pre 9/11 america might as well have been another dimension. conspiracy thrillers were huge nobody really gave a frick about one game where you kill some feds in self defense
You just made me realize if Half Life were delayed by a few years, it would never have existed at all. No way this shit would have been allowed to release post-9/11.
moronS
9/11 is when it became official that the Joo had won and was directly controlling the US and it's sister powers. 9/11 was their show of force and their victory dance, makes me sick.
If you're against the zionistic homosexualry that plagues our world, you should despise what they did to New York that day
>pre 9/11 america might as well have been another dimension
Yeah you used to be able to be a conspiracy theorist until 9/11 happened. All conspiracies theories about 9/11 were literally silenced by the government with violence and it's only now that the 9/11 truth is actually bubbling up to the surface.
To add to your point, I first played it post-9/11 and I grew up in that era. I loved it but I was initially confused by the marine enemies and found it surprising. My young brain couldn't figure out why they were bad guys or if it was a misunderstanding or something. I'm sure it meant very little to someone in the 90s.
> walking to an airport terminal for funzies and to see your loved ones off > no one searched your butthole on the way
Frick zoomers don't know the freedom they lost
It's kind of weird how the military cover up is never mentioned in 2. Obviously the aliens won out, but the scientists and Barney would have still been a little traumatized by government interference.
>6 years between HL1s cascade resonance and the 7th hour war
Sauce? I'm pretty sure it was never outright said how long between the two events occured.
It's actually 20 years, terrifying
https://web.archive.org/web/20080725080723/http://ep1.half-life2.com/story.php >Gordon emerges from the darkness, nearly two decades removed from his last conscious thought.
I know that but I'm reffering the time between the Resonince Cascade and the 7 Hour War.
Like after the events of Black Mesa when did the Combine show up. A couple days? Couple weeks? Years? That anon said it happened 6 years after but I don't recall anything in the games that corroborate that.
7 months ago
Anonymous
at most, 28 days later (heh)
Laidlaw states it was "days" after, so it couldn't've been outside of the same month or week.
https://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/References:Marc_Laidlaw_emails#On_the_time_between_the_Black_Mesa_Incident_and_the_Seven_Hour_War:~:text=References%3AMarc%20Laidlaw,January%2029%2C%202020)
I think its implied that they were there under Dr Breen's orders, so maybe they're just viewed as the first of the Combine Collaborators. Which was a major faction in HL2.
Dr Breen was the administrator of the Black Mesa facility, so he would have been the one to order the Cleaners to go in. Then once it became clear that he couldn't contain the situation he surrendered to the Combine, which the Combine treated as the surrender of Earth as a whole, and the forces under his authority became part of them. Basically HL1 Cleaners are the same as the white-suited Combine elite.
Of course this is all retcons from HL2 newspaper clippings, stuff people tell you in that game, and Breen slug stuff that I'm half remembering. Maybe they've changed it again with Alyx.
>Dr Breen was the administrator of the Black Mesa facility, so he would have been the one to order the Cleaners to go in.
moronic theory. He might have been the pentagon's contact at black mesa that warned of an outbreak and would be spared during the cleanup but he wasn't going to be in a position of being a civilian able to issue orders to marines and black ops.
The Cleaners aren't regular military, Black Mesa isn't a normal military base, and Dr Breen isn't just some civilian scientist. Black Mesa is based on a lot of conspiracy theory stuff that was going around in the 90s about secret underground facilities at Groom Lake, and other similar sites.
Where Groom Lake actually was a facility under the control of the CIA with military security under their control. Just no aliens. It was that way because it was where the spy planes operated out of, and where they'd take any captured Russian military aircraft to evaluate them.
If you watched Oppenheimer, the Manhattan project had a similar setup where a civilian scientist was in charge of a secret facility, and with control over military units.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>The Cleaners aren't regular military
The marines basically are, although it's a distinct unit. They're not glowies, those appear later. >Black Mesa isn't a normal military base
It's not a military base at all. >Dr Breen isn't just some civilian scientist
He is with regard to his relationship with the MIC.
Like another anon said, I think you've been reading fanfiction and applying it inappropriately.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Black mesa is shown to house some military equipment very often, as early as the tram intro when there is a military helicopter landed at black mesa, which partially explains the rather quick deployment of military personnel into the facility because theyre present from the very beginning. This is furthered evidenced by the ammunition stockpiles which frequently contain grenades and mp5 munitions all over the facility locked behind security outposts
Black Mesa directly collaborated with the military to outfit soldiers with stripped down hev suits in the form of ballistic armor (the very same one used by sheperd) which explains why the hev suit is able to repel small arms
7 months ago
Anonymous
Black Mesa is a military contractor, anon. That doesn't make it a military base.
7 months ago
Anonymous
I didnt say it was dipshit
I said it houses military equipment meaning they play host to the military while maintaining the facility as research and development
Read homie, read
7 months ago
Anonymous
>I didnt say it was dipshit
Then why did you respond with an irrelevant diatribe to my post about it not being a military base, you fricking moron? No-one is disputing the fact that BM is part of the MIC.
7 months ago
Anonymous
7 months ago
Anonymous
>BM is not a contractor, you can see the Great Seal all over the place.
That means absolutely nothing. See picrel. BM is mentioned as a private contractor in valve games, they have obvious private security, and minimal military presence. You're trying to pass off your bad fanfic (which seems ignorant of how MIC relationships work) as fact with zero evidence.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>implying lockheed is not controlled by the government
lel
7 months ago
Anonymous
I'm implying the exact opposite, you brainlet. Holy shit.
7 months ago
Anonymous
I refuse to believe you're not a zoomzoom. No way an adult knows so little about the world.
7 months ago
Anonymous
What is you think I don't know exactly? I suspect it's inaccurate since you were just trying to imply I thought Lockheed wasn't controlled by the US government, when in fact I was saying the opposite. I think the zoomer accusation is projection here since you seem completely naive as to how the MIC/contractors work.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Yes and Lockheed is a government contractor under their control.
Just like Black Mesa.
What the frick is your point?
7 months ago
Anonymous
That literally is my point, you homosexual. It's what I've been saying throughout the thread. BM is a government contractor and embedded in the MIC (like Lockheed). That does not make BM a military installation or Breen in control of military units.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Not officially, but you know how the world works.
Implying Breen had no sway over the military force is stupid to even imply.
After all, he did get away with his life instead of being kos.
7 months ago
Anonymous
There would be a list of high value individuals at BM that the glowies wings want to keep. Breen would obviously be on that list. Everyone else would be part of the clean up operation. Bree isn't giving out orders to marines, that's incredibly dumb.
7 months ago
Anonymous
He wouldn't be giving out each individual order, but look at how the command structure of the Manhattan Project worked. Technically Robert Oppenheimer was the one with the final say on everything within his little fiefdom. Half Life imagined Black Mesa much the same way.
To add to your point, I first played it post-9/11 and I grew up in that era. I loved it but I was initially confused by the marine enemies and found it surprising. My young brain couldn't figure out why they were bad guys or if it was a misunderstanding or something. I'm sure it meant very little to someone in the 90s.
Consider for a moment the Michael Bay masterpiece "The Rock", where Scientist Nick Cage and a totally not-James Bond former British secret agent Sean Connery, take down a group of rogue Marines at Alcatraz which is a rusting and partly falling apart Military installation.
That movie came out two years before Half-Life.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Dude, the fact your entire argument hinges on the fact you saw Oppenheimer recently isn't very convincing.
7 months ago
Anonymous
I knew the history of the Manhattan Project, JPL, the Skunkworks, etc long before I saw the movie. I'm just hoping that is recent a cultural touchstone for people not old enough to remember the 90s.
I don't remember the idea of "Black Mesa" being a company really coming in under Portal 2.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>I don't remember the idea of "Black Mesa" being a company really coming in under Portal 2.
I don't know what to tell you. It's obvious from the introductory tram ride. I think you just got the idea it was a military installation into your head early on and now can't let go of the idea, even in the face of overwhelming evidence including valve literally referring to it as a private contractor in related works.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>I think you just got the idea it was a military installation into your head early on
Yeah, because there is nothing about it being a private company, and we see a military presence there at the start of the game before the resonance cascade and I remember what was going on culturally in the 90s and I'm familiar with the real-world history of similar research facilities.
There are a lot of things the Government operates as technically separate 'corporations'. Seriously read up on the history of the JPL if you haven't. Its crazy.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>Yeah, because there is nothing about it being a private company.
Private security guards, corporate sounding tannoy announcements, complete lack of the type of security protocols you'd expect in an actual military facility. You're coping hard at this point, dude.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>Private security guards
MPs or a base security force.
There are even military posters as part of the rotating display.
>corporate sounding
"The Black Mesa Research Facility is an Equal Opportunity Employer"
Exact same stuff you'd get in Government facilities.
>complete lack of the type of security protocols you'd expect in an actual military facility
All the security checkpoints? Including the military ones on the surface that are clearly pre-dating the incident?
Black Mesa and Half-Life are clearly influenced by conspiracy theories about Area 51. Specifically Bob Lazar's S-4 stuff.
