We've Got Hostiles

"Rescued at last, thank God you're here!"

We open the stopped elevator door to find a scene with a scientist pounding on a glass door overlooking a security station, where he shouts, "For God's sake open the silo doors, they're coming for us!" but the security officer in the checkpoint is getting overtaken by a simple zombie. "Oh my God, we're doomed!" screams the scientist as he runs straight into a tripmine in the next room, blowing himself up and activating the some doors that automatically start closing the path to the next room. "We've Got Hostiles!" is the point in Half-Life where it turns from a slower, more atmospheric and helpfully guided game to a faster, more difficult, action-oriented one. The idea behind this chapter is that we've been climbing up to the surface to be rescued by marines (or the army), only to find out that the military has been infiltrating from the surface down to kill anyone associated with Black Mesa. Even when this game came out, this wasn't a surprise to anybody, as the game was heavily advertised as having military enemies. At least here it makes sense in the narrative, as opposed to games like Doom and Quake where you fight possessed" humans.

The majority of this level is very linear but composed of very sectionalized setpieces that introduce three main new threats: military personnel, tripmines, and turrets. The tripmines are generally the least threatening of these challenges, and only really appear a handful of times to keep you paying attention. Honestly the bit with the tripmines feels very weak, and the use of lasers is better served with the turrets. However, this is simply an introduction to the tripmines as they will receive the payoff they deserve much further down the line. The turrets are really the biggest pain in the ass throughout this chapter. It's an interesting concept to juxtapose turrets that fire at you on-sight with those that are inactive until a laser trap is tripped, but it can feel rigged and unfair at times. The very first turret can simply fire at you the instant you cross into its range, and it's actually supported by a second turret of the same type further beyond, so I'm really not sure what Valve were thinking with that setup. In fact there really isn't much of a viable strategy to take them down except with a grenade as you're hiding behind cover, or a really well-aimed double-barrel shotgun blast upon getting out of cover. As for the other turrets, it appears as though the laser traps are built into the walls, which don't make sense, and also it really doesn't make sense that the military would have them only fire under the condition of being triggered when others just fire at everything. The military wants to kill everyone at Black Mesa, so why add tripwires? It's occasions like these where it starts to feel a little game-y, wherein it feels like a place where the player is forced to do a bit of platforming, especially since the lasers are usually placed such that there's a very small window where the player can crouch-jump through.

The marines themselves are introduced very well, at first only one at a time where you see him put down a scientist if you're not quick enough to save him. Additional groups are introduced in smaller numbers while each successive encounter pits you against more and more marines. The entire chapter takes place in some kind of brightly lit, presumably still-active storage facility with crates, boxes, conveyor belts, and catwalks everywhere, so there's plenty of cover and vantage points with which to fight the marines. For 1998, the AI was very good, as the marines would retreat upon being injured (vortigaunts do this as well), and they also toss grenades when they're aware of a player's position but don't have line-of-sight (LOS). There's also plenty of medical stations and even HEV suit charging units, which is very forgiving. Aside from a few vortigaunts to keep the player on his toes, a couple of headcrabs near the start to show that turrets can kill aliens too, and two hallways with barnacles on the ceiling, the chapter is otherwise s almost totally absent of aliens. You'll never see in-fighting between marines and aliens. Rather, there's a very clear point where it switches between the alien enemies and the human ones, the latter being a significant step up in difficulty because their attacks use bullets instead of projectiles or charged up energy beams.

The rooms with the marine battles themselves may not make a whole lot of sense, and there's one small point where there are a couple of annoying tripmines, but otherwise they lend themselves to great combat. Fighting is fast and intense, and can take place at close, medium, or even long range, depending on how the player chooses to fight. The rooms themselves aren't particularly big but the player may find it difficult to advance without killing all the marines. Plus, he's rewarded by being able to take their guns and use medical and HEV charging stations without getting shot. There is a significant diverging path in the conveyor belt section, which ends up leading to a "secret" area that lets the player get a much better vantage point of proceeding without activating lasers that will flip on a couple of turrets. This also teaches the player about conveyor belts and specifically that the player can run in the direction opposite to which they're heading in order to reach a different destination (which will be useful to know later on).

The MP5 is also first picked up here, which is a staple weapon against marines and aliens in general. I used to think it was the best weapon but nowadays I have better judgement. Its main advantages are its ridiculously large magazine size (50), its maximum ammo capacity (250), its under-barrel grenade launcher (which holds ten grenades that detonate on contact), and the plentiful ammo drops by marines, since it's dropped by most marines use. However, upon getting better at Half-Life and video games in general, I can see the limits of its usefulness. First and most important, it's highly inaccurate. I'd dare say you're probably better off using the glock instead because you can land headshots faster, and therefore more quickly kill, marines than with the MP5, which sprays all over the place. Undoubtedly better weapons are the magnum and crossbow (on Normal), and except for great distances, the shotgun. Because of a bug with the AI, the glock is better for hitting marines that haven't detected you. If you want to have some fun with the MP5, take your opportunity in this chapter, the next, since its usefulness significantly wanes afterward. The final nail in the coffin is sealed once the player gets the hivehand, which, aside from the usefulness of the grenades, kind ofmakes the MP5 obsolete.

