An-Other Preview of Half-Life continued...
By - Alex 'Alvin' Vincent - 13th Sept 1998
Page 2
In-Game Helpers
There are two of these in-game helpers which I witnessed in the demo, both adding greatly to the depth and feel of each level.
I saw several examples of the Barney Military Policeman. These guys are on hand throughout the game in many different situations, but never too often, ie: the halls weren't crawling with them. They added immensely to the depth of the game, especially when you knew they were on your side, something unheard of previously in a FPS, someother computer controlled character on your side! Sometimes they'd ignore you if they had blatantly better things to do, or otherwise they'd be quite willing to follow you around like a 'puppy' ready to help you out. An example on the demo was when you came across on-coming hoards of Aliens Slaves ready to melt your ass down, the MPs in this situation was great for backup, he stood off a distance filling each monster full of slugs.
He then followed you around the corer chasing the remnants of the Alien Slaves and just after he nailed one to the wall he said, 'Did you see that shot!' Very funny I can assure you ;-) Rather smoothly as well.
I doubt that on their own these guys would put up much resistance to attack, but from what I've seen alongside you they are an essential asset, besides the're on your side! I dont belive that all these people are there to help you exclusively, more often than not, they've been incorporated into a cutscene of sorts and will only do a certain task for you, like cover your back, or protect a few scientists.
In my opinion by far the most useful part which these Barney MPs play is to show off the dangers in the game! In the demo there was a really excellently gory hollywood-style cutscene of an automated gut turret drilling an Barney MP with about fifty bullet holes in a second or so and it was truely spectacular! Not to mention very very bloody!
The scientists are the other obvious helpers throughout the game, they were a contant presence throughout the demo, always being the people to sucumb to the deadly hunger of of many of the monsters around. Robin explained in one scene whee you needed access to a room which was locked by a retinal scanner, you couldnt use it, but a scientist could. So you see the player backtracking a few rooms to find a scientist milling around, he then foloows you back to the scanner and lets you in. Very obvious true, but its this sort of action which helps incorporate more thinking into what would normally be a shoot-em-up.
One other thing to note, which I though was a rather helpful touch, when the scientist follows you he walks a few paces behind. But invariably the player would always be on run mode, so he'd leave the scientist far behind, which can be very annoying... remember Cujo? Or the friendly Death Knight in Quake Mission Pack 1? But just as you lose sight of the scientist he starts to run, and as his path has been mapped by nodes via Worldcraft, he dosnt get lost! Cool eh?
The Creatures
I'm not going to go into this too much, not really wanting to spoil your enjoyment of the game. The skeletal animation really is looking fine. And smooth. In terms of both the skin 'wrapping' and the animation motion itself. There was a really cool example of the skeletal animation with a three legged, tripod style robot walking along, this kind of entity would of been impossible with the current methods of doing monsters but with the new style of animation the movement was very fluid, and this monster when incorporated into a cutscene it would really rock! 
In fact all the monsters are pretty cool looking, whether they take hit danmage and pain skins I dont know, I didnt see any clear examples of it but I'm sure they were there. Anyways all the monsters are so varied the people at Valve really must be overdosing on creativity! The size of the tentacle was massive, and it was really blind! When you walked up to it and started to fire at it nonchalantly blatted you with one swipe of one of its massive tentacles, but when you were dead there was no more sound.... it just kept tap. tap. tapping away searching for the next course! Very eerie I can tell you!
The Barnacle was pretty cool actually, take a look at the picture for those of you who dont know what these suckers look like. I belive these will quite happily take away the crown from the scrag as the most annoying in-game creature. these bastards make no sound, just sitting on the ceiling waiting for the next meal. When they hear you coming they lower their freaky tongue and hook you up on it. Then drag you skywards into their mouth! We saw a great example of a barnacle dragging a kicking and screaming scientist up... the player could of saved him... but didnt bother! hehe. The barnalce envelovped the head and sucked it until the poor blok just exploded in gore! Very very yucky!
We saw a few cochroaches which were prety cool. Very small... could be a good clue in deathmatch if you trod on them and they cruched underfoot... :) Oh and the Assasin. FAST dosent even begin to describe her!
Conclusions
Well I'll start by saying that going to ECTS for the first time ever was simply the best ever way to spend a (extended) weekend, maybe apart from a massive 3-day LANfest!! ;) I managed to play or at least see almost every game that was worth seeing. And out of all of these Half-Life was the undoubtedly the best. ;-)
I cannot say which aspect I liked the best... I'd have to say that all parts of the game just came together in the end and produced a real stomping overall effect! The AI, the monsters, the gore, the humour... enuff said surely!
If you've any questions on any of this or the site in general send me or MaDMaXX a mail and we'd be glad to help you out.
by Alex 'Alvin' Vincent