit (3+ years total probably) out of AQ2. Best game and mod and and everything EVER. FACT!
Will try this, I suppose.
08/06/2009 at 21:39 Jacques says:
What, you guys don’t like shit euro gabber?
08/06/2009 at 21:40 Baltech says:
hell yeah, still every bit as fun as it was back when
08/06/2009 at 21:43 Redford says:
Oh wow, a skill video which consists of nothing but someone walking up behind someone without using stunts and blowing them away with the sawed off?
Reminds me of The Specialists, for sure. Too bad that is one game which will never get a Source version.
And yes, AHL was a pretty awesome game. If this is even an Nth of what AHL was minus the sniper railguns this is going to be great.
08/06/2009 at 21:50 Ergates says:
Does this explain why my steam friends list is suddenly full of people playing AHL2
08/06/2009 at 21:57 pepper says:
I miss The Specialists, man what was that mod good. Hardly ever seen such gameplay in other games. Nothing could beat a good Team deathmatch game. How i long for a jump into the lobby, activating bullet time, and putting the enemy’s below me down with my dual golden colts, crashing down into the floor and jump kicking that snipers weapon away…
08/06/2009 at 22:11 RogB says:
@Nostaljah
>>The loud melon-chop sound and long blood stream from headshots
yess, thats the one! sounds horrific! (and always had you hammering at the bandage key in an instant). and I’d forgotten the awesome blood sprays. you could see what direction soemone got shot from by the huge 10 foot jet of arterial spray.
08/06/2009 at 22:14 Dr Gonzo says:
Where is The Opera for source? Anyone remember that?
08/06/2009 at 22:39 Nox says:
I’ll keep this brief: AHL is the best mod I’ve ever played (and with my game library and tendency to try out everything, even if it looks awful, that’s saying something).
That said, I had no idea this was in development, nor can I comment on the quality (yet). But my initial reaction to the news was akin to the announcement of System Shock 3 or a new Planescape game (with Chris Avellone onboard, natch).
Bullet penetration, bandaging, headshots that actually made you yelp, destructible environments, dives, rolls, throwing knives, guns akimbo, revenge grenades (those who’ve played will know what I mean)–AHL took everything that was great about AQ2 and improved upon it.
If AHL2 is a disappointment, it’ll most likely be due to the greatness that was AHL. Kinda like every Star Wars movie after Empire.
08/06/2009 at 23:10 Okami says:
I downloaded and installed the mod. Installed, like in: I double clicked an .exe file and it automatically installed in my Steam folder. I like mods that come with an installer that knows where I installed the game. It’s a nice touch.
I really liked the intro and title screen, they have a certain style. Makes you think of trashy 70s action flicks, which I suppose, is the point.
My first attempt to join a game landed me in an empty map, which was ok with me, because I wanted to try the mod out for a bit before getting owned by people half my age anyway. Though I guess that most gamers my age are better at FPSs than me as well.
Anyway I didn’t stay alone on the server for long and was joined by a gentleman who asked me how to spawn. When I failed to reply immediately, he called me a Faggot and insisted that I tell him how to spawn. It was nice to see that gaming on the internet is basically the same it was ten years ago.
I left that fine gentleman and joined another server instead, wher around twelve people were preoccupied with killing each other. I set all my equipment to random and proceeded to get killed twenty times in a row in the space of ten minutes. It was fast and wild and loud and people were flying through the air and I killed quite a few enemies but most of the time I was killed immediately after spawning and though it was fun for a while I have to fact the fact that I just suck at FPSs.
I guess it’s a really fun game if you’ve got the reflexes of a fourteen year old amphetamine addict, but it’s sadly no game for me.
08/06/2009 at 23:33 Alec Meer says:
Much, much better video up now, folks.
09/06/2009 at 00:26 abhishek says:
Now if one isn’t forewarned, how many people will sit through the first 10 second rickroll part of the video? Whoever thought up that idea wasn’t very bright in my opinion.
