Nightmare Fuel / Black Mesa

Not even the explosives and experimental weapons will save you this time.

• If you thought that Gargantuas were scary in the original Half-Life, you'll be terrified by how they look now (see the page image).
  • If that doesn't get to you, their new Artificial Brilliance will. The one you meet in "Power Up" remembers where it last saw you exit the room, and it will check the doors as it patrols for you coming back. If it sees you, it camps at the door and waits for you to come out or leave. If you approach the door, it reaches in and tries to fry you with its flamethrowers. If you watch it through the windows from the control room, it will pause every so often to glare back at you as it lumbers past. If you scramble onto the tower to away from the one in "Surface Tension", it will try to shake you back off the tower by attacking it.
  • Unlike in the original Half-Life, they are also completely immune to explosions or Gluon energy. This means aside from scripted events, they're completely invincible.
  • During the "Surface Tension" tunnel part, if you think the cars strewn around the road you take as you escape the Gargantua that's literally right on your ass chasing you down will slow down the Gargantua, think again, it easily runs right through them as if they were children's toys! Thank goodness that Tactical Map was there outside the tunnel...
  • One of the levels from Interloper ups it even further — as you make your way to the Nihilanth's base, you are forced to flee from not one, not two, but EIGHT of these monsters! They're pack animals!
• One disturbing feature about Black Mesa is the sheer amount of fresh dead bodies of Scientists, Security Guards, HECU Marines and Xen Aliens you'll find in the game. And did we mention the dismembered limbs lying around in pools of blood? Every nook and cranny of Black Mesa is filled with death and destruction that you narrowly missed. This certainly applies to Surface Tension where you encounter hallways and tunnels filled with the bodies of HECU Marines, Xen Aliens and Security Guards caught in the crossfire that you narrowly missed.
• Shooting a zombie so the headcrab flies off reveals that what the headcrab does to its poor victim is nothing short of horrifying; while Half-Life 2 and its expansions toned down the horror and just had a regular civilian model with their face in rictus and matted hair beneath the headcrab, Black Mesa goes far, far beyond that. The victim's skull is torn open the upper half is missing, the brain is visible, and the skin is mottled, grey and decomposing.
• The G-Man encounters are more disturbing in Source, due to his more detailed model and the retention of the original engine's short distance between him and the player. A special mention goes out to the encounter in "Office Complex", where he appears behind a door no more than 3 yards away from the player.
• Good gravy, the falling elevator in "Unforeseen Consequences". What was once a relatively Narmy scene in the original Half-Life is now horrifyingly realistic in its portrayal. Of particular note is that one of the scientists killed is now a woman, which makes the scientists' screams as they fall all the more gut-wrenching.^note For the squeamish, however, the scene's dramatic effect also works against it, since you can just smash the door with a chair and hightail it up the ladder before it falls; the elevator will still "crash" but the scientists inside will emerge unharmed. Or, if you truly want to bring back the Narm, you can do things like this.
• Remember the Half-Life 2 zombies' shrieks of pain and sheer horror whenever they were set alight? Black Mesa managed to make them sound ''worse'' and ''more zombie-like''...
• Remember your first encounter with the Ichthyosaur in the original game, where it throws some unfortunate scientist into the air and lets it fall into its gaping maw? Yep, that's worse. This time, the scientist is still on land, and the creature pops out of the water and chomps down on his victim. You can still hear the poor sod's muffled screaming as the creature lingers on land for a second (looking at you) before going back into the water.
• Also, that guard who got gunned down by a Black Ops chick? This time you can hear him gurgling on his blood before he dies. And no, you can't save him at all.
• We were just given a hint of what will be expected in the finished product in the form of an Emergency Alert System.
  • Good news? It got replaced by a blog website talking about an all-clear for the Black Mesa Evacuation Zone. Bad news? Try clicking on any of the links.
