A Soldier’s Tale

for Opposing Force

12th March 2013

As part of the HECU, you enter the Black Mesa Research Facility via an armoured personnel carrier.

It leaves you in a large warehouse-style building and your objective is nothing more than to stay alive and kill as many enemies as possible.

Good Luck!

This was December 2016’s Classic of the Month mod.

Basic Details
  • Title: A Soldiers Tale
  • File Name: of-sp-a-soldiers-tale.7z
  • Size : 4.81MB
  • Author: Matt Arnold
  • Date Released: 31 August 2000
Important Note

If the game keeps crashing at the part with the scientist behind the glass doors, copy the “half-life-103.sav” file into your “opposing force/gearbox” folder and load that. It’s just around the corner and you don’t miss much – maybe 1 minute’s worth of gameplay.

MapTap Users

Download directly into MapTap [4.81MB]

You MUST have MapTap installed before using this link.

Download Options

Download to your HDD [4.81MB]

You can still use it with MapTap once you have downloaded it.

Installation Instructions

I recommend using MapTap for this file.

  • Copy all the files in the archive into your gearbox folder.
  • Launch Opposing Force
  • Open the console and type map opfor1.

If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.

Playthrough Videos

The playthrough below is part of the Classic of the Month Event, run by Don AKA Unq.

Screenshots

Click on the thumbnails below to open a 1024 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.

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Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
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Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Reader Recommendations
Avoid It!
Think Twice
Maybe
Play It Later
Play It Now!

14 recommendations, average score: 4.57 (out of 5), standard deviation: 0.39 (what's that?)
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Meta Review Data
Statistics based on 9 comment(s) with meta review data.

Installed:
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 4 Users

Time Taken:
Average: 1 Hours, 10 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 40 Mins by Dmitry
Longest: 2 Hours by 4erep
Total Time Played: 10 Hours, 31 Mins
If you believe this release is missing important tags, please suggest them in a comment?
Jump to a review
Play It Now!Play It Now!Play It LaterPhillip says Play It!Play It LaterPlay It LaterMaybe?Play It LaterPlay It Now!Play It Now!Play It Now!Play It Now!Play It Now!Play It Now!

23 Comments

  1. Ezequielhl

    Funny starting (you’ll see why, it’s special but I don’t want to spoil), but I recommend it if you are seaching a worth-time Oppfor map. There are betters. 3/5

  2. I highly agree with you Ezequielhl, I uninstalled this mod after the third map, I just couldn’t stand the design. But still, I don’t finished it, so don’t take this comment so seriously.

  3. Play It Now!

    I know it’s been awhile since anyone has commented on this mappack, but I’m sure one of our mapmakers out there can help me. I get a FATAL ERROR; ModForName: models/detpack.mdl not found. This comes when opfor7 trys to load and crashes to desktop. Tried to load manually, same thing. Opfor8 loads, but without weapons, vest(suit), etc. Can anyone help. Yes, the info mentioned in the ERROR is installed or wouldn,t be able to play this far. Emailed author but unsure if he can help. Other than this problem I’ll say Play It Now.

  4. piledriver
    Play It Now!

    This mod is really good. Lots of action, Lots of different enemies, lots of set piece battles. Decent puzzles, not too hard.
    Play on skill 3, there’s lots of health, power weapons and ammo.
    Like a condensed version of Opfor. Great end fight. Can’t see anything wrong with the design (post 4). Didn’t get the problem in post 5. Avoid taking friends onto the next map, you don’t need them. That did make the game crash. One elevator door needs to be approached slowly, otherwise it gets stuck on your foot!
    There may be better mods, but there are many more worse.
    It was slightly tedious moving all the files from the pak into the correct places, as an automatic unpak will overwrite your maps folder, among others.
    Recommended.

  5. Anonymous

    Need walkthroughs. I’m stuck on the last level

  6. hl fan
    Play It Later

    good mod, but a little hard to play on skill 3. First map a bit simple

  7. Sm0ky

    I dont like this mod, the amount of ammo and health is very low, You need to be very carefull with your ammo because if you dont, you won’t have anything. There are to much enemy’s and lots of puzzles are buggy, this is not my style of mapping. There are much better mods than this one like Nuclear winter.