09/06/2009 at 00:52 Dorian Cornelius Jasper says:
It would’ve been funnier if the real trailer kept doing the “smoke and sparks” thing another couple of times. (Which, really, you only ought to do once or twice at most.)
09/06/2009 at 01:01 MD says:
Man, I was really looking forward to this a while ago, then I started to worry that it may never come out and it fell off my radar. I’ve never played AHL, but an article Quinns wrote for this very website caught my imagination in a big way. Kind of nervous that it won’t live up to my inflated expectations actually, and also that I might struggle to find decent servers. Still, a tentative huzzah for this!
09/06/2009 at 01:05 Idle Threats & Bad Poetry says:
Once upon a time, my favorite HL Mod was Action HL. When HL2 was released, the team announced they had no plans to release a new mod for HL2. It was a sad day on the internets. But years later, BEHOLD! Action Half-Life 2! And there was much rejoicing.
BTW, “The Sauce of Death” is the best mod subtitle ever conceived.
09/06/2009 at 01:08 MD says:
Turns out that the mod I had been following was actually Distraction Half-Life 2, the development of which is apparently stagnant but not dead. I vaguely remember being aware of a couple of potential AHL successors, but I guess I must have either found DHL2 more interesting than AHL2 or more likely to be released. Who knows what I was thinking!
09/06/2009 at 01:16 MetalCircus says:
So how do I download Action Half-Life? I googled the website and the links are dead. I remember playing it back in the day and having a ball. Can anyone help?
:edit: nevermind, I found it. After searching the forums I found this link here: http://www.ghgmapdepot.com/dc2/ahl_dc_rc2.exe
09/06/2009 at 01:20 MD says:
MetalCircus: This link http://www.ghgmapdepot.com/dc2/ahl_dc_rc2.exe was posted in the MoA forums. I haven’t tested the actual file yet, but the download link works.
09/06/2009 at 02:02 Andy`` says:
AHL with Vehicles? Oh my!
I actually always preferred The Specialists to AHL – something about the way gun combat and aerobatics worked in TS I think, as well as the aesthetic differences – but I had many fun times in AHL anyway. Seeing as TS is never going to see the light of day on Source (and it’s a real shame), I may give this a try. I miss my gun-fu.
09/06/2009 at 02:14 billyboob says:
On the topic of recently released source mods… http://www.radiator.debacle.us/
09/06/2009 at 02:35 Wedge says:
Damn, you got me all excited. This just looks like a half baked HL2DM tweak =/.
09/06/2009 at 03:08 Therlun says:
@abhishek
The trailer does not only start with a rickroll it also was released in April 1st.
09/06/2009 at 04:48 Alex says:
I don’t remember AHL so much for the gameplay. but for its maps. Thanks to the versatility old Halflife’s goldsrc engine, you could even load one mod’s maps in a completely different one. You couldn’t guarantee that everything would work perfectly, but I had a lot of fun on a non-serious TFC server playing the maps made by Hondo. Sure, you could do deathmatch on them, but about 90% of those maps were the elaborate secret sections.
09/06/2009 at 06:08 Real Horrorshow says:
I thought this was pretty damn lame. Very cheep feeling mod, bad gameplay, just bad bad bad.
09/06/2009 at 07:27 The Fanciest of Pants says:
@Heliocentric
@Dr. Gonzo
Fuck yes. The Opera was GREAT.
09/06/2009 at 08:33 Malagate says:
It would be nice to be able to even find out for myself if this was to my tastes, still keep getting an engine error just after getting past the funky intro. Do I have to have certain games installed or something? It’s just getting frustrating now.
09/06/2009 at 09:01 The Fanciest of Pants says:
Ok. AHL1 weapon models are ugly
09/06/2009 at 09:23 Shadowcat says:
I’m sure the game is fun, but that video was fairly dismal. Which makes me thankful that I didn’t see the previous one.
09/06/2009 at 09:30 Jeremy says:
Looks like a bit of fun. Now if I just had the time…
09/06/2009 at 09:53 Lu-Tze says:
I played the hell out of the original AHL, I think it was the first game that got me into a) The idea that an unofficial “mod” could be drastically different from the source game and b) That you can change the visual appearance of weapons.