    PLEASE STAND BY
• The main site itself has been updated to show a flickering CRT TV. And if you go and click on it, you are greeted with a countdown clock, in days, hours, and minutes. What is clear is that something is about to happen, but what isn't known...
  • And now it has been updated with a new Emergency Alert System... and it appears to be from after Black Mesa is nuked, especially given the symptoms the broadcast talks about, which include muscle ache, fever, hair loss, and more...all of which are signs of acute radiation syndrome.
  • If you want to hear all 3 of them, here is a link to the broadcasts.
  • Since the game was launched on Steam, the site plays a VHS-style trailer that flickers at times and ends with brief jump cuts of the test chamber before and after the Resonance Cascade.
• Very early on there's a bit where you find a zombie attacking a scientist and eating his face. If you kill the zombie and then examine the scientist with your flashlight, you'll see that his eyes are still moving.
• The Surface Tension: Uncut update brings a few more terrifying events that weren't even present in the original mod:
  • An additional emergency broadcast is added, expanding on the two that can be heard earlier in the game. Unlike the previous two, this one is a nationwide alert about the rapidly worsening Xen incursion, informing the player that the government has been forced to resort to some truly drastic measures to try and contain the situation.
    Emergency Alert System: The following message has been transmitted at the request of the United States Department of Defense. This is not a test. Today at 4:16 PM Mountain Time, a state of emergency was declared by the President of the United States. An unknown hostile force was declared present at the Black Mesa Research Facility, and several other locations in the surrounding areas of Black Mesa, New Mexico. As of 5:42 PM Mountain Time, the President has issued executive orders to withdraw all ground forces and begin immediate airstrikes over the Black Mesa Research Facility and surrounding areas beginning no later than 6:42 PM, this evening. For your own safety, an immediate evacuation order has been issued to the entire state of New Mexico. To all residents of New Mexico and surrounding areas: leave all your personal belongings, take a battery-powered radio, and only essential supplies with you. Do not remain in your homes. Seek shelter at your nearest military zone outside the state of New Mexico and await further instructions. If you cannot find your nearest evacuation route, seek assistance from local authorities immediately. If you have military training, firearms training, or any similar weapons training, contact your nearest military officer immediately. Stay tuned to frequency 740 AM for further updates on this emergency.
    • The sheer Fridge Horror of the Xenian aliens spreading beyond Black Mesa and into New Mexico is very nerve-wracking. If Black Mesa, a government facility with a population of hundreds if not thousands of individuals had so many deaths, how many people were dying once the Xenian aliens began spreading across the United States?
  • In an epic fight between the Xen forces and the HECU, it looks like the Marines are getting the better of the exchange, thanks to the tank they are using on the alien horde. Then a nearby radio calls in an alert of "enemy air support" and you get to see Xen Manta-Rays, harmless flying pods in the original game (to the player and only before Interloper), shooting out a gigantic plasma ray from its underside that utterly obliterates the tank and even leaves a still present trail in the pavement. Even worse, you get to hear the tank pilot's frantic screams of "BACK UP! BACK UP! BACK THE FU--!" over the radio as the beam ploughs straight toward him.
  • Shortly after that, you have the harrowing task of escorting a security guard to a locked Lambda Complex entrance. As you get to the gate and go on first, he comments on how the whole affair could've gone a lot worse. Then an Alien Grunt teleports behind him, the door closes, and the alien proceeds to brutally maul the guard to death. If you hang around to listen, helpless to save him, the sounds of brutality and the man's screams last for a LOT longer than you'd expect.
    • And shortly after that you stumble through an abandoned, makeshift field hospital, while in near-total darkness and with bodies everywhere. Although you'd expect to be swarmed by enemies at any moment, you only encounter scattered headcrabs and a few fresh zombies. Your relief quickly turns to horror when you realize the headcrabs must have been drawn there by the incapacitated men and the prospect of easy prey. It's all too easy to imagine what the WIA soldiers must have experienced; trapped in the dark, unable to move or fight, in intense pain, alone except for the chittering and moans at the edge of their hearing, and their only remaining hope is that they die from their wounds before the monsters reach them...
