Any chance to reconsider adding the HEV zombies to the game?

I just don’t like this addon, seems weird to me, lol. Gordon with HEV is somehow resistant to crabz attach. Scientists on XEN wears helmets, so wtf. I don’t even remember this from the original game. Any chance making this feature optional? Replacing NPC’s with other creatures? I am quite conservative in this way. Perhaps it is just a detail that players don’t mind, but maybe they do. What do you think?

“weird” means nothing.

Personally I like there addition.

And as for why Gordon never gets crabbed, well he doesn’t have a helmet. So who knows. And as far as wee know the head crabs can make it through some strong materials. I mean they can cut through military helmets and even combine cybernetics.

Ok, RETARDED then. I don’t feel it should has its place in HL game. It just messes up the thought of SCI-FI ultra Hi-Tech Hi-End super PROTECTIVE suit. So it protects against explosions, bullets, bangs, shocks, radiations, fractures and shit and can’t resist a tiny biny little shity crab? Makes no sense. Whole the superhero gear idea goes to hell with this concept.

I get that you don’t like it, but I don’t think it’s really that out of place.

Sure the suit is protective against hazardous things, such as radiation and electricity, but it wasn’t exactly designed for an alien parasite like the headcrab.
Also I kinda feel like you’re giving the suit a little too much credit. Sure in the original game you didn’t see any HEV suit zombies, but there is definitely all the evidence needed to see that many HEV suit wearing people didn’t make it.
Additionally, in HL2 the resistance instantly treats you as a legendary icon. That is because you are the legend, not the suit. If the suit was the real badass, they would’ve crammed any old chump with your body type into the suit in Kleiner’s lab, rather than save it for you.

I understand that adding this enemy type may or may not screw with your nostalgia of the original, but it honestly isn’t far-fetched in the least.

I like your reply. I know that the true legend is Freeman of course. But if he doesn’t wear the helmet all the time, he is 360° resistant to crab attach. And to that HEV design…HL wiki says:
“Designed for Black Mesa scientists to protect them from radiation, energy discharges, blunt-force trauma during the handling of hazardous materials, and the effects of traveling to Xen as part of Survey Teams.” If Xen could develep stategical biological forms to attack h00manz before the resonance cascade, Black Mesa should design the suit to resist them. And maybe not just mechanicaly! There is known contact between Xen and Earth before resonance cascade I see.

And even without any racionalism, The HEV zombies is just so damn retarded concept. Out of style. Unneccesary. Wai u du diz tu mi CC? WAI??? Dont du diz plz

Some times I like a saying. “IT IS A VIDEOGAME STOP TRYING TO MAKE IT REALISTIC!” Also this is your opinion and it seems to be one only you have here. It is only retarded in your mind, to the rest of us it does make sense.

Realism in Half Life? :smiley: DDDDDDDDD COME ONNNNN…
I don’t give a damn about realism…FUCK realism ok?
I care about the story, about its coherence, contexts and rules. And this is simply disturbing it. Fucks the energy in it.
It has a rank of C- level addon.

This doesn’t break story, coherence, context or rules. Why are you so adamant that it’s an unlikely scenario? There’s clearly camps where BM Personnel are hanging around, perhaps on occasion they remove their helmets when in these areas? Perhaps not all personnel are helmet equipped? We see in Half-Life a scientist or two in Xen who have no HEV suit to speak of, I don’t find it hard to believe that a HEV-suited scientist would remove their helmet in areas they believed safer, only to have a camp ransacked at an inopportune time. You could point out the camps that aren’t at all part of Half-Life 1’s definitively canon story, context or rules, or the houndeye-like explosive creatures which not only violate all of that but also probably don’t even make any biological sense in the slightest, or the swamp that doesn’t exist, or blah blah blah. You’re not concerned w/ any of that, you’re concerned w/ justifying the one area that irks your purism. I understand everyone’s concern with purism lands on different levels, but you’re not using any sound logic to back it up, and treating everyone else like they’re fools for not buying your attempts to justify your own isn’t the most friendly way to carry yourself.

“treating everyone else like they’re fools for not buying your attempts to justify your own level of purism isn’t the most friendly way to carry yourself.”
WTF, i am not treating anyone as fools I am just rejecting “realism” argument here, cuz it has nothing to do with it and a “weird means nothing” reply which actually says nothing.
It may not break it, but it creates many questions about key assets that are not clear.
As seen Freeman jumping to port on Xen he has no helmet, and is still resistant. 1+1=2. Get it.

