"BRO!"
Summed up as "a world where Black Mesa is 100% more Scottish", Demo Mesa
is a Half-Life/Team Fortress 2 crossover parody that loosely follows the first ten minutes of the former game but with the particular twist of every character being replaced with the Demoman. Drunken Hilarity Ensues.
The short was made by Antoine Delak, who is responsible for the equally ridiculous Heavy is Dead, Soap Demo and Gorgeous Freeman.
Demo Mesa contains examples of...
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: It's an honest-to-God miracle that it took the Resonance Cascade for this version of Black Mesa to finally go to Hell.
- Animal Testing: One of the Demo scientists is seen trying to get a bird to drink scrumpy. Another is shown competing with a bear to solve a peg-in-hole puzzle and losing spectacularly.
- Bathos: Two clear examples in rapid succession:
- G-Demo's appearance; Demo!Freeman is transported to a White Void Room, the soundtrack goes slow and ominous and G-Demo slowly approaches him. Once G-Demo is right next to Demo!Freeman, the music cuts out and G-Demo yells "YA FOOKED UP!", before clocking Demo!Freeman over the head with his briefcase.
- The post-Cascade montage; Demo teleports back into Black Mesa, where we see how almost everyone died. At the end, Demo!Freeman just goes "Eh, whatever!" and starts drinking again.
- Comedic Sociopathy: Demo!Freeman murders a fellow employee in cold blood for his HEV suit, and at the end is completely indifferent to the slaughter of the rest after the Resonance Cascade.
- Death Seeker: A smiling Demo scientist announces his wish for death in a very short Inner Monologue. Ironically, he's one of the few to still be alive at the end of the short.
- Everything's Louder with Bagpipes: The majority of the video is backed by the Half-Life track Klaxon Beat... overlaid with Scotland the Brave played through a vibrato filter.
- Funny Background Event: The short is rife with this. Every room and corridor is filled with unconscious Demomen, broken bottles, and escaped monstrosities.
- Fun with Subtitles: Not only are they listed as Scottish Gaelic, but they often contradict what's happening on screen - for example, Demo!Freeman yelling "Shut the fuck up, bitch!" is rendered as "Please cease your prattles, jakey!"
- Handshake Substitute: Demo!Freeman and the guard perform an elaborate version of this complete with high-fives, arm clasps, butt-rubbing, car hijacking, bank-robbery, and van-crashing after the former returns with an HEV suit.
- Incompetence, Inc.: This version of Black Mesa. Where do we begin?! Everything runs on booze, drunken shenanigans abound, and the experiments involve threatening birds at gunpoint. Don't think about it too hard.
- Only Sane Man: Downplayed. One of the scientists in the Anti-Mass Spectrometer observatory can be seen (presumably) working hard typing on a computer whilst the rest are lying about in varying states of consciousness.
- Likely averted, since one can hear the Pornhub Community intro faintly playing in the background as the scientist is typing, and see the Pornhub logo reflected in his shades.
- Precision F-Strike: The Demo!G-man's only line, to Demo!Freeman.Demo!G-Man: Ya fucked up!
- Shout-Out: A fair few, as to be expected of Delak's works:
- When Demo!Freeman is looking for his HEV suit, he reenacts the "Where's my super suit?!" scene from The Incredibles, all while wearing a Frozone mask.
- In a Funny Background Event, a scientist is announced to have transformed himself into a pickle.
- Said pickle-scientist is also shown in the aftermath of the Resonance Cascade.
- Demo!Freeman at one point passes two scientists listening to a Demoman version of ''Money'' by Pink Floyd whilst studying light reflecting through a prism, which itself references the band's cover art for The Dark Side Ofthe Moon.
- One of the Demo scientists walks out of the Anti-Mass Spectrometer room showing a passport to the guard.
- Stylistic Suck: There's just enough genuinely good animation sprinkled across the video to remind one that Antoine does know how to animate, between the madness and ragdoll-flailing.
- The Unintelligible: Practically every character is this half the time. Special mention goes to Demo!Freeman's boss, whose burping and rambling explanation of their latest experiment stumps even Demo!Freeman.