It is clear you don't remember the 90s, and have no experience with the paranoia and conspiracy theories that were going around at that time.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>These guys in blue civilian security guard uniforms are ackshulky MPs >These corporate announcements are actually military ones >The game is inspired by conspiracy theories so it has to mimick them in every way even though the actual developers have contradicted my theory
Stop coping this hard, you freak.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>These corporate announcements are actually military ones
No, the same kind of boring announcements you get at Government research facilities.
Remember in HL1 "Black Mesa" is a Research Facility and not cited as an independent contractor.
The game is pretty clear when the announcement system switches over to Military control, but even before that there is clearly a Military and Government presence. Black Mesa is supposed to be like the fictional version of Area 51 from the 90s.
7 months ago
Anonymous
It's also influenced cod (shepard + that gulag scene where the seals get btfo).
Btw in mw2 you get to kill us military in the last chapters as well.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>Btw in mw2 you get to kill us military in the last chapters as well.
old MW2 or new MW2?
Because I don't remember iot being possible in the OG MW2. They globohomosexual propaganda back in '09 was real.
7 months ago
Anonymous
The last 2 or 3 chapters in the original MW2 are you fighting a US army general and his private US troops (though I will admit that technically I think his men were contractors and not actual army, but imo it's a pretty academic distinction)
7 months ago
Anonymous
How the frick do you not remember the main plot of the game?
7 months ago
Anonymous
my man the game is almost 15 years old by now. forgive me for not remembering intricate plot details
7 months ago
Anonymous
>intricate plot details
Literally the most dramatic point in the game. Anyway, I don't care if you don't remember, it's more the claiming you don't remember to imply it didn't happen because it fits your weird narrative.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>it's more the claiming you don't remember to imply it didn't happen
I never implied it didn't happen. Just that it seems like an unreasonable claim since the game was full of propaganda.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>Bree
Love it.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>BM is mentioned as a private contractor in valve games
Later games. If you're going to question HL2 newspaper clippings then nothing outside of HL1 itself should be considered.
>Blue Shift
Was never Valve cannon.
>If you actually looked into groom lake (an actual military installation) you'd realise it doesn't resemble BM at all.
As I've said the reality of Groom Lake wasn't as well known then in the late 90s as it is today.
Although reducing it to a mere "military installation" is warping the truth as well. It was/is an installation within a Military reserve, operated by the CIA, and where top-secret projects developed by private contractors got tested.
That exact kind of close ties between ostensibly private companies like Lockheed Martin, and specifically the SkunkWorks is exactly the kind of confusion of Military, Intelligence, Science, and Corporation that Black Mesa is meant to embody.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>nothing outside of HL1 itself should be considered.
If that's the case then Black Mesa is 100% not a military installation. There's nothing to suggest it's anything more than a contractor. There's no military personnel on duty and an obviously civilian security force. The rest of your post re-enforces my argument.
7 months ago
Anonymous
They deal with the government, they literally have a weapons R&D. The Gluon gun? The Tau cannon? Of course they have munitions around, they train HEV users with live ammunition. They need that shit in Xen. >Black Mesa directly collaborated with the military to outfit soldiers with stripped down hev suits
That's straight up false, the PCV is a similar technology that's made by a different contractor. Their vests can charge from anything, HEV needed Kleiner to tune it up to accept Combine charger energy for 2.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>the PCV is a similar technology that's made by a different contractor
source? >vests can charge from anything
citation needed
7 months ago
Anonymous
You can see that in the OP4 training mission. The PCV portable chargers have their own, different logo on them. There's also some other civvie charger there to convey that "any energy source" point.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>straight up false > This suggests that the PCV is simply a military adaptation of HEV technology, combining the level of protection of an HEV Suit (which exceeds that of equivalent ballistic vest technology)
Dumb ass homosexual, go play in traffic instead of playing video games
7 months ago
Anonymous
Where are you getting that from?
It is a different contractor. It's not just a stripped down HEV, it would have included the life support systems if it was. The adrenaline administering thing too, which PCV canonically does not have.
7 months ago
Anonymous
From the wiki you brainless mutant
Holy shit >its from a different contractor >he says with no proof
7 months ago
Anonymous
Figured you're a moron, so I checked the wiki and there was nothing on that. But then I figured your stupid ass would not only quote a fricking wiki, you would quote the fricking *fandom wiki* on top of that.
Do everyone a favor and jump in front of a moving train, Anon.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Dude BM was deep in with the government. The HEV suit was created with combat in mind.
They have their own special unit of soldiers stationed nearby that doesn't have to answer to anyone but the BM administration and the guys at pentagon, and glowies on top of that.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>Dude BM was deep in with the government. The HEV suit was created with combat in mind.
Yeah, I already said they're a government contractor. What's your point? >They have their own special unit of soldiers stationed nearby that doesn't have to answer to anyone but the BM administration and the guys at pentagon, and glowies on top of that.
Just rubbish. The HECU are situated nearby for situations like the resonance cascade but they don't belong to or take orders from BM.
>It's not a military base at all.
Debateable, was Groom Lake a military base, was it a CIA facility, or was it a scientific research center?
That was real-world inspiration for Black Mesa. It is certainly set in a similar sort of area.
>The marines basically are, although it's a distinct unit.
Just like detachments at Los Alamos were ultimately under the control of Oppenheimer, Breen would have been the one in complete control of Black Mesa, including all of the military units that would have been operating there.
>I think you've been reading fanfiction and applying it inappropriately.
Maybe, but I suppose anything not said specifically in HL1 could be considered 'fanfiction'.
However HL1 does heavily imply that Black Mesa is a military/intelligence/science black site along the lines of Groom lake, or Los Alamos when it was "Project Y".
>Debateable, was Groom Lake a military base, was it a CIA facility, or was it a scientific research center?
Do you ever look into the stuff you're using as your comparison? Groom lake is a military installation with limited civilian contract access. BM is clearly a civilian installation with (limited) military access due to MIC connections. You think groom lake has private sector security guards (barneys)?
7 months ago
Anonymous
BM is not a contractor, you can see the Great Seal all over the place.
Black Mesa is a researcher facility with several black projects with Breen acting as administrator and the federal government giving out orders.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>Do you ever look into the stuff you're using as your comparison?
Do you?
Black Mesa is pretty clearly inspired by 90s UFO lore about "Area 51" aka Groom Lake. A lot more is known about it today than was back then, and people back then filled in the blanks with stuff they knew for certain about the history of places like Los Alamos, and JPL.
Gordon calling Coast to Coast worked so well because it was so similar to stuff they were talking about in those circles.
>You think groom lake has private sector security guards (barneys)?
Who ever said they were private sector security? They are just separate from the Cleaners. The original Barney model was clearly an MP.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>Black Mesa is pretty clearly inspired by 90s UFO lore about "Area 51" aka Groom Lake.
No shit. "Inspired by" doesn't mean they mimicked every aspect of it. If you actually looked into groom lake (an actual military installation) you'd realise it doesn't resemble BM at all. >Who ever said they were private sector security?
Blue Shift >They are just separate from the Cleaners. The original Barney model was clearly an MP.
Yeah and they changed it clearly because they went in the direction of BM not being a military installation. Actual military installations have uniformed military personal onsite, not guys in blue shirts with glocks.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>It's not a military base at all.
Debateable, was Groom Lake a military base, was it a CIA facility, or was it a scientific research center?
That was real-world inspiration for Black Mesa. It is certainly set in a similar sort of area.
>The marines basically are, although it's a distinct unit.
Just like detachments at Los Alamos were ultimately under the control of Oppenheimer, Breen would have been the one in complete control of Black Mesa, including all of the military units that would have been operating there.
>I think you've been reading fanfiction and applying it inappropriately.
Maybe, but I suppose anything not said specifically in HL1 could be considered 'fanfiction'.
However HL1 does heavily imply that Black Mesa is a military/intelligence/science black site along the lines of Groom lake, or Los Alamos when it was "Project Y".
>I think its implied that they were there under Dr Breen's orders
I have never heard this theory before.
Nah, they were conspiring with the government UNTIL the aliens really started showing up. Both the scientists and the marines weren't expecting the full on xen invasion. Remember the aliens were mostly underground and the marines were on the surface and top layers until the xen ships started showing up.
Marines are Marines, they aren't told shit other than "go here, shoot this". Obviously the government funding Black Mesa (the US) knew enough about what was going on that they had to send a cleanup crew. Even if "the government" basically boiled down to one small department of 5 spooks somewhere in Washington.
I think that was all Gman's doing.
Yeah, OP4 training mission and the diary or whatever that came with it states that HECU was preparing for a specific mission, but I don't think their commanders even knew what was about to go down, they just got orders from the "government" and started training people for hazardous environments. And as for the scientists, only Breen knew something big was about to happen because he approved the changed test sample. Everyone else, including your hl2 scientist pals like Magnusson or that cripple from decay had no clue.
Dr Breen was the administrator of the Black Mesa facility, so he would have been the one to order the Cleaners to go in. Then once it became clear that he couldn't contain the situation he surrendered to the Combine, which the Combine treated as the surrender of Earth as a whole, and the forces under his authority became part of them. Basically HL1 Cleaners are the same as the white-suited Combine elite.
Of course this is all retcons from HL2 newspaper clippings, stuff people tell you in that game, and Breen slug stuff that I'm half remembering. Maybe they've changed it again with Alyx.
