Invasion is a French Half-Life mod taking place in an alternate continuity. In here, Freeman declines G-man's offer, but a team of secretly surviving scientists sends a beacon that opens a portal for Freeman to get back to Earth.
It seems that killing Nihilanth didn't put an end to the Xen invasion as there is one last "specimen" remaining, keeping the portal open. Now it's again Gordon's task to find the last specimen and destroy it in hopes of finally ending the alien invasion.
The mod can be downloaded from ModDB
or RTSL.
Half-Life: Invasion contains examples of:
- Adaptational Villainy: G-man is acting outright villainous towards Gordon in this mod. Justified since Gordon declined his offer and managed to escape with the help of a few surviving friendly scientists.
- Anti-Climax: The finale of this mod consists only of
a few underground caverns and a nonsensical puzzle vaguely based around natural elements followed by a faux-dramatic ending cinematic. - Armored Coffins: The tank is this: once its health is down to zero, it explodes violently, killing you in the process no matter how much health or armor you have.
- Awesome, but Impractical:
- The Gauss Minigun hurts a lot and doesn't even need to be spun up, but its mag is desperately small for such weapon (smaller than mp5 or m16 actually).
- The sewered Garg arm sets everything on nasty flames making it into crispy cutlets in a matter of seconds, which is especially useful against the "flybees" and swarms of "gorg". Did we mention it sets everything on fire? Yes, including you, and it's ridiculously easy to do so: easier than actually hitting your intended target. What's worse: you can also catch fire from something you set on fire yourself. And the residual flames last very long: avoid using this weapon in close quarters at all cost. It also has about one second delay before actually beginning to hurl fire which only increases the probability of frying your humble ego instead of your intended target. And it chews through its ammo like a swarm of termites through a wooden shack. Considering all this it's actually not that bad that this weapon is a Permanently Missable Content.
- The tank. It has two main guns, probably as a homage to the heavy tank of Command & Conquer: Red Alert, but it doesn't do much good. The cannons are fired alternately and since they're misaligned with the line of sight aiming is quite tricky. It doesn't make the tank much more powerful either. Plus the steering is rather cumbersome, the camera is way off which also complicates horizontal aiming and the tank's size makes navigating the plentiful tunnels a real pain. And let's not talk about steering through the minefield.
- Bullet Time: Both the beginning and ending cinematics are played this way, probably to add some gratuitous but faux drama.
- Cool, but Inefficient: The m16 assault rifle features an underslung grenade launcher but that's about the only good thing about it. Its primary fire is as powerful as the mp5 but desperately inaccurate. You can't hit a barn at ten meters with this thing.
- Crew of One: Gordon can fully operate a massive two-gun tank all by himself.
- Critical Existence Failure: The tank you're driving works completely fine as long as a single health point is remamining. Once the meter's down to zero the tank explodes violently killing you in the process.
- Fire-Breathing Weapon: Towards the final part you can acquire Gargantua's sewered arm as a living flamethrower.
- Flamethrower Backfire: Be careful using it though as you may end up being really crispy.
- Fragile Speedster: The "gorg" go down with a single hit from nearly anything but fly very quickly and their jolts hurt a lot.
- Guide Dang It!:
- There is a certain part where you have to avoid being spotted by CCTV cameras. If you don't, not only do the sentries activate to gun you down: even if you manage to destroy them, in the next level you're blasted away by an unavoidable and undetectable booby trap. Yup, basically if a single camera spots so much as a hair of yours, in the next corridor an unavoidable explosion comes out of nowhere and kills you no matter how much health and armor do you have. The only clue you get is a fellow scientist telling you through your radio (in French) that you have to avoid being spotted by the CCTV. Granted - an English text caption appears but it's very easy to dismiss. Based on when you saved your game, you might end up stuck and have to restart the game from scratch.
- Very little clues are given on how you should properly dispose of the single Gargantua in the later parts of the game. By that time, you'll be carrying enough explosives to blast it away with little effort, but this will deny you its sewered arm to use as a Living Weapon. Instead, you should lure the monster to walk into the giant fan. You can pass through it unharmed probably because it's turning rather slow and the gaps between blades are large enough for a human. How does a mediocre metal propeller manage to slice up armored monster remains a Riddle for the Ages.
- Guns Do Not Work That Way: How can a generic handgun enable its user to see in infrared?
- Heal Thyself: In this mod, health kits are stored in your inventory and can be applied at any time. The shield batteries are treated the same way.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Be careful with the severed Gargantua arm or else you may become a really crispy example of this trope.
- In-Vehicle Invulnerability: When you're driving the tank it's only the tank which takes the damage. As long as it remains intact your humble ego cannot be harmed by anything. However once the tank is destroyed you're dead meat.
- Lightning Bruiser:
- The "flybee" is nigh-impossible to hit due to constantly frantically flying around and takes good two thirds of your health by a single zap which (in a certain way) makes it a literal example of this trope.
- The Gorgs are a downplayed example being rather squishy but still hurt a lot and their tendency to rapidly swarm you en masse doesn't make dealing with them any easier.
- The "
- Living Weapon: The sewered arm of Gargantua can be acquired if you deal with it the right way. It uses its eggs as ammunition.
- More Dakka: The arsenal contains mp5, m16 with underslung grenade launcher and an experimental gauss minigun.
- Night-Vision Goggles: Except they are not goggles but a handgun which doesn't make much sense. Said gun's name implies it operates with the infrared light. It doesn't even illuminate your surroundings much. The only thing it does is highlight NPCsnote and even some inanimate objectsnote .
- Infrared X-Ray Camera: It makes said entities also visible through solid walls at short distances.
- Non-Standard Game Over: Did you actually think you can use the nuke rocket to happily blast a horde of enemies to smithereens? Too bad. If you don't use it to clear the obstacle it's meant for, you're treated to the screen fading to black and the message "Evaluation Terminated". However it still doesn't deny you to employ some tactics, i.e. let some enemies wander into proximity of the obstacle and have them caught up in the blast radius.
- Palette Swap: Freeman gets a new HEV suit which works practically identically to the original one except it's blue. And it doesn't feature a flashlight.
- Power-Up Letdown: Not straight powerup but the new version of the Hazard Suit is arguably worse because it lacks the flashlight.
- Red Herring: In the early parts of the game you'll come across a small cart with a liftable platform which looks like it should be used to solve some kind of jumping puzzle. It's not.
- Stealth-Based Mission: In a certain level you are absolutely required to avoid being spotted by CCTV at all cost. If you fail, not only do heaps of minigun turrets activate and gun you down with extreme prejudice: if you somehow manage to defeat them, in the very next level an unavoidable explosion comes out of nowhere and kills you, no matter how much health and armor you have.
- Unintentionally Unwinnable: The stealth based sequence with the CCTV cameras mentioned above in Guide Dang It!. Being spotted just by a single cam triggers an unavoidable explosion at the end of the course. If you only used quicksave and don't have a normal savegame before actually going through it, you're pretty much screwed.
- Zerg Rush: The "gorgs" just love to swarm you unless you thread lightly so you won't get the attention of too many at once.
