Half-Life (Windows)

Half-Life
Developer: Valve Publisher: Sierra Entertainment Platforms: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux Released internationally: November 19, 1998 This game has unused animations. This game has unused playable characters. This game has unused enemies. This game has unused models. This game has unused items. This game has unused abilities. This game has unused sounds. This game has regional differences. This game has revisional differences. This game has a prototype article This game has a prerelease article

Half-Life revolutionized the gaming industry by arming you with a crowbar. Whapish!

Unused Models

Characters

Ivan the Space Biker

The original playable character before Gordon Freeman was fleshed out. He was nicknamed Ivan the Space Biker due to his wild looks. His model, doctor.mdl, still exists in the game files but cannot be opened without repair, as it uses an earlier format. Various textures also exist. This model is identical to the one seen in the September 1997 Prototype.

Construction Worker

A construction worker on foot was meant to be seen in the retail. Its set of animations show him being able to operate as a standard NPC with no attack animation. Unused animations show him inspecting the floor in front of him, before frantically climbing upstairs and hiding.
In the retail, only workers in forklifts can be seen, with a totally different design.

Enemies

Chumtoad

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A harmless and allegedly delicious headcrab-sized creature. His animations shows him swimming, hopping, and playing dead, but it possesses no attack animation. It would have served a dual-purpose as an non-hostile alien and as a projectile thrown by the player. It makes easter-egg cameos in the Gearbox-developed expansion packs.

Mr. Friendly

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A horse-sized alien creature designed to fatally copulate with the player. His model and textures are in the game files, fully animated, but show no traces of this behavior, instead swiping and vomiting at the player.

Archer

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An aquatic creature intended to shoot projectiles at the player and bite them. His model and textures appear in the game files, fully animated.

Charger

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Another alien creature, found in the SDK files. His model and textures are intact, but he lacks animations.

Flocking Floater

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This cut balloon-like alien's model can be found in the game files. He was to shoot out gas at the player.

Kingpin

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Yet another alien creature, the Kingpin was slated to use Psionic attacks and defenses, with his massive brain filling most of his body. He was cut for lack of convincing AI and gameplay goals. His model and textures can be found intact in the game files.

PantherEye

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A Panther-like alien. They can be found more prominently in the leaked prototype, but they have no AI being worked on at this time. All that remains in the files is their model and textures.

Snapbug

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An insect like alien creature, with a slightly larger model than a Headcrab. His model and textures appear in the game files, although with no animations.

Stukabat

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A six eyed bat-like alien creature, his fully animated model and textures appear in the game files.

Yellow Boid

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The Yellow Boid's textures are found in the original game, along with evidence of a much more varied animation set. As stated at the Half-Life Wiki:

"While the standard Boid has only one animation ("idle", showing it simply flying), the yellow Boid model features two other flying animations and several interaction animations such as "hit", "wounded" and "crash", showing that the player was originally to be able to kill it, added to unused "alert" sounds ("boid_alert" 1 and 2) found in the sound files. The file "aflock.cpp" found in the Half-Life SDK and again related to the yellow Boid also mentions that there was to be a leader forming a flock from surrounding Boids, and that the newly formed flock was to go idle after being formed and wait for a player to come along, then start reacting to its presence. It also mentions that after killing a leader the next Boid was to become the new one. While the yellow Boid was brought back for Blue Shift, it was without the cut features previously mentioned, having it only use the simple "idle" (flying) animation, as in Half-Life."

Human Sergeant

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A heavy weapons soldier can be found in the game files. His animations suggest that he would have walked at the player creepily before attacking. The character was also meant to ambush the player at some point in the game, dropping from above. Whenever the player gets into a confrontation with them, they will simply scream out "YOU DEAD! YOU HEAR ME?! DEAD!"
His head was recycled for a standard soldier in the retail game.

Weapons

Chumtoad projectile

An unused alien weapon, akin to the retail Snark, is present in the game files, along with the suit's early color. Depicting the cut Chumtoad, its set of animations shows that it was to be thrown. According to Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar, Chumtoads would be the favorite food of most of Xen's grisly inhabitants, and would be used to distract enemies or lure them out of hiding spots. Interestingly, his model file bear the name "v_chub", after another early name for the monster, "Chubtoads".

Silenced pistol

A worldmodel and bodygroup for a silenced pistol can be found in the game files. The retail pistol has a bodygroup that can be enabled using a model viewer to see the suppressor on the view-model. This goes with animations for attaching it. The silenced pistol model was re-used for the tranquilizer gun in Team Fortress Classic. Possibly removed because a majority of enemy encounters in the game are head-on, giving a stealth weapon like this extremely limited use.

