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alt title(s): Half-Life 
"I am incredible. Is there any end to the number of problems I can solve just by beating the hell out of something? I'm not sure there is! Yep, that's how I say 'open sesame', with a crowbar to the face!"
Half-Life, by the Washington based developer team Valve, follows a day in the life of physicist Gordon Freeman, a bearded, bespectacled man of few words who works in the Anomalous Materials laboratory at the vast Black Mesa Research Facility, a top-secret complex in the middle of the New Mexico desert. While performing a test on a strange crystalline substance, Gordon accidentally initiates a ' resonance cascade' — an event which causes bizarre, violent creatures to be spontaneously transported from another dimension. Now Gordon must work his way across the base in pursuit of a way to close the dimensional rift, fighting off not only the acid-spewing, electricity-shooting, zombifying aliens but also the US military, who have swarmed into the complex and are destroying the creatures and scientists with equal vigor.
Notable for its total immersion of the player. The entire game is played out in first person and in real time, with very little non-diegetic sound and no dialogue from the central character, not even grunts of pain when shot; the player has control of the character at all times, and the story unfolds entirely in-game.
The game engine was also famous for being highly customizable, leading to a long series of mods. Some of them were single-player, such as Gunman Chronicles. The most famous ones, however, were multiplayer, such as Deathmatch Classic (old school Quake-style combat), Team Fortress (fast-paced Quake III-style action) and its sequel Team Fortress 2 (the same thing but with 9 years of polish added a total reboot), Ricochet ( Tron-esq energy disc battles, as you hop between platforms), Day of Defeat (a gritty World War II combat simulation), The Hidden ( Survival Horror / Stealth Based Game), They Hunger ( Survival Horror / Survival-Action Zombie Apocalypse campaign) and most notably, Counter Strike. Because of this, Half-Life and its mods are collectively one of the most influential games of all time.
Gearbox Software made three Expansion Packs for the original game. The two first were called Opposing Force and Blue Shift, in which the player respectively takes control over the soldier Adrian Shephard and the security guard Barney Calhoun. Gearbox took some liberties towards the storyline within these expansions, which have set off a lot of fan debate about their legitimacy. While Half-Life's writer, Marc Laidlaw, so far have deemed these expansions semi-canon until further notice, some parts of the fanbase have already labeled them as Dis Continuity. The third Expansion Pack, Decay, was developed and released for the PS2 version of Half-Life, and was never ported to the PC (officially). It starred two female Black Mesa scientists, Gina Cross and Colette Green, and is the only co-operative entry to date.
Followed by a sequel, which is itself groundbreaking on many fronts in its graphics engine, physics system, and its online distribution/updating system.
Followed by even more sequels, called "Episodes", which were considerably shorter than the other games, and expanded on the Half Life 2 story.
The designers actually had great difficulty with the level design at first, and got stuck in a rut. In order to take stock, they created a single level containing every gimmick, enemy, or bit of level furniture they had come up for the game so far. Said level was fantastic, and they realized that this density of set pieces was the "certain something" the game lacked.
Portal is a side story to the series, whose plot looks like it will intersect with the main series in Episode Three. For the adventures of Gordon Frohman, see the webcomic Concerned.
There is a Steam group made by (and populated with) Tropers. Check it out here and join up!
Half-Life contains examples of:
- Action Girl - Alyx Vance in Half-Life 2.
- Gina and Colette in Decay
- After The End - The episodes take place right after the Citadel's destruction.
- Hell, Half-Life 2 occurs after an alien invasion.
- The majority of the events in the original Half-Life take place after the Black Mesa Research Facility (where you happen to be) is severely damaged and overrun by aliens.
- Air Vent Escape - More like "Air Vents you need to use in order to get to other places".
- One of the most memorable subversions too. 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.
- All Animals Are Dogs - DOG himself, whose physiology is (at least by now, after all the modification Alyx has been doing to him) much closer to that of a great ape.
- Maybe it's just me, but Lamarr the headcrab behaves like every cat I've ever owned.
- Another Dimension - Xen, and the Combine as an inter-dimensional empire.
- Technically Xen is a "border world". Gordon's crew were experimenting with teleportation using Xen as a "slingshot". This is why in Half-Life: Opposing Force, all portals on Earth go to Xen, and all portals on Xen go to Earth. The whole process is better explained in Half-Life: Blue Shift.
- Well, all but one. Opposing Force involves a fourth (or is it fifth?) faction from yet another world.
- All There In The Manual - Despite you having been missing and in stasis for several years between parts 1 and 2, at no point does anyone explain to you what the hell happened during that time nor does Gordon even ask to be filled in. Unless you look at every newspaper clipping along the way you can complete the entire game without any knowledge of the "Seven Hour War" or what the Combine really is. Also, the only character that gives any real exposition is very easy to miss if you don't know where to look for him.
- 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.
