Decay and Blue Shift

[Teh_Poet]

What exactly happened in Decay and Blue Shit? I've played through both of them, but each only once because neither are available on Steam... so what exactly happened in these games?

 

[Sulkdodds]

It was just an ordinary day at the lab (where have you heard that before) for donut-munching security guard Barney Calhoun. Or at least it was until a routine elevator-maintenance call was interupted by Freeman tearing a big-ass hole in the space-time continuum. Barney's lift plummetted through the heart of Black Mesa as the Resonance Cascade caused chaos, until he woke up, the only survivor, somewhere deep underground.

By this time, the military ahd already stormed the complex and Barney was forced to make his way upwards through the alien-infested darkness until he finally reached the surface. Meeting several scientists along the way, it turned out that Dr. Rosenburg had a lpan to escape - but he'd been captured and questioned by the military. So Barney found an assault rifle and swept through the Black Mesa trainyards, obliterating the military strike teams and finally rescuring Rosenburg.

Rosenburg, one of the first scientists to work on the teleportation project, led Barney down under the trainyards to an incredibly ancient, abandoned and sealed-off laboratory - the original teleporter lab, the very foundation of Black Mesa. Here, several more of the science team old guard were hiding out, ready to fire up the old teleporter and escape Black Mesa. But there was a problem: they needed to somehow get to the focusing array on Xen and re-allign it.

Barney ended up being sent to Xen and travelling through a nightmare landscape before finally finding the old array sites, where the last science team to travel to Xen had set up cap. Hazard-suited bodies littered the ground around the camp, in the centre of which was the targetting array - which Barney duly turned on. He eventually escaped from the horde of aliens that appeared to try and make holes in him.

Back in Black Mesa, the scientists needed new batteries for theire teleporter. So again Barney was forced to crawl around the alien and marine-infested bowels of the teleport labs, through the old maintenance systems underneath before finally finding a new battery and sending it up.

Now the scientists were able to finally escape. One by one, they charged up the teleporter and one by one they went through, appearing at a parking garage miles away from the main Facility. At the last moment, Marines crashed the party, blowing all the doors and storming in; but Barney was already leaping into the teleporter beam.

Twenty miles away, he reappeared, experiencing a phenomenon similiar to Gordon's random teleportation at the beginning of HL2. When that pointless fluctuating was over, Barney, Doctor Rosenburg and the other scientists got into a jeep and escape the giant tomb that was Black Mesa Research Facility.

This was around the same time that Gordon Freeman was thrown in the trash compactor.

I don't know about Decay.

 

[Mechagodzilla]

In decay, you're Colette Green and Gina Cross.
It's made up of nine 'missions', where you:

-Help power up the Anti-Mass Spectrometer
-Escort a scientist through the Hazard Course
-Help the scientist contact the military for rescue
-Try to close the portal rift, but fail
-Find the launch codes for the HL1 satelite rocket
-Help prepare the rocket for launch
-Position a large antenna beacon
-Travel through an experiment lab to power it up
-Set the beacon so that it uses the satelite to shut all the portals not being held open by nihilanth.

So the simple way to put it is that Decay is why no more Bullsquids, houndeyes and other non-intelligent aliens teleport in during opposing force and the later parts of HL1.

It also has a bonus mission where you play as two vortigaunts trying to steal back Nihilanth's crystals form Black Mesa.

 

[Sulkdodds]

What happened to the two characters at the end of Decay anyway? I only got to like mission 3.

 

[jimi_hendrix1]

I was wonderering the same thing... i got bored.

 

[Langolier]

At the very last mission you get knocked out...

And then you wake up with Dr. Keller talking about something... I can't remember what he says. In either case, you don't find out what actually happens to Gina, Collete, or Dr. keller.

 

[Mechagodzilla]

What happened to the two characters at the end of Decay anyway?

That's actually a good question.
It's fairly apparent that this is a spoiler thread, but here's the warning anyways: Spoilers ahoy!