Items

Isotope Box

This box is supposed to provide more ammo for the experimental weapons than the retail Uranium box. As it wasn't really needed (the small ammo pickup already providing 1/5 of the maximum ammo), this was never implemented and the model was left unused.

Box of bullets

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This box, although never used in the retail, can be spawned, and will provide 200 bullets (out of the max 250) for the player's pistol and SMG. Its name (w_chainammo) suggests that it was used for a chaingun ammo pickup, although no chaingun is featured in Half-Life.

Oxygen Tank

This item, when spawned, cannot be picked up, but replenishes the player's air meter when touched. It would be destructible, producing a damaging explosion in the process. Its back was recycled as a texture for the retail Jump Module.

Security Card

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This item hints at an early gameplay concept, where the player would have to open doors using cards. This was replaced in the retail by having the employees unlock the doors themselves, but the item, albeit unused, is still present. It can be spawned and picked up, but it does nothing.

Flare

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This flare is present in the game files, but cannot be spawned or used.

Adrenaline

Was originally supposed to revive the player 3 seconds after their death. Can still be found in the game's files.

Antidote

The antidote was originally going to be used to stop continuous damage from toxins. The antidote is fully functional, but is used nowhere in the game.

Antitoxin

Miscellaneous

Stealth

A model of a stealth jet still exists in the game files under stealth.mdl.

Skeleton

A skeleton lying down flat. Was later re-used for Half-Life: Opposing Force.

Breather

A bio-mechanical model that may have fit Xen.

Test Sphere

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A self-explanatory model.

Mr. Valve This creepy model is found in the demo "Day One", named mrvalve.mdl. He was for the original intro video, but was cut later.

Unused Animations

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Player

• Half-Life (Windows) Gordon deadback.png

  deadback

• Half-Life (Windows) Gordon deadsitting.png

  deadsitting

• Half-Life (Windows) Gordon deadstomach.png

  deadstomach

• Half-Life (Windows) Gordon deadtable.png

  deadtable

Several animations for the player depict him being a corpse, on its back, sitting, or on a table. None of these corpses are found in the game, and a dying player freezes at its last death frame, rendering these "animations" unused.

Zombie

The zombie was meant to pull a scientist away and kill him. A corresponding animation can also be found for the scientist, and goes unused too.

Rat

The rat was supposed to be killed, as a death animation is present in its game files. It however cannot be killed in the retail game.

Gargantua

Although no corresponding animation are present in the retail files, corresponding animations for the soldier NPC are present in the Day One files.

• The Gargantua was supposed to grab an human opponent and bite its head clean.
• It would also throw a body.
• It would also slam an enemy to the ground. The Gargantua possess no melee attack in the retail.
• The Gargantua have a complete death animation. It never plays in its entirety, as it explodes soon after receiving the fatal blow.

Gonarch

The Gonarch has a complete death animation. It never plays in its entirety, as it gibs soon after receiving the fatal blow.

Soldier

There are unused animations for a strafing soldier, a leftover from an early concept where soldiers would be able to strafe when confronted by the player.

The soldier grunt also has some scripted sequences that went unused in the final.

• The soldier was to be thrown across a wall, busting it.
• An animation shows him tossing a rock, in a rather calm manner.
• He was to fall from a cliff and die.
• Two animations, prefixed by "WM", shows him pushing a button, or running and jumping across several meters.
• He was meant to bust a window with the butt of his weapon.
• There is a looping animation showing him impaled to a ground spike.

Houndeye

The Houndeye pack was supposed to distinguish the leader from its minions through two animations, depicting the leader standing up while the minions would have recoiled in fear. Despite the behavior retained in the retail, the animations are never triggered by the Houndeye, and therefore go unused.

Level designers can place info nodes to define environmental elements - namely, machines and blinking lights - that idle Houndeyes will occasionally wander over to and paw at out of curiosity. No such nodes are used in the retail game.

(Source: Marphy Black)

Loader

• There exists animations for the loader which depicts him running without a crate and collapsing at the end, suggesting a bigger role in the early Half-Life. In the final, they are only seen in the intro sequence handling crates.
• There also exists a walking animation where the loader doesn't handle a crate. They always handle crates in the retail.

NPC

NPCs were meant to have specific animations for falling and landing. Remnants of this early concept can still be found in the games files.

• Scientists, security guards, and zombies possess a separate falling loop animation, which goes unused.
• The alien grunt was meant to have a specific landing animation. This also goes unused.

