"There is a conflict in every human heart, Freeman. Between the rational and the irrational. Good and Evil. Light, Darkness... Good does not always triumph."
Heart of Evil is a Half-Life game mod that takes place during the Vietnam War. While it seems to take itself seriously at the beginning, the mod slowly grows to out of the ordinary into something different.
American MIKE Force soldier Percy Freeman receives his first mission: to find a traitorous Colonel by the name of Kurtz and kill him. But once on-location, things change for the worse. The US army suddenly grows hostile and decides to eliminate Percy, the Viet Cong and their North Vietnamese counterparts are no different, not to mention the hordes of zombies roaming and lurking through the jungles. With no ally but Barney and his fellow MIKE soldiers on his side, Freeman can do nothing but venture in the jungle, to fulfill his mission.
The mod was remade six years later as Heart of Evil: Napalm Edition, which managed to make the experience even weirder.
Compare with Shellshock 2: Blood Trails.
This game mod contains examples of:
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Below the army base, which Percy must get guided through by a Chumtoad.
- Asian Speekee Engrish: All Vietnamese characters speak this way, except for the "suspiciously-looking character", who speaks perfect, but heavily-accented English.— Viet Cong: [to another wounded VC] You no hurt bad, lah?
- And Then John Was a Zombie: Barney
- Arc Words/Foreshadowing: The quote above.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:— Barney: "Those creatures out there, and not a living human to be seen. This whole town is gonna be like that. You want my opinion, sir? This mission is FUBAR. We are up shit-creek without a paddle. I miss my mommy."
- Apocalyptic Log: Several barracks have diary entries and letters in them.
- Apocalypse How/The End of the World as We Know It: How the game ends. This also happens if you fail to enter the correct code to open the gem's vault and disable the generator.We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
- Bald of Evil: Kurtz.
- Bag of Spilling: Twice. Both times it is when Percy gets captured.
- Battle in the Rain: The penultimate episode.
- Big Bad: Colonel Kurtz.
- Bittersweet Ending/Cruel Twist Ending: Kurtz kills Barney, who becomes a zombie. When Percy finally kills Kurtz, he takes the position as the new leader of the zombies. Mad with power, he lets the zombies take over the world. But hey, mission accomplished!
- In the Napalm Edition, it's revealed that Kilmore killed Freeman, becoming the zombies' new leader. By this point however, the zombies had ran out of food to eat, dying from hunger, indicating that nearly all of humanity has been wiped out.
- Black Comedy: It's quiet obvious that the mod, both the original and the Napalm Edition, doesn't take itself too seriously.
- Body Horror: The zombies. And pretty much anything infected by the parasite-like things.
- Broken Bridge: A literal one.
- Cave Behind the Falls: The cave in this case leads to one of the Viet Cong's many underground tunnels.
- Captain Crash: Barney is good at driving trucks, but not a plane.
- Chainsaw Good: Beside the shotgun loaded with power rounds, the chainsaw is the only other weapon that can quickly take down the very damage-resistant zombies.
- Colonel Kilgore: Sergeant Kilmore, being an expy of the Trope Namer.
- Deadly Lunge: The gorillas love to pounce at the player.
- Decapitation Presentation: Done with Barney's head.
- Distressed Dude: Both Percy and Barney becomes captured at different points, and has to be rescued by the other.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: One is heard shouting at his recruits and forcing them to do push-ups in the barracks early in the game.
- Driven to Suicide: If Barney dies, the screen fades to black and tells us that Percy commits Hara-Kiri in shame.
- Enemy Chatter: "Stay alert for the Yankee Pig."
- Elites Are More Glamorous: The player, Barney, and his allies are MIKE Force soldiers. Kurtz is a Green Beret and his non-zombie mooks are SOG snipers.
- Escort Mission: Aside from having Barney throughout the whole game which feels like it, Percy frees a MIKE soldier from a prison.
- Every Helicopter Is a Huey/Hellish Copter: Many of them are fought throughout the mod, and before the player has to take them down, Percy witnesses the Viet Cong destroying them.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: Oh, where do we begin? From rogue US troops to zombies to the VC/NVA to gorillas to pretty much anything else that isn't wearing a Tigerstripe uniform.