Freeman is resistant because he is the player. It’s not a fun gameplay experience to have the player immediately die to a Headcrab in the name of realism or consistency. Whether he wears a helmet or not is borderline irrelevant at that point. It only raises key questions if you start focusing on lore details that are secondary to gameplay. The suit is that powerful because it’s the player’s suit. Not because the suit is actually that powerful. There’s a pretty key distinction there. We also care about story, coherence and rules. But it’s secondary to gameplay. There is zero in-universe reason for Freeman to be the only one who can survive through all this nonsense, aside from the fact that he’s the player.

Zombie HEVs are a cool gameplay piece which don’t stretch the logic of the game world. They are stretching the logic in your mind because you are conflating the godliness of the player with godliness of the suit/scientists, which isn’t really intended from an in-universe perspective.

Also - I don’t appreciate the way you’ve worded much of what you’ve said. It’s unnecessarily inflammatory and aggressive. Knock it off, relax your tone, and post constructively.

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I always assumed that the suit was protective, but only so long as the user’s health remained above 0. That is, if a headcrab delivered what would otherwise be a lethal blow, then the headcrab could take control. The other explanations are also good enough to satisfy any questions here, I think.

I once read that the reason Freeman doesn’t get crab’d is because he doesn’t allow himself to be crab’d.

The only reason why a (Freeman) does not succumb to the (Headcrabs) is because it is not in the script, it would not make sense that the protagonist of the story dies on that point of the history, adding the (HEV Zombie) to the game is a success but also it would be that the (antlions) and (headcrab with variants) were added because the Vortiganos admit that they are native creatures of that (XEN) which they exploited, besides (Big Momma) is a species different from the (headcrabs), the (headcrabs) reproduce with other sources in nests such as spiders according to lore (Half-Life), sure you can put (antlions) outside the map only can be visibles not interact with they as you do with the (manta rays) in “Forget about Freeman”.

What if they should add extra are 2 or 3 shades of color of scale to the (vortigaunt’s) and remove those shiny eyes or reduce it a little.

That was actually one of the original devs saying that. I think he was responsible for the character design of Gordon too!

Ok, I apologize if my reactions seems agressive, I don’t intend to force my opinion to anyone. But it’s my bad, I didn’t mention the true point of all this: Black Mesa is a REMASTER of Half-life, or a re-vision as was stated. Since this character wasn’t in original game, it shouldn’t be force added into a remaster. Remaster shouldn’t add new questionable characters that testifies about key assets of the game -> HEV suit. If this character already existed in some of the Valve game, I won’t say a single word. What if it is not meant to be like this from the original? What if HEV truly means resistance to headcrabs by it’s developer, only he or Valve should answer this…
I always appreciated about Black Mesa that it sticks to the original -> weapons, levels, storyline, characters, etc. It brings only a remaster/revisit graphical needed changes, or just some small level changes like the puzzle which doesn’t create any questions. Remaster should just rejuvenate original Half-life and you guys from Crowbar Collective know this. New character shouldn’t be added, + if it brings answer to a non answered question by original developer. Please, don’t force add it to the game. Make it an optional feature or keep it as an add-on.
All the best!

What this basically means, is that you and I have very different visions about what Black Mesa should be, and your idea isn’t the one that we are making. And that’s okay - but you’re arguing a point which comes from that place that we simply can’t agree with.

I mean, you saw the Xen Trailer, right? Sticking closely to the original is already WAY out of the window at this point. Sticking closely to the original was basically never the point of this project; it’s our own spin on the original. There’s no point simply remaking the original. The original can’t be topped at what it does, and it still exists. It’s a masterpiece of gaming history, warts and all. That’s the original, authentic HL experience. This is our take on it. We stick close to the original where it makes sense and benefits the game. which is a lot of the time. This particular point? Doesn’t really matter that much. The gameplay benefit and variety that comes from the HEV zombies is worth more than potentially worrying about a small break in canon.

I highly doubt that Valve ever intended that the HEV suit provides the user immunity from Headcrabs, and we’re not in the habit of making illogical assumptions based on unstated facts. The original HL had only scientist zombies. Did this mean that Guards and Soldiers were immune to Headcrabs, just like the HEVs were? That’s the same logic, is it not? There also weren’t female scientists in the original - we have those too. Is that too far for you as well? Did Valve intend for the researchers at BMS to be 100% male?

