Afraid of Monsters is a survival horror mod for Half Life 1 that doesn’t follow the beaten trail of zombies and haunted mansions. We recommend that you play AOM in a dark room, with the game on full screen and the volume up high.
Your name is David Leatherhoff, and you’re addicted to a new painkiller from a company unknown. They keep coming, and you can’t stop taking them.
Lately you have started to experience illusions, dreams picking at your deepest and darkest fears.
Finally, you go to the Hospital, seeking help. First, however, you make a stop into the bathroom, where another bottle of pills awaits you, standing out like a beacon in the night in your depraved eyes. When will it all stop?
This was October 2016’s Classic of the Month mod.
- Title: Afraid of Monsters
- File Name: hl1-sp-afraid-of-monsters.7z
- Original File Name: afraidofmonsters.exe
- Size : 58.8Mb
- Author: ruMpel
- Date Released: 30 January 2006
The playthrough below is part of the Classic of the Month Event, run by Don AKA Unq.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
Please note: These statistics are valid from December 2010
-
3,175Overall
-
0Today
-
1Last 7 days
-
5Last 30 days
-
164365 days
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 3 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 3 Hours, 20 Mins
Shortest: 2 Hours by Sheajay
Longest: 5 Hours by Diclonius Limeony
Total Time Played: 10 Hours
This release is currently not in a collection
If you believe this release is missing important tags, please suggest them in a comment?
Gameplay:
If I were to be short, the modification starts off interesting but it then starts to drag on and get really tiresome much later on. Throughout, there seems to be some Silent Hill touches to the mod, mostly due to how the whole thing was designed and the overall look and style of enemies. The zombie type creatures were the creepiest out of the lot, the noises they made, the way their heads moved and the speed they ran at you just sends a chill down your back. This was all controlled and balanced very well at the beginning around the Hospital levels, yet it starts to deteriorate from then on which was a shame as it had some potential to remain enjoyable.
There were also a few elements of surprise that made me jump a few times, sometimes commenting what the hell I just saw. Those were good moments as I felt like quitting as I didn’t wish to find out what I’d find next, but as I mention previously, it got disappointing later and those moments felt too predictable due to that. I did like the corridor that kept changing every time you got closer to the end, that felt very much like Silent hill although some of these great moments were lacking.
A major fault I found in the mod however was it being so dark. So dark, even the flashlight didn’t help much so instead of being scary it was more of an annoyance in the later sections. About the levels overall, the hospital section was probably the best part. The different areas and the backtracking were good for the survival horror aspect, and the darkness worked best in these areas there were only a few enemies about keeping the scare level moderate. The later levels tend to be a bunch of dark hallways with hordes of enemies that brought the enjoyment right down. You didn’t need to think about watching your back as it was predictable something would be there. However, the mansion area helped it slightly but not by much and it had a large Resident Evil 1 feel to it, but this section was also controlled well throughout, yet not as good as the first.
Weapons are given to the player in a very balanced way, good lengths between each of the new pickups and the powerful ones aren’t given too early. The selection is a knife, pistol, shotgun, eagle and rifle. An average set of weapons but there was a fair amount of ammo throughout and always enough health to survive, except maybe in the areas with hordes of enemies.
Also included are some music tracks that really fit the whole theme and work well where they’ve been used. The new sound effects are also quite good, making the world around feel much more alive. I quite liked the village section of the mod where it feels like a role playing game, more precisely like Zelda. A lot of the speech throughout also keeps everything entertaining, sometimes the tone is boring but that adds to the gloomy grey feeling the whole thing gives off. There is also another boss battle in this one with Somos again, but this time round a lot harder and exciting. The team actually made him look and feel a lot of stronger and creepier and the music used in this fight seriously fits.
Design:
The design overall reminds me of Silent Hill in many ways, the textures used in each of the levels with a grainy, dirty look to them and the slight lighting helps achieve this. Many of them were used well, although a lack of trimming in several places made most floor textures not mix well as they change. Most of the structure is alright but rather simple yet the dark levels make it hard to see some of it.
