A mod for Half-Life
Afraid of Monsters: Director's Cut is a survival horror mod for Half-Life 1. It is an enhanced version of the original Afraid of Monsters. Your name is David Leatherhoff, and you're addicted to a strange drug. Lately you have started to experience illusions, dreams picking at your deepest and darkest fears. Finally, you go to Markland 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?
Reviews View More
its no cry of fear but co-op is always fun thank you zorbos
Medium. No story spoilers.
This game is a mod for Half-Life, and is not able to be launched standalone unlike its spiritual successor, Cry of Fear. To install it grab the game from ModDB, you can simply dump the contents of AoMDC into the Half-Life folder (or use an installer it may have come with), restart Steam, and launch the game. As of the Anniversary release of Half-Life, this is fully (or mostly?) functional.
Afraid of Monsters: Directors Cut is a little horror mod that I recommend any fan of horror (especially Silent Hill), and Half-Life, check out. It has a lot of very cool locations to explore, and can be a fun little challenge, even if a little short. The game also unfortunately suffers from a lot of little jank, some of which can hinder player progression. I am not sure if some of this is due to the Half-Life anniversary update, but some of it was definitely in the version(s) prior, namely doors being annoying at times.
The premise of the game is simple. David Leatherhoff is a man in the hospital, presumably in rehabilitation for drug related problems. He enters the restroom to reflect, and finds a bottle of the exact pills he is trying to get clean from. He unfortunately loses his brief battle with himself, takes the pills, and blacks out in the bathroom. After waking up from a nightmare, he finds the hospital, seemingly completely abandoned. In order to get to wherever he wants to be for whatever reason, he must turn the power off to not get electrocuted. Once he does that, he eventually succumbs to the real nightmare, as figures with rapidly twitching heads begin pursuing him and attacking him violently. Your new objective, is to escape the hospital, and survive this onslaught, in search of a safe place.
Afraid of Monsters' opening, while incredibly simple, is the game at it's most effective. I could not pretend that the visual of a faint figure, rapidly twitching and running toward me in a near pitch-black room, didn't immediately terrify me. The kind-of shitty flashlight from Half-Life only really improves this factor to me, as it is very hard to see, and you can only often get glimpses of these enemies at a time.
The main resources the player is fighting for is pills (healing items), batteries for the flashlight, and weaponry or ammunition to fend off various creatures to progress. Most levels involve the player pressing buttons or picking up keys to unlock colored doors to escape their setting, as you will come across many various settings such as a city, a forest, an apartment complex, etc. I think that the hospital is the strongest setting in this game, and it ultimately peaks right at the beginning. Once you leave the hospital, you will find yourself in largely uninteresting areas with the same ultimate goal of escaping this nightmare. I find that these other areas, aside from a few short segments reminiscent of Silent Hill's otherworld, just don't scratch the horror itch in a way that I would like.
While the successor, Cry of Fear, could be interpreted as a survival horror game, Afraid of Monsters is most strictly an action-horror game. Resource management is largely limited to batteries, which don't necessarily have to be managed since the battery can "recharge" for a moment, and there are no real puzzles beyond grabbing an item to use another item. You must simply blast your way through these levels, and I sort of appreciate that on it's own, since it does make playing AoM pretty easy as a sort of "pick it up and finish it" ordeal. Both games are very bluntly portraying the character's personal struggles, and I think both games work that into the games themselves pretty decently.
As for more general cons of the game, I find that the potential for things to get you "stuck" is pretty significant. Most notably, elevators may cause your character to get stuck, and then take damage when the elevator moves again, forcing you to reload a save. I recommend saving often, but especially prior to using an elevator. I found that crouch-jumping just before the arrival of a new floor helped prevent getting stuck. There are other smaller things, such as doors continuously opening and closing, and some unintuitive interactive objects. This game really slows down just before you reach the end, and while it is incredibly short anyways (shorter if you use typical goldsrc movement tech), it can make one feel like they're burning out before they reach the end.
The game has 4 endings, and some endings being pursued can cause you to take a different path to the end, with some differing levels along the way. This does introduce replay value that a player may find valuable, and it also spices up things like Sven Co-Op playthroughs. All of the endings are incredibly predictable regarding this subject matter, but I do like the way they're presented. I encourage you to try this out if you enjoy Silent Hill and/or Half-Life, but don't expect a hidden horror gem, this is just a fun time, and be sure to check out Cry of Fear afterwards.