I think this is some fanfiction you mistook for canon. Breen was given the authority to surrender on behalf of all Earth governments, this is only in hl2. He didn't actually exist as "Breen" before that, he was just an administrator that pushed for a test, today, on that sample. Which was also implied to just be Gman's work. The administrator is never mentioned again after that "highly trained professional" conversation.
And every scientist in the facility likely called the white house or US military, since they had that contract that Cave died mad about. The president likely just shat his pants over the public learning about aliens and called for a complete eradication of every witness, just like that one guy in office complex says. "I'm not sure I want anyone rescuing us. What if the world learns about what we do down here?"
I played Half life 2 and didn't know about shit about Half life 1. I loved Half life 2 but I could see it flaws (weak gunplay, tedious sections like the one with the car and the last chapters suck).
First time I'm playing Half life 1. I'm having a blast but I'm a bit disappointed by the movements that are too fast.
What's striking me is that everything is the same as half life 2 just more focused (of course the levels are less open) and with a better gunplay.
Like HL2 didn't improve on anything save for the graphics and physics + the gravity gun.
Oh and it's tedious to switch between weapons.
But I can't blame them: Graphics and physics in 2004 were already waaay harder than in 1998.
Yes, this is fair. The setpieces are less tight, the plot is less coherent, there's some gay attempt to project personality on Gordon through Alyx, Barney, et al (defeats the purpose of a silent protagonist). The only things that improved were the graphics and physics.
I understand more now the ranting about HL2 (which of course surprised me since I had a blast playing HL2).
HL2 can be as good as HL1 but that's it: Train section shits on car section, AI in HL1 is better (of course the lvl are smaller so it's easier to have a better AI).
When you look at it, there's no good solo fps that has managed to deal with these open areas.
That's why the 90's shooters were so good.
It's the same for the soul serie: Elden Ring open world sucks. The best part are its dungeons.
Yeah, I was really pissed off and ranted on forums about HL2 at the time, but I was a 20 year old edgelord. I'd probably enjoy it now if I cba replaying it.
The number of people that survived Black Mesa can be counted with your fingers. Kleiner, Vance, and Barney know the truth about Black Mesa but none of it mattered when it all got nuked and the Seven Hour War happened shortly after.
I don't know. I expect sequels to build and improve upon the previous game(s), not an entirely new game with a 2 slapped on the end of the title.
In Raising the Bar, several devs said they specifically didn't want to do a retread of Black Mesa, including Marc Laidlaw, who said that he was the one who told Gearbox to nuke it in Opposing Force.
You can disagree with the decision, but it was a pretty conscious decision.
That is one of the things I like about HL2 and the series in general although I'm tired of HL2 storyline, wish they would wrap it all up in the next game and move onto something different again.
Eh. I highly doubt Ep3 will ever exist and I don't see how they can move to another setting unless they do a huge timeskip where the combine was defeated. I'm talking at last 200 years into the future at minimum.
Laidlaw releasing Epistle 3 was basically him giving up on Valve ever finishing Ep3 and finishing the story he was working on. I highly doubt we'll ever see a finished version of what Ep3 was being conceptualized as back in 2008.
I wonder how EP3 would've been recieved had it used that version of the story. Thought it was pretty good but I can see some people not liking it.
7 months ago
Anonymous
I think it was an appropriate ending, but definitely a downer.
It would have wrapped up the storyline of HL1 and HL2 so that the next Half-Life game would have been an even larger departure. Further taking Gordon (or Alyx) from the events of Black Mesa.
7 months ago
Anonymous
I don't think anyone other than Laidlaw should've continued writing the games. The people from Alyx can't even reach his soles.
7 months ago
Anonymous
I remember imagining what the Dyson Sphere scene would've looked like. I can imagine being absolutely blown away by it. That quiet realisation that everything you've worked for was for nothing. A mild incovenience to your enemy at best. I can see people seething that we didn't get a happy ending where you defeat G-Man and frick Alyx though. That timeline would've been interesting. Unless we get a proper HL3 I'm considering Epistle 3 the ending for the series.
The thing about EP3 is that hey had plenty of solid ideas for it but all been abandoned in the end in favor of chasing VR meme for over a decade only for Zuck to literally steal all talented devs and spotlight and prematurely kill VR industry,
It had been like 20 years at that point and the world was basically a post apocalyptic hellscape that had been controlled by the combine for all that time so nobody really gave a shit or probably even knew other than the few who survived Black Mesa
>government realized they've fricked up and sent death squads to exterminate every possible witness >government realized even the death squads cant handle the situation and sent in a glowBlack person death squads to exterminate everyone, even the previous death squad, and nuke the place
this is how you know this game wouldn't be released these days
Its a little bit too realistic how tht Govt would behave.
Also gives you an idea of what the dev team were like / thinking to have a plot where the military shows up to kill a bunch of civilians, then some glowies show up to kill the military.
OP force being cannon would have led to some far more interesting stuff in HL2, but the games are just gameplay and tech demos, the story is literally there just to tie it up, which I'm not complaining about.
>Opposing Force ends >Shephard in stasis until the Gman needs him >Freeman no longer controlled by Gman >Freeman keeps meddling >Shephard released from stasis and into the boots of a Combine super duper elite to intercept Freeman
>Shephard released from stasis and into the boots of a Combine super duper elite to intercept Freeman
That's moronic. Gman has no need to hunt or kill Freeman.
My ebin headcannon is that when Gordon goes to fight g-man, the chapter title "Opposing Force" comes up, you see Gman adjust his tie and leave as a portal opens and a VTOL containing Shephard arrives for your boss fight
That's a cool idea, too bad you're a total coward who was afraid people would call you cringe and so decided to put a ironic "Basedjak" joke as a "H-haha I'm not being serious you guys!"
>waco >ruby ridge >cultural fallout of Vietnam, hippie movements, religious separatist movements still lingering >us openly involved in very questionable campaigns in south america like contra and grenada >cold war ending left people feeling like all external enemies were gone >conspiracy media such as the x-files
9/11 massively changed the climate of america
>also murders countless slaves >genocides a whole species (killing its last member) >murders a mother and her babies (gonarch queen) >murders more mothers and babies
(and lion queens) >anally rapes animals and uses them as weapons
How did he get away with it?
Remember how one of the concepts of a potential enemy was a tenticle monster that just rapes Gordon?
I want to see the alt. universe where that ended up going through.
It gets cut either because (1) it sounds good on paper and turns out to not be so great in practice, or (2) it turns out to take too long to implement properly so they cut it in order to redirect time and resources to finishing other stuff that they decide will have more impact.
>How did he get away with it?
he didn't, at least not yet. Alien slaves in HL2 have canon lines in which they mention how they haven't forgotten what Gordon done, but can close their eyes on it for the time being
you have to remember the vortigaunts have this fricked up hivemind, gordon is both their savior and ultimate terror, if it wasn't military soldiers or scientists fighting the aliens, it was this homieh with a crowbar beating you to death
This shit always irked me, there's no way all of them can know Gordon killed Nihilanth, he literally disappeared after he did the deed. Who the frick told them what happened?
Oh, and in HL2 the vorts imply that they can see things happening through time with their vortal magic. Chances are they were perfectly aware you were gonna kill Nihilanth from the moment the resonance cascade happened and you were teleported in the middle of a vort group.
NTA, but I dunno about that deity thing.
He sure is important, but I always felt that it was an attempt at hm, lightly cracking the 4th wall. You know, the "far distant eyes look through yours" stuff. To me, they are pretty much obsessed with him because the player is the driving force of the world around them. If you don't move on, nobody else moves on. Even though that "Free man" stuff boils down to just combat, because you cannot even kill friendly NPCs or walk away from the objective to do whatever...
And all their interactions always had a hint of threat to them, at least that's what I've felt. They don't shy away from being condescending to you.
This shit always irked me, there's no way all of them can know Gordon killed Nihilanth, he literally disappeared after he did the deed. Who the frick told them what happened?
Hive mind, they saw him enter the chamber, and chances are they can see stuff happening without actually being present. Of course they would be watching when Nihilanth gets a visitor that he telepathically talks to the entire time.
>To me, they are pretty much obsessed with him because the player is the driving force of the world around them. If you don't move on, nobody else moves on. Even though that "Free man" stuff boils down to just combat, because you cannot even kill friendly NPCs or walk away from the objective to do whatever...
the final half life plot redpill is that the story is a meta-commentary on player choice in video games, and the g-man is the literal personification of the game developer providing you the 'illusion of free choice' despite having carefully laid out the exact path forward for you to take. you literally start and end hl1 in a tram car, ie, 'on a rail', and are given a choice at the end that really isn't a choice at all.
>How did he get away with it?
he didn't, at least not yet. Alien slaves in HL2 have canon lines in which they mention how they haven't forgotten what Gordon done, but can close their eyes on it for the time being
These fricking homosexuals always try and fire hitscan lightning at you the very frametic a pixel of your boot appears in their field of vision. Frick 'em all.
Let me clarify.
Germany censored HL1 because of their laws. The soldiers were turned into robots because apparently cannot depict violence against police or military.
