Medieval World

for Half-Life

4th February 2006

About

Your son has been captured by the Demons of the Underworld. He is to be sacrificed to the Master Demon. The Drow Wizard has agreed to supply you with weapons and armour on your quest to save your son.

Basic Details
  • Title: Medieval World
  • File Name: hl1-sp-medieval-world.7z
  • Original File Name: medworld.zip
  • Size : 4.04Mb
  • Author: Michael Hindman
  • Date Released: 20 June 2000
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Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half Life 1, 2 and 3
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Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half Life 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half Life 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half Life 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half Life 1, 2 and 3
Reader Recommendations
Avoid It!
Think Twice
Maybe
Play It Later
Play It Now!

8 recommendations, average score: 3.88 (out of 5), standard deviation: 1.86 (what's that?)
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Meta Review Data
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Installed:
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Manually: 1 Users

Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 25 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 25 Mins by Hec
Longest: 0 Hours, 25 Mins by Hec
Total Time Played: 0 Hours, 25 Mins
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Play It Now!Play It Now!Maybe?Play It Now!Avoid It!Play It LaterMaybe?Play It Now!

10 Comments

  1. poisonheadcrab
    Play It Now!

    This is probably my favorite half-life 1 mod, I only wish it was longer.

  2. Anon-00232
    Play It Now!

    A mod that doesn’t involve firearms, reactor meltdowns, and slow tram introductions?
    Yes, yes, yes! Finally, a nice refreshing breath of fresh air in the form of a dungeon crawling mod.

    Exploring through trap-laden mazes with wizards and death-dealing creatures is a total thrill! Also interesting to note is that all but one of the weapons is completely redone (well, most “cheat” in a way) in order to suit the context of a dungeon dweller.

    Some minor quips though: without armour, you’re pretty much screwed against those rapid-fire wizards, the platforming parts of the mod are mostly trial and error, grenades are pretty much useless, the storyline was pretty much last thought, and the finale is way too annoying and drawn-out. Phew. Fortunately, these cons are barely mod-breaking, so:

    9/10!

    I guess father-son relationships aren’t all dandy…

  3. Mel

    Short and both fun and silly in parts.

  4. Mel
    Maybe?

    ok as far as it goes/bit short/the gameplay is there/linear/very dark settings

  5. Qinetix
    Play It Now!

    ahhhh what a cool mod….. awesome weapons and graphics , monsters , and objective , but gman looks so funny 🙂

  6. Edwin "Oscuro" Herdman
    Avoid It!

    This is a terrible mod and relies on either rushing past enemies, or ten-minute crowbar or waspgun battles, or dying consistently and then quitting the game. Either way you’ll be out of health and ammunition for the main weapons in a hurry.There are some pretty amusing model edits here, and shiny tinfoil is the order of the day! Unfortunately, the mod author’s resources seemed somewhat taxed and so we get at least three (if not four) weapons that are skulls.

    We have the gauss gun skull. It’s a skull that spins. Amazing.
    We have the skull grenades. Helpfully, the HUD icon is still a grenade.
    We even have a skull waspgun (the alien grunt weapon); it shoots out a stream of little skulls. How cute.
    We also have a skull on the egon gun replacement, the BOOK OF RAGE (whoops, having a New Adventures of Johnny Quest flashback here – that should be “Book of the Dead” although it reminds FPS players more of the Heretic Tome of Power).
    There’s also something that looks like the spike fingers from Daikatana, but which is actually a rocket launcher. Hum-de-ho.

    The main attraction, aside from tiny headcrabs model-swapped with rats, would have to be the maps, and it’s here that the mod is at its unfortunate weakest. The first couple underground maps are virtually identical rooms, and I nearly didn’t find my way out of the first on account of the decision to tuck the exit of the first in the back behind a wall. Later on we have some stereotypical haunted castle-type traps, i.e. the crushing corridor, paths that dip into lava, spikes that can be run past (I never got hit by one even when continually rushing forward, so at least it was well timed), and swinging blades (at this point I wasn’t caring anymore).

    The final part of the game has you fighting a Garg behind invisible rocketproof glass. Hmm. The game helpfully informs you that you can only kill him with the Egon Gun-skull. Not so helpfully, the game spawns tons and tons of enemies (including a model-swapped leaping skull headcrab, first time seen yet, plus the rat minicrabs can pin you in place) while not opening up the glass pyramids holding more ammo. You can probably kill him with the gauss gun’s penetrating damage, but it doesn’t matter.

    After killing him (noclipping inside to serve point-blank rocket justice), you get the credits roll while trying to control your character in third person to prevent the badguys from finishing you off. I don’t think there’s anything more to it until you simply quit the game. It would’ve been embarrassing if that old scientist woke up and started calling you Dad, anyway.

    The best thing about the game is that it was very short – maybe a half hour playing through at a normal speed.

  7. Andrew37
    Play It Later

    cool theme… but its pretty dark and and the enemies are quite difficult especially in the end, the end is funny XD

  8. Maybe?

    Classic Total Conversion (TC), meaning it’s a “real” mod, not just mappack for HL.
    It’s set in a medieval time, so not in the HL universe.
    Your mission is to free your son who have been caught be demons, so much for the story.
    As said, it has nothing to do with Black Mesa or anything regarding HL.
    There are no new textures, but all weapons and enemies have been remodeled for the mod.
    Which was the crowbar is now a sword and so on.
    The weapons are quite cool and fit into the setting, also the new enemy models are fun and look very nice. There are also new weapon sounds of course.