AHL wasn’t AHL without Golden 1941 Colts with dragons on the grip. Or berrettas with a reload animation whereby you just THREW THE GUNS AWAY and pulled out new ones.
Team Last Man Standing was always my favourite mode, invariably because it always seemed to end up 1 on 1 at which point the call of “Kung Fu in the street?” would be made, and after the 5 minute battle royale it all comes down to two guys fighting it out.
Oh and throwing knives, those things were ace.
Still, these are memories of 10 years ago. Maybe one day someone will make a game that truly appreciates multiplayer gameplay like this. Maybe.
09/06/2009 at 10:39 Tom says:
Crikey – unless my eyes deceive me they’ve gone a ripped a map out of The Hidden.
There’s there a mod you guys should check out.
http://www.hidden-source.com/
09/06/2009 at 10:51 demonarm says:
“Astley’s in the noose (hang loose kid)
Lift the lid on the crimes he did”
09/06/2009 at 11:04 SlappyBag says:
This all makes me want to see that original video posted.
And at Lu-Tze – I also have extremely fond memories. I don’t know if this new version would quite hold up in comparison.
09/06/2009 at 13:58 Rabbitsoup says:
Tom is right, Hidden-source is the one of the best mods out there, wonder if it will ever exit beta?
09/06/2009 at 16:20 Dave says:
This was fun for about 5 minutes. The intro was amusing, the Wilhelm when people die made me chortle, and blasting suckers with the sawed-off was satisfying. The fact that it felt uncontrollable and that the map I tried was WAY too full of people to survive for more than about 8 seconds, not so much.
09/06/2009 at 17:19 Ging says:
For those commenting on the use of an HS map, it’s all good – Boxy released a deathmatch version of Stalkyard a while ago, which is (hopefully) the version that appears in the vid.
Admittedly, his version is just a remake of the original HL map – so it’s all a bit ambiguous.
10/06/2009 at 00:47 Tulpa says:
AHL was always incredibly limp to me. I’m hoping this improves on how weak and totally unthrilling AHL was.
Always preferred the Opera since it had a single distinct, and unified aesthetic, instead of Desperado meets Die Hard meets the Matrix.
10/06/2009 at 03:19 waffles says:
the hidden-source is also a gmod game mode too.
Also i think map usage has more to do with what the server puts up.
Also this is worth a go, as AHL was (is?) awesome.
edit-wow, its just a 56mb file.
10/06/2009 at 09:04 Malagate says:
Finally got it working the other night, for awhile it was ok. Speed was nice, diving around was a bit of a laugh, but otherwise it felt quite “meh” to me. Certainly nothing like the epicness I was expecting after reading about the first AHL, but it is still quite new I suppose. Random weapons should be the only option in my opinion though, it does get silly when Handcannon spam occurs in a map with lots of tight corridors and corners.
10/06/2009 at 09:14 nabeel says:
I tried AHL2 for a bit with some friends a few days back, good and simple fun. There were only like four of us and we didn’t have really good maps but it was still fun for an hour or so.
10/06/2009 at 11:27 Ging says:
waffles – ‘cept, it really isn’t, we’ve had endless issues with the guy who made the stalker gmod gametype nicking our content without asking permission.
11/06/2009 at 17:02 Hawky says:
It should say in the article that this isn’t a beta. Hell, i wouldnt even call it alpha yet.
In other words, obviously the game is not finished by far. I’m having a lot of fun at playing ahl2, but i can understand people feeling differently, just wait on the next release and give it another try, because there’s lots of new stuff coming up. Right now it’s pretty much a port from ahl1 (the weapons etc. are).
The maps are (almost) all HL2DM (so is stalkyard, which is not a map from the Hidden).
17/06/2009 at 21:50 ChainSOV says:
O. M. G. ! ! !
after Duke 4′s death this made my life bright again!
it is an early beta, but its almost as fun as AHL