Top billing goes to SMOD and SMOD Redux Refucked, Twiddle's version of it. Top billing doesn't mean I have tons to say about it; it's just way more insane, blood-drenched, and sprawling (especially the codebase), and also very ugly, than I imagined. Twiddle has spent a few days trying to find appropriate weapon replacements for SMOD; the defaults are often hilarious for the first few seconds (USP Match as a "flare gun," and something else as the TF2 demoman's sticky gun launcher) but also kind of suck.
A few of the new features: kick (useful for making ragdolls burst into gibs, or for clearing small obstacles out of the way when you don't want to pull out the gravity gun), health regen, various types of blur effect, IRONSIGHTS WOOHOO (these work best on custom models, and not the HL2 originals - Valve outdid themselves making sure no polygon that couldn't be seen in HL2 was rendered, most of the time, and the weapons are no exception. So they look pretty stupid in ironsights mode, and in fact many of them don't work right in ironsight mode).
SMOD has a mod of its own called SMOD CSS SCI FI, and you can guess more or less what that's about: Take Alyx, Barney, and The Usual Suspects around fighting Combine in Counter-Strike: Source maps, and also some new maps. de_train is changed; now you shoot explosive barrels next to large tanks at the former bombsites. After that, you just return to the spawn and all the Combine disappear - but not the aliens.
Yes, there are three "teams" in the maps, if you set it up so in SMOD's comprehensive settings manager. Adding aliens causes headcrabs and the like to show up, and Combine will shoot at them if needed.
Depending on the map, the Combine aren't just on foot, and I've come across APCs dropped from transports (five RPG shots each!), Striders, and some other things that you won't see in normal gameplay.
HL2DM REDUX
ALSO: after my public shaming about not playing HL2DM I decided to go onto one of the hilarious Skul Shock servers.
Boom, bang, etc.
Did pretty good, the only person who was a real problem was some guy who circle strafed and had a 120 ping (not kidding). Everybody else seems able to use the crossbow like a pro, while I can't use it for beans - but I can twitch at the last moment and score magnum headshots from a long distance pretty darn often. When HPB was gone I was easily top on that server, and there weren't really many slouches.
I like how the physics items allow a large number of ways to take on your enemies, but I found using the physcannon cumbersome and people were most likely to grab stuff out of the air (no surprise, except that me and my 5/9 ping wasn't able to do that, lol).
On the polish side, lots of people doing the "Jesus routine" (i.e. no animation) and, as before, lots of crap maps. I actually stayed along because there was a pretty darn cool and well-thought-out map being played.
Out of the servers I've seen, the Skul Shock ones seem to have the best map selection - but each session load comes at a price as you spend half a minute at least downloading countless MP3s and the like. Depending on the server, music might be playing nearly non-stop, as well.
Haff-Lyif vs. HALF-LIFE: COMBINEd SEQUEL
A few things -
Twiddle gave me a new version of SMOD to play with.
I downloaded literally 830 MB + of HL2DM maps last night, the "best ranked" ones according to FPSBanana (a word of supposed wisdom when looking at the site: check HOW MANY votes a map has; most of the ones with a 10 score seem to have fewer votes; the ones with almost-but-not-quite 10 scores seem better on average, although there's standouts in both areas).
And finally:
http://steamgames.com/tf2/heavy/
Team Fortress 2 gets a Heavy Update!
Oh man. This is gonna be great - finally I'll be able to get that medic achievement for ubering a heavy to two punching kills, and Fat Pharma, and some others. For the new stuff, it's gonna be fun to use this new weapon; it doesn't seem as retardedly overpowered as the Backburner initially was, and I'm looking forward to see what the new shotgun replacement is.
Most important are the new Payload map (open areas, hooray!), and the new game mode (WOOHOO). Jailbreak maybe.
Old update: I played HL1DM a few days ago on a "noobs only" server; between terrible lag and the insane skills of the people there, well...it seems only bots and champions are playing this game anymore. I managed to get a fair number of kills though. Was playing Crossfire, one of the legendary HL maps.
Twiddle gave me a new version of SMOD to play with.
I downloaded literally 830 MB + of HL2DM maps last night, the "best ranked" ones according to FPSBanana (a word of supposed wisdom when looking at the site: check HOW MANY votes a map has; most of the ones with a 10 score seem to have fewer votes; the ones with almost-but-not-quite 10 scores seem better on average, although there's standouts in both areas).
And finally:
http://steamgames.com/tf2/heavy/
Team Fortress 2 gets a Heavy Update!
Oh man. This is gonna be great - finally I'll be able to get that medic achievement for ubering a heavy to two punching kills, and Fat Pharma, and some others. For the new stuff, it's gonna be fun to use this new weapon; it doesn't seem as retardedly overpowered as the Backburner initially was, and I'm looking forward to see what the new shotgun replacement is.
Most important are the new Payload map (open areas, hooray!), and the new game mode (WOOHOO). Jailbreak maybe.
Old update: I played HL1DM a few days ago on a "noobs only" server; between terrible lag and the insane skills of the people there, well...it seems only bots and champions are playing this game anymore. I managed to get a fair number of kills though. Was playing Crossfire, one of the legendary HL maps.
TF2's Heavy Update was out yesterday; I got 9 achievements in a few minutes. Some "hardcore" TF2 players will step away from the game for a while, or playing sniper now, but I think it's a lot of fun to see how different the game is with everybody playing Heavy (and a few spies and medics for good measure).
The first map I got to play was Lumberyard. There is indeed only a small health bottle in the map, although there's quite a drop under it so you better be careful walking around.
