Someplace Else
| Minerva | |
|---|---|
Minerva: Metastasis
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| Developer(s) | Adam Foster |
| Engine | Source engine |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
| Release | Metastasis 1: Sept. 2, 2005 Metastasis 2: March 12, 2006 Metastasis 3 & 4: Oct. 1, 2007 |
| Genre(s) | First-person shooter, puzzle |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Minerva (stylized as MINERVA) is an episodic series of single-player modifications ("mods") for Valve Corporation's Half-Life 2. The mod was created by Adam Foster. Installments are released as each is finalized: the three releases for the Metastasis chapter have already been made, with the third installment released on October 1, 2007.
The plot and settings of Minerva are linked to Someplace Else, Foster's original map for Half-Life, and to Half-Life 2 itself.
The mod was released on Steam on April 30, 2013.
Minerva's plot is progressed through radio messages from the female character after whom the mod is named; the messages are relayed as text rather than spoken words. Minerva's communications are sarcastic and dismissive, and her demeanour brusque, treating the player as a data-gathering tool at her disposal. Information and storyline is revealed in short segments over the course of the chapters, often with no explanation; for example, in Metastasis she reveals that her (and therefore the player's) goal is to discover the Combine's purposes on and underneath the episode's island, but not why she considers this important or how the player became involved in the first place.
Minerva is not omniscient however; Metastasis also reveals her to be working within the limits of satellite imagery and terrestrial radio, and at several points admits to the player that she does not know what lies ahead, and is exploring with them.
Even when Minerva is aware of an upcoming threat, she is not always inclined to forewarn players of it. At times it appears that she enjoys the player overcoming difficult challenges, although not always revealing this in her messages - which are chiding and patronising. This contradictory stance extends as Minerva starts to compliment her "laboratory specimen", to the point of telling the player to "take care" ahead of one enemy encounter. She demonstrates further compassion when encountering a headcrab shell factory through the player, justifying her order to have it shut down on moral grounds. She does not approve of violence for its own sake, however; in both Minerva and Someplace Else, she loses her temper when the player seems "more interested in combat than your actual mission." She also makes a passing reference in Someplace Else to having "insatiable kleptomania."
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Wikipedia