Behold my cool right boot.
Azure Sheep is a single-player modification of Half-Life made by Italian developers Andrea "Toadman" Butti and Davide "DAV" Cinthao - the founder of DAV Levels. Later they made another mod taking place in the same universe parallel to this one's story named Point of View.Azure Sheep tells the story of a generic Black Mesa security guard Barney or rather "Just Barney" (because with all that recent mess around Black Mesa he can't remember his whole name) and his colleague and love interest Kate, code-named Azure Sheep.
"Just Barney" didn't want to be a security guard but, you know life, he was led to be one. He had a secret dream, he was writing a novel and... Well, that's another story.
"Just Barney" had another dream: to become a Hero and save a princess.
When the Resonance Cascade occurs he is on duty at one of the entrances to Black Mesa and in the ensuing chaos, his partner Kate goes missing. He decides to venture into the facility to find and rescue her.
This mod takes place in a slightly modified Half-Life storyline and thus most of its tropes apply.
The story is currently being
remastered as a mod for Black Mesa by the HECU Collective team, although as of December 2020 the project is on hold while the team focuses on developing Black Mesa: Blue Shift instead.
Azure Sheep contains examples of:
- Action Girl: Downplayed with Kate. She can look after herself in combat but only against mediocre enemies. Also, unlike the source material, this game features female security guards.
- Adaptational Mundanity: In the original, the G-Man's personal army bore a distinctly sci-fi aesthetic and are armed with M1A1 Pulse Rifles, their counterparts in the remake are instead shadow operatives donning all black uniforms and balaclava, and lack a sci-fi feel with them.
- Adaptational Villainy: The G-Man is portrayed far more evil in here. He's in charge of black-clad Special Forces who are even after original HECU marines. Also one of his hobbies is forcing hapless scientists to conduct illicit experiments on their fellow colleagues.
- Air-Vent Passageway: As this is a HL1 mod you get to crawl through the air vents several times throughout.
- Artistic License – Biology: For whatever reason do Black Mesa scientists in their spare time create magenta Vortigaunts by combining their hapless colleagues with Chumtoads.
- Bespectacled Cutie: Kate's elegant thin-framed specs serve to emphasize her already sweet nature.
- Averted with Romka's custom fan model which looks completely different and steers towards stereotypically sexy Action Girl instead.
- Also averted with the Fan Remake where Kate looks considerably less sweet and naive and instead is a case of Stoic Spectacles.
- Damsel in Distress: Happens to Kate once.
- Didn't See That Coming: Certainly neither you or Adrian did see those Vortigaunts teleporting in, grabbing Shepard and porting out again. It practically borders on
Ass Pull as it comes completely out of the blue with no relevance to the plot of this game or Half-Life: Opposing Force. - Disproportionate Retribution: Just try harming that orange-overall-clad Gus guy in any way. Go ahead. We dare you!
- Distressed Dude: "Just Barney" briefly becomes this halfway through the game until Kate arrives to his rescue.
- Doom Troops: The G-Man's Special Forces don dark versions of the standard HECU uniforms and are armed with more powerful weapons. They even attack the regular HECU marines.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Played with. You found that single Vortigaunt confined in a glass container. At the time probably not even the creators knew they were going to promote it/him(?) to protagonist of their next game.
- The Fan Remake gives that Vortigaunt a Hivehand, just to make sure you take notice of it.
- Enemy Mine: Courtesy of Adrian Shepard - at one point the normally antagonistic HECU marines temporarily side with you against the G-Man's Special Forces.
- Escort Mission: The entire second half of the game is basically this.
- The original mod also turns an original Half-Life scene into one of these, by having the player babysit Gordon Freeman during the first fight against the assassins at the end of the Apprehension chapter. The remake cuts this out by having the player shot and knocked unconscious just as Gordon arrives.
- Fan Remake: The game is being remade in HD using the Source engine. The first part is already out.
