Listen up, near-forgotten supporting character fans: Half-Life: Opposing Force’s Adrian Shepherd is back! Just, y’know, unofficially. I suspect it’s the only way we’ll ever see anything else of the Gearbox-developed add-on’s soldiery hero-mute – and it’s also a snazzy way to see real life human beans interacting with Striders, Combine police et al. Beyond Black Mesa is set during the Combine occupation of Earth, and was made by a bunch of HL2-lovin’ film-makers with $1,200 made from their day jobs. Shoestring, then, but going on the trailer they’ve not done badly considering… Strider!





Here’s some blurb about the film, too.

Not totally sure G-Man’s hissing “wake up and smell the ashes” mind-games was ripe to be made into an action hero catch-phrase, mind.

Inspired by the Half-Life Video Game series, Beyond Black Mesa is an action-packed short film centered around Adrian Shephard and of a band of resistance fighters who are struggling to survive in the post-apocalyptic world. When an army of Combine soldiers implement an elaborate plan of attack to rid the rest of those who remain, the resistance must warn the other survivers of the mass invasion, or face the reality of the extinction of the human race.

Beyond Black Mesa appears to be complete, given it’s showing at the Action On Film festival in Pasadena in a couple of weeks.