Security Guard

The security guard possess an unused set of animations, most likely intended for scripted sequences.

• Two of them of them shows him looking for something at the ground (idle state), before looking to his right, pushing something and going back into his normal idle stance (active state).
• Another one shows him emerging from an vent before dropping dead. Its name hints that it would be used at the exact same map where he got captured by a zombie in the retail. This may hint at an early event where he survived the encounter long enough to reach the player, instead of disappearing entirely in the retail.
• The security guard was also meant to attempt escaping something behind him, before grabbing an electrified fence, causing him to be shocked and drop dead, unconscious.
• Two unused animations were meant to depict the security guard trying to push and swing a drink vending machine.

Scientist

The scientist also features an unused set of animations, most likely intended for scripted sequences.

• An animation shows him going through a window by crawling at it. In the final version, he dives instead.
• The scientist was to be pulled away and killed by a zombie, as a corresponding unused animation is present in the latter's model.
• He would also try to pull something, before succeeding, sending him to crash a few meters behind.
• Another animation shows him signaling himself to an helicopter, before being shot.

Unused Sounds

HEV Dialogue

Many pieces of dialogue for the HEV Suit go unused. Apparently it was planned for the suit to have been much more narrative and Navi-like.

Adrenaline administered
Antidote administered
Antitoxin administered
Suit compromised
Ammo pickup
Possible bio reading
Critical failure
Suit damage
Suit danger
Suit deactivated
East
Eight
Evacuate area
Fifteen
Four
Fourteen
General failure
9mm clip
44 ammo
44 pistol
Unidentified alien weapon
Major lacerations
Meters
Minutes
Internal bleeding
North
Insufficient medical supplies
Hours
Heat damage
Tripmine
Shotgun
RPG ammo
Satchel
RPG
Pistol
Medkit
Grenade
Gauss cannon
Egon power
Egon
Crossbow
Buckshot
Bolts
Suit battery
Assault grenade
Assault rifle
Eleven
Eighteen
Armor gone

Scientist Dialogue

The Black Mesa landing field was supposed to have a Gargantua instead of a HECU platoon. An unused scientist sound file warning about it is still present in the game files.

Thank you, Mr. Freeman. You are Gordon Freeman, aren't you ? The one they're expecting in the Lambda Complex ? If you can figure a way past that Gargantua on the landing field and through the bunker doors out there, you'll find yourself at the Lambda labs doorstep !

Announcement System

To do: There are a lot more. See [http://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/Black_Mesa_Announcement_System/Quotes

The Announcement System has an unused sound file where it refers itself to the Automatic Diagnostic and Announcement System.

Hello. The Automatic Diagnostic and Announcement System welcomes you to the Black Mesa Research Facility. Remember: have a secure day !

Early Entrance

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At some point during development, the entrance to the facility looked quite different. By noclipping through the door in the map c0a0d, you can see this early entrance design.

Map Oddity

In the chapter 'Forget About Freeman', there is an elevator with a closed door at the beginning. If you noclip inside, you will see a red triangle. Walking towards it will either crash the game (if you're running the game in Software mode. Running in OpenGL or Direct3D mode will apparently stop the game from crashing) or send you 2 maps ahead (the map where you fire the tank to open the door that takes you to the lambda lab), floating on the ceiling, dead.

Note: Attempting this in the Source version will exit the level and return to the main menu because the game doesn't know how to properly transition into the map the triangle sends you to.

Revision Differences

To do: In-depth comparison of differences.

When Valve re-released the game on their Steam service, they replaced the main menu. Gone was a locked 640x480 menu with separate menu options, replaced with a menu that scaled with the game's resolution. Also gone are many menu options, including Hazard Course, Custom Game, View Readme and Previews. Steam Half-Life's GUI looks identical to the Steam GUI back during its 2003 launch.

Pre-Steam versions (1.0 to 1.1.1.0)	Current Steam release. (1.1.1.1)

• In the older versions of retail Half-Life, taking fall damage or strafing left and right would result in the player's screen being tilted slightly. This was removed in versions 1.1.0.8 and after.

Region Differences

To do: Higher quality screenshots

The German version has the following changes made in order to avoid a USK 18 rating:

• Replaces all the human soldiers with robots
• The humans' blood is yellow (but the aliens' is still red and there is still blood on the walls)
• Replaced blood particles with gears and springs
• Makes the scientists and security guards sit down when they are shot
• Replaces Gina, Gordon, and the scientist's models with a version of Gordon's suit with a helmet on, to make them look less human

(Source: Schnittberichte)