- Artificial Stupidity - Resistance fighters in Half-Life 2 are actually pretty good A.I.-wise (they strafe/use cover, verbally recognize different enemy types (i.e. "Combine!" "Zombies!"), and are smart enough to back away from melee enemies while firing), but they do have an annoying tendency to charge straight into sniper rifle fire, cluster around the player instead of giving Gordon some breathing space, and cannot be told to "wait" in a safe position for more than several seconds.
- There's also the infamous "barrel trick" in Half Life 2, where a certain Metrocop gunner in the beginning of the Water Hazard chapter can't see you if you can't see him (say, if you carry a barrel or even a paint can so that it obstructs your view of him).
- Authors Saving Throw - The beginning of Episode One changing the ending of Half-Life 2 from Wall Banger to Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
- Bad Ass
- Bag Of Spilling - Kinda sorta justified for Half-Life 2: The G-Man took away all your weapons at the end of Half-Life, and having your HEV suit would make it harder to get through the train station. In Half-Life 2, you weapons excluding your Gravity Gun were destroyed by a confiscation field. For Episode Two, you just fell down hard enough to drop your crowbar, your gravity gun, your pistol, your .357, both your assault rifles, your crossbow, your pheromone pod, all your grenades and your rocket launcher.
- It'll be interesting to see how they do this in Episode Three (we know they will) because the previous episode ended with you about to board a helicopter to fly north with Alyx.
- Well, keeping in mind that Valve likes reusing level/plot ideas that got cut out of HL2 in the Episodes, it would not surprise too many that know that there was a helicopter trip that ended with a crash that got cut. And considering how things started in Episode Two...
- Being fair, Episode One starts you with exactly as many weapons as you ended the previous game with (which is the Gravity Gun alone). In Episode Two, your weapons are scattered all over the crash site. It might've been possible to find them if you looked long enough, but Alyx was in a hurry.
- Bilingual Bonus
- Bilingual Dialogue
- Bittersweet Ending - Episode Two. Yes, we defeated the Combine assault on White Forest, and closed the superportal. But Eli is killed by an Advisor in the Resistance's moment of triumph, his last words desperately telling his daughter to look away. Alyx and Gordon survive only due to Dog's counterattack, and the game fades to black as Alyx cries over her father's body.
- Black Mesa Commute - Trope Namer.
- Block Puzzle
- Bolivian Army Ending -If Gordon rejects the G-Man's offer at the end of Half-Life, he is teleported unarmed into a room full of alien grunts. The game doesn't even show what happens, simply fading to black and showing "Subject: Gordon Freeman. Status: Terminated. Postmortem: Refused offer of employment."
- Bond Villain Stupidity - Two marines, instead of dragging you to your interrogation and execution, toss you into a trash compactor. Filled with crates. And another crowbar sitting at the top.
- They wanted to kill you and get it over with, already enough stupidity there. It's presumed that they expected you to not wake up that quick.
- The marines are so stupid they can't even spell (YORE DEAD FREEMEN, amongst various scrawls). They probably thought they'd had a great idea.
- Book Ends - The first game began and ended in a tram. Also interesting is that this seems to slightly carry over to the next game, where the player starts off in a train.
- And also ends the game on a train, albeit the G-Man's metaphysical one. Episode One also ends with Gordon on a train, and Episode Two starts with you on a crashed train.
- Opposing Force keeps the tradition, though the tram in this case is a V-22 Osprey.
- Boss In Mook Clothing - Gargantuas in the first game (along with Voltigores in Opposing Force). The second game has Poison Zombies, and Antlion Guards. Episode Two has the Hunters, who are boss-like tough alone, and even worse because they usually hunt in groups of three.
- Brains And Brawn - "With my brains and your brawn, we'll make an excellent team!" Gordon himself epitomizes both in the same package. Allegedly.
- The extent you have used your scientific expertise in the games is to push a cart in the first and plug in a cable in the second, where it was lampshaded by Barney that "that MIT education really pays for itself".
- Bribing Your Way To Victory - Not Half-Life itself, but mods are free to implement this, such as Sven Co-op.
- Brick Joke - In the very first game, you can repeatedly mess with a microwave until someone's lunch explodes and you get a What The Hell Player from a nearby scientist. The brick doesn't come crashing down for 3 sequels and 10 real-life years until you meet Dr. Magnusson, the owner of that lunch, in Episode Two. He's still mad about it.
- Calling Shotgun - Alyx, before she and Gordon Freeman go for a ride in a car.
- Captain Ersatz - Antlions = The Bugs from Starship Troopers
- Cavalry Betrayal - The scientists and guards Gordon comes across in the first few hours after the resonance cascade will enthusiastically tell you that the US military have called in via radio and told that a team is under way to Black Mesa to kill the aliens and rescue the personnel of the facility. While the first part of the message is true, the team turns out to be under secret orders to terminate the personnel because of their status as witnesses.
- Charged Attack - The Gauss Gun from the first game.
