scanners. Thanks, Otis. Sorry about
the attempted murder!
Delta Base isn’t all that different
than Black Mesa, really. It’s a massive
network of corridors, offices, labs,
and facilities, with a great many air
ducts that can be slithered through
when need be. It’s filled with
scientists and office workers and
guards, though many are dead at this
point, lying in puddles of blood,
crumpled in stairwells, or crushed by
heavy security doors they weren’t
quite fast enough to escape through.
Many of your co-workers die right in
front of you in traditional Half-Life
fashion, slapped to death by zombies
as you watch through plate glass, or
plunging to an explosive death after
stepping onto a malfunction elevator.
The ones who survive are helpful.
Several open locked doors for me,
and I’ll occasionally come across a
technician who has concealed
himself in a safe space and can inject
me with a dose of healing meds. But
mostly, everyone is dead and it’s up to
me to escape the facility.
RUN AND GUN
I’m not usually a fan of shooters that
don’t give you a ton of spare ammo.
Rationing bullets in a first-person
shooter usually seems like a waste.
I’ve got guns, let me shoot ’em! But it
works well inHalf-Life: Delta. Rather
than rushing through the base
pouring ammo into everything that
moves, I take my time, slowly
creeping through the darkened
corridors and blood-splattered
offices. New guns are parcelled out
pretty rarely. Get used to that pistol,
it’ll be a while before a shotgun
appears, and even longer before a
machine gun does.
Moving slowly doesn’t just save
ammo, it helps me figure out the
layout of the base and how I can get
from area to area. At first I feel like
I’m getting lost and backtracking a
lot, but I eventually get a feel for
things. The path forward is not quite
as signposted as Valve’s Half-Life, but
more often than not I have a good
idea of where I’ll need to go to escape
the current peril and find the
upcoming peril. And it’s a bit of a
throwback, but there are colour-
coded keys needed to unlock doors
from time to time, Doom-style. It’s
been a long while since games in
general gave up on those, but I
enjoyed hunting them down in Delta
Base. Maybe more games should
bring them back these days.
As I make my way through
zombie-filled labs, more familiar
Half-Life monsters begin showing up.
Those annoying sonic dogs
(houndeyes), those squid-faced
things (bullsquids), those tentacle
monsters (just called tentacles,
apparently) and of course plenty of
environmental hazards like
malfunctioning electrical equipment
and explosive barrels I never seem to
notice until I’m discharging a
shotgun a wee bit too close to them.
Eventually, I run into Otis again,
who proves even more useful,
opening up an armoury, collecting
explosive charges, and using them to
blast open a sealed door. And then he
escorts me to a tram. Unlike
Freeman, who used his tram to get to
work, I’ll be using mine to get the
hell out of here. And I’ve got a bunch
of guns, so I can even shoot at
monsters on my tram ride. Otis, sadly,
won’t be coming with. He waves
goodbye and the last I see of him he’s
shooting the hell out of a pack of
zombies in a security room.
The tram, naturally, doesn’t
deliver me to safety, but it does give
me some brief hope as I leave the
underground complex and actually
see the cloudy sky above. It’s always
such a relief to make it to the surface
in a Half-Life game or mod, even if
hope for escape is short lived. Before
much longer I’m killing a tentaclewith toxic waste so I can once again
descend underground to reach
another subterranean complex.SUBSURFACETENSION
Half-Life: Delta follows a lot of the
same structure asHalf-Life. As you
might have guessed, at some point
the overworked military arrives and
heavily armed soldiers attempt to
keep a lid on the resonance cascade
by slaughtering everything that
moves, human and otherwise.
Luckily, I love fighting the military in
Half-Life. Finally, ammo is plentiful,
weapons abound, and I’m not
counting my grenades, I’m just
chucking them. And I’ll say this for
the army: they can’t teleport in
behind you like those sneaky Xencreatures do. Plus, you get to see a
bunch of army guys get killed by
monsters just like your co-workers
were. At the end of the day, Farell is
capable enough to become a one-man
army and defeat the actual army. And
yes, Farell does make his own trip to
Xen, just like Freeman.
But even if the story beats are the
same, Half-Life: Delta doesn’t really
feel likeHalf-Life. Black Mesa and
Delta Base may mostly be
constructed from the same parts and
pieces, but they do wind up feeling
like very different places. There are
hundreds of custom models in the
mod, lots of new textures, and many
custom sound effects. The
soundtrack and look of Delta Base
feel refreshingly different and
provide a new atmosphere that really
doesn’t feel like you’re retreading
through Half-Life again, even if so
much of it is familiar. In every
respect, Half-Life: Delta is a full
conversion of Half-Life.
It’s also huge. There are over 30
maps in the mod, and they’re big
ones. If you’re looking for a shooter
that complements the original
Half-Life, and even takes place
side-by-side on the timeline, you
should definitely check out Half-Life:
Delta. If you do, say hi to Otis for me.
And remember: don’t kill him. You
need him more than you know.M.I.A.We’re still
waiting to
learn what
happenedto
these beloved
Half-Life
charactersBARNEY
CALHOUN
He was inHalf-Life 1
& 2 , Blue Shift, and
Half-Life 2: Episode
1. He wasn’t seen or
even mentioned in
Episode 2.ADRIAN
SHEPARD
G-Man stuffed him in
an interdimensional
closet at the end of
Half-Life: Opposing
Force. He deserves
to be let out.RUSSELL
The guy was
indispensable in
Half-Life: Alyx, which
takes place before
Half-Life 2– in which
he’snever seenor
mentioned.ODESSA
CUBBAGE
Cubbage was in
Half-Life 2and is
mentioned in
Episodes. But after
teaching you to use
an RPG, he’s gone.GORDON
FREEMAN
We get a glimpse of
him in Half-Life:
Alyx, but he’s been
in limbo since 2007.
Will we ever swing
his crowbar again?THERE AREHUNDREDSOFCUSTOMMODELSINTHE MODMAJOR MODS, ANALYSED
MOD SPOTLIGHT