Proto:Half-Life (Windows)/September 1997 Prototype/Entities/Hostile Entities
This is a sub-page of Proto:Half-Life (Windows)/September 1997 Prototype/Entities.
 | Oh dear, I do believe I have the vapors. This page contains content that is not safe for work or other locations with the potential for personal embarrassment. Such as: Big ol' alien anuses (seriously). |
Contents
Headcrab
The Headcrab is noticeably different from the one in the prototype. Their "head" has a large lump on it, and they have a red-ish coloring with messy, turd-brown splotches. Most of their general shape is the same, though. Their mouth is much lighter compared to the final's. Most importantly, the prototype Headcrab has visible butt cheeks with a very visible anus in the center of their back.
The prototype's Headcrabs are nigh overpowered; they can kill anything in one hit, including the player and Alien Grunts. Getting hit by one will make the player gush a fountain of blood. Despite having insta-kill damage, they can still be easily killed fairly quickly with the MP5 and Glock 17 all together. Considering how common Headcrabs are, it's obvious to see why this was changed.
Pre-release screenshot showing the Sep 97 prototype's Headcrab.
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Houndeye
The Houndeye has a lower-poly model that has visible points on it compared to the final's model. The general design is the same, but the texture is completely different. The final game gives the Houndeye a cleaner model, but has a blurrier texture in exchange.
Like the final Houndeye, a single Houndeye attacking does little damage, but Houndeyes attacking at once will do a lot of damage. In fact, a few Houndeyes can gib a healthy player with one blast. Their attack lacks a visible graphic, meaning the only way you're able to tell if the attack hits is if you take damage.
The Houndeye's behavior is somewhat similar to the final's, but there are some differences. Houndeyes will follow the player a bit before attacking after they have attacked for the first time instead of either retreating or starting an attack again. Attacks may also fail to hurt the player for some reason.
Pre-release screenshot showing the Sep 97 prototype's Houndeye.
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Turret
The Turret's model is surprisingly similar to the final version, but its textures are quite different. Its textures are less blurry, and it has a tan color scheme instead of a gray one. Several of the details are different, such as the "danger" on the top of the gun being absent. The gun itself is lighter than the final's and the chrome on the barrels is much more subtle.
In the prototype, its behavior is the same. However, its hitbox is limited to a tiny hole above the Turret's barrel. Shooting it will cause some grey particles falling down from the hole. If the player shoots its weak point enough times, this will cause the Turret to halt, causing a whirring noise. After a second or two have passed, the Turret will suddenly turn towards the player quickly, causing it to shoot violently and dance around, also aiming at the player.
If the player is out of the Turret's direct line of sensory, the Turret will attempt to shoot the player again, but it rotates slowly, making them very easy to avoid. This never happens in the final game, as the Turret is much faster in the final game than it is in the prototype.
The walkthrough for locations suggests that the player would have to shut them down in order to disable them, but this is impossible because of either switches not working or bugs involving saving progress. The final game lets the player both shoot them and turn them off with a switch.
The prototype only has a model for the large Turret; the smaller one is nowhere to be found.
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Panther Eye
The Panther Eye is one of the unique enemies that was cut from Half-Life. They appear to be Red, demon-like enemies with a giant, compound red eye in the center of their heads. According to Chuck Jones, the Panther Eye was cut because of technical issues with feet sliding in quadruped-type creatures.
The Panther Eye lacks AI, meaning they wouldn't react to the player's presence in the battlefield. Most of the time they will stand there and do nothing, but in the first X-lab map (map c3a2.bsp, equivalent to the starting parts of Lambda Complex), the two Panther Eyes are able to walk, but they still don't attempt to attack the Player. If Panther Eyes are killed, they will disappear instead of playing a death animation.
They have some idle sounds in the prototype.
Pre-release screenshot showing the Panther Eye.
Old Panther Eye Design
The models "cine_panthereye" and "panthereat" contain an earlier Panther Eye design. This Panther Eye is Blue instead of Red, they are noticeably smaller than the Red design at best, like the prototype's Headcrab, and they have visible butt cheeks and an anus.
This design appears in several early pre-release screenshots.
Screenshot showing the old Panther Eye design.
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Human Grunt
Human Grunts keep the same basic design their final counterpart uses, but there are several differences in his textures and design.
- The prototype Human Grunt uses an AR-15 rifle with an M203 (likely an M4 carbine) instead of an MP5 with an M203 attached to it. The gun behaves the same in the prototype, however.
- The camo pattern on him is a bit different from the one in the final game. The prototype camo uses more white and different shapes on it.