    So much for the positive features, what I don’t like is the basic, boxy mapping, annoying, deadly traps, balancing and the oddities.
    At first you only run through caves, collecting new weapons and fighting some enemies such as skeletons and rats (lol?)
    Some monsters can be avoided, others should be killed as they do pretty much damage otherwise.
    There are less healing possibilities but at least you’ll eventually find a weapon with unlimited ammo.
    I wish there were more, better designed maps. But the final fight is cool, and tough!
    What’s odd are the traps and stuff inside a castle. Guess that’s quite usual in such mods though.
    Whatever, to me it wasn’t really fun to play except for a fresh setting with cool weapons and nice enemy models. Besides that, there’s just nothing really special about “Medieval World”.

    The author wrote he tried to transfer the Role Playing Game (RPG) “Diablo” into HL.
    Well, as a true gamer I’ve also played and completed all Diablo titles (except the “Hellfire” addon for Diablo 1), even the brandnew “Diablo 3” (which is just awesome! Go PLAY IT NOW! lol)
    Therefore I can say it’s not really Diablo feeling, but okay, the mod is quite old.
    I guess many other players will like it much more than I did as it’s some sort of classic and original experience. However as mentioned, to me it just wasn’t enough fun to rate it higher than a “think twice”.

    Playtime: 30 minutes

  9. Ten Four Reviews

    Medieval World comes from Michael Hindman, the author of two previous Half-Life single player maps, The Gateway and Haunted Lab (which I should probably review in my catching-up frenzy). Both maps sported new weapon and monster models/skins, but they were mediocre at best when it came to design and gameplay. Medieval World, unfortunately, continues that trend.

    The premise of this episode is simple – you have to rescue your son, who has been kidnapped by the evil “Demon Master” (you can tell he’s really evil cause he carries a skeleton in each hand). According to the author’s short background story, this was his attempt at giving Half-Life a Diablo-type feel to it. In line with that theme, there are demons and evil knights as enemies and your melee weapon is now a sword. Both the enemies and weapons have new models – some nifty, some bland. The sword is very nicely modeled, although it takes up entirely too much of the screen to be very useful. I also felt the skull motif was a bit overdone, with a skull launcher, a skull laser, skull grenades, and skulls on legs (a.k.a. headcrabs). And if I had to nitpick, some of the skins for the monster models could use touching up.

    But on the whole, Michael’s new models show us what he can do with MilkShape 3D and some imagination. Keep in mind that, like Michael’s other HL levels, there is no new code. This means that the new models are merely replacements for HL’s existing monster and weapon models. There are a bunch of new sounds in this episode, but you will often hear the classic alien sounds mixed in, which kind of detract from the fantasy world in which the level takes place.

    Although there are 11 maps included in this episode, the playing time is pretty short. The levels are extremely linear – in fact, I can’t think of one situation where you actually had a choice of paths. Furthermore, the architecture is rather plain and boxy. Much of Medieval World takes place in a set of caverns, but the walls and floor are so flat that it’s difficult to convince the player of the setting. Also, the r_speeds get really high in some areas. But the maps are very simple – most consist of a couple rooms or areas that end in a “magical teleporter” that takes you to the next level. This leads me to believe that the maps are either very inefficiently designed or incorrectly compiled (or both). You shouldn’t experience too many slowdowns, but watch out in the big, wide open and busy areas.

    It’s too bad, really. This episode had potential – it has an original setting (as far as HL mods are concerned) and some clever new models. But the author is rather inexperienced in mapping and gameplay design. One can only hope Michael either drastically improves in these areas or manages to team up with an experienced mapper for his next endeavor. If you really are dying to see some new weapon and enemy models, check out Medieval World. Who knows, you may just enjoy the end sequence, where you finally confront the Demon Master and you get to watch yourself from a third person perspective as you deal with his leftover minions.

    Notes
    This review is republished here by permission and was originally published Sunday, 6th August, 2000 by Unquenque.

    This review was originally posted on the Ten Four Website, which is now offline. Permission has been granted to republish the full review and more details can be found on the About page.

  10. Hec
    Play It Now!

    This is far most the best work of Michael Hindman, the author of other mods such as The Gateway 1 and 2, and the weird, haunted lab.

    Here the models are really cool, and although they are just mere substitutes of enemies and weapons for HL1, the whole concept feels indeed “medieval” with touches of wicked magic overall.

    The mod layout its clearly based in an arena style, and there were some cool death traps parts that reminded me the Half Quake saga. Also I can say overall this little mod got me entertained and it was just fun to play.

    The only thing I must warn you about this mod, is its main shortfall too. And that’s it that health kits and ammo are very scarce which for me reflects a bad level design, and the last combat arena is a progressive mayhem of almost never ending spawning enemies and is almost impossible to finish this mod without god mode in the console.

    But apart from that last down point I like the whole concept, and it was a fantasy little survival-horror mod, I wonder if this author has more to offer in his mods portfolio.

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