Homicidal Evil Space Chicken Report Vol. 2: TENTACLES

[camwyn]

CLAW TENTACLE THING OF SLICETY HUGENESS.

Yeah, I got to that stage of the game yesterday. The look on the guard's face in this picture kind of sums up my reaction better than any words could ever manage (although that's not what the graphics looked like on my system- I don't know what platform that picture came from). It was just... TENTACLES. With nasty sharp pointy seeky beaks. Taking up MOST OF A ROCKET SILO. I what. Guuuh. What.

Then I shook myself off and kept going and found out I HAD TO DO WHAT WITH THE GIANT FAN.

AND YOU PUT THE POWER SWITCH WHERE.

I'm pretty sure that that was the point when Gordon sat down in the hallway and wondered why the hell he ever left MIT in the first place...

Anyway, made it through that. And the thing with the train system. And the Marines. (The red-hatted ones look vaguely like a plaga-free Krauser from RE, which wouldn't be that much of a problem if a friend of mine didn't play Krauser in some RPG settings, which made for some interesting moments of 'I need more ordinance before I even think of firing on this guy!')I'll say this much: as dangerous as the tentacle thing was, and as nerve-wracking as dealing with the fan was, and the JUMPING OVER WALKWAY HOLES SO AS TO NOT DIE GREEN, GLOWING, AND CANCEROUS*, the fight with the three Marines to get across the open space and into the satellite launch building was almost certainly the hardest part of the game yet. Them: fortified position, good field of view. Me: entering the area blind, in a box canyon, with a suit whose power had been drained down to near-zero so ha ha ha what stealth field? Plus, they had better aim with their grenades than I did- and they only had to pitch into the box canyon.

Got the satellite launched, though. That was pretty.

*I get a little more twitchy about radiation hazards in-game than about equal volumes of fire, water, or pointy objects sticking out of the floor. Not sure why, but there it is.

Comments

[tundra-no-caps.livejournal.com]

Don't worry about spoilers for Half-Life 1.

[midnightlurker.livejournal.com]

There's a short series of Half-Life comic panels by Brian Clevinger that I think you should see. (http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=041116) :) (Plus the commentary afterward.)

[blackjack-svr.livejournal.com]

Dealing with those tentacle beast was my favorite part of the game, because it really seemed like it was alive, y'know? The way it hears you in the corridors outside the blast chamber and tries desperately to hammer through the walls to get you. It really seemed like some blind beast feeling around for its prey. It knows you're there, if only it could FIND you.

Otherwise I always preferred the battles with the marines over anything the monsters would offer. Same holds true for the marine-equivalents in HL2.

Y 'know, reading this has made me log onto Steam and buy a copy of HL1 and the expansions for it just so I could play it again. I never played the expansions originally. And, um, we'll say that I was playing on a borrowed copy so I never actually bought the original, either. So, Valve thanks you. Anyway, it's been years, and I'm looking forward to it.

... I think you're getting close to the big chompity ____ that I mentioned earlier. "Big chompity" doesn't fully describe the thing, you'd need a third word, but that would ruin the terri, er, WONDERFUL surprise.

[camwyn]

Those things- they looked like beaks. Like some kind of massive, writhing killer parrot-raptor cross... And here's me, unable to get a grenade onto a higher level for real distraction. I ran out of grenades keeping that thing's attention elsewhere. The ladder climbs were nervewracking, since I had to come out of stealth mode. I kept waiting for a clawbeak to the back...

I think I was down to about 18 health by the time I finally got past where it had been. Horribly nerve-wracking experience, that last inching down the hole and dropping blind into the water. (What the hell was that thing floating chained in the water, anyway?)