- Also, the wrench from Opposing Force.
- HL2's pistol can do this, though the ability was later removed from Half-Life 2: Deathmatch. The mounted tau cannon on the buggy can charge as well.
- Charge Meter - At least, for the flashlight.
- And for Half-Life 2 and the episodes, suit power (which included the flashlight in Half-Life 2 and Episode One).
- Charles Atlas Superpower
- The Chessmaster - " I do apologize for what must seem to you an arbitrary imposition, Dr. Freeman. I trust it will all make sense to you in the course of... well... I'm really not at liberty to say. In the meantime... this is where I get off."
- Classic Cheat Code - God mode and such.
- Clothes Make The Superman - Gordon's ubiquitous HEV suit. He's the only reason why he was able to survive the resonance cascade at ground zero and kill the Nihilanth: he's the only survivor trained (and wearing) an HEV suit.
- Complete Monsters - The Combine.
- Conspicuously Selective Perception
- Contested Sequel - Surprisingly avoided by Half-Life 2. Well, the game, at least. Steam is another matter entirely.
- Cool But Inefficient - The Tau Cannon, a laser built out of batteries and something else, wasn't as good as the other weapons.
- Cool Car - Alyx thinks the Muscle Car is one of these, Your Mileage May Vary
- Copy Protection - VALVe's client, Steam, is a massive version of this. It's extremely hard to play any sort of cracked version under Steam.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive - Dr. Breen, head administrator of Black Mesa. The research conducted under his administration would not hold up to any kind of ethical standards. May or may not have set up the entire Black Mesa Incident in order to be appointed head administrator of the entire human race.
- Crapsack World - The entire planet Earth. Even if you do save it from the Combine, mankind's probably going to spend the rest of its existence fighting off Antlions and all the other alien monstrosities that call it home now.
- Crazy Survivalist - The questionably sane Father Grigori.
- Might as well include Gordon Freeman here as well.
- Critical Existence Failure
- Crouching Moron Hidden Badass - Do not press DOG. For the love of God, don't press him.
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome - Just about any time the Combine run afoul of Dog.
- In Episode Two, Dog fights a Strider and tears him a new brainpan.
- The "Vortal Combat" scene is one for the Vortigaunt race. Also contains an example of Crowning Music Of Awesome.
- Cyber Cyclops - The Elite Combine in white armor have one, glowing red eye.
- Degraded Boss
- Descending Ceiling - When the HECU pull out, an air strike hits the portion of a parking lot Gordon is in - you have to guess where the debris is falling to survive. Similarly, Adrian has to do this with an out-of-control lightning bolt that destroys the grate underneath him (and if he falls, he drops into acid).
- Deus Ex Nukina - Happens to Black Mesa at the end of Opposing Force..
- Die Chair Die - Crowbar, meet crate. Somewhat silly, since a crowbar is supposedly designed for opening crates, but the only way to get at the ammo inside is to smash 'em.
- Discard And Draw
- Do Not Run With A Gun - Gordon, Adrian, and Barney all run quite fast. Averted in HL2, where the only way to go faster is to sprint, which uses your energy.
- Door To Before
- Downer Ending - For Half-Life and Opposing Force, Gordon is placed into stasis as some sort of mercenary by the G-Man, and Adrian is apparently frozen for eternity, respectively.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty - The training level for Corporal Shepard takes place in the HECU's boot camp. Of course, there's a drill sergeant. In fact, there's two following you around. One black guy, one white guy, who both sounded like they ripped all their lines off from Full Metal Jacket.
- Ummm... Hardcore drill-sergeant language was not invented for Full Metal Jacket.
- Then again, they've already taken boot camp and were transferred to the HECU...
- We'll have you eating DANGER and crapping victory!!
- Dropped A Bridge On Him - The end of Episode Two. You close the superportal, the resistance is triumphant and Eli is about to give you critical plot exposition regarding the nature of the Combine and the G-Man... then Advisors break in and kill him.
- DVD Commentary - In Episode Two and the spinoff Lost Coast, there are commentary bubble icons the player can "use" to listen to information about making the games.
- Eleventh Hour Superpower - Your Gravity Gun gets a massive upgrade and allows you to pretty much pwn your way into the heavily guarded Citadel.
- This returns for the beginning of Episode One.
- Enemy Chatter - The HECU often communicate with each other and taunt Gordon, impressive for the late nineties. In addition, so do the Combine troops, which also has a city-wide Dispatch for the Metrocops.
- Ensemble Darkhorse - People really like Adrian Shepard.
- To the point were Valve may bring him back, most fans seem to believe he's always behind Freeman.
- Also, Dog. VALVe responded to his popularity by giving him a major role in the intro of Episode One.
- Escape Sequence: A few times in Point Insertion, Route Kanal and Water Hazard.
- Escort Mission - Barney must escort two scientists safely to escape Black Mesa in his expansion pack.