Germany is well beyond a cuck-state so it's more of a pitiable action to sell their game to the people there. VALVe games have some funny censorship for German copies like TF2's party gibs
>mysterious esoteric alien race
Only because they were flanderized by Half-Life 2 though. In Half-Life 1 they are much more interesting but you wouldnt know that, you've never played it.
>turns a mysterious esoteric alien race into fricking jar jar binks
how did they got away with this again? what reddit writer is responsible for it?
That one Vort had a screw loose, none of the other ones act that way.
If you weren't moronic you would've noticed that every vortigaunt in HL Shartlyx acts borderline human, with overobudance of onions pixar-like gesticulation, almost like an ADHD zoomer. Their motion being too rapid in contrast to previous games, in which their motions were portrayed as fluid, almost clumsy at times. Whoever was in charge of vortigaunts in HL Alyx obviously didn't know what they were, or how to portray them right. Too bad! Should've gone making skins in CS:GO. >casually climbs a wall and runs away
they're simply better when characterized as allies, they were nothing more than cannon fodder in HL1, having an alien species allied with Gordon makes the universe a bit more interesting, expands the lore of aliens to be more than just mindless enemies that charge at you with no thought
My interpretation is vortigaunts see time non-linearly so they probably know that he's basically a messianic figure that saves everyone and they're guiding him along his path.
i always thought that weird room you're teleported to where you're surrounded by vorts in hl1 isn't actually real. maybe that's where they took notice of him.
>it's implied that gordon has some sort of special bond with vortigaunts. i always wondered how.
They were enslaved by the Nihilanth, and you kill the Nihilanth
25 years later and I still hate the tentacles in Blast Pit. I know how you're supposed to get past them but it just feels so janky and every time I do it I feel like I'm going to get killed.
Same here. Everyone cites On A Rail or Interloper as their "that part", but whenever I get to Blast Pit, it makes me reconsider what I'm doing with my day.
"that part" is usually the moment when, from game start, you stop and ask yourself if you have played enough of the game for one day. Questionable Ethics for me because i feel it is a step up in difficulty right before the real test of Surface Tension.
You think you have it bad, that alien was just chilling in a cave somewhere and suddenly the Nihilanth teleports it into a random cement hole on an alien planet
The part immediately after that where you fall through the ceiling and its almost impossible to not take fall damage filters me. I always get through the tentacle section with barely any health and get softlocked unless I enable sv_cheats.
You mean the part where you're crawling in a pipe?
I know the section before that has a pool of toxic sludge with a med station and a suit charger, so you should have the health for that drop. And there are no enemies between the tentacle and the garg, so I don't know what you're struggling with. Are you like, swimming through the river of green shit or something?
Right after you get a revolver and before you jump onto a small pipe over that green hell you can spot a ladder with both stations at the bottom. If you saved after this point it might not be possible to go back there though. But like the other anon said, the table has 2 medkits on it, you should be able to survive that drop even on 1 hp.
>decide to check why The Specialists wouldn't work on Linux despite having a linux build for servers >It's interfacing the wrong binaries >install amxmod and have it interface with it's binaries >works
Neat.
Gordon is not a terrorist with some anti-American agenda. Gordon is just a scientist caught in between an alien invasion and the US army cleaning it up.
>How the frick was this game popular in the US???
Most of you newshitters wouldn't get it, but lots of vidya used to be centered around nerd's fantasies and interests, and that includes owning meathead morons such as jocks and dudebros, who were commonly militarygays irl.
>"Btw, I used to be a guy but then a woman came to the office and I was mad." - tran texture designer
I think that was highly unnecessary and unprofessional for this serious piece of documented history of Hlaf-Life and Valve. It's all about me, me, me with transvestites.
Can someone tdlr me on the lore of this game?
I didn't quite get the resonance thing.
I thought they test some shit on a new rock (where did they get it???) and it spawned portals in the whole site.
However I'm at a lvl (Questionable Ethics) where it seems that they were already doing some testing on Aliens.
So I don't get it: They already knew how to make portals and import aliens? Then why the test at the beginning of the game? And that means that freeman and his colleagues were all part of this (aka bad guys)??
it's been like a year or 2 so my memory isnt clear but i can try briefly explaining it >gordon works at science facility >no one really gives a frick about him >other scientists experiement with technology trying to create wormholes >resonance ensues >military tries to cover it up and gordon just tries to fix as much as possible before getting the frick out >aliens from xen are controlled by this giant baby frick that gordon later kills >gman recruits him or something because he sees his chad energy >he's now hailed by people as a legendary king because of his adventures
They already were experimenting with those crystals for teleportation and were only able to warp to Xen iirc
The sample you experiment on at the start of the game is purer than any other they've ever seen, I think in HL2 it's stated that it was provided by the Gman
Not sure if Gordon knew anything about the teleportation experiments beyond that, afaik the instrument in the initial experiment is supposed to be a spectrometer
Black Mesa already had teleportation working, but it was a black project(only select few knew). They knew about Xen and the aliens long before the resonance cascade happen and they were studying both.
The anomalous materials lab was doing tests on the energy crystals to understand what their purpose is and how the energy can be used but they did not know about the black projects in which the crystals were being used.
Gordon Freeman was handpicked to work at Black Mesa, if I remember correctly he was at the facility for less than a month before it all went to shit.
The resonance cascade happened because they pushed way too hard on a way too pure sample, the gman was the one that suggested to the administrator they run the experiment this way and was the one that gave them the sample.
The sample in question it was the purest they ever found and worked on.
No, he was handpicked because of a recommendation from Kleiner and because of his work on some quantum entanglement crap they made up which basically translates to "how to teleport things".
His work was only theoretical, of course.
Yeah, I just figured this would convey the meaning with less hassle. He's 100% responsible for this new sample, anyway, and that's what causes the whole shitshow.
I still don't understand how he just showed up with a sample and Breen was like "say less brah"
7 months ago
Anonymous
There honestly isn't enough information, I'd bet you the administrator got blackmailed or threatened, or was just greedy which is why the administrator was extremely anal about things not going wrong, because he obviously knew something was going to go wrong. >when the lads over in energy physics are literally destroying everything
7 months ago
Anonymous
He probably bribed him by showing him his future as the world's leader. You know, deal with the devil style. Or just got threatened like Eli was, or something like that.
He's aware of Gman, remember how he says that Freeman's contract was up for grabs when you're taken to his office? Of course they talked.
Black Mesa discovers teleports, baits gov'ment into a contract, Aperture science discovers portals and seethes about BM.
BM then figures out that you teleport by using a "border world", like a pathway between worlds. Sends people there and brings back aliens to study.
One day you were going to study another one of these super powerful crystals from Xen but Gman switches it out for another, this causes the resonance cascade, aliens teleport in, turns out this a counter-invasion by Nihilanth who wants to take over Earth. You send a satelite into orbit to help your pals close the portals but it fails, they then learn it's because of Nihilanth, then they send you to kill it.
Then that whole ordeal catches the attention of the Combine, which might have been Gman's plan all along.
>Gman switches it
More like talks the administrator into using his sample instead of the normal one. It's not like he went into storage and switched them when nobody was looking.
Yeah, I just figured this would convey the meaning with less hassle. He's 100% responsible for this new sample, anyway, and that's what causes the whole shitshow.
Not just use this sample that was purer than anything tested before but also increase their equipment's power above 100%. I remember before HL2 when people called G-man "The Administrator".
They've been experimenting with the portals and aliens for a while before the cascade. Ever wonder why your HEV suit has combat modules showing ammo counts, our why Gordon's training includes weapon use? It's because it was designed for exploring hostile alien environments, not for regular lab work.
I know military homies ain't the smartest of the bunch but I still think that's way too much. CIA Black folk I can see, but regular military guys just murdering american civilians en mass? no way.
Once you get to the satellite array rocket a couple of marines are lamenting that they didnt sign on to kill civilians
Theres also a set of marines that comment that the marines are out for revenge against freeman because he is literally the only one who fights back (which is only half true because the security team will fight back but are usually found hidden behind barricades or being killed by aliens)
I always assumed that by the third day of the incident as the marines begin to pull out most of them have unofficially decided to not kill any more scientists (if they ever did in the first place) to focus on the aliens. But because gordon has killed so many troops at that point they still try to kill him, personally.
GORDON WE'VE ELIMINATED THE ENTIRE UNITED STATES MILITARY! THAT DOES NOT INCLUDE THE GLOWBlack folk SUCH AS THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY AND LAW ENFORCEMENT
I would tell the creator that he isn't Kojima and to stop the forced need to replicate Phantom Pain.
Seriously, the entire mod is the guy screaming "MAN I SURE WISH I MADE PHANTOM PAIN"
I played HL2 when I was 14. I had nightmares because of the ravenholm demo. I wasn't expecting this since the game cover was just the face of a dude wearing glasses. The only hint was the rating.
If The Antlion worker could talk, this would be it's lines
"INVADERS" "Hope you like poison" '*baby voice* Aww look at the widdle grubbies You're gonna grow into a big and strong antlion oh yes you are oh yes you are" "PUNCH IT BOSS"
Invade Earth to get out of Xen, he didn't want to be stuck there. Likely wanted to hide from the Combine too. Maybe expected them to invade Xen eventually instead of Earth?
He escaped the combines when he fled to the border world.
