Unforeseen Consequences

Unforeseen Consequences

"Why didn't they listen? We tried to warn them..."

We wake up in the orange test chamber as everything's gone to shit. Electricity sprays out of the remains of the anti-mass spectrometer as large chunks of debris lie on the floor and alarms blare in our ears. The haunting sounds of Kelly Bailey's music track starts up as the scene fades in, and it conveys a foreboding sense of dread. We still don't quite know what we've gotten ourselves into or what we've caused, since the destruction in the immediate vicinity isn't, well, that extensive. The long-term ramifications are definitely unknown to us. However, we get the sense upon leaving the test chamber (a scientist's dead body is in the first room out) that there are casualties and loss of life. A scientist performs CPR on a barney just outside the first door, and it's unfortunate that there isn't any really worthwhile dialogue written for either of them. Machinery is either in disrepair or blows up around you, and we can immediately see that a lot of structural damage has happened, and continues to happen, to the Anomalous Materials labs. The elevator somehow still works, so there's still power, and the scientists upstairs who "tried to warn them" (who end up being confirmed later as Eli Vance and Isaac Kleiner) are in some state of shock. Eli tells us that the phones are out and that our goal is to get to the surface. This is a major, long-term goal for us, and it will be repeated as we make more progress through the facility. We don't know the extent to which the Anomalous Materials lab is underground, but the surface is a long ways away.

The room with the two scientists is also significant in that it shows us that "organic matter," in this case headcrabs, are teleporting in. We get a safe look at them inside a glass canisters and can safely see their attack pattern. Valve does this a lot, where they tend to introduce a concept safely to show the player the idea or mechanics behind it, before forcing the player to deal with it. The context here is somewhat convincing, but upon some reflection, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. How did two headcrabs just so happen to teleport into glass tubes, especially when we see they can teleport in anywhere? Did it have something to do with the electricity we see in the tubes in Anomalous Materials? That's always kind of bothered me, but Valve doesn't really tend to provide answers to things that don't need direct answers. Anyway, the second function of this room is to reinforce in us the concept of using scientists to get things done. Eli tells you directly "you'll need me to access the retinal scanner, I'm sure the rest of the science team will gladly help you." This instills in us the very real need to keep NPCs alive, as our progress will later be tied to them.

The room with electricity teaches us that the environment itself is a hazard, since this won't be the only time that the environment, or even specifically electricity, will be the player's enemy. However, it also shows that patience can be rewarded with the environment allowing the player to progress, since the electric beam blows open the locked door, and there's no way to proceed through before this. After this, we get our first encounter with a live headcrab, and I can't reinforce enough the novelty of Half-Life in giving the player the first real enemy before giving him a weapon. It's the antithesis of games like Doom or Quake, as the player's only solution at this point is really to run. This may be one of the only times the player feels the fear of helplessness in the game, and it's a good way to start the game off. I get the feeling Valve were going for something like this in Half-Life 2 when there's the Ichthyosaur fake-out during the teleporter sequence, but who knows.

Some slow-moving lasers provide an instant death obstacle course, training the player in jumping, running, and crouching. On a more basic note, it also helps the player recognize Gordon's hitbox. After going past a security guard (who for some reason doesn't have a gun we can pick up), we get the game's first and most iconic weapon, the crowbar. This weapon is pretty great as far as melee weapons go. It has a fairly rapid attack you can do in quick succession and is immensely helpful in conserving ammo for breaking crates or even using on weaker enemies. Plus, who doesn't enjoy bashing shit with a crowbar? It has a nice sound, too. However, the viewmodel is somewhat not really as detailed as it maybe should be. In Half-Life: Source, it looks absolutely vomit-inducing. Once we get the crowbar, we can bash, maim, or kill whatever we want. The first thing it's generally used for is bashing open the glass that blocks our path. This is fairly standard stuff with Valve training players; an obstacle is presented and the solution is very close by, which trains the player to see that as the solution to those types of obstacles or challenges in the future. A little further ahead, you can either bash open the elevator doors as before or press the button, but either way it causes the elevator to plummet, killing three or so people (down below there's a suit battery for some reason).

