Zombie Edition is a mod based on original half-life concept, but you will play as a headcrab and, what is more interesting, as a zombie. Zombies can mutate to change their characteristics into three types and every type will have at least six upgrades including new weapons and abilities. For further information please check this mod's Official Page.
GREAT MOD i love being able to see the game from a diffretn view :D
AWESOME MOD
This was the best Hl1 Mod i have EVER seen! 10/10!!!!
One word: Awesome.
wow!!!!!!!
this game is good and cool
and is better
An interesting spin on the tired HL modding scene.
Too non-linear when your only options are awkward headcrab movement and (more often) slow, shambling zombie ***-dragging. Spent way too much time painfully backtracking. Even got softlocked a few times like in the anti-mass spectrometer chamber. You close the safety hood, then give me a one way route back to the other side of the hood? Maybe I was missing something, but this sort of "forgetful" level design was present the whole game through.
Wait-- just watched a walkthrough and YOU CAN RUN?! This would've made the game so much more enjoyable.
Abilities and gameplay elements weren't ever explained. Kept seeing keybinds for abilities and movements, but couldn't ever confirm if they even existed. Actually wondering if my game was bugged because I didn't see any of the "three classes" or "six upgrades".
Weird weapon system. Gave me the occasional headcrap to throw which was cool I guess. Weapon switching was difficult for some reason and I had to rely on "last weapon used". There were 5 weapon slots but only two were ever used?
Some surprisingly difficult "puzzles", some of which felt like they depended a bit on luck. What exactly was I supposed to do in the turret room? Because I had to reload 6-7 times until the ground turret took out the rest, then sprinted up and attacked it before getting ripped to shreds in a hailstorm of bullets.
People sing nothing but the highest praises for this mod, but I found it a bit frustrating with unclear paths forward and unintuitive mapping. The premise however, was great and gameplay was mostly well-executed. This mod did succeed in making me enjoy playing as cannon fodder and evening the odds. Would hate to encounter this particular zombie in HL1.
Half-Life: Zombie Edition is a janky little ride starring you as a Headcrab. As a zombie, you can eat bodies to heal your Headcrab, earn upgrade points, and adds more health to your Zombie body, you can also pick up Headcrabs to make more zombies or as a distraction. The Headcrab you can use is almost useless because you cannot earn upgrade points that way and you pretty much want to earn points as much as possible. There are also three classes you can choose: Crasher, Rusher, and Breeder. This addition really surprised me and they are quite neat with a small detail of your claws changing, I must admit.
The Crasher prioritizes brute force and I picked the class first. Crasher makes your zombie stronger, able to break down some doors other classes cannot, and also adds a little more health for you. However, you won’t be able to crouch as a zombie and you may have to discard the body more often. Your skill tree involves gaining more health from bodies to soak up damage, throwing acid globs similar to Gonomes, taking less damage from bullets, and shielding your Headcrab with your claws. It was fun later in the mod when you basically become an unstoppable tank as you slowly advance on a Marine as he fruitlessly unloads into you. I feel like the skill tree is bugged for this class, as upgrading health for the Headcrab does not seems to work as it won’t unlock the next skill in the tree.
The Rusher focuses on dealing damage and being quick on the move. This class is absurdly overpowered, the sheer fact that picking the class already allows your Zombie to move at the same speed as Gordon already makes it too good. Rusher’s skill tree is the icing on the cake, as it can ignore armor on hit, turns frenzied that might as well turn it into an instant-killing machine, and one-shots unexpected enemies. Compared to my playtime as other classes, which takes about an hour. As a Rusher, I complete the mod in TWENTY MINUTES. On the other hand, the skills that make your footsteps quieter are completely pointless, as once you face the Marines, you will engage them from the front, always.
The Breeder is incredibly underwhelming. It is supposed to be the class that focuses on “gadgets”, such as deploying Barnacles, carry more Headcrabs, commanding Zombies, and creates baby Headcrabs on your own over time. The Barnacle is also pointless like the Headcrab, there is no situation where you can use it since the enemies do not really follow you. Skills that involve commanding Zombies and reviving them are also useless because there are so few Zombies, you can’t really throw Headcrabs very far, and I have no idea how to command Zombies. Baby Headcrabs are a bit useful though, as they can act as your infinite supply of distraction.
