Surprise is a Half-Life mod.
It doesn't fature any new story or campaign. Instead it modifies many gameplay mechanic, particularly boosting and expanding the capabilities of all weapons.
Examples:
- BFG: This mod turns nearly all weapons into total overkills.
- The Gluon Gun's "ball" setting turns it into an Expy of the original Doom BFG9k, spewing massive explosive plasma ball fith primary, or even more Hyperdestructive Bouncing Ball with the secondary fire. Exercising caution is necessary with this one.
- Easy Level Trick: In its default setting the Crowbar doubles as a GrapplingHook. In sigleplayer it basically lets you skip all jumping puzzles and makes navigating the Xen borderworld a child's play, rendering the Long-jump Module practically obsolete if not downright useless.
- Expy: There are several:
- The RPG's TV-guided nuke mode is basically how Redeemer of Unreal Tournament works.
- The Gluon Gun's ball mode immitates the notorious BFG9k of Doom.
- With its function and name the "Devastator" Hivehand mode greatly hints towards the eponymous gun in Duke Nukem 3D.
- "Gravity Deflector" Hivehand mode does to other players the same thing what the Gravity Gun of Half-Life 2 does to physical objects... and people when supercharged.
- Game-Breaking Bug: Dead bodies in multiplayer are now tangible like in singleplayer, letting you commence Ludicrous Gibs. However if you kill somebody up close, you may end up stuck inside the corpse and unable to move.Fortunately a few crowbar whacks can remedy this. Unless some other player "liberates" you the deadlier way.
- Grappling-Hook Pistol: Not actually a pistol but in the default setting of the Crowbar, the Secondary Fire makes it work like a grappling hook. Unlimited range and latching onto any solid surface makes it a great help in reaching hard spots in multiplayer and a complete Game-Breaker in singleplayer as it lets you skip various lenghthy jumping puzzles.
- Gravity Master: Played with the Gravity Deflector weapon - one of the two settings of modified Hivehand. It can either attract other players towards you or push them away. By precisely timed alternating the fire modes, you can launch opponents into great distances and altitudes, prompting some peculiar high-velocity collisions with environment. In a way it's an expy of Half-Life 2's Gravity Gun.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: You can meet your demise this way when using any explosive, as those are now ludicrously powerful, as well as some of the other BFGs with area-of-effect damage.
- Creating the sucking vortex using Tau Cannon is almost guaranteed to end up in this, as most multiplayer maps are too cramped to let you put some distance between you and the vortex.
- I Shall Taunt You: When killing somebody in multiplayer, your character now spews some snarky voice lines from the original game to add insult to injury.Scientist: "I believe, something smells quite foul here."
- Ludicrous Gibs: Courtesy of all weapons being ridiculously overpowered, meat chunks are flying left and right. Unlike the original game, in multiplayer even corpses are tangible and once an explosive goes off in their vincinity, this trope ensues.
- Macross Missile Massacre: The Devastator (one of the two modified Hivehand's settings) either fires small rockets in fast succession or bursts of four player-seeking missiles. Have enough players use this weapon and it turns into a straight embodiment of this trope.
- More Dakka: The handgun's Secondary Fire's rate is now comparable to generic submachinegun while the mp5's primary fire competes with a gattling gun. The hivehand got modified into an automatic mini-rocket launcher.
- Nuke 'em: One setting of the rpg is a nuclear missile which eats up the entire ammo supply and can be guided using onhead camera, just like the UT Redeemer. The satchel also has a stetting which turns it into a nuke.
- Player-Guided Missile: One of the settings for the RPG is dubbed TV-guided Nuke and it enables you to fly the missile using on-head camera.
- Quad Damage: One of the timed powerups appearing randomly in deathmatch amplifies the damage output of any weapon fired. Like they aren't overpowered already.
- Recoil Boost: Now firing the shotgun any mode in the default setting* pushes you slightly in opposite direction. The rapid-firing secondary mode can actually launch you into great altitudes. It can also break your fall, hopefully saving your life. And it's much better controllable than the Tau Cannon.
- Recursive Ammo: Many explosives are capable of working in cluster mode, which spreads about 6 bomblets around. The effect is downright devastating.
- Sentry Gun: You can now spawn them yourself using the "sentry gun" Tripmine settings. There are mutliple types including ones that fire lasers, plasma and rockets. And all but the lowest-tier one can be repaired by simply whacking themwith your crowbar.
- Sequence Breaking:
- Shotguns Are Just Better: ...when they're capable of rapid-fire, hurling explosive buckshot or explosive slugs. They're also easier to use and less likely to kill the user themself, unlike the bigger guns.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Basically the entire philosophy behind this mod is to have all weapons ludicrously overpowered.
- Timed Power-Up: In any deathmatch map four different power-ups in the form of transparent HEV-suit appear randomly. Picking them up grants the player additional boosts for a short period of time. If the player is killed before the time runs out, the power-up is dropped with the remaining timer waiting to be get by another player.
- Unrealistic Black Hole: If it's allowed in the game setting, the Tau Cannon lets you create a vortex, which pulls everyone towards it and insta-kills them. Including you.