He wanted to invade the Earth because the border world was ass.
Little did he know that the combines already knew of his locations and had plans to murk him.
Netflix would have turned Barney into a woman, make Gman black, make Cross and Green gay and made Adrian a neonazi. And Freeman would have been turned into a turbo simp.
Squids attacking headcrabs never gets old. I wish there were more maps where different enemies attack each other. Alien grunts and human grunts attacking each other was cool.
>25 is hag
anything above 16 is hag, also people take what randy says as canon because why not?
7 months ago
Anonymous
>has TWO PHDs at the age of 25
HOW.
7 months ago
Anonymous
suckin dick
7 months ago
Anonymous
shes definitely lesbian with colette though
7 months ago
Anonymous
Colette strikes me as exclusively Coffee sexual
7 months ago
Anonymous
Wasn't one of them married or did I dream that up?
7 months ago
Anonymous
I think at one point Gina was going to be Gordon's wife. Gabe had this whole idea that you could choose to play Gordon or Gina and the campaign whole unfold slightly differently depending on who you choose and the two would cross paths several times. Then the other devs told Gabe he was insane to suggest something that complicated so late in development
7 months ago
Anonymous
based gaberino always pushing the team to their limit
Haven't played Alyx so can't give it an honest ranking. Played a bit of it at my buddy's place and it was quite fun though. Pic related is my tierlist of each level.
Mind you, I haven't played episode 1 & 2 in years and only played some of the HL2 chapters this year so I might be misremembering certain things from each chapter.
The combine are an empire spanning across entire dimensions. Think of the multiverse like an endless hallway lined with doors. Each door has an entire dimension behind it that could look like anything. 99.999% of those doors are going to have nothing of value. Now consider the idea that our dimension getting invaded was like our dimension's door opening, and spilling out lights and sound. The Combine saw activity behind our door and decided to invade to take advantage of whatever was on the other side.
HL1 portals are created by Nihibaby, HL2 is just full on invasion by the combine.
The initial portals were from the resonance cascade, which should have been stopped by the rocket you launch. The Nilanth keeps the portals open from Xen until you kill him, which releases a shitload of presumably interdimensional energy that might have caused more portal storms.
The Combine piggybacked off the portal storms to invade a weakened Earth.
>The initial portals were from the resonance cascade,
BM crew knew how to travel to Xen even before that event. The unstable portals that spawns all the aliens after the cascade are because of the baby I presume.
>BM crew knew how to travel to Xen even before that event.
it's what the doctor tells you in lambda core, it's one of the explanations as to why you can find other teams that "disappeared" from venturing in the "world beyond" before gordon.
HL1 is peak 90's X-Files conspiracy schlock so the top secret government research facility having an entire wing dedicated to an even more top secret ultra black project is just par for the course.
7 months ago
Anonymous
I just started rewatching the X Files. 5th-8th Grade, sitting in the basement with the lights off watching Mulder and Scully fighting for THE TRUTH while I waited for mom to get home and make dinner. It was pretty comfy.
Any episode that had William B. Davis in the guest star billing was guaranteed kino
7 months ago
Anonymous
I also loved X-files but the show shat the bed after season 6. Mulder just leaving for a season or more was the final nail.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Yeah. At that point it was popular though and Fox wanted to milk it even after Gillian Andersen followed David Duchovny out the door. The show was pretty dependent on having both of them on board.
>in the end the safest company ended the world instead of the rival shitshow that proposed to the government shitton of ideas per week and recieved no founding.
if Gman had not given the sample to black mesa and glados didnt go on a nerve gas spree , im 100% sure the frickers at Aperture would have been the one to somehow create a resonance cascade by pure accident while testing a Machine that can Bake Chips using Interdimensional Heat Source
Black Mesa was just more level headed, while Aperture they were just shitposting their way into science.
Though, one day i would still like an explanation onto why the Combine simply investigated Aperture before?
Has Glados just killed everyone that tried?
>tfw gordon canonically hit the nihilanth in the brain with the crowbar
Even G-Man says that the Vortigaunts first experience of humanity were a crowbar to the face.
I think Glados managed to hide almost all information on Aperture from them, including the location of their headquarters. IIRC in the Portal ending you can see it's pretty much just a couple of office buildings and a parking lot above ground, 99% of the facility is underground, but that explosion could have turned some attention towards them. Not like a couple hundred turrets could have stopped the Combine.
Glados could just flood the place with neurotoxin and kill all the combine.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Combine have gas masks, Anon. I'm sure if they saw their dudes dying they would have issued oxygen tanks or just straight up sent some drones. Besides, they know Aperture was doing something related to teleportation, the would have sent an entire army to learn more about that. They do know about the Borealis, afterall.
Rosenberg is lowkey one of the most important characters in the HL universe. He was literally the one who created the whole teleportation technology.
[...]
Sure, but given how essential their tecnology is to the Combine, you'd imagine they would send everything they had to Aperture.
Idk if Neurotoxin would've stopped.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. The fact that they don't know where Aperture Science facility is. That's the best defense Glados has in the first place.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Stop mixing Portal with Half-Life you dumb Black folk >b-but the connection is real and actually in the games
Yeah and it's obviously a mistake considering what they did with Portal 2's setting and the complete ignorance of the Borealis in HL Alyx. The two IPs have vastly different tones and if you're one of those people thinking Gordon will interact with Chel someday you're literally no better than a Marvel soiboy.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Chel is 100s of years in the future, probably. So that's not happening either way.
And when Borealis is such a big deal in HL, you can't just elect to ignore a part of the story like that.
7 months ago
Anonymous
This. It worked with Portal, but the sequel killed it.
The combines would have found that hole in the ground and wrecked it.
7 months ago
Anonymous
for all we know the events of portal 1 happen during Gordon wrecking shit up in HL2 which would have the combine not giving a shit about an explosion in the middle of the us
7 months ago
Anonymous
That's moronic on multiple levels
Nah, Entropy Zero 2 is proof that you can mix HL and Portal and do something good with it.
HL universe can work with Portal 1, but not with 2.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Why can't it work, in your opinion?
7 months ago
Anonymous
How would Gordon fricking up a city somewhere in eastern europe affect in any significant way things happening in US?
How would a lab as big as Aperture Science, as seen in Portal 2, go undetected for so long? It would have huge heat signatures and any sonar-scan device would have detected there's some frickery there.
7 months ago
Anonymous
We don't know if the place where Aperture is located in isn't a wasteland with frequent portal storms. The Combine might just not have enough people to survey an entire planet, you realize that? The whole place is self-sufficient and underground. > heat signatures and any sonar-scan
Again, portal storms mess with that. Hell, antlions probably mess with that.
7 months ago
Anonymous
It's cannon that portal storms aren't really a thing during HL2, it happened a lot during the Black Mesa incident and the combine invasion but it died down in the following years.
Even if the whole place is self-sufficient it would still be detectable with a variety of technologies that we already have. You can't blame a hole several miles deep and nuclear reactors on antlions.
Also we know it's not in the middle of nowhere, there were offices and labs above ground. During the ending you see a guard's post.
What if they just followed her? Kleiner and co. seemed very surprised when they finally saw that transmission, so it must have been a fresh discovery.
The exact location of the Borealis is a new discovery, but not its existence or the existence of Aperture. They were known competitors of BM in the portal/teleportation industry so the combines must have been interested.
7 months ago
Anonymous
There's also another mod called Snowdrop Escape which does the same mix, but they go even further and add Aperture's "Multiverse Theory" into the mix.
Pretty gr8 mod.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Nah, Entropy Zero 2 is proof that you can mix HL and Portal and do something good with it.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Why can't it work, in your opinion?
tbf, entropy zero 2 mostly mixes it with portal 1 with some very minor elements from 2, like wilson having a conciousness and cave johnson existing at all, which are mostly inconsequential. theres no quirky personality cores or mantis men or peanut water blood or stupid bullshit like that. also, i dont like how they made aperture just a giant fricking void in portal 2 when it was clearly an actual facility in the first game.
7 months ago
Anonymous
I think all those were just contained incidents, anon. No bearing on actual story.
7 months ago
Anonymous
most of the portal stuff in EZ2 doesn't develop on anything significant either, but all the portal assets are from portal 1 and not 2. so its clear they were going for the portal 1 vibe for those sections and not the p2 one.
7 months ago
Anonymous
When Glados dies, the rest of the facility is still operational. As is the party recovery bot, or whatever that thing that drags Chell back is. I'm sure they would have fixed that hole in the ground to make it look as if nothing ever happened.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Yeah, because the combine forces would have arrived there and only give it a look to see if anything is amiss, right?
Not like the combines would have been interested in the research that was going on at Aperture considering their situation. Not like they were actively looking for the lab and Borealis.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>Not like they were actively looking for the lab and Borealis.
Not necessarily but finding Aperture would have given the Combine an upper hand that they've been looking for this whole time (local portal technology)
7 months ago
Anonymous
They weren't actively looking for them, they were after Eli Vance and Kleiner. People who know about teleportation technology and had a working teleporter right under the Combine noses.
They only get alerted to Borealis when Mossman sends that encrypted message.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Nope, she gets attacked as she is sending the message. The combines were already in the area, probably doing the same thing the rebel forces were doing.
