Some thoughts I have about beefing up the story structure of the relationship between Freeman and the military.
Starting with ‘Weve got Hostiles’ I’d move that scripted conversation at the end of the chapter (where the HECU talk about killing scientist) to the very first encounter where the first scientist gets gunned down. Start that sequence a little earlier when you first enter that area and have two HECU there and have them do the conversation after killing that scientist, after which you proceed through the rest of ‘Weve got Hostiles’ wasting all the HECU in that chapter. Then where that conversation used to be at the end have a new one where the HECU are interrogating a scientist who tells them who you are.
You are now setup for ‘Power Up’ where you encounter the militarys first base camp and they know who you are. This area is already setup for that as it’s the first time they start calling you by name. Only thing I would add to that is a radioset in their position that is broadcasting your information that they discovered at the end of ‘Weve got Hostiles’.
They figured out who you were in ‘weve got hostiles’ then you over ran thier position in ‘Power up’ so now they should be super pissed and really out to get you in ‘On a Rail’ all setup to really ramp up their desire to get freeman. Start it out right after you lower and cross the bridge with some trip mines in the tunnel leading to the big elevator sentry gun trap. Have words painted on the walls by the trip mines ‘die freeman!’ ‘payback time freeman!’
In the next section I’d remove the single sentry gun and stick a couple HECUs patrolling that tunnel with a conversation along the line ‘hey sounds like someone set off the sentry gun trap’ ‘ya think its freeman?’ then you come around the corner on the tram. This leads into the first big base camp in ‘On a Rail’ where the HECU should be using much more of the freeman sound bytes. I’d also have the radioset in this area broadcasting to take out freeman.
Everything from there should play out pretty much the same. Some slight modifications, as you advance futhur and futher through ‘On a Rail’ the HECUs chance of saying a freeman related line should increase. With the radiosets throughout ‘On a Rail’ I’d ramp up the get freeman conversation as you move on. Example in ‘Power up’ radioset is just giving out your name. By the first radioset in ‘On a Rail’ it should be telling them to get you, by the next radioset your a priority until you reach the last radioset just before exiting outside to the rocket where its saying at all costs stop freeman dont let him launch that rocket! I’d also setup a trigger for the radiosets so when you get close to them they stop broadcasting the ‘get freeman’ message and say something like ‘alpha base come in,over’ then on the next radioset part of the message can be ‘lost contact with base alpha, suspect freeman in the area, get him!’ … heh on a side funny note, just an idea, as you take out thier positions and the radio changes from the ‘freeman’ message to a ‘hello is anybody there message’ I thought it would be funny if the person on the other end is getting more and more frustrated as you take out thier positions. Have the broacasts go from a calm ‘alpha base come in, over’ to at the very last one hes super frustrated and is yelling ‘FREEMAN!!!’ …also after you launch the rocket, a bunch of HECUs should come piling out of that area that opened up, and they all should be using freeman only lines.
I think these minor changes would really add a lot of emersion and the feeling of really being part of a story to Black Mesa. The additions made by the BM team in the first few chapters was very nicely done and I feel after that it just dropped right out of the game. What do you all think?