Crowbar Collective's remake of Half-Life, Black Mesa, delays the appearance of the shotgun for this chapter, which makes sense (the earlier spot in Office Complex is replaced by a magnum). If in the original Half-Life, you haven't picked up a shotgun in Office Complex yet, which you should have since there are three or four spots where you can find one, you can pick it up off a shotgun-using marine here.

The real climax of this chapter is after the slow elevator ride up. It leads to the surface only to show that the surface is completely occupied by marines, who push extremely hard against the player at this point. The effect is to make the player realize his hopelessness about trying to take on the entire military (you can see a military osprey drop marines onto the scene) and chase him into a small industrial station located in the center. A couple of scripted marines will break into this place but otherwise they're not much of a threat afterwards. It's a bold move to thwart the player's expectation by giving him a taste of the surface only to find it inescapable, and force the player to immediately retreat back into the bowels of Black Mesa. All this time was spent going up and Gordon is now forced to climb back down. It's a theme throughout Black Mesa and Gordon's primary strategy for survival. The rest of the chapter is vent-crawling to the extreme, with multiple branches leading down different tunnels and occasionally leading to supplies. It's possible to hear a snippet of a conversation where a military private says "I killed twelve dumbass scientists and not one of them fought back. This sucks." This is the first glimpse of humanity that you get with the marines, so it's unfortunate that in the very same section you can crawl out into the line of sight of turrets and marines, which doesn't really lend itself to noticing their humanity. While the vent-crawling section is overly convoluted, it's there to counter-balance the weight of the previous combat and give the player some time to breathe, as well as to give you time to think about how you have to crawl back deeper into the hidden sections of Black Mesa to elude detection. Gameplay-wise though, I think it's the most overkill use of vent-crawling in the entire game, and the Black Mesa remake significantly cut it down.

It was an interesting choice to lead the player all the way back into the security checkpoint station where you began, and a humorous decision to have a scientist in there to explain the situation. He tells us:

"Well, so much for the government. Their idea of containment is to kill every one associated with the project. Judging by your hazard suit, I'd say you were part of what went wrong. Isn't that right? Now look, if anyone can end this catastrophe, it's the science team in the Lamba Complex at the opposite end of the base. With the transit system out, I couldn't tell you how to get there, but there's an old decommissioned rail system somewhere through here beyond the silo complex. If you can make it through the rocket test labs, you might be able to worm your way through the old tunnels to track down whatever's left of the Lambda team. You can trust them. You can trust all of us."

This is an extremely significant point of dialogue. It tells you your goal for almost the entire rest of the game. Only the Lambda team can resolve the problem and you're going to have to use Black Mesa's dis-used facilities, including a transit system with little to no security to evade tracking. This information carries us all the way through to the end of Lambda Core. On realizing this, the player opens the silo door and can take a bit of health and suit energy before heading into a clearly abandoned section of Black Mesa, walled off by makeshift construction material blocking the path.

"We've Got Hostiles" is a fast-paced, action-oriented chapter that adequately ramps up the difficulty by featuring marines in great scenarios to fight. The areas to fight the marines are ingeniously set up, however, where the chapter drags are the vent-crawling sections and the turret/laser-tripwire avoidance. Both the vent-crawling and the turrets are really too much, it should have had a better inclusion of marines all around, as in my opinion the platforming around the lasers for the lasers is annoying. The section with the badass music is good but that area isn't really long enough to warrant it if the player does the logical thing and just hoofs it to the shack. Additionally, you're not really rewarded for taking down the osprey if you do. There are a couple of nice touches with the environment here and there, such as some cafeteria sections, but otherwise nothing really makes sense. It doesn't look or particularly operate like a storage facility, and why scientists would be there and not security guards or construction workers (as seen in Black Mesa Inbound) is beyond me. Obviously it's for the narrative, and I'm just nitpicking here, but upon age and reflection, the flaws of this chapter do show. Its areas feel disconnected as well, as though they're different ideas attached by hallways. The area with the wet floor is particularly nasty to control on the PS2 controller. Otherwise it's generally good action. The pacing is similar to that of Questionable Ethics, although that chapter is probably superior. "We've Got Hostiles!" still feels like some sort of introductory chapter, albeit one that expects you to learn very quickly or be dead.

Bugs/Sequence Breaks:

There is also a glaringly apparent bug which allows you to skip the entire chapter. If you press "use" repeatedly on the scientist banging on the security station door and prevent him from running off, you can push him to the door to the station, causing the door to open and you to go inside and open the silo door. If I'm not really in the mood to play through the chapter, I'll do this skip and accept the fact that I won't be getting the MP5 until later (it's not needed anyway). I personally like the fact that this skip and the one in Office Complex exist, since this level kind of has annoying sections with its turrets, but others might not agree with me.