- His backpack does not cover his waist in the prototype, but does in the final game. The backpack also has a green camo pattern on it in the prototype, but the final one replaces it for a really low-res generic backpack texture.
- His chest and belt texture keeps the same basic design the final one uses, but it is less detailed and has a different, and often less-detailed, design for almost everything.
- The rectangular pouches on his legs are closer to each other in the prototype than they are in the final game.
- His arm sleeves are much shorter than they are in the final game.
- Only the gas mask head exists, with a texture dissimilar to that of the final game. Grunts in Day One use almost the same texture, suggesting it was updated shortly before the final game's release.
In-game, their behavior is similar to how it is in the final game, but there are some differences. If a Human Grunt is shot, he will often quickly strafe to the right with a unique side-walking animation. This makes him a bit slippier to deal with than his final counterpart. His gun is fully automatic in the prototype, while the final game restricts Human Grunts to three-round bursts.
The prototype's Human Grunts will toss grenades like their final counterparts do, but the model used for a thrown grenade is the 40mm grenade fired by the MP5/M4's M203 instead of a true hand-thrown grenade.
Human Grunts have a bug that was fixed in the final game; if a Human Grunt is rapidly shot while reloading, he will get stuck looping his reload animation, making him harmless.
Certain animations for the Soldiers are very different. The walking animations shows him with his Assault Rifle held at chest level, walking with his body not slightly cowering downward. Their running animations show them cowering down from enemy fire, also running at the same time.
Interestingly, the prototype Human Grunt has a swimming animation, suggesting he was supposed to be able to go into the water at one point.
The prototype has several unused model variants for the Human Grunt. These are hsarge.mdl, desert.mdl, and olive.mdl. These models use an earlier format than the one used in the prototype, suggesting they are old leftovers.
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Hsarge
 | This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: What is monster_human_sarge supposed to do when it's not broken? |
Hsarge is one of the three unused Human Grunt model variants in the game.
This variant is quite different from both the prototype and final designs; he lacks the black armor on his chest with his camouflage shirt taking the armor's place, his arm sleeves are similar to the ones used in the final game, his backpack has the same camo his uniform has, and the glass on it is darker, and his pockets are much larger, have a different design, and are lighter.
This texture has a "USMC" tattoo on his sleeve texture, but with the way the arms are modeled, it is impossible to see.
This design matches Human Grunt concept art found in the art book Raising the Bar.
An entity that uses the Hsarge model, "monster_human_sarge", exists within the game's DLL file, but is markedly absent in its FGD file. Due to its using an outdated file format, the Hsarge's model cannot render in-engine. The Hsarge NPC displays several peculiar traits when loaded in-game in this state, which consist of:
- Not being able to move or die.
- Attempting to play the sound "PLAYER/pain3.wav" whenever it notices the player.
- After noticing the player, launching a singular glass shard particle in their direction.
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Desert
Desert.mdl is a variation of the regular Human Grunt with brown camo instead of white and gray.
This model appears to be based on a slightly older design, as he doesn't have gloves on his hands and his skin is less detailed than the regular prototype model's skin is.
A cycler entity exists for Desert.mdl, which cannot render in-engine due to its outdated model format.
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Olive
Olive.mdl is a variation of the regular Human Grunt with green camo instead of white and gray.
Olive has the same differences with the used model in the prototype that desert.mdl does, which hints that it is also based on an older design.
A cycler entity exists for Olive.mdl, which cannot render in-engine due to its outdated model format.
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Human Assault
The Human Assault, a minigun-wielding soldier that was cut from the final game, can be partially found in the prototype. Emphasis on "partially", because he only spawns properly in some of the demos included with the prototype. In normal gameplay, the game will give an error about "monster_human_assault" when a map with one is loaded, as the entity was removed from the prototype's code for some unknown reason. The only remnants of the entity are within the prototype's .fgd file, and within portions of the code where the entity is called upon.
Based on the demos, the Human Assaults were meant to be used more as an obstacle to be avoided than an actual enemy. Both maps they appear in have the player navigating around him instead of taking him on. However, there's still likely a secondary option for players to defeat them as they choose to.
The model included in the prototype has some differences compared to the model found in the final game's files. The prototype's model lacks a backpack, has lighter skin, thinner straps on his chest, a different camo pattern on his chest, and oddly-placed arms.
This enemy has a single sound not included in the final game's files, taken from a line Mr. T says in the TV show The A-Team's Season 4 Episode 1 and 2's two-parter "Judgement Day."
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Alien Slave/Vortigaunt
The Alien Slave's model's is very close to the final version, but their certain animations and collar is slightly different. The collar is shown to be lime green in color, with a shining effect added, but the collar lacks reflection effects. His skin is also lighter and less detailed.