- Everything Fades - Each ending involving the G-Man.
- Evil Army: The shadowy Hazardous Environment Combat Unit who serves under the US military and who, thanks to their orders to kill the personnel of Black Mesa, is one of the main threats in Half Life.
- And even HECU gets their own Evil Army in the even more shadowy Black Ops. unit who is under order to kill any soldier that should bear witness to the more secret parts of their missions.
- Evolving Trope
- Expansion Pack
- Exposition Break
- Exploding Barrels - Particularly noticeable in Half-Life 2, which give you a chance to make things easier.
- Face Full Of Alien Wing Wong - Headcrabs, also frequently known as Facehuggers.
- Faceless Goons - All Combine have their faces hidden behind gas masks of some sort.
- Though you can see one without his mask via security monitor, all pasty and hairless.
- In addition, the Black Ops forces of Half-Life 1 and Opposing Force wore form-fitting balaclavas.
- And most of the HECU wear chemical/biological warfare gear, including gas masks.
- Fan Nickname - The G-Man in fact has no official name (besides his model name, where his nickname originates from) or identity in the series so far, although Valve personnel have been caught referring to him by that name.
- First Person Shooter - Duh.
- Fisticuffs Boss
- Fragile Speedster - The female Black Ops Assassins in Half-Life have below average health, but are crazy fast, can make huge leaps, and on the highest difficulty setting, come equipped with a cloaking device. They're also Glass Cannons, and can easily wipe half your health away in groups.
- Foreboding Architecture - The Citadel, Nova Prospekt, the abandoned Cold War era rocket facilities.
- Game Mod - Lots.
- Gaiden Game - Portal.
- Gateless Ghetto - Not exactly. Ravelholm is walled off and City 17 usually has checkpoints.
- Give Geeks A Chance: Alyx certainly seems willing to! (Admittedly, once she finally meets one that is young and casually performs badass heroics every two minutes...)
- Goddamn Orks - The Combine.
- Going Through The Motions
- Go Look At The Distraction - Eli sending Alyx to make tea so he can tell Gordon about the G-Man.
- Gone Horribly Wrong - In the original, the experiment that let the aliens in.
- Good Hair Evil Hair - Averted. Our heroic protagonist has a beard, but then so does leading antagonist Dr. Breen.
- Government Drug Enforcement - "Don't drink the water. They put something in it, to make you forget."
- 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).
- Gravity Barrier - Literally. Combine Civil Protection set up odd forcefields to block citizens from entering certain areas.
- Gun Twirling - The idle animation for the revolver in the second game.
- Head Bob - One of the first games to avert.
- Heal Thyself - the insta-heal medkits and medical stations.
- Heroic Mime - lampshaded repeatedly in the second game.
- Although Ross Scott has corrected this by dubbing Freeman's inner monologue in his series "Freeman's Mind."
- Hey Its That Voice - Ellen McLain is in every Orange Box game. GLaDOS is controlling the Combine? They must be BLU.
- The actor behind Father Grigori would show up again in another Valve game, this time without the Russian accent.
- Hide Your Children - Justified, the Combine have been suppressing reproduction for almost 20 years by the time of HL2. A really good method for avoiding to put children into the game.
- His Name Is - Episode Two.
- In the original Half-Life, when the Marines first appear, a nameless scientist proclaims "Don't shoot! I'm with the science team!" before charging straight into Marine gunfire and being mowed down. Of course, if you actually manage to save him, he has nothing special to say. There's also a security guard who is midway through telling you something important before being gunned down by Assassins.
- Hold The Line - Several examples, usually with easily-knocked over turrets.
- Holy Hitman - Father Grigori.
- Hopeless Boss Fight
- Hyperspace Arsenal - By the end of the first game, Gordon is carrying a crowbar, a 9mm handgun, a shotgun, an assault rifle, a revolver, grenades, an RPG, a laser gun, a ''bigger'' laser gun, an alien gun with living bullets, laser tripmines, satchel charges and snarks. Plus ammunition.
- The worst example is the Gluon Gun, which is a backpack mounted nuclear reactor.
- Iconic Logo - Lambda-in-a-circle.
- Idle Animation - For each weapon and NPC - for example, Adrian pets his living rocket launcher, and Barneys pull up their pants every so often.
- Lets not forget Gordon taunting the snarks, and nearly getting his finger bitten as a result.
- 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.
- Implacable Man
- Improvised Weapon - The crowbar and pipe wrench.
- The tau cannon, which apparently was made from batteries and something else.
- Half-Life 2 has the Gravity Gun, which turns virtually anything into a weapon: Chairs, crates, tables, barrels (exploding and non-exploding varieties), benches, radiators, armoires, TVs, tires, bicycles, cars, people...
- Incredibly Lame Pun - "Zombine, get it?" Admit it, you laughed at it."