7 months ago
Anonymous
What if they just followed her? Kleiner and co. seemed very surprised when they finally saw that transmission, so it must have been a fresh discovery.
black mesa is the safest company btw , apperture were the ones doing the moronic shitshow experiments and then wondering : "WHY THE FRICK DONT THE GOVERNMENT FINANCE US ??"
I love the constant joke throughout the portal games that aperture could create the most mind-bogglingly advanced future tech possible but the actual business side of things was so horribly mismanaged that the company still went under anyways.
>be elite marine deathsquad sent in to cover up black mesa disaster >should be a cakewalk of a job, it's just a bunch of limp-wristed scientists >insert via helicopter, patrolling a hallway >this nerdy looking fricker comes bhopping down the hallway past my squad at 2000 hammer units per second >sends a rocket flying our way before we even have time to react >mfw
>Gordon even isn't half of it. The grunts ended up in a war against an entire alien invasion. They had to retreat like it's Afghanistan eventually.
It's one of the ebst parts of the game. >Forget about Freeman!
I just went through the warehouse and only 3 female assassin's attacked me, and they died very easily. Weren't there more? Also, is water supposed to look like this when submerged?
Rosenberg is lowkey one of the most important characters in the HL universe. He was literally the one who created the whole teleportation technology.
I think Glados managed to hide almost all information on Aperture from them, including the location of their headquarters. IIRC in the Portal ending you can see it's pretty much just a couple of office buildings and a parking lot above ground, 99% of the facility is underground, but that explosion could have turned some attention towards them. Not like a couple hundred turrets could have stopped the Combine.
Sure, but given how essential their tecnology is to the Combine, you'd imagine they would send everything they had to Aperture.
Idk if Neurotoxin would've stopped.
Shephard is referenced in Portal 1 but it's more an easter egg than anything solid, and likely just something one OP4gay put in without anybody noticing
It's more letters than just ASHPD though, it's ASDHERIPN
not a lot that could be tied to aside from Adrian Shephard, but like I said it was probably snuck in very last minute by someone who wanted the easter egg getting through without being shot down because op4 isn't canon
Is the obsession with opposing forces something you had to be there for? It's literally just gearbox quoting as many 90's action movies as they can and slapping on AI teammate sequences that barely work
Here is the actual experimental BDU/camo used by the Marines, while running a combat exercise called the "Limited Objective Experiment 1" back in 1998.
I feel like black mesa xen could've just been cut down by like, 3 maps and it would be miles better >that godawful giant tree map in Xen >that part in Interloper where you have to go to 3 different rooms to kill all the controllers in each room >that part in the middle of Gonarch's Lair where you do water puzzles for a whole map
all 3 of those maps frick up the pacing and kill the momentum
>I don't think it goes on for too long and does a better job at conveying the lore.
it does. You really see that the BM guys went all-in on recreating Zen from the ground-up since it is 100% their own thing. Which is partly why they didn't want to "trim" parts of it down, even though they're objectively bad. Alltogether, the good Zen parts outweigh the bad ones by a significant margin.
>Hey Randy, how you are doing, you greasy frick?
prolly good since he got /vm/ Black folk to help him shill risk of rain: reslop and the incompetent fricks from volition.
OK I need to ask this cause its been on my mind for a long time. What was the point of the rocket launch in the the underground chapter? The security guard said it was needed to close the Portal but nothing happens and the game never refers to this ever again. Did I miss some or is it just poor writing?
You stop seeing random teleports of "wild animals" like headcrabs and bullsquids in favor of "tactical" teleports of alien slaves and soldiers actively targeting you.
>You stop seeing random teleports of "wild animals" like headcrabs
Im pretty sure headcrabs still teleport in the surface tension chapter sane goes for Vorts but I guess you could say it happens more rarely? I always figured it was the nihilanth sending his grunts first to soften up the defences and then sending his actual army.
Ah shit youre right. I need to replay half life again last time I played it I got filtered by surface tension on hard Mode. I dont know if im just shit or if that is the hardest part of the game even harder than Xen
IIRC it was to create an satellite link to re-establish teleport contact with Xen, since the local relays were either damaged during the resonance cascade or disabled by the military
You stop seeing random teleports of "wild animals" like headcrabs and bullsquids in favor of "tactical" teleports of alien slaves and soldiers actively targeting you.
IIRC it was to create an satellite link to re-establish teleport contact with Xen, since the local relays were either damaged during the resonance cascade or disabled by the military
Wait, wasn't it cannon that the satellite got shut down by the government because it was an unauthorized launch or am I going crazy?
I think you are thinking of the fact that the military has stopped the launch, right before the final button press so Freeman could come in and do that. The whole control room is filled with dead scientists.
At the start of On a Rail, the guard tells you that the government aborted the launch, but that the lambda team needed the satellite in orbit if they were ever going to close the portal. You launch the rocket, which indeed stops the random teleports, but the alien soldiers are still coming in, and you find out why when you reach Lambda Core, where the scientists tell you the portal is being kept open by the conscious will of an alien, and that you have to go and kill it.
It's a bit weird and probably a leftover from the early original plans for the game. You were actually supposed to launch a nuke yourself to end the facility but they changed the premise during development, and the map was probably already made so they just repurposed it.
That might actually explain why nobody ever mentions the rocket ever again after launching it not even the guys who gave you the task in the first place (lambda team)
I still find it funny that one fricked up crystal experiment can just blow up an entire giant science facility that goes on for who knows how many miles/kilometers in the desert. Everything gets fricked instantly from that one frick up, everywhere disaster and chaos. Computers exploding, walls crumbling, scientists losing their shit. Still love it though, very few games show you what happens during a disaster in progress, most just show the aftermath after weeks/years whatever.
The resonance cascade was mostly localized and probably had some small chain reactions from other parts of the facility hosting their own experiments into Xen.
The facility only exploded because the G-Man set off a fricking nuke after the events of OP4.
NTA but I thought Freeman Pontifex(?) from episode 2 where you're in the abandoned steel mill was the best zombie section in the series, just the right amount of scary plus action and a good atmosphere. lowlife was never scary to me since Alyx is with you the whole time and the encounters are much more about straight combat than slowly creeping through an infested area
Xen rated too high
Northern Star rated too low (genuinely the scariest level in vidya I have ever played, though it might be because poison headcrabs terrify me..)
Freeman Pontifex and Under the Radar too low
Sandtraps too low
Riding Shotgun too low
Quarantine Zone one tier too high
not that anon, but I feel like "around the time of release" that might be true. But also "at the time" I was a fricking kid, Still driving in that car was amazing, and cutting the zombies in half and creepiness alone blew me away back then.
>at the time
If I weren't replaying HL2 at this very moment I would have agreed with you. But Highway 17 is not as good as you remember. It feels like a list of chores you need to do until you get to Nova Prospect. There is no challenge or cool chase sequence, just a long line of "oh yeah the road is blocked, gotta do X thing to continue".
ravenholm could probably be put down a tier or two but I will extinguish your entire bloodline if you think highway 17 isn't one of the best levels in the entire series
>ravenholm could probably be put down a tier or two
It's shit. You remember it being much worse than it really is. Nonsensical puzzles, awful level design. Muh >horror
doesn't work when you've got a HEV suit and a 30 shotgun shells.
>This is the one thing that I dont agree with
suit yourself but it's hard to force the player into a tense situation where you have 4 fully-loaded guns and the power of gravity in your hands. I remember the episodes having much better horror aspects.
7 months ago
Anonymous
I dont think its about the enemies being strong anon. Its more about the fact that you can see what happened before you got there. You can hear screaming of potential survivors, headcrab Zombies are scary once you realize the victims are still alive and the fact that the one guy who helps you is a madman.
7 months ago
Anonymous
I agree with you but environmental horror doesn't work as well on a repeat playthrough. You gotta keep players somewhat engaged else it becomes a chore.
For a 2004 game, Ravenholm has top-tier atmosphere. Replaying the chapter now, I realized how barebones it really is. Frick, I really with we got the Arcane Ravenhom game
ravenholm could probably be put down a tier or two but I will extinguish your entire bloodline if you think highway 17 isn't one of the best levels in the entire series
A: They weren't Marines. They were a secret fictional military branch called "HECU" specifically meant for goverment coverups. They were all former marines/army thought.
B: they were depicted compotently, they were much harder to fight than any of the aliens. You had to utilize alien weaponry, snarks, and scientific tech to beat them, also you had to take advantage of the chaos of them fighting the Xen forces to beat them. This fit the trope very well of the "scientist using his brain to win" thing that was in a lot of movies at the time.
C: Their existence led to Opposing force where you play as them. Opposing Force was easily the best half life game and among the best games ever made.
What is this fricking obsession with Op Forces i keep seeing?
The game was fricking freely available for everybody at this point, it's a short shitty expac with some comedically bad design and starts gearbox's obsession with quoting as many 90's films as they can
I've been here long enough to know nobody's ever fricking answered
The teammate AI sections don't work, the new characters like the fat donut cop are cartoonish, the game sniffs it's own ass so much one of the puzzle solutions is connecting a "valve" and "gearbox" in a 50/50 collaboration
in shepard manual that came with the game its written that apparently their instructors had trained them for months to do interventions into place like black mesa , it seem the sole purpose of the HECU was to go to black mesa if anything went Fubar
It's maybe an A- on first playthrough and a very convincing C on any other playthrough.
