Half-Life (video game): Difference between revisions

* [[Air Vent Passageway]]: While the series as a whole is famous for it, one of the most memorable subversions happens in the original. You are forced to crawl through some air vents, but the Marines hear you and shoot the hell out of it. The entire vent falls off the ceiling and crashes to the ground with you inside, or if you backed up, trapped in another part of the vent with the Marines shooting the hell out of you, albeit with more cover.

* [[Artificial Brilliance]]: ''Half Life'' was widely praised for the A.I. of its human Marine enemies, who were the first FPS enemies to work in squads and use complex tactical behaviors and movement patterns instead of simply charging in a straight line at the player...

* [[BFG]]: The Displacer from Opposing Force is very obviously inspired by the trope namer.

* [[Book Ends]]: The game begins and ends in a tram.

{{quote| "[[Drill Sergeant Nasty|As you can see, you are]] ''[[Crowning Moment of Funny|not dead]]''."}}

* [[Creator Cameo]]: Gabe Newell's office can be seen in the chapter "Office Complex".

* [[Dead Character Walking]]: The original has this: if an NPC has scripted dialogue, but you kill them before they begin to speak, the corpse will speak anyway. The mouth moves and the audio can be heard, but otherwise he is dead. (This works at least on the security guard at the end of the Power Up sequence.)

* [[Deus Ex Nukina]]: {{spoiler|Happens to Black Mesa at the end of Opposing Force.}}.

* [[Gone Horribly Wrong]]: In the original, the experiment that let the aliens in.

* [[Grappling Hook Pistol]]: The detached barnacle in ''Opposing Force'', but only to biological matter. It also doubles as a lethal weapon, heavily damaging organic enemies (or in the case of headcrabs, reeling them in and instakilling them).

* [[I Just Want to Be Badass]]: The first game was one of the first FPS games to avert this trope, and the game was remarkably atmospheric as a result. Ten years on, the atmosphere remains, but Gordon's [[Took a Level In Badass|taken a level in wish-fulfillment]].

* [[Indecisive Deconstruction]]: The first game can be read as a deconstruction of the [[Trope Codifier]] ''[[Doom]]''. The basic premise (an experiment into teleportation technology [[Gone Horribly Wrong|goes horribly wrong]]) is basically the same as Doom. Like Doom, there is very little plot exposition. But unlike Doom, ''Half-Life'' showed you exactly how terrifying this kind of scenario would be if it happened in the [[Real Life|real world]]; you must think and ''not'' act like a stereotypical [[Space Marine]] in order to remain alive. And of course, this kind of experiment would require immense levels of government funding. Necessitating a large covert laboratory. And thus, when everything goes wrong the military have to be called in to ''keep'' things covert. However, the developers have at no point implied any critical intent. Thus, ''Half-Life'' is arguably an unintentional deconstruction. Also, given how influential the first game was on all future shooters, [[Seinfeld Is Unfunny|the game seems like a played-straight example of the genre to someone raised on modern shooters]].

* [[No Indoor Voice]]: The HECU Marines in Half-Life 1, due to their voices always sounding like they're coming out of walkie talkies. Even [[Lampshaded]] by one line they say while idle: "Squad, quiet down!" at the same not-very-quiet level.

* [[Planet Looters]]: Race X in ''Opposing Force''.

* [[Shark Tunnel]]: "Crush Depth" in ''Opposing Force.''

* [[Sidekick]]: Barney the recurring security guard.