• One of the first new enemies you'll encounter in the chapter "Xen" is the ZEV; HEV Headcrab Zombies. Besides featuring an Infinite Flashlight just like the player, these bastards can take A LOT of damage when being attacked via bodyshots, to the point bullets simply bounce off. When you encounter one, make sure you aim for the head.
  • Evoking the Zombines from the Half-Life 2 Episodes to an unsettling degree, whenever you get close to a ZEV, you can hear its HEV suit's voice module is still active, even though it's glitching out and going haywire. With the way it jumps between different warnings in a haphazard, even confused manner, you get the feeling that the suit's onboard systems are desperately trying to make sense of the horrific biological mutations that have befallen its wearer. However, if you listen past all the garbled lines, the suit is essentially begging its reanimated wearer to seek immediate medical attention.
    HEV Suit: Warning! Warning! Wa-a-a-a-rning! A-a-anti-toxin de-e-e-pleted! Power. Level. I-is-is. Seek. Medical. Attention!
  • It also doubles as fridge brilliance as to why Gordon was able to make such an effective stand against trained Marines and aliens, despite being a civilian; the HEV deflects 9mm bullets and even shotgun rounds, simply bouncing off the reactive armour of the suit. With that attribute, it's no wonder the HECU had so much trouble containing and engaging Freeman.
  • At first glance, you might be confused about why all those HEV-clad scientists took off their helmets and left themselves vulnerable to headcrabs, right? After all, Gordon himself is usually shown without the helmet and all headcrabs could do to him is chip damage. Well, if you kill one, take a closer look at a dead ZEV's head, especially if you manage to knock the headcrab off of its corpse. You'll find an HEV helmet's remains◊, with its top side completely busted and torn off with a lovely view of the victim's exposed brain. That's right, not even an HEV suit's helmet can save you from a headcrab's zombifying latch.
    • On a related note, the helmets and gas masks of ZECU (HECU Headcrab Zombies) which first appeared in Power Up and are prominently featured in Surface Tension didn't save them either. Upon closer inspection of said zombies' corpses, distorted gas masks and helmet fragments are shown where these soldiers' heads once were.
    • The more common Scientist and Security Guard Zombie variants that first appear in Unforeseen Consequences are just as horrifying.
    • The Scientist Zombies have varying facial horror, whilst the Security Guard Zombie's head has been completely ripped apart with the jaw having been ripped apart like a spring trap.
    • The fan-made add-on, Black Mesa Character Expansion adds in more staff variants around Black Mesa from the other Half-Life games. The mod also adds in more Zombie variants to creep you out.
    • The creepiest Zombie variant from the add-on is Cleansuit Zombies which first appears in Blast Pit.
    • Just like the ZEV, not even protective Cleansuits could protect the unwilling scientist from being latched on by a Headcrab.
    • Thankfully, many of these new Zombie variants that appear in BMCE are easy for Gordon to eliminate.
  • Not even Gordon himself was safe from the latch. There is a Dummied Out feature that finally allows the Headcrab to enter your personal space and take damage from you over time, until you mash the attack button enough times to throw it away. All while Gordon is trying to hold the creature inches away from his face, giving you a good view at its bloodied maw all the time. Fan mods allowed to fully implement the feature without any texture errors, so better bring a new pair of pants when playing them.
• The Xen trailer shows just how terrifying the local fauna are; the plant tentacles are capable of impaling anything that steps too close, the ichthyosaurs can launch themselves out of the water, a couple of new Houndeye subspecies are present: one has grown so large that it tackles a Bullsquid and sends it flying; another appears to be small but explodes when it gets close to you just like a miniature Headless Kamikaze!