The darker areas I noticed were very under detailed, mostly long corridors with nothing too special about them. These of which are placed several times throughout the mod affecting the gameplay. Each of the levels structure overall were pretty much nonlinear and were done very well. The exterior locations were designed much better than the interiors but again the lighting made it hard to admire it, some textures being a bit blurry too. The mansion area was designed very well with great texture choices and filled each room at a moderate amount.
Conclusion:
Not a modification to avoid, although rather tiresome it does have its good moments worth checking out.
Rating:70%
I quite liked it. Much more than I thought I would. I’m impressed that anyone could make something this unusual (and almost frightening in a jumpy sort of way) and have it turn out as well as it did. However, as stated it is very dark, and it seems as though the flashlight beam has been narrowed down to the point of being nearly useless. Would’ve been better if it’s illumination had been increased over the norm given how much you need it.
Lately I’ve been going back and playing all the HL mods I can find (been 4 years since HL1 was on my system and there weren’t many mods worth playing back then other than Manke’s), and there’s some really great stuff. A few are even better than HL itslef. This one isn’t that good, but it’s an easy recommendation.
What in the hell did I just play? Reminded me of a very freaky acid trip I had once.
I played this mod a while ago it’s great, but with a poor replay value in my honest opinion, is very scary that’s for sure, and hopefully the new Director’s Cut version would be one of the greatest single player mods ever.
The author Rumpel (he took care of everything in this release) has teamed up with a new coder, imagine that, they are going to remake everything from new and outstanding maps, to a much bretter gameplay and features (such as multiple endings and limited flashlight resources)
All that with a new set of monsters and weapon models.
I’m highly anticipating Director’s Cut, and I really can’t wait to play it.
this mod was great but I thought the ending sucked
I’ve played a lot of mods and this is the winner.
I think this fiftheen year’s old rumpel is amazing and it’s nice that he’s done It all by himself. Looking forward to the followup, I know one thing for sure, I’ll play It
agree
i hope theres a sequal. this is awesome why thouth did it have to end like that? A drug induced dream? my god that sucks.
Expect up to 4 endings in the director’s cut version.
Coming this summer I think.
wow man this mod is scary I couid not play it for months this mod gives me the creeps but I liked it still haven’t finished it!
Im very impressed! This mod shows how real horror games should be, and I love it. But, im don`t like the hospital at all. The blackout is the scariest in the game, because you dont see anything easy. And the monsters look so weird that they scare you.I wish the game had some sort of clues. No, the crimson coloured words arent counted. Its very frustrating when everything is dark. But anyway. Rumpel did this good. this is the best you can get from one person, it gets 4/5 from me.
Phew! This one takes some completing. I had to take more than one or two time-outs for this. The atmosphere is excellent, poking around with an even more unreliable flash light, monsters and scares coming from everywhere. Frustration and joy in equal measure. Sprawling extensive maps, that show that double-backs aren’t necessarily a bad thing. Play it with the lights out.
The game is horrible scary, and I like it! wherever you go, you get suprises and scared. Actualy, I never played this alone, and in my family its almost impossible. I really hated the hospital, it drived me so mad that I erased the game from my computer. But after I did that, I installed it again, because I really wanted to complete the game. when you begin to play it, all you want after is complete the game. The game is very good. What make th game so fun. its probarly the fact that it just want to scare the hell out of you!I let my cousin play it, and he got so scared!I cant wait until directors cut release, LOVE AoM!
Rofl, I really like this mod, and it’s awesome cooperative!
It sure is freaky. If you have a good sound card and a powerful headphone, for god’s sake, remove it. Use a very crappy sound box, a stereo one or w/e. Scary moments from hospital and then (after you start going thru some vents) are for making people crap on the pants, literally. I would not recommend to everyone cuz’ it’s freaking creepy, from minute to minute. As stated it even abuse this criteria sometimes. So, if you want to have some fun, and really want to get scared, play this,other wise consider it or keep away from it. (Damn now just you enter an apartment there is that freakyomgmonster that throw knives on you. That has degraded my gameplay interest in nearly 0%. IDK If will play this s*** again.)