- Evil Laugh: Sergeant Kilmore does one when promising Percy that he will come and "rescue" him.
- Evil Versus Evil: Everyone except Percy, his allies, animals, and civilians.
- Expy: Freeman is Willard, Barney is probably Lance, or Chef (given how both gets decapitated), Kilmore is obviously Kilgore, the two officers who briefed Percy is Corman and Lucas, and Kurtz is... well, Kurtz, only his first name is Bob instead of Walter.
- Face–Heel Turn: 1st Air Cav Sergeant Bob Kilmore, who flew the Percy to the mission, soon captures him and Barney when he finds out what their mission was about. Being a Sergeant, he ordered all the troops to kill Percy once he escapes.
- Flanderization: The Napalm Edition of the mod made Barney even more clumsy, and your officer snaps into talking about food during your mission briefing.
- Gang Up on the Human: The gorillas will always attack the player first.
- Gas Mask Mooks: The Combine who appear very late in the Napalm Edition.
- Get on the Boat: The Second attempt to escape is with a boat through a swamp.
- Going Through the Motions: Barney likes to knock the radio a lot when he listens to it.
- Grenade Launcher: The M79, naturally.
- Heroic Mime: Percy Freeman, who you play as.
- Hungry Jungle: The apes aren't exactly looking for bananas.
- Idiot Ball:
- Tossed between Percy and Barney, from Percy's walking into a obvious trap with Barney as bait, to Barney telling about their secret mission to the One Sergeant that is one Kurtz's side, and many more.
— Barney: "He said he wouldn't be my friend if I didn't tell him!"- Barney for telling Kilmore about Percy's entire top-secret op because he wouldn't be Barney's friend if he didn't. Also the MACV when they decided to attack the MIKE firebase.
- Immune to Bullets: Napalm Edition made the zombies only killable using the chainsaw or explosives.
- I Miss Mom: Barney tells Percy, "This mission is FUBAR. We are up shit-creek without a paddle. I miss my mommy."
- Just a Stupid Accent: Again, the Vietnamese. Their accent isn't any better in the Napalm Edition.
- Justified Tutorial: Your general tells you to try some of the Roasted Moose imported from Canada. This is one of those mods in which you press the use key frequently to pick up objects.
- Klingon Promotion: Percy learns from a note written by Kurtz that the zombies get their new leader this way. Since Percy has killed him by that point, reading the note makes Percy suddenly mad with power and takes the position as the zombies' leader.
- Large and in Charge: One of the generals early in the mod who gives you your mission briefing is fat, and Kurtz too.
- Large Ham: Barney became full of it in Napalm Edition.
- Law of Inverse Recoil: The sniper rifle has no recoil at all.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Getting too close to the officers secretary makes him tell you to knock it off, and that this isn't a videogame where you can just ogle someone.
- Invisible Monsters: The Commanders, who are enemies that only show themselves when they attack.
- Machete Mayhem: The first weapon acquired (not counting the M16 in the original version).
- Made of Explodium: When Percy puts a rope around the column of a house and the other end to a car, driving the car forward results in an explosion.
- Made of Iron: The zombies can soak up a lot of damage.
- Mêlée à Trois: Percy, Barney, and MIKE troops vs. the 1st Air Cav vs. the Viet Cong and the NVA vs. Kurtz's zombies vs. exploding dogs vs. gorillas.
- Mind Screw: Oh it gets there slowly, towards the end of the mod when Percy is captured (again). You play a goddamn Half-Life 2 arcade! In the game you find a key that unlocks your cell in reality!
- Mini-Boss: The Super Zombie that carry weapons.
- Moon Logic Puzzle: Occasionally dips into weird moments that might be part of the madness. For example, a locked gate has a description that a key in the area might open it - but the only key around can't be picked up and is completely useless. How do you really open it? By attaching a flare to it and dropping supples to slam the gate open (and potentially gibbing whoever may be standing in the way, yourself included). No, you can't actually break the box open for real supplies.
- More Dakka: The automatic weapons, especially the M60.
- Most Definitely Not a Villain: In Napalm Edition, Kilmore apparently convinced one of Percy's officers that he was good, by giving him a basket of dog biscuits.