- Informed Ability - The most technical things super-scientist Gordon Freeman have ever done are pushing a sample on a cart and plugging a teleporter in. Justified because, well, theoretical physics is only exciting for theoretical physicists.
- Though Half-Life 2 features plenty of mundane physics puzzles, which is oddly fitting.
- Half-Life 2 explicitly refers to this fact. Early in the game Gordon has to plug in a cable and throw a switch, and Barney mentions that his MIT education is really paying off.
- Insufferable Genius - Dr. Magnusson.
- Insurmountable Waist Height Fence - Particularly in Half-Life 2, where, to demonstrate the physics engine, you must stack things to climb said fences. In addition, the first game often had locked doors blocking your way - you had to destroy or find alternate routes which deviate into God-knows-where (such as abandoned areas of the facility or the other side of that dam.
- The engine has a certain waist-height that can only be cleared by combining a crouch with a jump.
- Invisible Wall - Similarly, in Half-Life 2, there are invisible walls over the tops of fences in certain areas so that the player cannot stack crates to go over them.
- Iron Grip
- Its Probably Nothing - The people worry about the mind-controlling water in HL2, but have no choice.
- One of the scientists uses this exact phrase just before the experiment at the beginning of the first game. Yeah, that one that tears a hole in reality and causes all hell to break loose.
- Justified Tutorial - There's a mandatory course when a scientist is assigned an HEV suit that the player can choose to play.
- Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better - While the Combine makes good use of energy weapons, both them and you will be sling lead at each other most of the time.
- Actually, the energy weapons do more damage, and the more dangerous Combine units tend to be armed with them. You get the impression that it's more "Kinetic weapons are just cheaper".
- Laser Sight - The Combine Snipers use this, much to your advantage.
- Late To The Party - Half-Life was actually the first game to subvert this, as the first few levels are actually a leisurely stroll through the player's workplace, before All Hell Breaks Loose. All previous games usually dropped you in the middle of the action with a pistol and an All There In The Manual explanation. Played straight in Half-Life 2, though, as Gordon is abruptly dropped into City 17 more than a decade after Earth's subjugation by the Combine.)
- Lets Split Up Gang: Gina and Colette need to do this now and then to solve some of their puzzles.
- Lighthouse Point - Trope Namer.
- Lightning Bruiser - Hunters are crazy fast and crazy tough (able to eat almost 2 mags of automatic weapons fire before dying), and have a pretty mean automatic cannon for a nose. Antlion Guards are also fast and tough, but their dependence on melee ramming makes them more of a Bullfight Boss.
- Living Motion Detector - The blind tentacles in the first game, and the canceled hydra for the second, somewhat brought back via scripts.
- Locked Door: You must find alternate routes due to these, whether it be a massive pipe falling through several stories, or exploding walls.
- Mildly subverted in Half-Life 2 when you come across a door locked with a padlock and simply shoot or pry off the lock.
- And in the Xbox 360 version of Episode One, there is an achievement called "The One Free Bullet." You get one shot to shoot off a padlock and that's the only round you can fire in the game. Feel free to use as many explosives and physics objects as you like, though.
- Long Bus Trip - Corporal Adrian Shephard.
- Meaningful Name - Father Grigori.
- MIB
- Mad Libs Dialogue - The computer voice in Half-Life: Deathmatch.
- Malevolent Architecture
- Mecha Mooks
- Memetic Mutation - What happened when someone noticed that one of the scientists working on the Large Hadron Collider bore a resemblance to Gordon Freeman. The Internet ran with it and went so far as to send a care package of items Gordon would need to save us all once the activation of the collider opened a portal to Xen.)
- The G-Man was spotted, in addition.
- Meta Guy - The All Knowing Vortigaunt.
- Mind Screw - The G-Man, especially in Half-Life 2 and its Episodes.
- Misanthrope Supreme - Dr. Breen.
- Mook Bouncer
- Mook Maker - The Gonarch, a fully-grown headcrab, spawns annoying baby headcrabs.
- Mouth Flaps
- Nice Job Breaking It Hero - Hey, dude, remember that big baby that you slayed in the first game? He was the only guy holding Xen and the Combine away from Earth. Um, sorry, I'll just go over there, shall I...
- Nightmare Fuel Unleaded - Suddenly being hoisted into the air by a barnacle, being attacked by the hideous alien sharks, or the underside of the headcrabs...
- That doesn't sound bad as how the Combine make Stalkers. Take one human, then remove all non-vital organs (which pretty much leaves them with a brain, heart, and lungs), remove all fat and most muscles, mess with their larynx (they end up only able to screech horribly), saw off everything from the elbows and knees down and leaving them with stilts and hooks, and feed them saline solution. But at least they were kind enough to arm them with a laser beam.
- One word: Ravenholm.
- During early testing of Half-Life 2, VALVe noted how the scream of the Poison Headcrab was so disturbing that, upon hearing it, players would wildly spin and empty whole clips until the offending headcrab was gone. This, despite the fact that, in the absence of other enemies, Poison Headcrabs can't actually hurt you.