Certainly, this is one of the best single player mods for Half-life out there. Very few games have actually scared me, and I never thought it would be possible on the old Half-life engine. AOM proves not only that the HL engine is still very capable, but that the recipe for a horror based mod is very simple. Darkness, moody atmosphere and well placed triggers can do wonders. The fact that the maps were all made by a single person also deserves some merit.
This mod is especially good with a good sound card, a set of headphones, and all the lights in the room off. If you want a genuine survival horror Half-life mod, AOM is a good choice.
If there were any problems with this mod, it would have to be the darkness. Darnkness in a horror mod is almost a necesity, but if done to the extreme, it can make a mod rather annoying. AOM did have a few parts where you wish you at least had a better flashlight. At the same time, the darkness did make the mod frightening, with the possiblity of those abstract, twitchy, zombie-things lurking in the shadows. Overall, AOM was quite enjoyable, and I recommend it to anyone interested in the horror genre. However, for the casual gamer, im not sure if the darkness and style of gameplay will be as appealing as it was to myself.
I really liked this mod…Rather scary and the speed at which the zombies came at you made you jump. Nice mod.
I last played this thing about 2 years ago and with the remake due in a week I decided to replay it- for comparison purpouses.the mod has its ups and downs. it is certainly one of the scariest things i’ve ever played- extremely emotionally draining, even surpassing thief 3’s cradle. it’s not recommended to play this on anything more than easy mode- partly because it’s mathematically impossible to conserve ammo on harder difficulties, but also because knifing zombies can be a bit of a chore otherwise. however, it still is, once you run out of ammo (and if you fire in panic like I do, you run out of ammo early on, though i’m learning to stay calm.)
the level design is reminiscent of old HL1 maps from 1998, 1999- a bit sparse, and nonsensical at times. that said, it was all done by one guy, so I give him credit for that.
one thing that bothers me about the game is that HL1’s old-fashioned, dynamic-lighting rendered flashlight is, in all honesty, quite poor, for a mod that relies so much on darkness. and there is darkness- quite a bit of it.
overall this mod is extremely scary at times, drags on a bit in places, has a few difficulty and design issues, but is definitely worth a play. however, the remake is due halloween, so you may want to wait for that.
I thought this was a sweet mod, even though it kind of lost it’s scary touch after the hospital but it was still rely fun
Directors cut now available!
We know this if you had checked the forum(lnks are there also)On this site things run a bit slower but better.
Is the directors cut uploaded to PP yet?
Hey phillip
I really think you shouild upload Directors cut to you’re site please?
P.S: please reply to this comment!
I will when I get time.
thanks! I can’t wait!
i found 1 ending in the afraid of monsters remake. I dono how to get all 4 tho.
I played the directors cut, quite an improvment I would say. Esp the hospital, much better than the original. Although I didn’t like the bullsquid skin, but it was still a great mod.
First stage is cool, but next is, Boring Boring Boring…
Boring… All doors are locked all the time. So, What’s do next? I dunno
the directors cut is awesome. but I only know how to get 2 diffrent endings, I am not sure how to get them all.
First impressions: JUST GREAT! Almost everything is new: new story, new good looking textures and models, cool and very atmospheric maps. This really gives you the creeps!
BUT
the gameplay is lame. When I play a game, I wann have fun. This game wants to scare you – it does. But it forgets the FUN, the most important thing! With a tiny flashlight you’ll run through dark rooms and have to dodge dozens of zombies. Why you don’t kill ’em? You have very little ammo – and health too. You just run, escaping zombies and other monters – and as you rush through, you might not get ESSENTIAL new weapons. Which means: you are ******! It has a lot of atmosphere, but not much action. If I want atmosphere, I watch a movie.
In short: Too difficult, really frustrating. Only for sadists.
I know, most people don’t get it. But sadists are the people having fun seeing other people suffering. So if you are a sadist, you better play Half-Life vanilla first level, cheat some weapons and go kill them scientists all day.
What you meant are masochists. The people that like suffering. 🙂 And suffer you will in this mod, oh yeah.
