MINERVA - read-only archives

Big spoilers below, obviously...

Best moments for me:

1) Minerva's "Please don't die, I need you" line after she saw the portal. It showed a genuine moment of weakness, and really fleshed out her character. For a moment, she was not cold, emotionless, and generally apathetic; to see such a change really gave me a sense of urgency - if the Combine being there scared her, then I knew that it must be really, really, really bad.

2) The pure adrenaline rush I got fighting wave after wave of zombies. Standing with my back against a cold steel wall, sending a hail of bullets into zombified Combine was terrifying, frustrating, but most of all, invigorating. I felt a real sense that the whole world was collapsing around me, and that I would have to fight for every step toward the surface. Pegasus is the best chapter IMO, for that reason alone.

3) Minerva's snide little "hints" when I got lost or couldn't figure out a puzzle. I always got the idea that she knew exactly what to do in every given situation - she sees what I see, hears what I hear, etc. - but just wanted to see if I could figure it out, given a gentle push in the right direction. Minerva's whole character was so well put together that, dismissive and contemptuous as she often was, I really grew to like the incoming transmission sound.

All of the above :P But for me, the land mark moment of Depth Charge and Pegasus was something a little more subtle:

The endlessly descending elevator, going down thousands of metres. Thinking about how far down we'd already come, my ears felt like they were about to pop under the pressure. It was certainly an intimidating thought. Especially considering how was I going to get back up again if this lift didn't work.

Yeah ... I'm with Terrapin's #1 as well, on Minerva's showing of emotion.

That, and the beginning of Pegasus for the first time. Everything explodes and goes white, and I was thinking: "Oh great, how're we going to get out of this one!?"

And then you wake up.

As an aside, it was more mundane than my expectations (I somehow thought you'd end up in Minerva's world or whatever that was), but somehow, that made it more compelling.

The atmosphere.

That suspension that something is about to go terribly wrong. Enigmatic clues left everywhere. There is a feeling of the real story happened there.

- the place with decomposing stalkers. I was constantly expecting them to crawl out of the casings and start screaming in my ear. Brrr. Was so glad to go into the combine structure. Felt safer.

- immense depth (where the train goes). I spent much time there.

- the huge pit with descending catwalk with headcrabs swarming at the bottom. I remeber it because halway down the catwalk that loud low sound began and the structure started to shake and I thought "omg it's collapsing!". And also I sticked to the wall near the bottom, and several waves of soldiers run past me (without noticing) and started fighting with headcrabs. It was pretty entertaining. I was surprised that in the end i had to help solders :o (And unfortunately it's not reproducible in the latest version, as soldiers do not run all the way down but stop and start shooting me :( )

New Minerva player here.

There are a lot of great little moments, but I have to say I liked the beginning, even though I got killed half a dozen times before I got my bearings. You really have to think on your feet to survive the first few minutes of the game; I can see that being a negative point for many players, but for someone looking for a new Half-Life experience it's just fine.

I also like the way the endgame ratchets up the chaos as you move closer to escape. On a side note, the ending demonstrates a weakness of the leapers (who tie with poison headcrabs as the enemy most likely to make my hands start sweating). They seem most dangerous when fighting them in close quarters. On the beach, however, with plenty of room to strafe, they were more a nuisance than a genuine threat. Of course, I wasn't playing on the hardest setting.