Arena mode is essentially Sudden Death every round. I dunno if it's just a map issue or what, but only a certain number of players get to play each round, teams are scrambled (I think?), and if you're on the losing team you might have to sit out a round (they're over pretty quick though, so it's only sliding back to Counter-Strike a little).
I played cp_steel, the new Community Map, which is great, and also the new payload map. Both are alright, I think.
Heavy's new items...ehh, they're crazy, I'll just leave it at that. The verdict is still out on some of them; I get the feeling that Heavy still is a very focused class unlike, say, Pyro, which has the backblast (which can be swapped out for extra burn damage with the Backburner). The boxing gloves are like an Ubersaw, but again without any other bonus besides more damage; the Sandvich is the strangest item I've seen yet and while it does give health I dunno if it really makes the Heavy more "viable" by his lonesome (and you have to grind quite a while with Heavy to get it anyhow).
Some improvements in the server browser now; you can choose to see if there are any bots, and it brings up tags describing what special modes the server is running (good to see if there are any gamemodes you know you hate before you make the leap).
I ran into a few bugs, but mostly it was pretty good fun.
The first map I got to play was Lumberyard. There is indeed only a small health bottle in the map, although there's quite a drop under it so you better be careful walking around.
Arena mode is essentially Sudden Death every round. I dunno if it's just a map issue or what, but only a certain number of players get to play each round, teams are scrambled (I think?), and if you're on the losing team you might have to sit out a round (they're over pretty quick though, so it's only sliding back to Counter-Strike a little).
I played cp_steel, the new Community Map, which is great, and also the new payload map. Both are alright, I think.
Heavy's new items...ehh, they're crazy, I'll just leave it at that. The verdict is still out on some of them; I get the feeling that Heavy still is a very focused class unlike, say, Pyro, which has the backblast (which can be swapped out for extra burn damage with the Backburner). The boxing gloves are like an Ubersaw, but again without any other bonus besides more damage; the Sandvich is the strangest item I've seen yet and while it does give health I dunno if it really makes the Heavy more "viable" by his lonesome (and you have to grind quite a while with Heavy to get it anyhow).
Some improvements in the server browser now; you can choose to see if there are any bots, and it brings up tags describing what special modes the server is running (good to see if there are any gamemodes you know you hate before you make the leap).
I ran into a few bugs, but mostly it was pretty good fun.
Small update:
Sandvich good for health, make you strong! Adds a degree of tension and strategy to playing Heavy. Almost a replacement for the Medic!
Heavy achievements are easy, and I've done 18 already (w/o achievement server grinding, although I ground out the Sandvich one) - there's just one that I consider tough, where you have to work with a Medic to get 20 kills without either of you dying. But that one just duplicates one of the Medic's many tough achievements.
I got the Redistribution (of health) Achievement by camping out in a corner of the 2fort sewers and killing enemies who kept trying to break past me (just me) - Engineers, Scouts, Soldiers...Sandviches and the health pack keep good company and I destroyed 18 of the invaders in a row without dying. Tied my kills record (also had 18 with Pyro).
Natascha doesn't really seem worthwhile playing at the moment against a bunch of other heavies.
Sandvich good for health, make you strong! Adds a degree of tension and strategy to playing Heavy. Almost a replacement for the Medic!
Heavy achievements are easy, and I've done 18 already (w/o achievement server grinding, although I ground out the Sandvich one) - there's just one that I consider tough, where you have to work with a Medic to get 20 kills without either of you dying. But that one just duplicates one of the Medic's many tough achievements.
I got the Redistribution (of health) Achievement by camping out in a corner of the 2fort sewers and killing enemies who kept trying to break past me (just me) - Engineers, Scouts, Soldiers...Sandviches and the health pack keep good company and I destroyed 18 of the invaders in a row without dying. Tied my kills record (also had 18 with Pyro).
Natascha doesn't really seem worthwhile playing at the moment against a bunch of other heavies.
I seriously don't like the concept of unlocking things in multiplayer games. Everyone playing should be on equal footing. And "grinding" is not fun. I don't care if achievements are easy to get or not, I don't want to play specifically to get them, because that's not fun for me, the game ITSELF is why I play it. I hope that eventually, when they're done with all these updates one at a time, Valve will see fit to just give everyone all the updates. I have no intention of grinding to get them, so I guess I'll be stuck with the standard weapons/items.
"I think Ikaruga is pretty tough. It is like a modern version of Galaga that some Japanese company made."
eating sandviches with enemy heavies was enough fun that I didn't care
and all the other achievements, when I get them, give a small feeling of accomplishment, so again I don't care about 'em. I don't suck so much that they're all out of my reach forever (with the exception of a few like "With Friends LIke These..."
As I said on a server, "So long as they don't make "grind out 10 achievements on an Achievement Server" a new Achievement, I'm fine with it."
As for the other criticisms, Valve didn't know what they were going to add back when they released the game, and didn't have time to fit it into the schedule anyway; the game felt pretty complete even back then and I don't recall a ton of hype about what was going to happen (I'm pretty sure the class selection page has been there right along but what do I know) so this is all "Icing on the Cake" (name of another Heavy Achievement).
and all the other achievements, when I get them, give a small feeling of accomplishment, so again I don't care about 'em. I don't suck so much that they're all out of my reach forever (with the exception of a few like "With Friends LIke These..."
As I said on a server, "So long as they don't make "grind out 10 achievements on an Achievement Server" a new Achievement, I'm fine with it."
As for the other criticisms, Valve didn't know what they were going to add back when they released the game, and didn't have time to fit it into the schedule anyway; the game felt pretty complete even back then and I don't recall a ton of hype about what was going to happen (I'm pretty sure the class selection page has been there right along but what do I know) so this is all "Icing on the Cake" (name of another Heavy Achievement).