Talk:Barney Calhoun

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Contents 1 How do you know? 2 Age in the original HL 3 Appearance in HL1 4 Images of Barney 5 Pre-Black Mesa image 6 Homage to Superman comic? 7 Barney models picture 8 Otis

[edit] How do you know?

How do you know which security guard is Barney in Half-Life? Does it ever say?

its a generic model but if you have played blue shift you would know witch one he is and were he goes. but to be simple he is the one knoking on the door at the beginging of the tram ride Chardrc 03:20, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

thanks dude

Which also means Gordon doesn't actually meet Barney at any time in the game. Plus, Calhoun should not have his vest and helmet during the tram ride.... -- Jordi·✆ 11:47, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

That does not mean Gordon's never talked or spoken to Barney before. JAF1970 18:30, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Is it really necessary to have TWO spoiler tags? The first one hasn't even an end notice.

[edit] Age in the original HL

Can someone please add the age Barney had at the time of the resonance cascade? It must be said in the beggining of the game, just like Gordon's and Shepherd's.

That's not available. The printed information in Blue Shift didn't disclose his age. ╫ ２５ ^{◀RingADing▶} 18:11, 26 April 2006 (UTC) ╫

If resonance cascade took around 10 years ago(as Marc Laidlaw states in "Raising the Bar"), then he should be around 30 years old, which is plausible. However, if the events of HL1 took place nearly two decades ago(that's what Valve web site says), then he is like 40... And he doesn't look 40 to me.

Alyx was an infant during the Black Mesa incident, right? So it can't be 10 years. - Sikon 04:36, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, then it doesn't make sense. :) There is no way Barney is 40.

Barney can certainly be 40: I know people of that age who are still very fit. If Barney in HL1 is 20 (possible: he is a low level security guard afterall), and HL2 takes place ~15 years after HL (allowing for Alyx to be a kid of 7,8 in HL but a young woman in HL2) Barney is in his mid- to late thirties in HL2. -- Jordi·✆ 12:08, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

It could be true, but 15~ doesn't seem like "almost two decades" as Valve web site says. And I have assumed that the word "infant" doesn't mean 7,8 years old kid, more like 3-5. I think it would be safer to say that event of HL1 took around 17-18 years ago. Alyx is ~22 now and Barney is ~38.

Remember that Eli Vance's picture of his family may have not be taken sometime before the Black Mesa incident. Alyx could be a older girl by that time.

The older version of the Blue Shift titles, as extracted from the DC leak, gives Barney's age as 32. -- Jordi·✆ 23:21, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I checked the Blue Shift titles.txt from the DC leak, but I don't see any mention of an age here, nor any occurance of the number 32. MarphyBlack 00:02, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Check the leftover beta files.

INTRO1

{

SUBJECT:

Barney Calhoun

Male, age 32

}

-- Jordi·✆ 03:55, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Um, pardon me for asking, but what leftover beta files? I went to the DC leak's main directory, checked the BARNEY folder, opened PAK0.PAK, extracted the titles.txt, and all I see is this:

INTRO1

{

SUBJECT:

B. Calhoun

}

And I know this is the right DC titles.txt file as references to the Dreamcast codes (Dreamcast Gives Firepower!) and others things are present here. MarphyBlack 04:22, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Appearance in HL1

In case anyone asks, yes, I did check carefully in the section about Barney in HL1, and I know what I'm talking about. I replayed the beginning several times (although not to test; I just like the beginning sequence) and in the course of doing so looked for barney's gibs or corpse but couldn't find them. I don't even think Barneys leave skull gibs. (in Blast Pit when the tentacles pwn the Barney there's no skull)

This is definitely not Barney because, for one thing, there is no security guard in the elevator. Only three scientists. But, logically speaking, Gordon is in an entirely different sector of Black Mesa, and the elevator he sees falling is after the resonance cascade. Much after since Gordon was unconscious for a while. Barney's elevator crashed moments into the disaster. MarphyBlack 20:13, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about that other guy, but I saw a security guard in that elevator too :/. Although I agree that it couldn't have been Barney, I wonder why he's only visible to certain people and why he didn't drop a pistol when killed. Probably it was just a scripted event and the sci's and barney were removed from the game and gibs tossed about to imply they died.

[edit] Images of Barney

I just replaced the old picture of all of Barney's incarnations in this article with a higher quality and (hopefully) better looking one. However, I'm mentioning this here because I decided not to include Barney's variation from Episode One. I left that one out because Barney looks essentially the same as he does in Half-Life 2 except he appears a little more beaten and battered than before. Basically, he looks dirtier and he has a cut on his forehead. I don't think it's necessary to illustrate this in a picture as a description of the differences (Which is already included) is more than enough for the reader. MarphyBlack 23:23, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I've noticed that Barney's face is very different in HL2: Episode One, as if they used a different actor to model the face (as every other model's face is the same as it was in Half-Life 2). Should be something to look into. --TonicBH 23:33, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

It's definitely the same guy (Scott Lynch, the COO of Valve); in Episode One they just edited his face texture to make him look dirtier. Comparison picture here: http://www.nextdimension.org/other/barneyface.jpg MarphyBlack 00:14, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Amazing how dirtying up a face can drastically change it. My mistake, then. --TonicBH 00:45, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pre-Black Mesa image

Is this image real or fake? Because you never see that in the game, and I had never seen it anywhere else.

It's from the Dreamcast version of Half-Life. It's a cut scene that shows both Gordon and Barney going to work. MarphyBlack 21:26, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

its been a while since ive played blue shift but i think that is at the very begging of it when you are in the train already.Chardrc

[edit] Homage to Superman comic?

In Superman volume 4 there's a throwaway villain named Barney Calhoun. He attempts to kill Superman by poisoning him, but when it doesn't work confesses that he was hired by J.F. Curtis. Superman takes him to Curtis; Curtis kills Barney as a threat to Superman. It's probably a coincidence that they have the same name, though.. --Fry-kun 08:32, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Barney models picture

Have you thought that those characters from the original HL are not Barney Calhoun? You see him only once in the game, knocking on a door. I'm gonna change the text to only say "Barney".

[edit] Otis

I didn't know where else to ask this, so I'll ask it here: Does anyone know who the voice actor for Otis is? I ask because I've been playing through Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines (great game, btw) and there's a fat, ineffectual security guard named Chunk who I swear to God sounds exactly like Otis. 72.49.117.53 22:36, 19 January 2007 (UTC)dethtoll

Although I don't have any official verification, I believe that the voice for Otis is in fact the same actor who plays Barney: Michael Shapiro. Aside from sounding quite similar (And it would make sense for them to be both voiced by the same guy since Otis is a bit of a parody of Barney), Otis uses the same pain and death sounds as Barney. If the developers had gotten a new voice actor to play Otis, I would imagine they would have taken the time to record a few new unique pain and death sounds considering the great number of other lines that were needed. However, since they didn't, I believe that this means that both were voiced by Michael Shapiro since there was no need to record new pain and death sounds for Otis. MarphyBlack 07:52, 20 January 2007 (UTC)