You already know that Half Life 2 is the greatest first person shooter ever made. If you don’t, whatever reason you think you have is wrong. In fact, the only possible explanation is that you haven’t played it - in which case you should leave right now and start. GO!

HL2 has won more Game of the Year awards than you can name (seriously, name thirty awards). Even if Captain MacPicky teleported in from the Universe of Whining, the only thing he could complain about is that the single player campaign isn’t multiplayer. Which is like saying the Space Shuttle isn’t awesome because it can’t go underwater, but the heroes at Merciless Development are fitting submarine systems to the masterpiece by developing “Folllow Freeman” - Half Life 2 co-operative.

Any game that starts with a Bertrand Russell quote has to be a cut above, and the high standards don’t stop there. The sheer level of work that’s gone into this is apparent from the instant you log into a Follow Freeman Server. You appear in ff_readyroom, an entire (and quite detailed) map built to control the server options and level select - you know, the things most modders just use !server console commands for. When you get to a game level it gets even better, replaying epic battles from the single player campaign with human backup (like the defense of the lighthouse tower). The respawns are intelligent, it’s great to know that your fellow rebel fighters are real people humans rather than NPCs, and wow but those Combine dropships really aren’t ready for co-ordinated fire from multiple rocket launchers.

Which is why you can help them! In “Combine Assassin” mode a quarter of the players can be assigned to the dark side, beefed up super-troopers out to sabotage the resistance and destroy every freedom fighter they see. Moving among your computer-controlled backup/cannon fodder, you can wreak havoc among human players slightly distracted by all the regular baddies. Come on, you’ve always known you’d do a far better job than those grunts - and donning the metal Metrocop facemask to dispense “pacification” is always fun…

There are brand new missions too - bz_trainstation sees you and Combine squadmates in the wake of the demolition of Dr Breen’s tower, desperately repairing the perimeter shield around the train station while fighting off headcrab zombies until you can be evacuated by train.

The experience isn’t yet perfect. It’s based on the single-player engine, so you’ll need a Teamspeak server of your own (there aren’t any in-game chat options - not even typing text!) Attempting to move past each other can occasionally be clunky, and the aim in user-made missions isn’t always as clear as in the converted single player stages.

But it’s a damn awesome concept, and now that it’s in open beta (and free!) it’s a project that deserves your attention. How many cool things can you help just by playing games? There aren’t many FF servers online, but a custom Follow Freeman server is a perfect option for the clan looking for a new way to pass the time - and a great way to make one of the best games ever made fresh again. Everyone will enjoy it, and if they don’t? You need to screen admissions to your clan more carefully.

Tags: Follow Freeman, Follow Freeman Servers, game servers

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 at 12:07 pm and is filed under Follow Freeman News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.