  8. Ten Four Reviews
    Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

    Once in a great while a rookie map author creates a work of such high caliber that it rivals the maps from veteran authors. Opposing Force: A Soldier’s Tale, by first-time mapper Matt Arnold, is such a work. Matt obviously took the time to learn Worldcraft and the Half-Life engine, their limitations, and how to use deception to get around some of these limitations. His hard work shows – A Soldier’s Tale is an outstanding episode that makes good use of the extras available in Opposing Force.

    The background of A Soldier’s Tale is simple: it’s essentially a parallel episode to OpFor. This episode answers the question, “What if Adrian Shephard were shipped out to Black Mesa much earlier, and his Osprey was not attacked during the flight?” It takes place in the ever-growing Black Mesa complex, where you’ll have to deal with both Xen and Race-X aliens, as well as Black Ops. You may even recognize an area or two from your previous experiences at Black Mesa.

    The architecture is mostly of the typical desert base/lab variety, which of course fits in with the theme of this level. Overall, the architecture is well done, with a couple of really nice-looking areas that are memorable. Playability is near perfect for a single-player map; r_speeds remained low, even in the larger outdoor areas. This is especially impressive coming from a rookie mapper.

    What really impressed me about A Soldier’s Tale are the sequences. There are collapsing platforms, well-planned ambushes, and things blowing up left and right. And there was never a dull moment, since lots of combat filled the spots between the major sequences. Opposing Force allows much more variety in enemies and weapons, and Matt took advantage of this to pack his episode with challenging and diverse battles.

    There are a couple of minor criticisms I have. First, there is really no storyline, other than A Soldier’s Tale being an alternate story to OpFor. It would have been nice to have had a developing storyline, perhaps driven with more character-based scripted sequences. Second, the episode is rather linear. This is not something I see as a real problem, since there were a couple of off-the-beaten-path areas that were not necessary to visit. But most if not all of them were dead ends; it would have been nice to have an alternate path to advance every now and then. The only error I found in the level is when a damned Gargantua followed me down a hallway that was too small for him to fit into (no fair!). And the ending was rather sudden and left me feeling a bit confused – some credits or an epilogue would have gone a long way toward improving the finale. These criticisms are all minor, and none of them detracted from the enjoyment of playing this map.

    Overall, A Soldier’s Tale is an outstanding effort for a debut map, and it is as good as I’ve seen in the Opposing Force category. The author’s technical ability in Worldcraft and his prowess in designing clever sequences are apparent. This was simply an enjoyable episode to play through, and I hope to see more single player works from this author in the future.

    Notes
    This review was originally published Sunday, 27th August, 2000 by Unquenque.

    This review was originally posted on the Ten Four website, which is now offline. The full review is republished here by permission and more details can be found on the About page.

  9. Phillip says Play It!

    I had a lot of fun with this but the crash 2/3 the way through nearly forced me to stop. I found a way around it and have included a save for you.

    There were some great set scenes and the end scene was pretty well done.

    The beginning is a little sparse and does not reflect the overall quality.

    Definitely worth a play.

    1. Din

      Thank you very much for a file “half-life-103.sav”, but I don’t know how to load it. Please explain how to do this. Really want to play the game until the end. A special thank you for a great site, I regularly download some mods from here. I am sorry for my English. Hello from Moscow. Din.

      1. Move the file into your SAVE folder. Then load the mod and then try to load a save. Look for the save you have just added – I can’t remember what it will look like. If you have a lot of saves, go back to the save folder and rename it “SAVE1” and create a new one called “SAVE”. Put the file in there and when you open the LOAD section in the mod, there should be only one save in there.

        Let me know if you need more help.

  10. Alex

    Love how this map revisits areas of Black Mesa after Freeman left. It continues what we saw in Opposing Force in its own non-canon way. Good mapping.

  11. Unq
    Play It Later

    Well a little bit of shine has come off this one compared to my old Ten Four review above, but overall it’s still a pretty solid set of maps. I did experience two crashes while playing but they were not repeatable, so for some reason it just seems like this pack is a bit unstable but not unplayable.

    The mapping is pretty good but a bit basic and nonsensical in places. Combat is pretty good, although I think the mapper overuses the trick of teleporting in enemies right in your face. It’s fine once in a while but gets old pretty quick in this pack.

    I liked the tension created with the garg, but since you never face him the tension has no payoff and it’s ultimately disappointing.

    For all my complaining about the Blue Shift (and also the HL and Op4) finale battles, this mod gets it right. I really liked the increasing difficulty and intensity of the finale, and even with a squad to help you, it gets pretty dicey. What I like is the arena feel, and without a classic “boss” to fight. It’s hectic and quite fun.

