As a screenwriter I couldn’t agree with you more.
Good thinking. It is like shell shock or just plain shock. Hell, he could be performing CPR on a dead body but is continuing in panic mode because he may have lost grip with reality after seeing a person die or something.
Yep. That coupled with the fact that he is performing CPR totally wrong in a number of ways reinforces that idea that he’s not really in the right state of mind.
I watched the scientist prefrom CPR for 5 minutes and at first I was like wtf get up already and then I just left.
Well the main purpose CPR isn’t really to revive people. It’s meant to keep them alive by manually circulating the blood (because their heart has either stopped or is going into highly irregular beats) until more trained medical personnel arrive to treat them professionally or take them to a hospital.
It’s not unheard of to perform CPR for hours on end without result. But if the victim does not get revived, you’re still required to continue CPR until either 1) you get tired, 2) more highly-trained personnel arrive, 3) someone brings a defibrillator/AED, or 4) someone comes up to you and presents you with a legal “Do Not Resuscitate” order.
Obviously there wouldn’t be any way to get him to a hospital at that point, and there aren’t any medical professionals on-site. So it’s likely that he’d have to continue for several hours, get tired, or he’d just die from the Cascade.
He shouldn’t be revived by CRP because it was ‘in the original Half-Life’, he should be revived because that scene made you go ‘Holy god, he just gave CPR to that guy and he saved his life. THIS IS THE FUTURE OF GAMING! :O’. It was one of the early parts of the game that demonstrated how interactive (Relative to the time) that Half-Life was.
Now that I think of this scene in a more detailed way…
Probably, the guard was dead already or was crossing the death’s gates.
I expected him to be saved, but when it didn’t happen, I suddenly remembered that sometimes it is really not possible to save someone you wish to save - in some situations it’s beyond your abilities, no matter how hard you try or how good (or bad) you are at this.
This is what I felt. Maybe others took it differently, but it worked fine for me… Just added to the sad atmosphere of the incident…
I was disappointed that the security guard wasn’t revived, firstly because it was a great detail in the original… and secondly because in Black Mesa the scientist keeps going at it forever, saying the same “dammit, breathe” every 10 seconds. Black Mesa does a great job of avoiding the usual videogame thing where NPCs say the same line over and over, so it was really bizarre having him constantly say dammit, breathe.
Reviving the security guard isn’t needed, but the scene would have been less silly if the scientist scientist just said “dammit breathe” once or twice and then kept silent.
But then people will start bawwing and raging that the devs are ‘changing too much’.
In the scientists defense, Gordon isn’t actually talking to the scientist either.
But… gordon isn’t talking to anyone at all…
I noticed this.
Like you, I too was disappointed.
Exactly. Who wants to talk to a mute prick with a crowbar? 
I waited around way longer than I should have for him to get back up. It was depressing. If Gordon had emotions he would have been sad.
ok by the fact taht the guard can get up after you kill the scientist, i can deduce taht the guard was to get up at some point in time. I think this like the audio system was “cut” in order to bring down the file size.
But the Medkit has a Defib on the back!
Well at that point, you’re required to follow the instructions given by the defib, remove clothing up to the chest, apply chest pads, stand clear, wait for the defib to analyze, give shock if necessary, then continue CPR.
Clearly he didn’t do any of that… except continue (incorrect) CPR. 
[COLOR=‘Black’]inb4it’sjustagame[/SIZE]
I always saw it as the scientist being in a state of shock as to why he doesn’t notice Gordon. Coupled with the dramatic music, I think it’s a powerful image but nothing more, and the player shouldn’t really be “rewarded” for hanging around at what is essentially a cinematic sequence (though of course in the usual fully-controllable HL style). The game should encourage the player to move on, having a conversation happen before you see Eli and Kleiner again would be a bit awkward, pacing-wise.
From my understanding of current first aid teaching ( I got my certificate last year, so it’s fairly up to date), the scientist gets the “no breathing” RIGHT, the posture WRONG, the timing WRONG and the “not stopping” RIGHT. Overall, he gets it wrong enough for it not to work. Plus performing CPR through body armor probably isn’t going to work even if you’ve got everything else right. The fact the guard doesn’t get up is entirely accurate, given how badly the CPR is performed (to be fair, most people don’t get CPR right, or misunderstand it. That’s why first-aid courses spend a decent bit of time on it). Rule of Drama is very much in effect though. If the guard just got up and was fine, that would kill the mood a bit. I felt it fitted the feel pretty well.
Of course, this being a Half Life universe game…the scientist should really be using the Magic Medkit on the guard, rather than putting it next to him for Freeman to steal. Seriously… This is a setting where being hit in the face with a first aid kit instantly mends fractured bones. It can’t help to try it. Of course, NPCs don’t seem to use them in Black Mesa (except possibly HECU medics. I haven’t seen how they heal, if they have an animation for it), and we don’t know exactly how Freeman uses them at all (Osmosis? Or maybe he gnaws on them for sustenance?..I dunno…), so maybe that’s not an option until decades of combine rule train people in using medkits…
Honestly the secene was pretty powerful for me in Black Mesa in a way that it was not in Half Life. The guard is obviously too far gone, the scientist is obviously in shock. That plus the music (plus the fact that just a few minutes earlier this very guard had called me “hombre”) made the scene much more powerful. I prefer it tbh.