Mechagodzilla
Tank
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Logic said:
Not totally different, really. many of Xen's creatures and technologies do have biomechanical aspects. However, they are not really biomechanical to the point of looking giger-ey, and Xen itself is entirely natural.
That's the stuff I call the spongegrass, since it looks like a closeup of a loofah and covers the ground like grass. I dunno about it being veiney and pumping blood and stuff. It's very solid and can stand up to a grenade. I'd think it's more boney than anything.
I actually think the spongegrass may be one of the most important creatures in Half-Life though, and it's extremely important for anyone remaking Xen to understand it first.
Anyone who's played Starcraft for a while knows about the 'creep' that the Xerg create. It's a thick purple mat of biological material that slowly spreads out from a single point until it coats all the nearby terrain. It is then used as an a base and a source of fuel for the organic Xerg structures.
The spongegrass appear to be very much the same thing, really. You've probably already seen it's basic form but just haven't noticed it. In the later levels of Black Mesa, small flesh-coloured patches start growing on the asphault. I'm totally certain that those are the beginnings of a spongegrass field.
Once the spongegrass has spread out more, it also produces structures. Unlike the xerg though, they are pretty rudimentary. The stabbing tentacle arms, the "launch pads" and the holes in the ground that suddenly toss you hundreds of feet in the air. they're all part of the spongegrass.
The only explanation I've got is that the spongegrass that coats nearly every surface on Xen is actually a huge, mindless and invincible predator. It grows quickly, develops "limbs" and then stabs its prey to death, or tosses it into the air in an effort to break it's legs. Then, it waits for the corpse to decompose and absorbs it as fertiliser.
Since the entire Xen biospere is based on it, it must be the most important enemy in the game. It is Xen. :O
That's really true. If the light-bulb worms were made brighter, and if the purple laser-firing crystals were given more polys, and all sorts of minor changes, Xen would be vastly improved.
The number-one thing though, is the spongegrass. The way it grows, the biggest issue with making Xen work is to make it look like it is being coated in a thin blanket of boney veins. So, nearly the entire part of the geometry has to look like one single interconnected surface. Once that's done, everything else is a piece of cake.
Also, here's part 2 of Gonarch's Lair.
The only way to get this are to make any sense at all is to just generaly concede that the large rock floating in the center of the valley is giving off some sort of field that is repelling the other rocks and therefore holding the three spires aloft, and splitting up the ground beneath it. Spongegrass eventually filled in the smaller cracks, leaving a large pit and several smaller tunnels through the former fault lines.
This level should easily connect to Part 1, and maybe even having them partly visible from each-other would help give a greater sense of scale.
As the Xen levels progress, so does the suckiness of their designs. I didn't chnge much for "Xen" and the first part of Gonarch's Lair, because they are pretty solid designs. But after that, things start getting progressively worse until you reach the credits.
Part 2, one of the main things that needs fixing is the floating shard of rock. I'd bet that almost no-one reading this has ever noticed that rock. I didn't see it until the fifth time I played through the level. the main reason that no-one notices it is that the level itself is too clustered. The three pillars are pratically touching the rock, so it's not distinctive at all, and the level is so confined that the player's frame of vision never really gets up that high.
So, I moved the pillars further away from the rock, and straightened them slightly closer to parallel. Also, since they are the second most distinctive feature of the room, I made them more monolithic.
The third most important is the pit, and it's easy enough to repair. Just give it a good layer of spongegrass, and make the entire sections directly above and below each tunnel out of pure spongegrass. Make the rest stone, and you're set. Also, the pit could stand to be go slightly deeper before hitting space. The graphical crappiness of the underside of the island prevented you from being able to look up and see the island fall away as you fell, but with the graphics of today (or more specifically, of 2005-6 when this mod will be done) that effect would be very possible for every map.
Beside the largest pillar? Is that another ledge protected by invisible walls? 'Fraid so. Get rid of the barriers, I say.
And, since this section has the highest concentration of the spore pod thingys, I might as well say it here. They do have a slight animation where they pulsate a bit, but why not have them 'puff' when shot? That would be sweet.
I mean, the new barnacles looked SWEET in HL2, I want the same feeling from the bullsquids, and the gonarch, and the soldiers, etc...make this a GOOD update, not a quick one. 