The end boss is one of those manta-shaped spaceships and an unlimited number of alien grunts that it warps in.
You need to destroy the manta before it blows up the beacon.

Once the manta is dead, it crash-lands and explodes, and random portals start opening up everywhere around you.

You get teleported around to random locations, see Barney right when he leaves Xen, and then the beacon starts shooting waves of orange energy. The portals get hit by the waves and disappear.
Then you wake up back in the beacon's control room and your boss, Dr. Keller, congratulates you on closing the portal rift.

After that, it just fades out to the standard 'The End' boilerplate, so the overall fate of the characters is a mystery.
They had around four days to escape the nuke though, so they may very well have survived.

However, I've heard reports that Gina Cross' body can be found inside the Icthyosaur's underwater cave on Xen. So I guess she ended up in Nihilanth's chamber somehow, probably trying to do Gordon's job and kill the baby.

 

[Sulkdodds]

However, I've heard reports that Gina Cross' body can be found inside the Icthyosaur's underwater cave on Xen.

I don't think so. I never saw her body down there anyway; just loads of the standard orange-helmet hazmat guys.

But thanks for the ending details.

 

[Skaadi]

Alright, start flaming me for not knowing, but what the hell is Decay?

 

[gabriel]

it's a co-op game that comes included with halflife 1 for PS2. as far as i know, it's exclusive to PS2 and not available for pc. you play as dr. cross and dr. green, and it takes place at black mesa at the same time as gordon's little excursion.

 

[Langolier]

After that, it just fades out to the standard 'The End' boilerplate, so the overall fate of the characters is a mystery.
They had around four days to escape the nuke though, so they may very well have survived.

I doubt it... the nuke was detonated on the morning of the third day... Decay would appear to end the first night. So at best they had one day to escape, which I doubt they did simply because there was no escape unless the military took them. The only way Barney got out was by teleporting and Gina, Keller, Collete (and whomever else was with them) didn't have access to a teleporter.

However, I've heard reports that Gina Cross' body can be found inside the Icthyosaur's underwater cave on Xen. So I guess she ended up in Nihilanth's chamber somehow, probably trying to do Gordon's job and kill the baby.

I don't think so. I never saw her body down there anyway; just loads of the standard orange-helmet hazmat guys.

But thanks for the ending details.

You can indeed find her body. It's in Opposing Force... I don't remember where exactly, but I think it's just after the party where you fight you way passed a whole bunch of Voltigores in the tunnels. If you use the Transporter then you'll be teleported to an underwater chamber and you can find Gina's body in a corner. You can see it's her because she has no helmet. (I guess it could be just another female scientist... but meh)

 

[Polaris]

You can indeed find her body. It's in Opposing Force... I don't remember where exactly, but I think it's just after the party where you fight you way passed a whole bunch of Voltigores in the tunnels. If you use the Transporter then you'll be teleported to an underwater chamber and you can find Gina's body in a corner. You can see it's her because she has no helmet. (I guess it could be just another female scientist... but meh)

It´s different woman, she have another hairs and eyes and red HEV suit - real Gina have orange suit (in Hazard course) or grey HEV (in Decay).

 

[ríomhaire]

What exactly happened in Decay and Blue Shit? I've played through both of them, but each only once because neither are available on Steam... so what exactly happened in these games?

I hope you mean Blue Shift_______________:upstare:

 

[Puzzlemaker]

Decay is PS2 only? Oh darn. Did someone port it to HL1?

 

[ríomhaire]

Decay is PS2 only? Oh darn. Did someone port it to HL1?

No, there was a mod team doing it in Source but they all had dial up modems and it was axed.

 

[Langolier]

It´s different woman, she have another hairs and eyes and red HEV suit - real Gina have orange suit (in Hazard course) or grey HEV (in Decay).

I don't think you can see what color it is. I seem to recall that area being colored with red-ish/orange anyway and using your NVG's would make it worse. I would call her HEV in Decay a... wardrobe malfunction. In blueshift Gina has the standard orange suite and you see her doing one of the tasks you do in Decay.