Half-Life: Decay

Dr. Cross and Dr. Green are members of a different team in Black Mesa from Half-Life's protagonist, Gordon Freeman. They are responsible for monitoring the equipment which Gordon uses during the experiment, and are in turn monitored by Dr. Rosenberg (who also appears in Blue Shift) and Dr. Richard Keller. Cross and Green deliver the test sample to Freeman just before the incident occurs; like Freeman, they are forced to fight for survival in the aftermath of the resonance cascade. Cross and Green help Rosenberg reach the location he is later found in by Barney Calhoun in Blue Shift. They then proceed to prepare a satellite for launch (an event seen in Half-Life) and subsequently use the satellite in tandem with ground-based equipment to significantly weaken the effects of the resonance cascade. During the conclusion of the game, both characters are caught in what is explained as a "harmonic reflux" by Dr. Keller. It is during this sequence that the voice of Dr. Rosenberg can be heard warning that he "can't keep the portal open much longer," alluding to Calhoun's coinciding trip in Xen during Blue Shift. Dr. Cross and Dr. Green then return safely and Dr. Keller congratulates them on their success. It still remains unclear whether the doctors managed to survive the nuclear explosion that occurs at the end of Opposing Force.

Chapters

The game storyline is divided into a total of 10 chapters:

Weapons

The player is able to obtain most of the weaponry found in Half-Life excluding the Gauss gun, the Gluon Gun, and the Tranquilizer Crossbow.

Gameplay

Unlike the other narrative-based Half-Life games, which are single player only, Decay is designed for co-operative play. While it can be played by one person, swapping between the roles of Dr. Cross and Dr. Green, the game is intended to be played by two players in split-screen. Various puzzles and combat situations throughout the game require the co-operation of the two characters.

The game is unique in the context of the Half-Life series by being the only game divided into separate missions, instead of a single unbroken narrative. Decay is also the only game of the series where it is possible to fight and defeat a Xen Manta ship, which serves as the final boss. Unusual for an FPS, the view can be locked onto targets to make aiming easier (a feature also present in the Playstation 2 version of Half-Life it accompanies.)

Decay has a ranking system for all of its nine missions, ranging from F (worst) to A (best), based on accuracy, number of enemies killed, and damage taken. If all nine missions are achieved with an A level, a bonus mission, Xen Attacks, can be played as a pair of Vortigaunts.

PC port

Half-Life: Decay is being ported to PC platform by team of enthusiasts and is in active development since October 2005. They have managed to decipher the .bs2 format of PS2 levels so that is possible to extract mesh and objects information and have recreated the missions almost from scratch based on that information.

The game went into beta in December 2007 and is scheduled for release when its done.

Trivia

• Decay was originally called "Hazard Team", but this title was changed so as to fit with rest of the names in the series. The map file names still bear the "ht" prefix.

• In the original Half-Life, Gordon Freeman sees two other empty HEV suit containers when he puts on his hazard suit. Decay accounts for these as the containers for Gina and Colette's HEV suits, which have already been taken by the time Gordon arrives.

• Gina Cross appears in the Blue Shift expansion pack, in which one of the security monitors available early in the game shows her delivering the sample to the test chamber.

• Barney Calhoun can be seen at the ending, while he's teleporting back to earth.

• Half-Life for PS2 includes a code screen in the option menu where cheats can be activated. Two undocumented cheats were discovered by the project leader of Decay's PC port. One of these cheats allows the player to unlock all ten Decay missions, including the bonus mission "Xen Attacks". The second cheat causes the game to prompt for an expansion CD. This expansion, consisting of an extra set of bonus levels, was only released on the Sony Underground demo disc of the June 2002 issue of PlayStation Magazine, and was never officially announced. The bonus levels are actually a port of Half-Life: Uplink.

References

External links

• Remake of Decay using the Goldsource engine