This game is a mod for Half-Life, and is not able to be launched standalone unlike its spiritual successor, Cry of Fear. To install it grab the game from ModDB, you can simply dump the contents of AoMDC into the Half-Life folder (or use an installer it may have come with), restart Steam, and launch the game. As of the Anniversary release of Half-Life, this is fully (or mostly?) functional.
Afraid of Monsters: Directors Cut is a little horror mod that I recommend any fan of horror (especially Silent Hill), and Half-Life, check out. It has a lot of very cool locations to explore, and can be a fun little challenge, even if a little short. The game also unfortunately suffers from a lot of little jank, some of which can hinder player progression. I am not sure if some of this is due to the Half-Life anniversary update, but some of it was definitely in the version(s) prior, namely doors being annoying at times.
The premise of the game is simple. David Leatherhoff is a man in the hospital, presumably in rehabilitation for drug related problems. He enters the restroom to reflect, and finds a bottle of the exact pills he is trying to get clean from. He unfortunately loses his brief battle with himself, takes the pills, and blacks out in the bathroom. After waking up from a nightmare, he finds the hospital, seemingly completely abandoned. In order to get to wherever he wants to be for whatever reason, he must turn the power off to not get electrocuted. Once he does that, he eventually succumbs to the real nightmare, as figures with rapidly twitching heads begin pursuing him and attacking him violently. Your new objective, is to escape the hospital, and survive this onslaught, in search of a safe place.
Afraid of Monsters' opening, while incredibly simple, is the game at it's most effective. I could not pretend that the visual of a faint figure, rapidly twitching and running toward me in a near pitch-black room, didn't immediately terrify me. The kind-of shitty flashlight from Half-Life only really improves this factor to me, as it is very hard to see, and you can only often get glimpses of these enemies at a time.
The main resources the player is fighting for is pills (healing items), batteries for the flashlight, and weaponry or ammunition to fend off various creatures to progress. Most levels involve the player pressing buttons or picking up keys to unlock colored doors to escape their setting, as you will come across many various settings such as a city, a forest, an apartment complex, etc. I think that the hospital is the strongest setting in this game, and it ultimately peaks right at the beginning. Once you leave the hospital, you will find yourself in largely uninteresting areas with the same ultimate goal of escaping this nightmare. I find that these other areas, aside from a few short segments reminiscent of Silent Hill's otherworld, just don't scratch the horror itch in a way that I would like.
While the successor, Cry of Fear, could be interpreted as a survival horror game, Afraid of Monsters is most strictly an action-horror game. Resource management is largely limited to batteries, which don't necessarily have to be managed since the battery can "recharge" for a moment, and there are no real puzzles beyond grabbing an item to use another item. You must simply blast your way through these levels, and I sort of appreciate that on it's own, since it does make playing AoM pretty easy as a sort of "pick it up and finish it" ordeal. Both games are very bluntly portraying the character's personal struggles, and I think both games work that into the games themselves pretty decently.
As for more general cons of the game, I find that the potential for things to get you "stuck" is pretty significant. Most notably, elevators may cause your character to get stuck, and then take damage when the elevator moves again, forcing you to reload a save. I recommend saving often, but especially prior to using an elevator. I found that crouch-jumping just before the arrival of a new floor helped prevent getting stuck. There are other smaller things, such as doors continuously opening and closing, and some unintuitive interactive objects. This game really slows down just before you reach the end, and while it is incredibly short anyways (shorter if you use typical goldsrc movement tech), it can make one feel like they're burning out before they reach the end.
The game has 4 endings, and some endings being pursued can cause you to take a different path to the end, with some differing levels along the way. This does introduce replay value that a player may find valuable, and it also spices up things like Sven Co-Op playthroughs. All of the endings are incredibly predictable regarding this subject matter, but I do like the way they're presented. I encourage you to try this out if you enjoy Silent Hill and/or Half-Life, but don't expect a hidden horror gem, this is just a fun time, and be sure to check out Cry of Fear afterwards.
