PC Gamer - UK (2022-01)

G

ordon Freeman and

Nick Farell have a lot

in common. Both

work in the field of

secret government

science: Freeman is a theoretical

physicist at Black Mesa, and Farell

is a generator technician at Delta

Base. Both of their companies are

working on teleportation

technology in huge, sprawling

underground labs in New Mexico.

Both are men of few words (no

words, to be precise) and despite

their nerdy leanings are just as

capable with rocket launchers and

shotguns as they are with scientific

equipment. And both are about to

have an extremely bad day.

Half-Life: Delta is a full conversion

mod for the original Half-Life, and it

takes place at the exact same time.

Farrell has come to Delta Base to do

his job as a generator technician,

while over in Black Mesa Freeman is

also arriving for his morning duties of

riding a tram for a half-hour and then

pushing a cart full of alien science

into an anti-mass spectrometer. We

all know how that goes. In fact, in

Half-Life: Delta, we actually get to see

the scene of Freeman pushing the

Xen crystal on his little cart, and then

skeedaddling when everything

suddenly goes boom.

The resonance cascade, in which

monsters from Xen pour into our

world through dimensional rifts, isn’t

localised in Black Mesa. Over in Delta

Base, familiar Half-Life creatures like

headcrabs and vortigaunts begin

popping in. And Farell, like Freeman,

doesn’t have anything resembling a

weapon. As Delta Base begins getting

torn to shreds, all you can do is

watch. At first...

COMMON GROUND

Thankfully, Delta Base has its own

version of Barney Calhoun. I quickly

meet Otis, a security guard, who

speaks Russian. In fact, everyone in

Delta Base speaks Russian (at the

moment, anyway, there are plans for

English voices to be added). Luckily,

there are subtitles, and there’s not all

that much information that needs to

be explained out loud. Monsters are

trying to kill us, so let’s kill them

instead. I follow Otis, who is kind

enough to shoot a bunch of zombies,

until I find a crowbar. Don’t worry,

it’s a completely different crowbar

than the one Gordon Freeman is

currently picking up for the first time

over in Black Mesa. Farrell’s crowbar

is yellow, not orange.

With a melee weapon in hand, I

do something terrible if not

completely unexpected. I promptly

beat Otis to death. I know! I know. It

sounds like an awful thing to do, but

there are a lot of monsters around

and I really need a gun of my own.

Killing Barneys for their ammo is a

common occurrence in Half-Life (I

bet Freeman is doing it right now)

but as Otis drops dead, my screen

goes black. Otis, unlike the many

Barneys of Half-Life, is a mission

critical character. I find out why

when I reload and he unlocks a few

doors for me using the retinal

HALF-LIFE: DELTA

Exploring unforeseen consequences. By Chris Livingstone

NEED TO KNOW

RELEASE

November 19 , 1998

PUBLISHER

Sierra Studios

DEVELOPER

Valve

LINK

half-life.com/en/halflife

MONSTERS ARE

TRYING TO KILL

US, SO LET’SKILL

THEM INSTEAD

MAD SCIENCE

Games where science screwed everything up

DOOM
Sure, let’s try to harvest power
from Hell. What could go wrong?
Besides absolutely everything?

SOMA

Scientists created an AI to

overseethe last of humanity,but

it started animating corpses.

DEAD RISING
Scientists created mutant wasps
which turnedpeopleinto
zombies. Yes, really.

RESIDENT EVIL

Umbrella Corporation went from

creating cosmetics to developing

bio weapons. Then,zombies.

EXTRA LIFE

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