I have yet to talk about flaws in level design and gameplay, so let’s begin. The mod is completely silent about telling you that you can do this and that, I have no idea you can pick up Headcrabs and kill Barnacles for additional Barnacles, or even there is a skill tree in this mod. Level design is not really better, corridors are too long and empty and too branched out, making it tiresome to navigate if you’re not a Rusher. The first encounter with Barneys is not good, as there is little cover and you are forced to claw at them when they foolishly run into your hiding spot. There is also this bit where you have to kill the scientist in a test chamber. He will die very quickly if you decide to get in the vent and burrow your way through the computer. This can be very grating as the Crasher since you cannot jump and if he dies you cannot progress, because you are required to hit a button as a Zombie. The mod is very dark at times and your “flashlight” only highlights NPCs around you. There are very few checkpoints and the maps are also buggy, sometimes when you get on a lift guarded by a turret, the new level won’t load in for example.
With that being said, Zombie Edition is still a fun ride. It is a marvel that someone modded this thing into existence by tempering with GoldSrc. It was fun killing Barneys, scientists, and Marines in three different ways. The ending gives me a chuckle too. Just don’t play as the Breeder and don’t take this seriously like me. This mod has a lot of potential and it is a real shame that the creators abandoned it.
This is a great mod, very innovative about the story, a different view in the half-life universe. 11 years since this... Golden
Great mod, very original and interesting!
Half-Life: Zombie Edition is acclaimed for one thing and one thing only: letting us play as the enemy. A novel, fresh idea among many HL mods starts out good and strong, but falls short midway and ends up with a sour taste, giving the impression is not really finished. Balancing, on one hand, simple interfaces with complex gameplay changes, doesn't overcome the weaknesses of unfriendliness to newer players and piling bugs.
Despite repeating Half-Life characters and scenarios with worse map developing in terms of props and corridors placement, it feels engaging and good because it lets the player play a familiar environment from a new perspective: the one of a vulnerable but ever evolving headcrab. The primal instincts of this wild xenian beast are well represented in the simplistic custom HUD, the zombified hand models and the familiar sound cues already heard many times in the original Half-Life. Also, the zombification ECG image sequence and released corpses' models are a nice creepy touch. The only thing that this mod could've been benefited is some ambiental music, since the lack of background sounds and noises in some parts provoke a feeling of extreme emptiness.
Speaking of empty, Half-Life: Zombie Edition seems to lack a plot entirely. The only moments that somewhat resembles one is the start and the ending scene, which with unchanged dialogues from the original game make no sense at all. I'm sure a good story could've been told through this innovating mod, but the developers seem to have gone all in for gameplay at the expense of everything else.
But the good thing about Half-Life: Zombie Edition is that not only allow us to play the role of a headcrab, but also designs an entire levelling system reliant only in getting more kills. The vulnerability while zombifying also gives a dynamic risk-factor while playing. There are 3 different classes, each one with strengths and weaknesses and allowing a varied playthrough. However, a downside in this aspect is the classes doesn't seem well balanced. Breeder underperforms greatly, while Rusher is so overpowered that it seems like a no-brainer pick. The tutorial, which introduces the different classes and I really recommend to play before starting a new game, is broken since doesn't allow to get enough points to try any of the 3 classes. On the other hand, several bugs undermine the good flow of the mod: stuck spawns, deadpoints without warning and non-reactive AI (especially as a Rusher who boldly jumps into action) remain even after applying the 1.01 patch. This further supports the argument the mod seems rushed and/or focused in one aspect while leaving the rest neglected.
As a whole, HL: Zombie Edition is a promising mod, but released in a state that, unless is further developed, is not good enough to unleash all the great potential contained in unprecedented HL gameplay mechanics.
EDIT: A new version was released 6 days after I written this review. Well, I'll be damned... even when the final dialogues are more coherent now and the credit music rocks, no relevant changes were done so my point still stands.