History VideoGame / HuntDownTheFreeman

* CoolGuns: The game has a large arsenal of guns with some pretty nice details and animation. You can see all of them demonstrated in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TkDgAxfRrE this video]].

* WhatMeasureIsAMook: The story attempts this by showing the hardship a {{mook}} that had the misfortune of running into Gordon Freeman would face. Unfortunately, it's undercut by the fact that [[spoiler:Freeman never actually met the protagonist and it was just someone impersonating him]].

** Act 2 plops the player into an infuriatingly gigantic map with absolutely no sense of direction or even any clues as to where to go, leaving them to meander around before (hopefully) stumbling upon the right destination by accident. Many players have had to resort to consulting walkthroughs to make it through this chapter and even then, the game still manages to make them lost. Reaches a logical conclusion when some players who are still mentally insane enough to keep playing the game will simply opt to activate server cheats via the console and noclip through most of the maps instead of bothering to go the intended route, as it is both faster (noclip speed is faster than sprint speed), and less frustration-inducing (some scripted sequences often fail to trigger, given the game's buggy, ObviousBeta state).

* YouAreAlreadyDead: Getting spotted by the Combine searchlights in Act 2 means an inevitable energy blast will be descending upon you for a OneHitKill, even if the game will let you run around for a few seconds before it happens.

[[caption-width-right:350:You Are The Villain.]]

** As an AI teammate, Adam is ''very'' fragile and ''very'' aggressive, often charging headlong into big hordes of zombies or Combine Soldiers and butt-stroking them in the face to no effect due to how close-ranged NPC combat logic is handled by the Source engine. Expectedly, this does not do well to improve his life expectancy.

The game is notable for being the most high-profile and elaborate original work set in the ''Half-life'' universe and for receiving a certain level of unofficial recognition from Valve. However, the game's reputation was almost immediately shattered upon release by its amateurish and infuriatingly incomprehensible level design, a vast number of game-breaking bugs, tedious gameplay, and accusation of copyright infringement.

* TakeCover: Aiming down the sights while at the edge of a wall causes Mitchell to lean around the corner, allowing you to shoot from a more concealed position.

** [[spoiler:Adam's death]] is so over the top it is just hilarious. [[spoiler:Mitchell catches up to him and shoots him several times in the stomach ''with a revolver'' before finishing Adam off with a headshot and sending him over the board. Considering the calibre of the revolver that was used by Mitchell, it's surprising that Adam managed to stand up after being crippled and survive a full-blown shot in his stomach, much less three more.]]

* WhiteAndGreyMorality: The central conflict appears to be this at the outset if you believe that Gordon killed Marines in Mitchell's squad in self-defence, and attacked Mitchell himself first because there was no reason to assume he would behave any differently. In turn, Mitchell refers to himself as "a villain" at one point and likely killed some unarmed Black Mesa scientists before meeting Freeman. However, he does save a group of young children from Combine slavery later on, even if he's mainly doing it to train them in his own private army.

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: [[spoiler:When "the deal" reaches its conclusion near the end of the game, the G-Man tries to do this to Mitchell by leaving him for dead, but this backfires in the latter's favor, as he survives the assault from the Combine and kills Adam (who happened to be another important figure in the deal).]]

* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Hunt Down the Freeman attracted the ire of many players due to its tendency to just dump truckloads of enemies at the player, ZergRush style, with no clear rhyme or reason. Even at points extremely early in the plot, for no clear reason, Mitchell is assailed by whole packs of Hunters and/or Vortigaunts or has his position bombed into oblivion by nearly a dozen headcrab shells. One would really have to question why this one particular marine warrants more attention than even Gordon Freeman himself years later, especially since he's only escaping the city and not actively trying to bust down Combine infrastructure like the latter. Even worse is that the game is never consistent on the actual gameplay purpose of throwing waves upon waves of enemies at you - sections where they're meant to push you along the path and sections where you have to HoldTheLine against them follow one another almost in sequence.
** Also [[spoiler:Adam's death is so over the top it is just hilarious. Mitchell catches up to him and shoots him several times in the stomach ''with a revolver'' before finishing Adam off with a headshot and sending him over the board. Considering the calibre of the revolver that was used by Mitchell, it's surprising that Adam managed to stand up after being crippled and survive a full-blown shot in his stomach, much less three more.]]

* OffModel: Because the game was compiled out of various assets with (reportedly) an overall lack of general centralized direction, different levels and areas can come across as this graphically. The early indoor sections actually look reasonably modern, while the outdoor sections look like something out of a game made during the Bush Administration.