Very, Very atmospheric and psychodelic!
Play Director’s Cut version – u won’t be disappointed
And… this AFX’s soundtrack…. Its AWESOME!
Been playing the DC version for a while now… but it just keeps freezing up on me in the seemingly stupidest of places. I was told to turn down the audio settings… it worked great for a bit.
For instance (spoilers inbound) I’m at the parking lot and I’ve had it freeze up 3 times on me. The game lags heavily and then just stops, the last split second of sound is continuously looping, and my computer is non responsive. Any idea what’s causing this? I’m running damn 1.8duo with a gig of ram. I wish to fix it, it looks promising… not to mention I took an hour and a half replacing every single weapon model.
What resolutuion are you running it at?Try taking it down a notch.
I was running at 1280×1024, took your advice and changed it to 1024×768. Froze at the same spot D:
(Spoilers)
I pushed the damn button, leaped over the police car, ran along the cat walk, ran into those 3 dogs, got a few shots off before freezing in the same spot.
(End spoilers?)
Quite a shame I was really digging this mod D:
love the game hope they have another!!
Indeed, the guy behind this mod (Rumpel, I believe) and some other talented people are putting together a new cinematic horror mod for HL called Cry of Fear. Go check out their ModDB profile 🙂
Oh, that nasty little voice saying “Over he-ee-re…” This initial release was followed up by AoM: Director’s Cut. I played this well before Max Payne, although not before Resident Evil and Silent Hill 4, games the type of which this mod gets some obvious inspiration from.Forests are rather lousy in this game, but it has quite a bit of variety. I would have to agree that it gets tiresome in spots, but it captivated me when I played it all the same – I didn’t put it down until I was done. In other spots – the aforementioned Max Payne influenced sections – I think the game does very nicely, even better than its influence, given the platform (GoldSrc).
The cherry on top is the appropriately bizarre Resident Evil mansion sequence, with crazy key items to boot.
I hated the hospital’s map design though. Also, lol @ the ending (or is that…endings?)
one of the best mods i’ve ever played, if you play it with headphones it’s very scary…. great gameplay
Could somebody please help me? I’m stuck on city3, after finding the switch to open the door beside the “god” piece of paper. However, I can’t figure out how to proceed from there.
Nevermind, I figured it out.
and PLAY IT NOW! It takes a lot to creep me out, but this mod did it. There are two versions, The original which is excellent and the Directors cut. Download both. They are dark, spooky, creepy and it will spook you. The enemies move at you quickly like the ones in the movie “House on Haunted Hill. If you haven’t seen it rent it from the video store. IF you can find one. Most of them closed where I am. But it;s worth a gander if you love creepy.
Huh–it’s possible I went right by it, but neither this page nor the txt in the download tell me how to use this file once I download it. Is that common on this site?
As for the “PERSONAL FAVORITE” comment, there’s no reference to where I might find the “Director’s cut”. Any suggestions?
No offense to anyone, but I’m new to this site, and this kind of thing is enormously frustrating. Very much the kind of thing which, if typical for the site, will chase me away. Otherwise, this looks like a beautifully laid out, organized site. What a shame not to be able to locate crucial information!
No, that’s not common, not for the properly updated files.
Please accept my apologies.
To install it, you need to open the archive (I recommend 7zip.org) and then copy the .exe file to any location on your computer. Then double click it and follow the instructions.
In addition, it”s highly unusual for me to post an executable file on the site – I normally get permission to host a compressed folder and post that, along with instructions.
A quick Google search for the DC showed this: http://www.moddb.com/mods/afraid-of-monsters-dc
No offence taken and you are absolutely right about it being frustrating – especially when you are a new to a site. I am sure you experience will be much better for other maps and mods you look for – assuming they have been updated.
You’re very kind. Everything works, and many thanks for the prompt reply.
Cheers,
Jack
You are most welcome.
Welcome to the site BTW.
I took about half an hour last night looking for the Director’s Cut, starting from the link above, it came up with so many dead ends I began to wonder if I knew anything about t’internet…..(Well, to be fair not all that much, but I try!)
