Half-life Flashback For Ice Base (When I Did Level Design)

Years ago I read a novel by Matthew Reilly called Ice Station.  It was a pretty good action novel with plenty of bad guys, a mystery, and the allure of ice.  I've always liked novels set in the Arctic or Antarctic and plenty of novelists have obliged by writing them.  These novels have isolation, characters forced to operate on their own, man versus the elements, and often some alien or human threat.
Anyhow, Ice Station had a scene where the central shaft in the base played an important role.  His marines had magnetic grapples and cable guns for ascending and descending.  It enabled some very fun storytelling.  A few years later, I played the video game Half-life, enjoyed it immensely and began doing some 3D level design for it in my spare time.  My first few levels were not very good, but you get better as you keep building map after map.  There was a great community for more than a few years of hobbyists all doing this and I contributed to a few single player level sets.  Half-life doesn't have magnetic grapples built into the game, but there are built-in entities to support commandos roping down from Ospreys.

Icebase core shaft with research facilities on each level

 This is pretty cool, I just found a walkthrough for Intolerable Threat.  I did the maps from halfway through video 2 (when he goes into the underground bunker) to video 4 (office complex). Video three shows old abandoned research facilities with a showdown with a Gargantia alien monster around a reactor core.

With the inspiration from Ice Station, I build a custom level set to simulate an enemy assault on an American research station that had found alien artifacts.   The highlight of the level set was the central research station with research facilities and quarters built around a large open shaft that was five levels deep.  The shaft had a moon pond at the bottom where mini-submarines deployed to the outside ocean. In the game, you would have to fight your way down in a downward spiral through the various levels to rescue some scientists at the bottom.

See many many screenshots from Planet Phillip for Fallback, Fire, and Ice.

The final level set required Half-life and the Opposing Force mod to play, but it worked great.  The station was protected by marines from the Opposing Force mod for Half-life.  This added to the teamwork model in the game with medics and friendly soldiers that would assist you and follow you if you ordered it.

Antarctic Warehouse

Osprey and Wind Turbines

Open Courtyourd

In the level set you had to do quite a bit over many interconnected maps:

1. Defend the base from a mechanized infantry assault backed by APCs. You have to kill the enemy APC with multiple RPG hits.
2. Retreat through a storage facility filled with black ops assassins.
3. Fight through a command center to restore power to the main research station doors.
4. Dash through a courtyard with circling gunships to a generator building to restart it.
5. Enter the main research complex which was already under attack.  Scripted sequences had marines already fighting more commando rappelling down through the central shaft.  
6. Finally, you reach the bottom to rescue scientists and escape out through the mine tunnels that lead to an alien outpost with aliens!
7. A submarine surfaces in the middle of the outpost to finally rescue you.

Icebase core shaft on level 3.

Icebase core shaft on level 5

Looking down at the moon pool with mini-submarine and a walkway.  You had to deploy the walkway to cross as laser barriers prevented you from moving through the halls.

The research station corridors.  There were offices, sleeping quarters, game rooms, research labs, a mess hall, more storage facilities, and medical center.

Mess Hall

Mine tunnel through the ice.

In the mines.

Alien structures

I still really like Half-life to this day, even though the graphics are dated.  The game had more interactive objects (vending machines that worked) and better NPC cooperation than many more modern games.  It is also one of the few games where rescuing trapped scientists was actually quite fun.  There is a HD remake using the Source engine now, but I don't think I'll be remaking Fallback, Fire, and Ice again (there also isn't an Opposing Force mod for it).


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