- Game-Breaking Bug: At one point Kate is required to ride an elevator, since the stairs are demolished and NPCs in HL1 can't climb ladders. Due to the infamous elevator glitch, Kate may turn into a particularly chunky kebab as soon as the lift reaches the top. This of course results in an instant Game Over and thanks to the persistent nature of the glitch can make the game completely Unwinnable.
- Heroic Mime: Averted in the remake. Barnes occasionally comments on things that are going on and talks to other characters, using generic Black Mesa security guard voice lines.
- More Dakka: The M41A assault rifle which shares ammo with original MP5 but deals more damage per shot. At least the authors say that.
- Nonstandard Game Over: If Kate dies you're treated to screen fading to black and a caption: Subject failed to protect Kate.
- Nostalgia Level: The level Walking to Black Mesa Inbound (just Walking to Inbound in the remake) involves the player fighting their way through the environments Gordon Freeman passed on his tram ride at the beginning of the original game. The remake takes this up to eleven by following this up with the Ground Zero level - a descent back through Sector C, a miniboss fight beneath the Anti-Mass Spectrometer, and a brief sequence in part of the first level of Half-Life: Decay.
- Off-into-the-Distance Ending: The game ends like this with the two lovebirds driving off into the sunset.
- One-Steve Limit: The protagonist's given name is "Just Barney", after the generic name that was given to Half-Life security guards, but before Blue Shift came along and made Barney Calhoun the canon name of one guard in particular. The Fan Remake changes his name to Justin Barnes.
- People Jars: For whatever reason are the scientist of Black Mesa putting their fellow colleagues into themnote and morphing them into magenta vortigaunts. "Just Barney" himself falls victim to this at one point when captured by the G-Man but is eventually rescued by Kate. Later, Kate herself is also put into a jar and you have to rescue her.
- Previous Player-Character Cameo: Both Gordon and Adrian appear at certain points as interactive NPCs. Strangely they only use basic handgun since they're technically derived from conventional security guards.
- Gordon's cameo is at least partially canon. Adrian however appears completely out of the blue with little to no relevance to the original story.
- Reckless Gun Usage: Just like in the original game, the security guards have no issues with turning their faces towards the player while gunning down whatever they can, without actually looking at their target.
- Retcon: A large amount of the "Walking to Inbound" chapter in the remake has been changed, as the content in the original mod's equivalent chapter was incompatible with locations established in Blue Shift (which had yet to be released when the mod was made available).
- Super-Persistent Predator: In the fan remake, the Gargantua that you encounter in the interior Black Mesa structure that you temporarily drive away with multiple hummer-based TOW Launchers merely-yet-creatively uses its claw-based flamethrowers to blast into the ceiling. This provides a false sense of security since as soon as you progress through more of the interior areas, it comes back. Even when going across upper areas where even its flamethrowers can't reach doesn't stop it from attempting to throw a freakin' civilian truck at you. You get into an semi-sheltered area above, think you're still safe? Hell no! It climbs to the overlooking area above where you recently escaped from, constantly trying to fry you with its flamethrowers via the openings◊ as you utilize valves to switch off the flames blocking the way forward. It's only after getting a pack of potent explosive mine charges and then setting them around a nearby oil tanker truck and then having them detonate that the accursed beast is finally defeated after said trap detonates in a fashion that has it collapse the concrete walkway underneath it that leads to its death thanks to the electrified pool of water below, killing it for good."I only take so much... and no more."
- Underground Monkey: The magenta slave is a
more aggresive magenta colored version of common Vortigaunt. Its origin backstory is ambiguous. - Video Game Cruelty Potential: Being a Half-Life mod you can put friendly characters through whatever abuse you deem fit. If you're feeling particularly upset you can lead Kate to walk straight into a barnacle's tongue or provoke her to turn on you and run into the barnacle while pursuing you or let a bullsquid chomp on her... However...
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment: if she or any plot-necessary character dies you are immediately treated to screen fading to black.