- For a very good reason: It turns you into a One Hit Point Wonder until the HEV sucks out the poison.
- The zombies in Half-Life are really disturbing to this troper. Fast zombies have no flesh on their bodies, if you take their legs off fast and normal zombies start crawling towards you slashing at you with their hands, Poison Zombies are massive bulbous shambling monstrosities with the aforementioned Poison Headcrabs clinging onto their body, if the headcrab is removed all you see is a bloody head fixed in a scream, but the most horrifying thing is some of the muffled cries you hear from zombies who aren't completely dead yet. Long story short Half-Life zombies are terrifying.
- And when you kill the poison zombie, the infected person laughs out of relief of being freed from that torment.
- Antlions. At one point, you cover yourself in pheromones and have an endless army of them following you. This troper kept turning around to find a mob of them standing behind him and shot them all down in panic.
- No Arc In Archery - Averted, at least in Half-Life 2. When using the crossbow at long range, the player must compensate for arrow drop.
- No Fair Cheating - Sort of. You just can't get achievements in Episode Two with cheat mode on. Oddly turning off the cheats just before you earn an achievement allows you to earn it as normal.
- No OSHA Compliance - One of the chapters in the original Half-Life forces Gordon to go through a waste processing factory. Yes, it's flesh-burning acid, but fortunately Gordon's wearing the partially acid-proof HEV suit. Similarly, Adrian Shepard in the expansion has to go through some sort of experimental blast furnace, which has no rails or catwalks to shield workers...
- Then there's the massive toxic spill you can see on the opening tram ride... In fact, the whole facility is a disaster waiting to happen: there are no emergency exits directly leading to the surface in case of fire or extradimensional incursions, ceilings and catwalks collapse without warning, and an alarmingly large amount of objects, namely computers, are Made Of Explodium.
- The great thing about it is that there's an automated robot cleaning it up. Oh, and the exits would have been working if it wasn't for the fact that there was a huge fucking explosion.
- One of the worst is a giant fan near the silo area. The "only" way to turn it on is by climbing down a ladder onto a narrow catwalk beneath the blades and pressing a button. The catch is that the fan blades actually touch the area anyone climbing the ladder up would be, so in order to survive the task you have to press the button and then haul ass and hope the fan doesn't catch you on the way out.
- In an interesting subversion, in Half Life 2: Lost Coast, the headcrab cannon actually has OSHA standard signs on it.
- Nonstandard Game Over - In Opposing Force, leaping through a portal Gordon leapt through in the main game sends you plummeting to your doom, with a status report on your demise.
- Other "status report" deaths:
- Any time you let a scientist die that is needed to open a locked door or perform an important scripted event.
- Letting Alyx die in any game where she is in combat (which probably will never happen to you anyway).
- Losing your vehicle in any of the Half-Life 2 games (especially weird after you aren't being specifically controlled by a status-reporting G-Man anymore).
- Ofcoursssse, no-one, can be... sssccertain about...That.
- If you fail in Episode Two, you get a Vortigaunt-styled message, reflecting the fact that the G-Man is no longer controlling you. ("the Magnusson's misgivings about the Freeman were completely justified.")
- Turning and shooting Drill Sergeant Nasty during Opposing Force's tutorial gets you court-martialed.
- Noodle Incident - What happened to the cat Dr. Kleiner used to test the teleporter. Lampshaded by Alyx, who also never heard about it until Barney mentions it in-game.
- No Sex Allowed - Noted early on in HL2 when Breen reads a letter for a concerned citizen about the "Suppression Field" that keeps people from reproducing. Amusingly, later in the game you come across another "Suppression Field": A giant laser cannon. That'll kill the mood alright.
- Although Dr. Kleiner reveals in Episode One that the suppression field works by blocking off certain amino acids, rather than stopping plain old sex. I guess not even the Combine are that evil.
- No Transhumanism Allowed - Despite the fact the technology is available, and the situation desperate enough that cybernetic modification is rather plausible, only the Combine's human loyalists (who are even called the Transhuman Forces) have cybernetic upgrades of any kind... well, them and the Stalkers; dissident (or just unlucky) humans mutilated into mindless cyborg drones. Even the Combine's "leader of humanity" hasn't upgraded himself, despite talking -of his own free will- about how the Combine are here to elevate humanity to the next stage.
- Originally, Breen's place was taken by 'the Consul', who rendered himself immortal using the Combine's life support technology.
- Not Even Bothering With The Accent - City 17 is meant to be in Eastern Europe, yet all your fellow citizens are apparently American.
- There's a great deal of forced relocation going on, and moving the survivors halfway around the world to disorient them would be pretty effective. One pictures all the Eastern European survivors of whatever City 17 used to be huddling in the ruins of Dallas.
- Not The Fall That Kills You - Take enough damage from falling, and you WILL gib.