  • Remember the "Sand Barnacle", the cut enemy from Half-Life 2? The Xen levels themselves introduce a new enemy called a "Beneathacle" (which is technically an aquatic barnacle) that can grab you as you try to jump over it and suck you underwater (Thankfully, the Beneathacle is much easier to detect and defeat due to its colourful appearance and more blatantly-visible tongues compared to the regular counterpart), which can be especially terrifying if there happen to be ichthyosaurs in the area too. It doesn't help that ammo reserves have been reduced greatly, so the lack of crossbow ammo means there's all the fewer ways to deal with them safely.
• In Half-Life, "Gonarch's Lair" was a sort of generic arena where you fought the giant headcrab one-on-one (plus some small headcrabs in its side). Now, the huge headcrab of death throws big stuff at you, can ram you even through objects (breaking them in the process), can spit big globs of acid that explode after a few seconds (with a lot of reach), can dump a motherlode of small, fast baby headcrabs on your head, takes a lot of your health and suit energy each time it impales you with its feet, quickly charge towards you, it's way more aggressive, and actively hunts you instead of being all timid and knightly. And it can take a lot of damage; you'll empty your Gluon Gun and it'll survive. So turns out that the Gonarch got upgraded to a very nice mid-boss. It spends the entire level hunting you down, often right on your heels.
• The lot of the Vortigaunts - or Alien Slaves, as they were known in Half-Life - is made bleakly clear in Xen. Some of them are living in a shanty town in the lower, Lovecraftian wastes of the Nihilanth's tower, where they are brutalized by the mindless Grunts. These are the lucky ones. The rest can be found further up, being made to twist their kind into the self-same Grunts that dominate them and wage the Nihilanth's wars. At the first sign of trouble, Controllers can appear and psychically compel them to do their bidding. It's a horrible, hopeless existence, and no wonder they view Freeman as a kind of messiah figure in Half-Life 2.
• The leadup to the Garganuta chase in "Interloper". The blood-red lighting and deafening silence, especially after the dreamy ambience and beautiful colours of the previous levels, is deeply unnerving. You hear the Gargantua stomping around above you before you see it, but you can't get to it. Then, you're funnelled through claustrophobic canyons, never able to see much ahead of you, before a Gargantua bursts out of a "nest" along your path. Then you run, and more keep coming. They don't stop coming after you until you reach the end... and you can turn back to see them standing on ledges out of reach, roaring at you. Brrrr.
• Remember the Nihilanth and the eponymous Final Battle? Here, he poses a much bigger threat and received some new abilities such as throwing random props towards the player with telekinesis (which packs quite a punch) and can also fire explosive projectiles from above! If you thought the Gonarch was already bad enough to deal with, then you'll have a hard time facing the Nihilanth himself if you're not careful enough. Unlike in the original version, Nihilanth doesn't cower behind teleporting you to random locations and getting weaker as you destroy his crystals; he remains Defiant to the End.
  • Hell, thanks to the new voice acting, the Nihilanth now sounds much more intimidating and downright demonic than in the original game, as his voice was originally raspy and monotone.
    The Nihilanth: Now DIE... NOW DIE... NOW...
• If you decide to decline the G-Man's offer, the bad ending of Half-Life plays out, but with one creepy twist: After he finishes speaking, the G-Man steps through the portal and leaves you alone in the tram car. For a few moments, nothing happens. Then the tram car lights start to flicker, and you hear the sound of metal straining. Then the stars shooting by you start to turn blood red, and in the distance, you see a large dark red ring-shaped portal. As the tram car moves closer to the ring, the lights go out completely and it starts to break apart, with all the debris flying towards the portal. You are engulfed moments later, teleporting in just behind the remnants of Nihilanth's army, which is down to a battalion of alien grunts and one Gargantua. They are marching in the opposite direction to where you've landed and it looks like you might just be able to sneak away unnoticed... until the five grunts left in the rearguard all turn round and start roaring at you, ready to take revenge for everything you've done to their fellow aliens. Fade to black.
  SUBJECT: FREEMAN
  STATUS: OBSERVATION TERMINATED
  POSTMORTEM: SUBJECT DECLINED OFFER OF EMPLOYMENT

---