Upon climbing up (the player has been trained to climb ladders from the Anomalous Materials experiment), you encounter the first barney shooting a headcrab zombie. The barney recognizes you and asks what the zombies are. Apparently (on Normal difficulty), he can kill the first zombie on his own, showing you that NPCs can be helpful in killing things on your own, however he needs your help to kill the second one, showing you that they aren't invincible and that they will need your help. It's entirely up to the player whether you choose to keep the barney alive or kill him, either by bashing him with a crowbar or letting him die to the zombie. Half-Life, unlike Half-Life 2, very rarely punishes you for killing NPCs, mostly because they're not actual characters and are more like character templates in Half-Life. There are pros and cons to keeping him alive as well as killing him. The advantage of killing him, or letting him die, is of course that you get his glock early, and the pistol is a very reliable weapon in the early part of the game, plus it obviously gives you more control. However, the advantage to keeping the barney alive is that he'll assist you in killing other enemies. While he's slower to kill them that you could be, potentially, he has infinite ammo. So technically killing him early and letting him kill all the enemies up until the point where you have to leave him (then you can kill him and take his gun) will give you the maximum amount of ammo. However, I feel players will probably either help him out due to a natural inclination to give aid, or will be selfish in order to get the gun early.

The path back to the start of the Anomalous Materials chapter is, tonally, completely different. The cold, even, bright lighting of everything is replaced by much darker lighting, which would fit a horror setting more. There's no way to peer outside, but it looks as though the map has changed from day to night. Shadowy zombies shamble their way up to the player, and from various scenes of headcrabs attaching themselves to scientists, the player can easily connect the dots and see that the headcrabs attach themselves to human heads and take control of their bodies. It is a bit odd that Barney asks why the zombies are wearing science team uniforms (isn't it obvious?). Anyway, it's still possible to get back to where the tram dropped you off, and you're treated to a weird scene that, I suppose like the elevator scene, is supposed to make you feel somewhat guilty, or at least some level of pity, for all the scientists' deaths.

Upon approaching the front desk (the other direction with the lab rooms was sealed off), a grate covering over a vent explodes and you get your first bit of vent-crawling. You can clearly see what's on the other side, so there's very little risk of the unknown, except that the machine on the left tends to explode and crash down on the player, which really seems like a bug. in any case, swirling lights and alarms are blaring in this room and the one before it, and the player is visually guided up some broken architecture up to another vent. Dropping out, the player is treated to another scene with a scientist, who heroically stops a headcrab on his own before being comically and unfortunately taken from behind. On the room across from it, a zombie spazzes out in a chair with flashing lights, a textbook horror scene. Upon going forward, we get to the point where we couldn't proceed any further in Anomalous Materials, the airlock that the barney was guarding. We see him die on the ground right in front of the medical station, although in Half-Life: Source, you can perform a glitch to revive him by pressing "use" on him right before he's supposed to die. Anyway, this is where we get his gun and the game really starts to pick up.

After the airlock, we're treated to a section that introduces houndeyes and really reinforces the idea that these creatures are teleporting in. The visual and audio cues of the portals are unmistakable, and essential to recognize in order to deal with combat. In essence, this is kind of no different than monsters warping into rooms in Doom, which is something I don't really like all too much. In the context of Half-Life, it's explained well enough, and I guess Doom is just a shooting game for the sake of killing shit. Nevertheless, I do find it a lazy design choice, mostly because there are no rules, the map developer can just teleport in as much and whatever type of creature he wants. To me, it starts to break the illusion of a game world with these things running around naturally, because they're just appearing out of thin air. In any case, the houndeye section is quite fun, and while they make annoying sounds and can be an annoying enemy to deal with at first, they're weak and easily killed. Plus, their attack forces them to be stationary, in contrast to headcrabs that attack by quickly leaping at the player. This is also the first time we can spot an appearance of G-man after the resonance cascade, so the fact that he's still around puts it into the player's head that he's got some role in this. There are some moments with scientists around, including one running away from a houndeye, one getting sucked up into a vent, one hiding in a dumpster, and another who can open a door to you that can give you access to grenades early. Why are there grenades just sitting in a security station? Well, why is there ammo in the offices of Office Complex? These are just things that make for a better game.