    In general this isn’t a must-play, but as Opposing Force maps go, it’s in my top 5.

  12. Play It Later

    This mod starts off pretty rough, with some quite basic areas, but definitely improves as you progress. Featured are a range of combat situations and environmental hazards. Whilst early on the mod struggles to avoid generic layouts and gameplay, areas got a lot more inventive later on. From escorting security guards to navigating test chambers flooded with hazardous waste, there are plenty of enjoyable sequences.

    On the other hand, I did encounter a lot of severe bugs in addition to the game breaking crash mentioned in the main post. Admittedly some of them may not have been present originally, but they did serve to disrupt the flow of the maps significantly. I also found that there were occasionally some unfair deaths which should have been avoidable the first time. Another unusual issue I found was that many of the later environments were way too dark, so much as to become an obstacle to combat even with night-vision on.

    Despite my whinging, there was a lot of good stuff in this mod and some memorable moments. Of particular interest is the stunning ending which, as Unq mentioned above, proves that a good boss fight is possible in the HL1 era.

    Not one of the best, but for Opposing Force you could do far worse than this Tale.

  13. Maybe?

    This looked like it might have been one of the best mods so far but I’m still not sure what I thought about it!

    I played this a few days ago but I really can’t put my finger on what I felt about it, parts were good and I enjoyed those parts but not the mod overall. It think it was that some of it was annoying,
    e.g. the live cable near the beginning, I guessed I needed to destroy something to turn it of however the box was not easily visible so it was literally hit or miss getting it. The chamber with all the portable turrets, a few would have been fine, but the high number of them made it a chore.

    Rather than go on a moaning session I will say give it a go as you might view it differently to me.

  14. Play It Later

    Pretty fun to play, but some bad design choices make it challenging at times. Putting a map load point right where you are trying to use the elevator is a really bad idea. There were lots of places where I got “stuck” in the map and either had to noclip back out or reload. Dying unexpectedly because something gives way is pretty annoying. Also, I wonder why you would have rooms with zombies and machinery inside but that are only accessible by breaking the vent? Kind of weird. If you don’t mind the rough spots and are longing to play in the OF world again you might like this

  15. Hec
    Play It Now!

    Well this is a dynamic nice mappack, full of combat action, and some interesting puzzles in the maps, along the 10 we have.

    As in any OpF mappack we have the Op4 weaponery available so that’s allways nice and cool.

    Now the bad points in this one are that some maps feels boxy, and then I think the worst shortfall is the end of the mappack, I mean you have to launch that nuclear missile to the xenian portal, but then I die??? I mean I assume that’s the end of it.

    And also the other wierd thing is that when I used maptap for the installing this mappack also brings 7 maps named “hltrain#” they are the DAV Train maps, at least they seem to be. I don’t know why they are in there along with the A soldier tale’s mappack, I wonder if Phillip could tell something about it!

    Overall, this is a cool combat opF mappack so if you want some battles, go for it.

  16. Play It Now!

    A Soldier’s Tale for Opposing Force

    This is one of the best Opposing Force mappacks I’ve ever played!

    Combat is great. Enemies are well placed, but the only negative I have with them is (as Unq mentioned) that they teleport too many times in front of you or behind you.

    Atmosphere was great, though it’s not something non-linear or original. There were a few nice touches, like that scientist and the Gargantua but it didn’t satisfy me that much.

    Overall, for Half-Life standards, it’s not that good. But for Opposing Force, it’s really great!

  17. I really enjoyed this OF mod.

  18. Play It Now!

    Map design is good, although textures have some z-fighting problems .

    The mod, however, is pretty punishing, a bit too much for my taste. It is full of scare jumps and sometimes, more health would be helpful.

    Overall, it is a good mod, very fun to play!

  19. Play It Now!

    Really enjoyed playing this, a bit rough around the edges but overall it was great.

  20. Play It Now!

    Great action packed maps, very balanced and also have some puzzle solvings.

  21. Play It Now!

    This mod is nice, but it’s like short sections with some variations. Like he gives a sniper with 5 shots and 4 enemies and that’s it. Give some Machine Gun ammo and the first alien take away all the ammo. There’s like a fall down in ammunition level of good weapons and too much ammo for common weapons. And he placed HEV charger for the end. The machine gun, is useful forsome waves with little amount of enemies, when real challange come in, you are on your on. It’s like they like to give something new for a short time.

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