The link I eventually got it from is
http://www.gamefront.com/files/files/9003205/AOMDC_install.exe
(Sorry but I don’t know enough HTML to put it in a proper link….I’m sure that a nice moderator will be able to edit it for me…)
Wow, that was quick!
This is a classic of HL1 Horror mods, for sure, so if u like to try those horror mods, this is one U must play, indeed this is the very original verssion made for non steam HL1, so this here on PP.COM is a really shiny jewel, I recommend to play this and then try the AoM DC mod as the last directors” cut contain several changes, anyway, this is a basic you should play from the classic mastermind of terror in HL RuMpel!
Hospital:
Jump from elevator top to elevator top…Down the hall to left…Past the gurney…Down the stairs to “blue door’…Nothing.
Door does not open, can not get back up to the floor above…Stuck.
I have no clue how to use console or cheats, so unless I am missing something obvious, I guess I am done…
Afraid of Monsters is certainly a classic in the HL modding scene, it’s made mostly by a single person who was in his early teens at the time and would go on to more acclaimed things, such as a remake of AoM (entitled Afraid of Monsters: Directors Cut) and Cry of Fear. This was a favourite of mine and a large part of the reason why I got into Half-Life mods, but I don’t think it has aged well at all.
The combat in this game is rather basic for at least the first half of the mod, as this is survival horror you will need to conserve ammo and try and avoid unnecessary damage; the big problem with this is that a lot of the mod takes place in tight corridors and the zombies are far faster than the Half-Life zombie, this means you cannot out-manoeuvre the enemies in the majority of cases forcing you to melee with fast zombies. This is especially bad before you get the shotgun. You will be using the knife for 90% of the hospital so it is essential that you learn how to effectively attack with it and dodge. Half-Life zombies also have a hard to dodge overhead melee attack that they sometimes use, since these zombies are faster you cannot exploit their lack of speed and this means you will take damage sometimes. This is mostly a problem near the start of the game and it eases off as you get more weapons and ammunition, however the game has another trick later on that it likes to pull, and that is to spawn zombies directly behind you with no warning, this results in taking damage that you cannot do anything about and it is very frustrating. Later on in the mod an Alien Grunt replacement appears which is invisible for most of the time it’s active, it’s not a fun enemy to fight and it often comes in a group.
Horror is one of the most subjective genres, so it’s hard to really say if it succeeds or fails. In my opinion it is a success, when I first played it I found it to be terrifying, now that I am older and have played it much more frequently I find it significantly less scary but on occasion there were a few nerves. The atmosphere here is fantastic, the custom textures, sound design and usage of sounds are all superb, it immerses you into the world which is good for a horror game, it makes you feel you’re living the nightmare that the protagonist David is experiencing. There’s some ominous music here and there and again it fits well with the theme. Two main things i do not like about the horror atmosphere are the excessive use of jump scares – which admittedly weren’t as frequent as I recall – and the darkness which has become a common trope of horror games and is in my opinion a greater source of irritation than it is of fear.
The map design here is good, there’s a lot of realistic looking environments like a hospital, houses, a shopping centre, I’m fond of this kind of map design and it’s fun to play in. As said before the corridors are typically tight, even in the outdoor areas, on one hand I like it because the claustrophobic vibe helps the horror atmosphere, on the other it forces you into combat which I think goes against the genre. I can’t have any complaints with the general map design though, it’s good.
I’d love to give Afraid of Monsters a play it now, I still had a lot of fun with it and it holds a special place in my heart, however since there’s a remake which does offers a greater experience than this I see very little reason to play it except for its legacy. If you’re a fan of AOM:DC and want to see the humble beginnings, I would recommend this mod, for anyone who is new and wants to get into Afraid of Monsters, please just play the Director’s Cut.
Manually
Medium
2 Hours
This mod is the humble beginning of my personal favorite mod, the director’s cut edition.
But the director’s cut edition isn’t on this site so I’m leaving this review here instead.
The original is rough in a few places especially level design.
Manually
Hard
3 Hours
Very Good
Manually
Medium
5 Hours