Going forward, you'll actually fight the first vortigaunt here as he warps into a room, and I wish he was set up a little better. It's hard for me to imagine fighting it without the grenades, which make it very easy to time, but newcomers will probably not know how to deal with it. The section with the raising water and the valve is short enough to not be too annoying, but it's somewhat bewildering as an introduction to swimming. After all, this is the first time you have to swim in the game, and you're essentially under a time limit before you'll run out of oxygen. Thi s is kind of a strange choice but once you know what to do, it's completely innocuous and basically superfluous. The headcrab just below the entryway hole is a total beginner's trap though, and is in a really cheap spot, since it will almost always hit first-time players. This isn't nearly the only time that headcrabs will be placed around corners or just out of sight in Half-Life, and I've always seen it as a sort of cheap trick to just whittle the player's health away artificially. After that section is an iconic part with a slow moving lift and falling headcrabs. The combat here can be quite challenging and maybe a bit overwhelming at first, but it's entirely possible to skip by simply jumping down and slowing the fall before landing at the bottom. A bridge gives way under the weight of a bullsquid and the player has to be resourceful enough to see that there's a way to progress by jumping onto the pipes built into the walls. Upon getting into the vent, this is also the first instance of a branching path, where the player can choose one of two vents out of which to drop out.

In either case, the next area is the same, a much larger bridge over a set of canals is out, and a bullsquid fights some headcrabs below. This canal section looks great (and introduces barnacles rather safely, as getting released by them will only drop you into water), but let's be honest, it makes no sense. What are canals doing in Black Mesa? What possible function could it serve, and how is there not constant mold everywhere? And what is that set of chompers doing in there, too? Ah well, it's terribly unrealistic but I guess the designer had a certain vision he was going for and decided to include it for some insane reason. This section is one of the more iconic parts of the second half of Unforeseen Consequences since its visual layout is so memorable. However, there's not that much to do except get a chance to misjudge the grenade arc or snipe the bullsquid with the glock.

The next and final area is a platforming section that is lamented or questioned by many. Nobody seems to know what it exists for, however, I know. It's just a basic platforming section. I don't really have a problem with it, since like most areas in Unforeseen Consequences, it's short enough to be overlooked. However, it doesn't really feel like its purpose was defined, and it was just stuck there to provide some more environmental obstacles. Half-Life did bill itself as having some challenges be from the environment rather than solely from enemies. Anyway, it's a very short segment that's really just a matter of falling onto the right platforms. Afterwards, it's just moving on to the section on the other side of the canal, getting into an elevator, and riding it up.

Unforeseen Consequences begins very ominously and with heavy, dark, horror atmosphere and tone. It loses that tone for a more light-hearted approach as it introduces the player to three weapons and six different enemy types. The beginning is somewhat slower and more atmospheric, but after getting past the airlock, it gets a lot brighter and casual with combat. There are some memorable scenes here, and combat is never really sustained for too long. They always appear in shortish segments and the enemies tend to be easily killed. The first half is probably stronger than the second half, which I feel is because of the more intense atmosphere and the fact that the player retraces his steps through familiar territory in a completely new context. However, it's also much slower because the player only gets a crowbar for that part. Moving on, with the glock the player is much more capable of self-defense but that also alleviates some of the stronger horror aspects of the chapter's first part. The area with the canals and box-platforming looks distinct but is probably the weakest area, since it's a lot of space with few enemies (the bullsquid, left on its own, can kill all the headcrabs and the barnacles may not pose any threat to the player at all), and is connected via a narrow series of hallways and ladders that feel directionless and completely unrealistic. It's still a good chapter, and one that does its initial job well. It sets the tone of the aftermath of the resonance cascade and tells Gordon that he needs to reach the surface to let other people know that the scientists are stranded down below. On a more practical level, it serves as an introduction to the basic, weaker enemy and weapon types. Its only weakness is the end, and possibly the fact that it becomes a bit too shoot-y once you get the gun. I feel like a bit of restraint could have been used to propel any kind of survival-horror feel it had in the beginning for at least a little bit longer.

- Olde