Their forward death animation is massively different, consisting of the Slave cowering down in pain, and dying afterwards. Their backward animation is the same as the final game, but only it's slower. The model is also brighter than the appearance seen in the final game.
The Alien Slave does not appear as an enemy in the prototype, despite their model appearing in the "maindemo.bsp" map. They do have an entity in the game's code, monster_alien_slave, which is very unfinished.
- The Alien Slave does not appear capable of moving.
- The Alien Slave's only animation is of its neck twitching — this seems to be a bug, and it does not use any of its model's animations.
- It's capable of taking damage from the crowbar, pistol, and SMG, but does not seem to take damage from SMG grenades.
- When damaged, there's a chance for yellow blood to appear behind the place the Alien Slave took damage. It seems to occur most frequently with the crowbar and pistol, rather than the SMG.
- When killed, the Alien Slave disappears in a puff of particles.
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Alien Grunt
The Alien Grunt's general design is the same as it is in the final game, but their textures are quite different.
The prototype Alien Grunt's skin is lighter than it is in the final game and their armor is a darker blue. They also have less armor on their back, with more parts of their back exposed on the prototype's model. They also have a missing Hivehand to shoot Hornets from. Instead, Hornets come directly from their right "hand".
The Hornets they shoot can be destroyed with gunfire in the prototype, although this is also still possible in the retail too whenever the Grenades are used against them as much as bullets while the Alien Grunts are firing. This makes them very easy to deal with if you shoot your gun near where their right arm goes when he attacks; the bullets will destroy the Hornets as soon as they're fired out, making the Alien Grunt harmless.
Their armor does not work in the prototype, meaning they will take full damage when hit anywhere.
They also have some sounds that are different from the final game.
Pre-release screenshot showing the Sep. 97 prototype's Alien Grunts.
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Alien Assault
 | To do: Is monster_alien_assault just an early way the devs referred to the Alien Slaves? The monster_alien_slave entity does not exist in the .fgd. |
The prototype's .fgd contains a reference to an NPC called "monster_alien_assault," which is referred to as an "Alien Assault Troop." No code or model exists for it in the prototype, so it's unknown what it'd look like or how it'd behave — all that is known is that its point entity in the Worldcraft editor is approximately the same size as the human enemies, rather than the Alien Grunt's. Note that the size of the Worldcraft node is not representative of how large the model actually was in-game.
Tentacle
The Tentacle also exists in the prototype, but they use a much simpler design than the final one. The prototype's Tentacle model has a sharp beak with blood on it. Unlike the final version, they have no eyes at all.
Its back texture has a different design and it has much less defined segments than the final design does.
They only appear in the demonstration map "silodemo.bsp". This map has a very early version of the silo the final Tentacle has, but lacks the control room and rocket to eliminate the Tentacles. This makes them unkillable in the prototype. They will track the player like they do in the final game, but they will never attack.
This design appears in some pre-release screenshots and videos.
Pre-release screenshot showing the Sep. 97 prototype's Tentacle.
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TentBeak
An unused entity known as "monster_tentacle_beak" exists within the game's code and .fgd file. It uses the model "tentbeak.mdl," which was not included in the prototype. When loaded in using a placeholder model, the model plays the first animation loaded into the model on loop. It has no model collision, and does not seem to interact with the player or its environment in any way.
Though "monster_tentacle_beak" does not make any more appearances in the game's code in future builds, an entity with a similar name, "monster_tentaclemaw," is included in the final game's code.
The model for the tentacle's beak is speculated to have been shown off in a prerelease render for the tentacle, depicting a pink flower bulb-like structure sat in the middle of a group of tentacles.
Boid
The Boid is mostly the same as the final version of the game and also their in-game behavior, but they're only encountered in one demonstration map. The only difference there is that they make a sound different from the final version.
Bullsquid
The Bullsquid's behavior is the same as the final game's, but their design is completely different.
The prototype Bullsquid has yellow and black skin instead of the brown-with-markings skin the final has. Their mouth is much less detailed than the final's, as they lack the final's mouth and has white, bone-like tentacles that are not individually modeled. Their eyes are ruby red instead of being a tan-like color and are smaller than the final's.
Pre-release screenshot showing the Sep. 97 prototype's Bullsquid.
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Barnacles and Zombies
While the prototype does not have any code or models for the Barnacle or Zombie, there is evidence that they were in the game when this prototype was compiled, but were removed from this build for some reason.
The map C1a2a has a ceiling nest where a Barnacle would fit in the break room at the start of the map, and the map C1a2c has several holes in the wall that would fit a Zombie breaking through them.