- No Indoor Voice: Kurtz during his hammy final monologue:— Kurtz: "We train young men to drop fire on people... but won't allow them to write the word "FUCK" on their airplanes BECAUSE! IT IS OBSCENE!!!"
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Nintendo Hard: The Alamo mission. - Off with His Head!: The machete can decapitate enemy soldiers.
- Poirot Speak: Both the NVA and the Viet Cong speak this way. This is less frequent in the Napalm Edition. See also Asian Speekee Engrish.
- Punny Name: General Dhong. Long Dhong, to be exact.
- Running Gag: A guy named "Bob" is always mentioned in each level.
- "I thought you were dead."
- Scenic-Tour Level: Percy flies to the site of mission in a helicopter, while "Ride of the Valkyries" play. Familiar? Also, when you and Barney proceed up the river to Kurtz's temple.
- Schizo Tech: The laser tripmines from Half-life are here, but also an arcade game that you play Half-life 2 on.
- Schmuck Bait: The trap set to capture Percy at the beginning is so obvious.
- Viet Cong enemies might also try to lure the player out in the open by pretending to be injured... Which means that they scream for medic in English.
- Send in the Search Team: A new squad of US troopers, not influenced by Kilmore's earlier orders, starts searching the jungle for Percy.
- Shout-Out: Here are most of them.
- Sinister Shades: Kilmore.
- Snipe Hunt: One of the rare cases the player character is the one tricked into searching a three headed monkey.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The Napalm Edition. It even used some tracks from Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Final Fight!
- Stupidity Is the Only Option: Every time an enemy attempts to trick you outside combat. Everytime it must succeed.
- Suddenly Voiced: The Super Zombies only roar through the mod, until the end when they say one line:— Super Zombie: "Freeemaaaannn, ouurrrrr leaaaaadeerrr!"
- Sufficiently Advanced Alien: They appear as enemies for no apparent reason, until one finds out that they were responsible for the zombie infection.
- Tank Goodness: Percy encounters an M48 Patton tank in one level. On the other hand...
- Tanks for Nothing: Percy finds two destroyed M48s in Kurtz's temple, presumably destroyed by either zombies or SOG troops.
- Temple of Doom: The old temple in the swamp is inhabited by zombies, and Percy must go through it to find Kurtz.
- Tempting Fate: "Looks pretty quiet around here."
- Trouser Space: Lampshaded by Barney halfway through Napalm Edition, when he expresses concern over the fact that Percy might have accidentally ejaculated on the plate of Roasted Moose.
- Barney himself yells in disgust when he realizes he has peed himself... only to find out that he had spilled his apple juice in his underpants.
- Use Your Head: A jammed door? Barney headbutts it open by himself.
- The Vietnam War
- Video Game Remake/Updated Re-release: The Napalm Edition.
- Villainous Friendship: Sergeant Kilmore and Colonel Kurtz are apparently friends, as Kilmore respects Kurtz's plans and ideology and helps him while attempting to kill Percy.
- Wham Line: "Freeemmmmaaaann, ooouuur leeaaadeeerrrrr!"
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Late in the mod, Freeman finds out that MAC-V tried to get rid of both him, Barney, and the MIKE soldiers in the outpost via Kilmore.— Lt. Col. Bob Samuels: This morning I had my last radio conversation with Command... There was a long pause and a whispered conversation which I did not catch properly. Then the guy on the radio told me in a hurried voice that backup would be sent very soon now - and hung up. We have been unable to establish contact with them since then. It is clear to me now that the generals want us all dead, and soon they will come to destroy us.
- Xanatos Gambit: Kurtz. If Percy is killed by the NVA or the Viet Cong, he wins. If Percy gets bloated with bullets by Kilmore's grunts, he wins. If Percy dies in the hands of one of Kurtz's many zombies, he wins. If Percy kills Kurtz and takes his place as the ruler of the zombies, Kurtz still technically wins.
- Yellowface: The male Vietnamese in the original version has the face of a white guy, only with a yellow tint. Averted in the Napalm Edition.
- Zombie Gait: Almost all of the zombies. Averted with the Super Zombies towards the end of the mod, who aid Percy in the final fight when he takes control over them.