- More true to the trope, grabbing a ladder within inches of the terminal surface prevents any damage.
- Fall any distance into water, no matter how shallow, and you'll be fine.
- Not Worth Killing - The apparent reason why Barney Calhoun, Gina, and Colette successfully managed to escape Black Mesa on their own two feet, while Freeman and Shepard both ended up captured and put on deep freeze by the G-Man.
- One Bullet Clips - Handwaved - this is one of the features of the HEV system's offensive capabilities.
- One Man Army - Oh, boy.
- Ontological Mystery
- Outrun The Fireball - A grunt throws in a satchel charge in a tunnel you're crawling through in the first game. Better run.
- Overrated And Underleveled - In the backstory the Combine walk over Earth's combined military in a matter of hours. In game they have difficulty dealing with a small ragtag resistance, a theoretical physicist, and (in Episode Two) a single human base. It's highly hinted at that it is a really, really minute representation of the Combine.
- Indeed, that's why they were so worried about the superportal in Episode Two: if it was completed, it would allow the Combine to bring in their actual army, rather than the occupying forces the resistance has been fighting, which are little more than glorified police (Striders are far more of an intimidation weapon than good for combat against other heavy units).
- Oxygen Meter - For Half-Life 2.
- The first game was apparently supposed to have one, the tutorial mentions one that doesn't exist.
- Paranoia Fuel - Headcrabs are everywhere, especially when they leap out at you from vents if you didn't have your flashlight on.. It gets worse with poison and fast headcrabs in the sequel.)
- One design corollary for custom maps is roughly: "A headcrab in every vent is boring, a headcrab in one-fifth of the vents is terrifying".
- Personal Space Invader - Headcrabs.
- Pet Monstrosity - Lamarr.
- Planet Looters - Race X in Opposing Force, and the Combine, who have colonized several dimensions.
- Portal Pool
- Power Armour - the HEV suit.
- Put On A Bus - Corporal Adrian Shephard.
- Barney Calhoun appears to have been put on a train at the end of Episode One, not to be seen since. This troper misses him.
- Colette Green and Gina Cross haven't been seen since the end of Decay, along with Dr. Keller.
- Putting On The Reich - The Combine Elites might qualify in some cases for this (e.g. the boots).
- The Quisling - Wallace Breen, who sold out the human race to the Combine.
- Quote Bin - The All-Knowing Voltigaunt.
- Radiation Schmadiation - Only direct contact with radioactive waste causes any issues. Fair enough for Gordon, who has the HEV suit (designed for that sort of things) not valid for the few times NPCs also get near it.
- Ragdoll Physics - The Source engine.
- Redemption Promotion - In the first game, when they're your enemies, the Vortigaunts are fairly low-level, easily disposed Mooks. In the second game, when they're your allies, they're incredibly powerful fighters whose beam attacks can kill an enemy in one hit and send them flying a few dozen feet. They're even powerful enough to counter-act the power of the then-seemingly unstoppable G-Man.
- Which also might be because they were enslaved in the first game.
- Revolvers Are Just Better - The revolver is much more powerful than the semi-automatic pistol in both Half-Life 1 and 2.
- Justified as the semi-automatic pistol in Half-Life 1 and 2 uses 9mm ammunition, while the revolvers use much more powerful .357 Magnum ammunition.
- Right Man In The Wrong Place - The trope namer.
- Roar Before Beating - Fast zombies in the sequel.
- Robot Buddy - D 0 G in the second game.
- Schmuck Bait
- Script Breaking - A staple of speedruns.
- Scripted Event - The Half-Life series runs on this, since there are no cutscenes.
- Of course, given that most of the time you can't do anything beyond move around a locked room (or sometimes go back the way you came - but almost never proceed) and shoot expository NPCs (usually giving you a Game Over, at least in the first game), many people fail to see any practical difference between these and traditional cutscenes.
- Given the fact that you're thrown off a tram in what normally would be a cutscene with military people shooting you all around, have to face aliens during one such "cutscene" (example: the teleport to Xen), and you could shoot the NP Cs once they were done talking, I'd say that would be averted.
- Sequence Breaking - The physics engine and stackable boxes allow clever players to bypass some of the challenges. During one area in "Nova Prospekt," the player is sealed into a cell block and must use mounted turrets to repel Combine. Using the surrounding boxes to build a crude stair case can allow players to reach the second story, escape the cell block and find a much more defensible location.
- Slave Mooks: The Stalkers and all Siniths are this.
- Snark Bait - Anyone, once Gordon gets a handful of snarks....
- Sniping Mission - You must dodge Black Ops snipers and trip wire mines in Opposing Force... and snipe them back.
- You also have to save Barney from Combine Snipers later in the game. This was supposed to happen multiple times in the beta.
- Soft Water - Which saves you from massive damage lots. The engine demonstrates this trope aggressively: custom maps use ankle-deep water to break several story falls all the time.
