With all this hubbub on the impending release of the new SiN episode in Steam, I decided to play the original SiN to recall what the it was like. Through the course of playing it, I was surprised to find that there was a Dopefish reference in it. Considering that the game was released 6 or 7 years ago, I thought someone would have had to reported it by now (At least I don't see it on the main page. I searched the forum for "Sin" but only got results of the word "since".)
In the original SiN, there are actually two Dopefish variations which can be seen
here. Both of them are simply alternate skins for the fish animal you see swimming around. However, only one of the two would actually be considered "the" Dopefish. I'll point that out later.
The Dopefish appears in the Part 2 of the Underwater Passage mission (map uwpass2). For those who have not played the game, this map takes place while entirely submerged in an underwater area with several fish swimming around. One of the variations is a green-colored fish with white eyes and what appears to be a mouthful of teeth. This is the "Dopefish #2" skin. One can always be seen in the very first cavern area, but there are actually a couple of others in the map. Here's a picture of one:
http://www.nextdimension.org/other/sin1_dopefish01.jpg
However, in the same map, there also appears to be a secret area centering around Dopefish. I can't figure out how to reach it without cheats, and the game doesn't tally this as a secret area found, but this might be intented. Here's how to find it:
When you're following the yellow subs as part of the mission objective, you'll pass through a gate where you'll see three pipes marked "Magma" immediately upon the other side. Down the same wall as the pipes there will be a cave. Picture:
http://www.nextdimension.org/other/sin_dopesecret01.jpg
If you try and swim into the cave by normal means, you'll be knocked back by the water current. I couldn't find a way to get passed this, so I just enabled noclip and went in. Inside you'll see another Dopefish like the rest swimming around in the level. However, this one is different. This is the only fish using the "Dopefish #1" skin, which has the character's signature buckteeth visible on it. Picture:
http://www.nextdimension.org/other/sin_dopesecret02.jpg
If you disable noclip and swim around the area, a message will appear saying "You know the deal..." This could be a sly way of saying "THE DOPEFISH LIVES!" Picture:
http://www.nextdimension.org/other/sin_dopesecret03.jpg
That blue wall of water in the picture has nothing behind it, so I don't know what it's for. I've searched around the level to find perhaps the secret that's supposed to teleport the player to this area, but I've found none. This Dopefish area isn't even mentioned in any SiN walkthrough or FAQ I've found.
Anyway, on to SiN Episodes. If anyone has checked the gcf files from the pre-loaded game, there was a character model named "Dope_Fish" that appeared in it, although it was unviewable since the files were encrypted. Well, somewhat recently more files from the game were decrypted (Probably because of the imminent release), so I was able to extract the Dopefish files and take a picture of the model in the HL2 model viewer:
http://www.nextdimension.org/other/sinep_dopefish.jpg
It doesn't have any animations besides the idle swimming one pictured and another animation labled "burp" (It's just 1 frame, no idea what it could be used for), but I'm curious nonetheless to see how Ritual will implement it as a secret.
[ 05-06-2006, 09:57 PM: Message edited by: revenant100 ]