Here’s another mod story idea, this one was first conceived for Half Life, but it could be used for another game with the right theme. As with my other mod story ideas I will start by setting the scene with my crappy 50’s-style writing and then explain the basic story outline after that.
The opening scene
You awaken suddenly. The klaxons are blaring and the red warning lights are spinning. Where the hell are you? You awareness begins to expand to your immediate surroundings. A lab. You are in a large circular lab.
You are in an upright glass tube. There are other tubes in the lab, in fact the other tubes form a circle. You begin counting; 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Twelve tubes plus the one you are in. But more importantly there are twelve OTHER Gordon Freemans! One in every tube.
Your last memory was the G-Man offering you a job and then stepping into the portal. He must have tricked you. He cloned you. Bastard!
The change of klaxon sound reminds you of where you are. The tube to your left changes colour and the glass slowly rises. Its Gordon Freeman, a clone, stumbles out and hesitates, but not for long. With almost lightning speed he runs to one of six doors and exits the lab.
This happens to all the other tubes until yours is the last one. All this time you mind has been racing. Finally the glass tube begins to rise and you exit the tube. You realise exactly what you must do: Find and kill the clones!
Gordon Freeman has been cloned. You play the 13th Freeman and you objective is to kill the others. I thought that the mod could be divided into seven areas; the lab plus six varying styled maps. There will be two GFs for each map/area. The central lab could contain weapons and health and would be the central area that needs to be returned to after each time you kill two other Freemans.
SPOLIER ALERT
The whole thing is an experiment to test various modified versions of Gordon Freeman. Meaning that each GF has some special ability. For example GF1 could be very fast but stupid. GF2 can project his voice into your head, making for a talkative level. Anyway, the traits that each GF has would be carefully thought out to make the gameplay interesting. Care would also need to be taken when designing the areas to ensure that the skills each GF has balance with the map layout.
There could be a large viewing gallery around each area where you could see scientists and the G-Man watching. They could even make observations via the speaker system. Stuff like “Well done Gordon, watch out for the next clone because…..”.
Each area would also contain grunts and other enemies to ensure the action is varied. I envisioned that one GF would be a complete coward and hide and run. His area would contain lots of corners and crates etc making stealth important.
After killing the other GFs the player makes his way back to the central lab and hears the G-Man and other scientists talking. It goes something like this:
G-Man: “Well, that seemed a success?”
Scientist: “Yes, though I’m surprised GF7 didn’t put up a better fight. Oh well, back to the drawing board”
G-Man: “I told you all along the original Freeman had the best balance of skills. I authorise full production of the original Freeman.”
Scientist: “What about clone 13?”
G-Man: “Destroy it, he knows to much!”
So, as a final twist you find out that you are also a clone, just one that hasn’t been enhanced in any way.
The mod could end now, although that would frustrate the hell out of me, or it could finish with you killing the scientists and destroying the whole lab and base, finally escaping into the outside.
The point is that the player MUST feel he/she is the original GF and this would be done with the first intro story and with the ingame scripting etc.
Nice one Phillip, I like it alot.
Certainly this would be a great mod.. So much room for poetic license..It sounds excellent as is, but I was thinking perhaps a few maps that are just get from one location to the next to reach the next Freeman clone..A buggy or an airboat or both.. The psycannon because you might have to toss a train car or some other ungodly heavy thing out of the way..or at some one…Like a hoard of crack zombies..a .couple of hundred of them.. a “think fast or die” situation…. But even as is…This would be great