You probably accept those latter 2 things, because they just make sense. HEV Zombies also just make logical sense, you just don’t like that because it contradicts your notion of canonicity. And it’s fine for you to not like it, but that doesn’t mean we have to adapt the game to fit that. Nor does it mean it’s a bad idea/doesn’t make sense.

It is a nonsensical addition, but then again so is the zombine from ep1, Black Mesa seem to follow HL2’s footsteps quite well : p

" The original HL had only scientist zombies. Did this mean that Guards and Soldiers were immune to Headcrabs, just like the HEVs were? "
No it means they were limited to using 1 model, however it doesn’t take much thought to come to the conclusion that it’s silly for a headcrab to eat through metal. Even the soldiers can be explained due to some not wearing helmets, same for some security guards. Valve probably also didn’t think about these things when they made the zombine, but we can only speculate whether it was a bad logic defying oversight or whether the combine modifications on the headcrab allowed it to eat trough metal.

If we go by the logic of “just because it wasn’t there, doesn’t mean it’s impossible for it to exist” for every silly idea we might as well add in Link from Legend of Zelda as a side companion who got stuck in Xen or something, cause as long as it looks cool, who cares about logic. I’m not saying new ideas are bad, I’m saying things have to make sense in the context of the world you’re building.

“There also weren’t female scientists in the original”
Incorrect, Gina Cross was a scientist who recorded herself wearing the hazard suit and giving instructions during the hazard course in HL1

Anyway it doesn’t matter, can probably mod the model so if someone doesn’t like it they can change it. Of all the changes BM has done to enemy designs, levels, atmosphere and so on, it’s silly to get stuck up about 1 npc, Xen in BM seems to have Earthly looking plants ffs. But it doesn’t matter, the original will always be there and having two different experiences won’t hurt anybody, it’s rude to tell people how they should make their own passion projects, I’d definitely be annoyed if I shared my own vision only to get people upset and nagging at me that it’s not how they wanted it to be.

“The gameplay benefit and variety that comes from the HEV zombies is worth more than potentially worrying about a small break in canon.”
I’d go a step further and say you didn’t go far enough, instead of creating something new you just created a variation of an existing enemy, instead of making a new alien you made a variation of the houndeye, you could have put a charger in there and had your own spin on it, but you just remodeled a houndeye and tweaked the effects. Black Mesa always struck me as a game that never knew what it wanted to be, it never wants to be the original but it also never has the balls to break away from the original and actually do something new, it just stays in the middle.

It really is not. Headcrabs have beaks. If they can drill through your SKULL they can also easily drill through a helmet. Might take them a bit longer though. Arguing about this is nothing short of nonsensical in my opinion.

lmao what? That is a literal strawman argument right there. No, adding Link would not make sense, because it does not fit into the world of Half-Life. Adding HEV Zombies does fit into the world of Half-Life. It really is that simple.

Kind of besides the point. He is clearly talking about Half-Life 1, not Decay.
There were no female scientists in Half-Life 1. No, the hologram doesn’t count, because the hologram being Gina Cross is a retcon that didn’t exist back in 1998.

I don’t get it. Black Mesa Xen is almost nothing like Half-Life Xen, they tried something new literally at every corner, and here you are complaining about them not having revived a cut creature from Half-Life 1? Besides, wouldn’t reviving the charger would have been just copying old ideas?! I don’t understand this line of reasoning at all. Also, Textfamguy literally already answered your last question there. Black Mesa tries to stick as closely to Half-Life where it makes sense. It’s basically a reimagination of Half-Life if Valve made it in the current day. Keep what works, maybe add some new elements here and there, throw out what doesn’t work.

TLDR: It’s beyond me why people are stuck up on these minute details that make barely any difference at all, instead of just accepting that CC have taken some artistic liberties with what is their OWN version of Half-Life Xen. It’s ridiculous.

As someone who committed fandom apostacy long ago by assuming that Gordon does indeed have a helmet, I never really saw any problem with the HEV zombies. The suit is able to ward off headcrabs until it fails structurally at zero health, at which point the crab is able to either dislodge the helmet or break it apart (seeing as they can indeed rip off the tops of skulls with no problem).

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.