Video Game / Half-Life: Echoes

"Prepare for ... unforeseen consequences..."

SUBJECT: Candidate #12.
STATUS: Evaluation commencing.

— Sequence 1: FOUNDATION

Half-Life: Echoes is a well-known high-quality Game Mod for Half-Life, developed by user MrGnang as a tribute of sorts for the game, with a strong emphasis on the atmosphere and Survival Horror elements of the original. The mod revolves around an unnamed minor employee of Black Mesa, referred to as "Candidate #12", who becomes caught up in the midst of the Resonance Cascade, becoming trapped in the facility as he begins fighting his way to the surface. Unfortunately, it seems that the G-Man has other ideas for this particular individual...

The mod can be downloaded here from ModDB.

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ASSIGNMENT: Evaluate examples of tropes demonstrated by Half-Life: Echoes:

• 11th-Hour Superpower: The Gluon Gun is used to defeat the Gargantua at the climax of the mod's final combat sequence.
• Action Horror: Whilst it definitely starts as a full-on Survival Horror, the latter half of the game escalates the situation to involve a lot more shootouts. The arrival of the HECU especially exacerbates this.
• Ambiguously Evil: We never find out the Kingpin's true motives and why did he take interest in Candidate #12 to begin with, nor if it's even evil in the first place.
• Armies Are Evil: The HECU and Black Ops, as to be expected.
• Badass Normal: Candidate #12 by all accounts seems to be just another scientist, but ends up surviving far better than the vast majority of Black Mesa staff. The HEV suit Barney you encounter in the latter half survives just as well as you do. For a while, at least.
• Bash Brothers: Candidate #12 and HEV Barney make one hell of a team.
• Big Bad: The G-Man.
• Bloody Handprint: Used all over the place, especially in the earlier half.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: More of a Mini-Boss, but one Alien Grunt encountered just over halfway through the game is encountered with two layers of shields to protect it, as well as an entourage of Headcrab Zombies.
• The Cameo:
  • If you enter the woman's restroom in the first chapter before the resonance cascade, you can find Half-Life: Decay protagonists Gina Cross and Colette Green in the toilets. You don't see their faces or bodies, but you do see their feet from under the cubicle doors, and they will make a voice line when you first touch the doors.
  • Dr Richard Keller can also be seen a little further into the chapter, waving at Candidate #12 from an elevator before the doors close.
  • Midway through the game, Candidate #12 accidentally stumbles into a dimensional rift incurred by a floating Xen crystal. He catches a few quick glimpses of the G-Man addressing Adrian Shephard aboard the osprey and Gordon Freeman in the tram, followed by various Combine forces flying by (specifically Gunships, Dropships, a couple of Mortar Synths and an Advisor). After a face-to-face encounter with the Kingpin, the G-Man then appears and seemingly wards the creature off. He then turns to Candidate #12, commenting that he's "not supposed to be there" and teleports him back, advising him to "forgot about all this".
• Cavalry Betrayal: To the surprise of no one who has played the original game, it turns out the HECU aren't here to rescue anyone.
• Chest Burster: At one point, you come across Snarks bursting out of scientists and marines a la Alien.
• Crowbar Combatant: The Crowbar reappears as the signature melee weapon of the game.
• Darker and Edgier: Rivals Opposing Force in terms of bleakness, as the chaos is more pronounced after the Resonance Cascade hits. And unlike in Blue Shift and Opposing Force, you do not interact with any surviving personnel for the majority of the game (one scene has the shutter suddenly close in on Candidate #12 the moment he is about to follow through, after the survivors got ahead of him). The only survivors you can interact with are; the dying security guard who urges him to leave him behind, a scared technician who promptly slams the restroom door on you upon interaction, the HEV Barney, a scientist, and the maintenance manager, and the latter three all end up dead when the HECU show up, leaving Candidate #12 truly alone.
• Devoured by the Horde: The fate of anyone caught by the zombies. Of particular mentions goes to the security guard sighted from within a vent, with zombies ripping into his chest.
• Disney Villain Death: Though not a villain, a security guard you're on your way to meetup with gets launched out of the control room he's hiding in by a Bullsquid. You can't get there in time to save him.
• Downer Ending: After disposing of the Kingpin for attempting to kidnap the infant Alyx Vance, the G-Man leaves Candidate #12 at the doorstep of the Black Mesa dormitories, just as the nuke explodes and engulfs the building in a firewave.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: It does have a moment of buildup, but HEV Barney's sudden Boom, Headshot! happens very abruptly. The scientist with him is gunned down by the HECU almost immediately afterwards.
• Dwindling Party: Early on, after the cascade hits, Candidate #12 ends up not far behind a mixed group of staff trying to get to the surface. They drop from over half a dozen over the course of the preceding stages, until you finally catch up with the last survivor, mortally wounded.
• Eaten Alive: Happens alot, especially with all the barnacles around the place; one such barnacle can be seen devouring a maintenance guard at one point. Depending on whether they were eating or gestating within their victims, the snarks encountered later on could be particuarly guilty of this
