MINERVA: Metastasis

Action

The player controls a former Alliance soldier dressed in a protective suit at the Black Mesa Research Center, similar to the one used by Gordon Freeman . The passage of the modification is accompanied by the receipt of text messages from a woman called Minerva. Her messages are sarcastic and dismissive, and her manner of communication is unceremonious. With a player, Minerva communicates only as with his own tool for collecting information.

A player in an attack helicopter is delivered and landed on an island in the Baltic Sea, where the bunker occupied by the Alliance of the Second World War is located . It turns out that the Alliance built an installation on the island that receives a huge amount of energy from a satellite in geostationary orbit. The player's goal is to infiltrate the territory of this base and find out why the Alliance is pumping a huge amount of energy into an island that is inconspicuous in appearance.

After the player descends underground into the bunker, it turns out that the latter is only a small upper part of the huge underground base of the Alliance, built under it. At the base, the player discovers a biological laboratory where the Alliance breeds headcrabs and studies their effects on humans, and the underground railway station running under the seabed. However, the laboratory and other factories of the Alliance consume only a small part of the energy transmitted from the satellite, the main energy beam goes even deeper. During the descent, the defense system destroys all the player’s weapons, and he has to flee for some time from the soldiers chasing him.

Having descended to the lower levels of the base, the player discovers a dark energy reactor, similar to those used in the Citadels , and an interdimensional portal, which consumes energy. Minerva orders the player to destroy him, and the player destabilizes the reactor. At this time, Minerva manages to hack into satellite control systems, and she, depicting regret, informs the player that all this time he was digging his own grave and soon she will activate the satellite beam at maximum power, destroying the entire base with him. However, when the satellite is activated, a crash occurs, so the explosion does not destroy the base, but only leads to serious damage, and the player manages to survive.

Having discovered that the protagonist has not died, Minerva orders him to try to get to the surface before the satellite recharges and activates a second impulse, which will lead to the complete destruction of the base. At the same time, headcrabs and zombies kept in the biological laboratory get out of control and attack both the player and the Alliance soldiers. When a player gets to the surface, Minerva sends a helicopter to pick him up from the island, but suddenly an Alliance attack aircraft appears, preventing the helicopter from approaching. At the end of the game, after the destruction of the attack aircraft, the player lands on a helicopter and watches as the second energy pulse of the satellite finally destroys the island.

Gameplay Features

The story is revealed gradually and often without explanation. For example, in the Metastasis chapter, it becomes clear that the goal of Minerva (and therefore the player) is to determine the meaning of the Alliance in the bowels of the island, on which all game actions unfold, but it is not clear how the player was involved in this story.

However, Minerva is not omniscient. It becomes clear that she has satellite surveillance and radio communications at her disposal, and more than once informs the player that she does not know what is ahead of him, and finding out with him.

Even if Minerva is wary of an impending threat, she does not always prefer to warn the player about it. And when this happens, she enjoys overcoming difficult trials, although this is not always reflected in messages that rather condemn the player. In this controversial situation, Minerva begins to admire her new “experimental”, which is expressed, for example, in a request for caution at the next meeting with the enemy.

The complexity of Minerva as a character is an important part of the game and explains the lack of information about modification events.

Duration

In-game communications are unusual in that they always have a time stamp in front of them in an international format ( ISO 8601 ), making it possible to evaluate how much time the entire plot takes. This information is also supplemented by several notes on the modification site ^[5] , which tell some semblance of history. Based on all the information, you can partially recreate the sequence of events covered by the plot.

• June 13, 1974, 4:00 p.m. - long-lasting earthquake in New Mexico
• July 2, 1974 - it was confirmed that seismic activity originates from the Black Mesa zone.
• July 10, 1974 - confirmation of the event, called the "catastrophic failure." Temporary suspension of the research program. Mentioned transport technology.
• since 2000 (date unknown) - Half-Life events; the rise of the Alliance.
• March 28, 2002 - appearance of a message on the console at the Black Mesa Research Complex.
• April 1, 2002 - events unfolding in the episode Somewhere Else . Minerva is against her will at an outpost in the world of Xen.
• October 15, 2009 - Metastasis events. Minerva somehow ended up on Earth.
• unknown date - a message from Minerva in which she says that she discovered some kind of network.

Scene

Metastasis events predominantly take place on the island around the bunker of the Second World War , located in the Baltic Sea ^[6] , as well as in the underground bunker and the secret base of the Alliance located beneath it.

The modification itself and its website are available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish and Russian. Translated by LocWorks in November 2008.

• Official site