Just like most of HL2, replaying it really drives home just how shit the game design is.
>replaying it really drives home just how shit the game design is.
absolutely agree. It's just very boring and barebones. I get that they remade the game in literally a year but the lack of attention to detail really shows.
Hopefully the episodes are better.
Episode 1 is the absolute worst game in the franchise (except maybe Blue Shift) and a complete letdown.
Episode 2 is...fine? It's about the same ratio of decent to shit as half life 2, but condensed into a much shorter package.
>Ravenholm sucked and I'm tired of pretending it didn't.
who the frick says ravenholm is good? it's boring as frick and only grigori's speeches make it somewhat bearable, you get hammered with zombie shooting arenas and waiting for that car trap to lift is pain.
I liked it too but the one thing that pisses me off to this day are the Electric rails that damage you. I know im moronic to get damaged by them but its still annoying
>on a rail was unironically one of my favorite parts in the game
Black Mesa has the full level and it's kino. I vividly remember getting filtered by the original on a rail when I was a wee lad.
My opinion should be taken with a grain of salt cause I kinda dislike this franchise in general but by the time I got to on a rail, I just wanted to get out already.
The concept of the headcrab shells are so fricked up
Why not just bomb people to death instead of having to clean up the zombies after?
I get its effect as area denial though
its bassicaly psychological warfare for the combine , you denie an entire area as well as scaring shitless anyone who would try to rebel or else you turn their town into a zombie hellhole
always wondered how the frick the headcrab let his host live for years
hell in alyx you find zookeepers that when their face is revealed you only see a fricking skull , these guys must have had a headcrab on them since a little after the 7 hours war
the zombies seem to go into hibernation mode if they can't find some food after a while, like in HL2 onwards you'll find zombies 'sleeping' on the ground and they only wake up once you approach.
the poison zombies are the only ones that don't have a sleeping state we can see, which leads me to believe that they're kept awake and alive 24/7 by the headcrab
Me, I wonder how is it that fast headcrabs can turn their victims into a stringy skeleton that runs faster than a healthy human. They look like they're nearly completely decomposed. I mean, if your muscles mutate to the point where bones are showing, you can't really just run or jump like that, you know?
Seeing all those almost fresh normal zombies right next to those thin guys that look dug outta a grave feels weird. Also, they really could have made more models for that normal zombie, even back then the first time I saw them I though valve was lazy if they just made a single model for the most iconic enemy in the series.
pre 9/11 america might as well have been another dimension. conspiracy thrillers were huge nobody really gave a frick about one game where you kill some feds in self defense
You just made me realize if Half Life were delayed by a few years, it would never have existed at all. No way this shit would have been allowed to release post-9/11.
They'd just change all the marines to terrorists.When I was a little kiddo, I always thought the marines were terrorists.
Or Black Mesa's own security force.
The only people who bring up 9/11 are europoors and people in the media. No normal person in America cares when it comes around.
Twenty years ago, people cared
moronS
9/11 is when it became official that the Joo had won and was directly controlling the US and it's sister powers. 9/11 was their show of force and their victory dance, makes me sick.
If you're against the zionistic homosexualry that plagues our world, you should despise what they did to New York that day
This
9/11 was the point the US lost its fricking mind. Bin Laden got everything he wanted and more.
>Bin Laden
you mean israelites
>pre 9/11 america might as well have been another dimension
Yeah you used to be able to be a conspiracy theorist until 9/11 happened. All conspiracies theories about 9/11 were literally silenced by the government with violence and it's only now that the 9/11 truth is actually bubbling up to the surface.
To add to your point, I first played it post-9/11 and I grew up in that era. I loved it but I was initially confused by the marine enemies and found it surprising. My young brain couldn't figure out why they were bad guys or if it was a misunderstanding or something. I'm sure it meant very little to someone in the 90s.
It's very typical in sci-fi/horror for the government soldiers/marines to be the ones trying to kill the protags.
Most zombie films/games have a version of this where the army come in to kill off everything/everyone or they just nuke the place.
Yeah, it's a super common trope that I'm guessing zoomers must not be aware of for threads like this to exist.
I recognize this from zombie movies but not really scifi alien ones.
> walking to an airport terminal for funzies and to see your loved ones off
> no one searched your butthole on the way
Frick zoomers don't know the freedom they lost
like 70% of american media is anti-government
it's the faustian spirit thirdie, you wouldnt get it.
It's kind of weird how the military cover up is never mentioned in 2. Obviously the aliens won out, but the scientists and Barney would have still been a little traumatized by government interference.
I mean, the Combine is the government now and nobody is exactly rooting for them.
It was around 6 years between HL1s cascade resonance and the 7th hour war, which we know absolutely nothing of
>6 years between HL1s cascade resonance and the 7th hour war
Sauce? I'm pretty sure it was never outright said how long between the two events occured.
It's actually 20 years, terrifying
https://web.archive.org/web/20080725080723/http://ep1.half-life2.com/story.php
>Gordon emerges from the darkness, nearly two decades removed from his last conscious thought.
I know that but I'm reffering the time between the Resonince Cascade and the 7 Hour War.
Like after the events of Black Mesa when did the Combine show up. A couple days? Couple weeks? Years? That anon said it happened 6 years after but I don't recall anything in the games that corroborate that.
at most, 28 days later (heh)
Laidlaw states it was "days" after, so it couldn't've been outside of the same month or week.
https://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/References:Marc_Laidlaw_emails#On_the_time_between_the_Black_Mesa_Incident_and_the_Seven_Hour_War:~:text=References%3AMarc%20Laidlaw,January%2029%2C%202020)
wasn't the cut conscript faction a bunch of ex-military? it would've been nice to tie those to marines.
I think they're a little too busy being actively traumatized by the alien occupation to care about some long KIA jarheads or deposed/executed glowies.
Everyone laughs at the marines, moron.
I still dont get why they went with that non existent hybrid helmet thing
Look at the bullets, he's saying he doesn't want to join the marines because they're LGBT or some shit.
the people who decide on the standard military equipment get kickbacks from the people who manufacture it. Military contracts are big $$$
>Everyone laughs at the marines, moron.
I thought the Army was the laughing stock. Marines at least require you to be somewhat competent.
I think its implied that they were there under Dr Breen's orders, so maybe they're just viewed as the first of the Combine Collaborators. Which was a major faction in HL2.
>I think its implied that they were there under Dr Breen's orders
I have never heard this theory before.
Dr Breen was the administrator of the Black Mesa facility, so he would have been the one to order the Cleaners to go in. Then once it became clear that he couldn't contain the situation he surrendered to the Combine, which the Combine treated as the surrender of Earth as a whole, and the forces under his authority became part of them. Basically HL1 Cleaners are the same as the white-suited Combine elite.
Of course this is all retcons from HL2 newspaper clippings, stuff people tell you in that game, and Breen slug stuff that I'm half remembering. Maybe they've changed it again with Alyx.
>Dr Breen was the administrator of the Black Mesa facility, so he would have been the one to order the Cleaners to go in.
moronic theory. He might have been the pentagon's contact at black mesa that warned of an outbreak and would be spared during the cleanup but he wasn't going to be in a position of being a civilian able to issue orders to marines and black ops.
The Cleaners aren't regular military, Black Mesa isn't a normal military base, and Dr Breen isn't just some civilian scientist. Black Mesa is based on a lot of conspiracy theory stuff that was going around in the 90s about secret underground facilities at Groom Lake, and other similar sites.
Where Groom Lake actually was a facility under the control of the CIA with military security under their control. Just no aliens. It was that way because it was where the spy planes operated out of, and where they'd take any captured Russian military aircraft to evaluate them.
If you watched Oppenheimer, the Manhattan project had a similar setup where a civilian scientist was in charge of a secret facility, and with control over military units.
>The Cleaners aren't regular military
The marines basically are, although it's a distinct unit. They're not glowies, those appear later.
>Black Mesa isn't a normal military base
It's not a military base at all.
>Dr Breen isn't just some civilian scientist
He is with regard to his relationship with the MIC.
Like another anon said, I think you've been reading fanfiction and applying it inappropriately.
Black mesa is shown to house some military equipment very often, as early as the tram intro when there is a military helicopter landed at black mesa, which partially explains the rather quick deployment of military personnel into the facility because theyre present from the very beginning. This is furthered evidenced by the ammunition stockpiles which frequently contain grenades and mp5 munitions all over the facility locked behind security outposts
Black Mesa directly collaborated with the military to outfit soldiers with stripped down hev suits in the form of ballistic armor (the very same one used by sheperd) which explains why the hev suit is able to repel small arms
Black Mesa is a military contractor, anon. That doesn't make it a military base.
I didnt say it was dipshit
I said it houses military equipment meaning they play host to the military while maintaining the facility as research and development
Read homie, read
>I didnt say it was dipshit
Then why did you respond with an irrelevant diatribe to my post about it not being a military base, you fricking moron? No-one is disputing the fact that BM is part of the MIC.
>BM is not a contractor, you can see the Great Seal all over the place.
