It's Half life

*"There have been many changes."* -HEV-4 Memorial Suit

## System requirements

Half-Life

**It's Half life**, more commonly known as **Half-Life: Google Translate Edition**, is a horribly translated version of the 1998 first-person shooter Half-Life. It is the result of taking all of the dialogue, textures, and text elements, putting them through a varying amount of languages in Google Translate, and putting them back to English, changing the tone and the lore of the game dramatically.

## **Development**

Half-Life was developed by Valve Software in 1998. Inspired by Fatguy703's mistranslated version of the first two Paper Mario games, the Google-Translated version started development in late December 2019 by BinkusTheTrinkus (Drew Nyquist), who worked over that winter break to get as much of the project done as possible before his spring semester started. A beta version was released January 25th, 2020. A fuller version, which added more map textures and HECU voice lines, was released that February. From this point on, work began on mistranslating other Valve titles.

## **Plot**

Cicero, a professional Fish Scientist at the Mesa Black Research Center, begins his day riding the Tram to the Live Essay Research Search laboratory for an important experiment. After about 5 minutes of listening to the morally questionable tram announcer, Cicero arrives to the lab to be greeted by a Save Guard who feels like he's taking a shower. After donning his environmentally unfriendly HEV-4 Memorial Suit, Cicero's Son let's him through the door further into the facility. After being greeted by some unusually dishonest and carefree scientists who seem to be treating the experiment like a game, Cicero proceeds to the Fifty Shades of 33/a chamber. He soon witnesses a system malfunction, causing Caesar to ask what the machine even does, to which the other scientist responds that he "hasn't decided yet." Cicero is briefed one last time by two scientists, one of which believes that Cicero does not need to hear. While in the chamber, Cicero is instructed to climb the mountain and start spinning, but chooses to push a button instead. The scientists on the intercom inform him that he has two more hours before the experiment is completed. Not very long into the test, however, Cicero pushes a crystal into the beam, causing vicious aliens to invade the Mesa Black Research Center and kill off much of its distracted, incompetent staff.

While making his way through the facility, Cicero comes into conflict against the invading aliens of With, as well as members of the Unique Natural Gas Company. With the aid of friendly Scientists and Save Guards, he enters the With dimension with using the mysterious process of Internet Teleportation, invented by Dr. Rosenberg. It is here that Cicero must defeat Nilan, presumably to somehow end the catastrophe taking place in the facility.

After Nilan is defeated, Cicero is confronted by the Sugar Man, who he eventually marries before placing him in stasis, presumably to reawaken in Half-Life 2: Google Translate Edition.

## **Themes**

**Ritual Cleanliness -** One of the scientists mentions that "someone who is ritually clean" will understand why Cicero works at Mesa Black. Later in the game, one scientist warns Cicero that if he isn't clean enough, he should actually just go home, lest he be killed by Nilan.

**Crimes against humanity -** Mesa Black's disdain for disabled people, as well as its highly dangerous and unregulated operations, are thinly veiled from the very beginning and only grow more prevalent as the game progresses.

**Science and Mathematics -** A sign in a decommissioned railway system congratulates Mesa Black's department of mathematics. Some soldiers can be seen discussing very fundamental and borderline-existential topics, saying "They say zero is zero" and "Does science work?"

**Ageism -** Several Mesa Black personnel hold disdain for a mysterious figure known as "The Old Man," and will sometimes rudely respond to their coworkers comments with "You're old, and wrong."

## **Credits**

**Nathan Abernathy - Voice of UNGC Soldiers** (combat/idle dialogue)

**Ashley Nyquist - Voice of Dr. Jean Eyes Burn, Tram Announcer**

**Drew Nyquist/BinkusTheTrinkus - Project Lead, Texture Artist, Audio Mixer; Voice of Scientists, Save Guards, UNGC Soldiers (story lines), Sugar Man, Nilan Johnson, HEV-4 Memorial Suit**