Half-Life (series)/Nightmare Fuel: Difference between revisions

Describe [[Nightmare Fuel]]/[[Half Life]] here.

 

 

Valve software's attempt at an FPS narrative, namely replacing the generic [[A Space Marine Is You]] (battling for the fate of the universe, natch) with a [[Badass Bookworm]] who seemed to be stuck in the middle of a bad situation, made players much more sensitive to the atmosphere than before. And with each release, Valve has been making atmosphere an increasingly bigger part of the experience.

 

 

* G-Man. There is just something unsettling about him... Basically, he looks and sounds like a creature doing an only-adequate job at pretending to be human.

** It's the pauses. "Rise and... shine, Mr. Freeman. Rise... and-shine." *shiver*

 

== ''Half-Life'' ==

* The underwater sections of ''Half-Life''; low visibility, the potential yield of the average Xen monstrosity lurking in it...

* Nihilanth. The fact that he's basically a ''humongous floating fetus with a head four times the size of his body'', plus his scream of '''"FREEEEEEEEEEEMAAAAAAAAAAAN!"''' when you finally reach him...

** The [[When Trees Attack|trees]]. Good God, the TREES.

* Blast Pit. You hear the banging noise before you get to see what's causing it, and that echoing metallic sound is with you throughout the whole level. And how about those moans? Or the "death sound" that comes after you successfully ignite the rocket engine.

* The section with all the conveyor belts and large vats of questionable substances. Not very scary... until you notice that there are other things besides you being flung onto the conveyor belts. They're ''body parts.''

* The Gargantua is pretty damn scary. It's huge. It has a giant red eye. And it will kill you on first contact. While the terrible graphics (compared to Source) make it less horrifying, its sheer presence makes the player want to rethink their path. Not to mention when they're chasing you. Who here ''didn't'' look back when in the garage in ''Surface Tension'', when they ''knew'' there was a huge-ass monster chasing them?

 

== ''Opposing Force'' ==

* The ''"We Are Pulling Out"'' chapter. The chapter starts after you jump onto a Black Mesa tram after the Resonance Cascade has already happened. You then proceed to ride the tram ''backwards'' to the surface, while the all-too-familiar automated voice relays it's horribly chopped and distorted message (also, there's Vortigaunts on the way up that will attack you if you don't shoot them). A short time later, after spending a few minutes with an [[Funny Moments|incredibly socially awkward security guard]], you reach the helicopter on which you and your fellow soldiers will leave. As you head towards the helicopter, [[Smug Snake|The]] [[The Chessmaster|G-Man]] {{spoiler|''shuts the giant steel exit door before you can leave, forcing you to stay behind in the overrun hellhole while your comrades leave without you.''}} That bit just really gives you the chills, and it just makes you wonder what the G-Man's ''real'' intentions are.

** Believe it or not, G-Man does seem to have good intentions. If you stick around the area after the chopper flies off for a half a minute, you'll hear a pop and see a bright flash. Guess? The chopper that took off just now, the one that Shepard could've very well been on if the G-Man hadn't intervened, exploded no less than 30 seconds after it took off.

 

== ''Half-Life 2'' ==

* The toxic tunnels under City Seventeen. You have to cross the radioactive waste by placing tires, crates etc. with your gravity gun and hopping from one flimsy platform to the next. This is nerve racking enough, without the fact that the zombies are apparently immune to radioactive waste. The first time you jump off down onto a tire, only to have a headcrab zombie rise up two feet away... terrifying enough that you normally leap backwards into the fatal green sludge. Even on the 3rd attempt the sudden moans of zombies behind you often causes a wild spraying in all directions with whatever gun's in hand.

* Those moving walls. Their gigantic, foreboding appearance, their tendency to begin moving with no warning except an unearthly groan (that sounds suspiciously like the Ravenholm motif), ready to crush you underneath them. Not to mention the implications that wherever the Combine place them, they will steadily move outwards, destroying everything in their wake until they transform the entire region into barren wastelands...

 

== ''Lost Coast'' ==

* According to the developer's commentary, the developers purposefully designed certain areas of the stages to be distinctive "arenas" by making them large, open areas. They believed this would make the player feel exposed. It does.

 

== ''Episode One'' ==

* The City 17 Underground in the "Lowlife" chapter of ''Episode One''. Like Ravenholm before it, it serves absolutely no purpose other than having the player in tears, and it works. The majority of the level is in complete darkness (as in you literally can't see your hand in front of your face) without using Gordon's [[Ten-Second Flashlight]], and the place is ''swarming'' with Headcrab Zombies, which will actually spawn faster if the flashlight isn't activated. As a small relief only a few zombies are encountered at any one time... until the last part that is, in which the player must wait for another of the series' notoriously slow elevators while an unending horde of zombies crawl out of the darkness. There are few things worse than a Fast Headcrab Zombie which was ''completely invisible'' a second ago leaping at you from nowhere and clawing at your face while a nearby Zombine decides to become a suicide bomber.

** "Alyx, normally I love working with you, but ''goddamnit''! Stop making zombie noises behind me when we're heading into headcrab territory!"

 

== ''Episode Two'' ==

* The G-Man {{spoiler|programs Alyx with post-hypnotic suggestion to deliver a message to her father that nearly gives him (and the player if he's familiar with the first game) a heart attack. "Prepare for unforeseen consequences." We also learn that the G-Man provided the crystal that started the whole mess in the first place, which inspires the question of for how long and how much the G-Man has been controlling Alyx.}}

 

[[Category:Video Games/Nightmare Fuel]]

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[[Category:Half-Life]]