- Averted in the original, though; although water won't kill you outright, it only slows your descent slightly, so shallow enough water won't break your fall. This made players paranoid of jumping into (not particularly see-through) water, which is likely why the change was made.
- Just don't jump into any water infested with parasites or that has broken electronics nearby, or it's instant death!
- Sorting Algorithm Of Evil
- Sorting Algorithm Of Weapon Effectiveness
- Space Marine - Subverted with the HECU, which don't even have any specialized equipment, save for the PFC powered vest some soldiers are assigned.
- Split Screen - Decay's method of display.
- Sprint Meter
- Sssssnaketalk - G-Man in the first game. Changed to him putting syllable emphasis and sentence pauses in the wrong places in Half-Life 2
- Stand Back Hello - The Trope Namer
- Stock Scream - The fast zombies' screech is a slightly modified but still-recognizable form of the Howie Long Scream.
- Super Soldier - Gordon's a God with the HEV suit, along with Shepherd.
- Take Your Time
- Tearjerker - the end of Episode Two.
- Ten Second Flashlight - Played straight in Half-Life 2, though used to a lesser effect in Episode Two and Half Life 1.
- Throw It In - In playtesting for Half-Life 2 Episode One, Dog's idle animation had a shake of his head that happened to line up with the point where Alyx ensured he had done the calculations when proposing to throw them into the Citadel. Testers found it hilarious, and it was preserved through development of the scene.
- Similarly, in the level "Freeman Pontifex", there is a bit where a Fast Zombie is hiding in a dumpster. But when you throw a grenade, it throws it back. Well, the lobbing back of the grenade was originally unintended and happened because one of the idle animations of the (already twitchy) zombie caused him to hit the grenade back to Gordon. Of course, it was too good to leave out.
- Time Stands Still - The G-Man pulls this on you a few times.
- Training Dummy - The disabled Strider at the end of Episode Two.
- Uncanny Valley - Averted in Half-Life 2, thanks to some damn fine graphics, motion capture, and animation - except deliberately in the G-Man's case. The subtle asymmetries of his face, some odd mannerisms, the ways he speaks, as though he knows how to make the sounds of speech but isn't sure how they all fit together... all help make him a very creepy supernatural stalker.
- The Unintelligible - Originally, Vortigaunts, who would gibber and only knew one English phrase: 'DIE!!'
- Unusable Enemy Equipment -: Averted. Even if it's alive. Even if it tries to bite your face off.
- Use Item
- The Very Definitely Final Dungeon - You travel to an alien factory. Of course the Big Bad's near.
- And in the sequel, once you enter the Citadel, you know there's going to be a boss at the top.
- Videogame Setpiece
- Violation Of Common Sense - Climb into a hanging metal coffin that completely restricts your movements to make it into the enemy base? Sure. Do it again, even though the last one resulted in your weapons being confiscated and only dumb luck keeping you alive? Of course.
- This Troper actually spent close to an hour wandering around, dying over and over again, trying to find some other way through the first time he came up against the coffin-thing.
- It's especially irritating considering that you can see some of the pods lining up for a death ray.
- Villainous Breakdown - Doctor Breen's broadcasts show him growing increasingly short-tempered, until he finally snaps and begins haranguing Gordon directly.
- The Watcher - G-Man.
- Weapon Of Choice - Gordon is always depicted carrying the red crowbar.
- What Happened To The Mouse - Remember Adrian Shephard? The protagonist in Half Life: Opposing Force? What happened to that guy?
- If we believe Gabe Newell, VALVe is actually itching to get him into the main storyline.
- Those Two Guys - Griggs and Sheckley in Episode Two.
- The couple from HL2 have shown up twice in the game (once before the apartment raid, the second after the uprising), and once in Episodes One and Two.
- Wreaking Havok
- Xanatos Gambit - The G-Man is clearly a master of this. He will save people and provide them with informations, but also interfere with their plan to get them into situations where everything they will do for their own gain, will also advance his own plan. He isn't even trying to hide it.
- Episode 2 possibly retcons that, he brought the Xen-crystal to Black Mesa and arranged for it to be placed into the antimatter spectrometer. In that case, it's also highly likely that the computer malfunctions and the odd behaviour of the spectrometer during warmup are the result of his medling with the machine. Which means that he wanted the Combine to invade earth, but at the same time provides invaluable assistance to the Resistance.
- Xen Syndrome - Trope Namer
- Year Inside Hour Outside - Gordon's stasis apparently seemed like a day to him, but a decade passes.
- Also, when Alyx and Gordon go through the teleporter near the end of Half-Life 2, a week passes in what is to them a blink of the eye.
- You ALL Look Familiar - HECU grunts aren't that diverse. Neither are the citizens of City 17.
- Zombie Apocalypse - "We don't go to Ravenholm..."
- Arguably, the entire world is facing a low-level zombie apocalypse, it's just not as much of a threat as the Combine.
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