• Eldritch Location: Later on, you come across a portion of the facility overrun with bioluminescent, pink Xen growth. Returning to the same location earlier, it looks like the HECU have burnt it away with gasoline.
• Escort Mission: Mercifully short, and almost impossible to fail thanks to HEV Barney backing you up.
• Everybody's Dead, Dave: After the death of HEV Barney and the scientist you were escorting, you don't come across any other survivors of the Black Mesa Staff. Its just you, the aliens, and the HECU.
• Fold-Spindle Mutilation: A security guard's corpse can be seen at the bottom of an elevator shaft, jammed butt-first into a rip in the metal floor.
• Framing Device:
  • The game as a whole is framed from the perspective of one of the G-Man's candidate evaluations, with the game affording observational remarks at both the start and end of the game, while the chapter names are listed as "Sequences".
  • The device is most apparent in the game's main and pause menus, where many of the menu options have been renamed accordingly: "Resume Observation" (Resume Game), "Begin Observation" (New Game), "Retrieve Data" (Load Game), "Archive Data" (Save Game), "Alter Parameters" (Options), and "Terminate Session" (Quit).
  • When starting a new game, the difficulty select screen states to "Select criteria for evaluation", with the available options being "Relaxed" (Easy), "Conventional" (Normal) and "Stringent" (Hard).
• Gorn: The game proves to be quite visceral when compared to the original, with piles of corpses (alongside fleshy remains) littering the area (acting as a feeding ground for zombies), and an area where live victims writhe and scream in pain before the Snarks violently burst out from their hosts.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: One guard in the early hours of the game is found torn in two, with his spine in pieces between his torso and his waist.
• Hope Spot: More than once, it looks like things are finally going to turn out alright, especially after the military show up. Anyone who has played the original can guess how well that turns out.
• Just Before the End: The opening portion of the game features Candidate #12 making his way through the Black Mesa parking lot and later one of the sectors. Throughout it, there are earthquakes, the lights flicker, and debris is starting to fall from the roof.
• Mêlée à Trois: Happens alot after the HECU arrive on the scene, especially towards the climax.
• Monster Delay: Whilst not monsters, the HECU's prescence is built up over the course of the latter half of the game. First, you see them from a distance, moving into the facility en-masse. Then you come across their bodies and overrun positions. Finally, they make their entrance by rappelling into the parking lot, killing HEV Barney and the scientist who were following you, and then trying to kill you.
• Mistaken Identity: The HECU seem to believe either HEV Barney or the scientist with him is Gordon Freeman. It's only after both are killed they realise they're not who they're looking for.
• No Name Given: We never learn Candidate #12's name, all we know is that they're staff at Black Mesa.
• Nothing Is Scarier: After recovering from the first Gargantua attack at the beginning of the Cascade, Candidate #12 awakens to an empty corridor, decorated with blood and cordoned off by a broken barricade. He doesn't encounter an actual enemy for a while yet.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Just after you're seperated by a blast door, HEV Barney goes off to rescue a scientist, being pursued by a Mr. Friendly, quite possibly the same one who attacked you earlier. By the time you meet back up with him, HEV Barney has killed it, presumably all by himself.
• Recurring Boss: From the very start of the Resonance Cascade until the end of the game, Candidate #12 is hounded by a Gargantua that is out for his blood, making multiple attempts on the scientist's life in several major sequences.
• Sacrificial Lion: HEV Barney, a Nice Guy and Badass Normal who's had your back for the last half an hour, gets shot in the head, to announce the arrival of the HECU and their Cavalry Betrayal.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: The SPAS-12 shotgun reappears as one of the few weapons the player gets access to.
• Survival Horror: The mod is much more horror-oriented than the main game. Puzzles are scarce, ammo/armor/health are even scarcer, and only a handful of weapons (the Crowbar, Berretta 92FS and SPAS-12) are available for the vast majority of the game, with more lethal weapons such as (the M16, Crossbow and various explosives) only appearing in the final chapters, and the general atmosphere is much darker and more oppressive, with higher amounts of Gorn and darkness than the main game.
• Tank Goodness: The HECU roll in with a few of these, one of which serves as the Penultimate Boss
• The Unfought: Mr. Friendly is only encountered in the flesh once, and you cannot fight it.
• Unique Enemy: Due to the mod's brevity, some enemies are only encounted in a single room. The snarks, ichthyosaurs and Black Ops assassins are of particular note. There is also one Alien Grunt protected by two layers of shields, which you never see or fight again.
• Where It All Began: The game's final arena is the transit hub you move through in the beginning.

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SUBJECT: Candidate #12.
STATUS: Evaluation period complete.

OUTCOME: Unsuitable for employment.
RATIONALE: Candidate #12 demonstrated keen ability but was susceptible to external influence.

POSTSCRIPT:

Candidate #01: Extracted.
Candidate #03: Hired.
Candidate #07: Detained.

All other candidates dismissed. Awaiting further instructions...

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