hugely overhyped. very rough around the edges
-when it comes to melee, the knife is too weak for when you get it, but is the only one of the 3 you can use for more than a room that's easy to connect
-melee also feels very inconsistent, the hammer being anywhere from a 1 hit to a 3 hit for the weakest enemy in the game despite dealing "the most damage" according to the wiki
-ammo is extremely rare for long stretches of time, especially for your slot 4 (i think there's less than 30 shots for it in the entire game)
-sounds are very often overly loud to the point i had to take a tylenol half way through
-way too dark even with max gamma for the prospect of having a very limited battery on your flashlight (even if it recharges up to a minute and 15 seconds of battery)
-a LOT of flashing lights
not to mention, unlike later in cry of fear, the "choices" for 3 of the 4 endings are super poorly telegraphed -- which direction you go out of a subway. fucking WHAT
it's insane how far the devs went after this to go directly into cry of fear and have it be so much better in almost every way
ALSO FUUUUUCK THE HALF-LIFE 1 FLASHLIGHT LMAOO its so bad. the level design here made it so much harder to use and its already deplorably pisspoor at its job
-when it comes to melee, the knife is too weak for when you get it, but is the only one of the 3 you can use for more than a room that's easy to connect
-melee also feels very inconsistent, the hammer being anywhere from a 1 hit to a 3 hit for the weakest enemy in the game despite dealing "the most damage" according to the wiki
-ammo is extremely rare for long stretches of time, especially for your slot 4 (i think there's less than 30 shots for it in the entire game)
-sounds are very often overly loud to the point i had to take a tylenol half way through
-way too dark even with max gamma for the prospect of having a very limited battery on your flashlight (even if it recharges up to a minute and 15 seconds of battery)
-a LOT of flashing lights
not to mention, unlike later in cry of fear, the "choices" for 3 of the 4 endings are super poorly telegraphed -- which direction you go out of a subway. fucking WHAT
it's insane how far the devs went after this to go directly into cry of fear and have it be so much better in almost every way
ALSO FUUUUUCK THE HALF-LIFE 1 FLASHLIGHT LMAOO its so bad. the level design here made it so much harder to use and its already deplorably pisspoor at its job
Sooo much jank & unfortunate difficulty spikes, I get the feeling that this wasn't playtested enough during development leaving a lot of areas feeling unpolished. There's bullet sponge enemies that are too fast, completely pitch black areas you need to navigate with your flashlight that's always dead, doors getting stuck... Oh, and don't forget the invisible zombies & teleporting faces that are borderline impossible to defeat without cheesing the game. I knew the original would be a bit rough but this is the re-release so I don't really know what happened there.
It's a shame because the atmosphere, sound and texturing is so great - especially the "drawings scratched into the walls" aesthetic. Still, a very commendable effort considering the dev would have been literally 14 years old for the majority of the development. The games I was making at 14 were not nearly this impressive lmao.
Still have Cry of Fear to play through though, so hopefully that'll combine the atmosphere with some more solid gameplay!
It's a shame because the atmosphere, sound and texturing is so great - especially the "drawings scratched into the walls" aesthetic. Still, a very commendable effort considering the dev would have been literally 14 years old for the majority of the development. The games I was making at 14 were not nearly this impressive lmao.
Still have Cry of Fear to play through though, so hopefully that'll combine the atmosphere with some more solid gameplay!
the best anti-drug campaign ever made
A pretty big letdown.
I love the vibe and atmosphere, but the gameplay is just too janky to make finishing this worth it.
The enemies are super-fast. I think the devs should have lowered their health to balance this, but they still take forever to kill with the knife. Throw in cramped hallways and body blocking and that makes the opening of the game a pain.
Standing on a desk, box or pretty much any height difference will break the AI so you can get easy hits on enemies. You might think you can just not abuse that, but stairs have the same issue so its pretty much impossible to avoid.
Navigation can be confusing too. You will often have to backtrack to find a door you just found a key to and be wandering for a while trying to find out which of the 30 identical doors in the area you use the key on.
Maybe if it were a bit shorter, I would press on to the end despite the flaws, but its just too much of a time sink to be worth finishing.
When I do eventually get around to Cry of Fear, I hope it’s more polished than this.
I love the vibe and atmosphere, but the gameplay is just too janky to make finishing this worth it.
The enemies are super-fast. I think the devs should have lowered their health to balance this, but they still take forever to kill with the knife. Throw in cramped hallways and body blocking and that makes the opening of the game a pain.
Standing on a desk, box or pretty much any height difference will break the AI so you can get easy hits on enemies. You might think you can just not abuse that, but stairs have the same issue so its pretty much impossible to avoid.
Navigation can be confusing too. You will often have to backtrack to find a door you just found a key to and be wandering for a while trying to find out which of the 30 identical doors in the area you use the key on.
Maybe if it were a bit shorter, I would press on to the end despite the flaws, but its just too much of a time sink to be worth finishing.
When I do eventually get around to Cry of Fear, I hope it’s more polished than this.