That means absolutely nothing. See picrel. BM is mentioned as a private contractor in valve games, they have obvious private security, and minimal military presence. You're trying to pass off your bad fanfic (which seems ignorant of how MIC relationships work) as fact with zero evidence.
>implying lockheed is not controlled by the government
lel
I'm implying the exact opposite, you brainlet. Holy shit.
I refuse to believe you're not a zoomzoom. No way an adult knows so little about the world.
What is you think I don't know exactly? I suspect it's inaccurate since you were just trying to imply I thought Lockheed wasn't controlled by the US government, when in fact I was saying the opposite. I think the zoomer accusation is projection here since you seem completely naive as to how the MIC/contractors work.
Yes and Lockheed is a government contractor under their control.
Just like Black Mesa.
What the frick is your point?
That literally is my point, you homosexual. It's what I've been saying throughout the thread. BM is a government contractor and embedded in the MIC (like Lockheed). That does not make BM a military installation or Breen in control of military units.
Not officially, but you know how the world works.
Implying Breen had no sway over the military force is stupid to even imply.
After all, he did get away with his life instead of being kos.
There would be a list of high value individuals at BM that the glowies wings want to keep. Breen would obviously be on that list. Everyone else would be part of the clean up operation. Bree isn't giving out orders to marines, that's incredibly dumb.
He wouldn't be giving out each individual order, but look at how the command structure of the Manhattan Project worked. Technically Robert Oppenheimer was the one with the final say on everything within his little fiefdom. Half Life imagined Black Mesa much the same way.
Consider for a moment the Michael Bay masterpiece "The Rock", where Scientist Nick Cage and a totally not-James Bond former British secret agent Sean Connery, take down a group of rogue Marines at Alcatraz which is a rusting and partly falling apart Military installation.
That movie came out two years before Half-Life.
Dude, the fact your entire argument hinges on the fact you saw Oppenheimer recently isn't very convincing.
I knew the history of the Manhattan Project, JPL, the Skunkworks, etc long before I saw the movie. I'm just hoping that is recent a cultural touchstone for people not old enough to remember the 90s.
I don't remember the idea of "Black Mesa" being a company really coming in under Portal 2.
>I don't remember the idea of "Black Mesa" being a company really coming in under Portal 2.
I don't know what to tell you. It's obvious from the introductory tram ride. I think you just got the idea it was a military installation into your head early on and now can't let go of the idea, even in the face of overwhelming evidence including valve literally referring to it as a private contractor in related works.
>I think you just got the idea it was a military installation into your head early on
Yeah, because there is nothing about it being a private company, and we see a military presence there at the start of the game before the resonance cascade and I remember what was going on culturally in the 90s and I'm familiar with the real-world history of similar research facilities.
There are a lot of things the Government operates as technically separate 'corporations'. Seriously read up on the history of the JPL if you haven't. Its crazy.
>Yeah, because there is nothing about it being a private company.
Private security guards, corporate sounding tannoy announcements, complete lack of the type of security protocols you'd expect in an actual military facility. You're coping hard at this point, dude.
>Private security guards
MPs or a base security force.
There are even military posters as part of the rotating display.
>corporate sounding
"The Black Mesa Research Facility is an Equal Opportunity Employer"
Exact same stuff you'd get in Government facilities.
>complete lack of the type of security protocols you'd expect in an actual military facility
All the security checkpoints? Including the military ones on the surface that are clearly pre-dating the incident?
Black Mesa and Half-Life are clearly influenced by conspiracy theories about Area 51. Specifically Bob Lazar's S-4 stuff.
It is clear you don't remember the 90s, and have no experience with the paranoia and conspiracy theories that were going around at that time.
>These guys in blue civilian security guard uniforms are ackshulky MPs
>These corporate announcements are actually military ones
>The game is inspired by conspiracy theories so it has to mimick them in every way even though the actual developers have contradicted my theory
Stop coping this hard, you freak.
>These corporate announcements are actually military ones
No, the same kind of boring announcements you get at Government research facilities.
Remember in HL1 "Black Mesa" is a Research Facility and not cited as an independent contractor.
The game is pretty clear when the announcement system switches over to Military control, but even before that there is clearly a Military and Government presence. Black Mesa is supposed to be like the fictional version of Area 51 from the 90s.
It's also influenced cod (shepard + that gulag scene where the seals get btfo).
Btw in mw2 you get to kill us military in the last chapters as well.
>Btw in mw2 you get to kill us military in the last chapters as well.
old MW2 or new MW2?
Because I don't remember iot being possible in the OG MW2. They globohomosexual propaganda back in '09 was real.
The last 2 or 3 chapters in the original MW2 are you fighting a US army general and his private US troops (though I will admit that technically I think his men were contractors and not actual army, but imo it's a pretty academic distinction)
How the frick do you not remember the main plot of the game?
my man the game is almost 15 years old by now. forgive me for not remembering intricate plot details
>intricate plot details
Literally the most dramatic point in the game. Anyway, I don't care if you don't remember, it's more the claiming you don't remember to imply it didn't happen because it fits your weird narrative.
>it's more the claiming you don't remember to imply it didn't happen
I never implied it didn't happen. Just that it seems like an unreasonable claim since the game was full of propaganda.
>Bree
Love it.
>BM is mentioned as a private contractor in valve games
Later games. If you're going to question HL2 newspaper clippings then nothing outside of HL1 itself should be considered.
>Blue Shift
Was never Valve cannon.
>If you actually looked into groom lake (an actual military installation) you'd realise it doesn't resemble BM at all.
As I've said the reality of Groom Lake wasn't as well known then in the late 90s as it is today.
Although reducing it to a mere "military installation" is warping the truth as well. It was/is an installation within a Military reserve, operated by the CIA, and where top-secret projects developed by private contractors got tested.
That exact kind of close ties between ostensibly private companies like Lockheed Martin, and specifically the SkunkWorks is exactly the kind of confusion of Military, Intelligence, Science, and Corporation that Black Mesa is meant to embody.
>nothing outside of HL1 itself should be considered.
If that's the case then Black Mesa is 100% not a military installation. There's nothing to suggest it's anything more than a contractor. There's no military personnel on duty and an obviously civilian security force. The rest of your post re-enforces my argument.
They deal with the government, they literally have a weapons R&D. The Gluon gun? The Tau cannon? Of course they have munitions around, they train HEV users with live ammunition. They need that shit in Xen.
>Black Mesa directly collaborated with the military to outfit soldiers with stripped down hev suits
That's straight up false, the PCV is a similar technology that's made by a different contractor. Their vests can charge from anything, HEV needed Kleiner to tune it up to accept Combine charger energy for 2.
>the PCV is a similar technology that's made by a different contractor
source?
>vests can charge from anything
citation needed
You can see that in the OP4 training mission. The PCV portable chargers have their own, different logo on them. There's also some other civvie charger there to convey that "any energy source" point.
>straight up false
> This suggests that the PCV is simply a military adaptation of HEV technology, combining the level of protection of an HEV Suit (which exceeds that of equivalent ballistic vest technology)
Dumb ass homosexual, go play in traffic instead of playing video games
Where are you getting that from?
It is a different contractor. It's not just a stripped down HEV, it would have included the life support systems if it was. The adrenaline administering thing too, which PCV canonically does not have.
From the wiki you brainless mutant
Holy shit
>its from a different contractor
>he says with no proof
Figured you're a moron, so I checked the wiki and there was nothing on that. But then I figured your stupid ass would not only quote a fricking wiki, you would quote the fricking *fandom wiki* on top of that.
Do everyone a favor and jump in front of a moving train, Anon.
Dude BM was deep in with the government. The HEV suit was created with combat in mind.
They have their own special unit of soldiers stationed nearby that doesn't have to answer to anyone but the BM administration and the guys at pentagon, and glowies on top of that.
>Dude BM was deep in with the government. The HEV suit was created with combat in mind.
Yeah, I already said they're a government contractor. What's your point?
>They have their own special unit of soldiers stationed nearby that doesn't have to answer to anyone but the BM administration and the guys at pentagon, and glowies on top of that.
Just rubbish. The HECU are situated nearby for situations like the resonance cascade but they don't belong to or take orders from BM.
>Debateable, was Groom Lake a military base, was it a CIA facility, or was it a scientific research center?
Do you ever look into the stuff you're using as your comparison? Groom lake is a military installation with limited civilian contract access. BM is clearly a civilian installation with (limited) military access due to MIC connections. You think groom lake has private sector security guards (barneys)?
BM is not a contractor, you can see the Great Seal all over the place.
Black Mesa is a researcher facility with several black projects with Breen acting as administrator and the federal government giving out orders.
>Do you ever look into the stuff you're using as your comparison?
Do you?
Black Mesa is pretty clearly inspired by 90s UFO lore about "Area 51" aka Groom Lake. A lot more is known about it today than was back then, and people back then filled in the blanks with stuff they knew for certain about the history of places like Los Alamos, and JPL.
Gordon calling Coast to Coast worked so well because it was so similar to stuff they were talking about in those circles.
>You think groom lake has private sector security guards (barneys)?
Who ever said they were private sector security? They are just separate from the Cleaners. The original Barney model was clearly an MP.
>Black Mesa is pretty clearly inspired by 90s UFO lore about "Area 51" aka Groom Lake.
No shit. "Inspired by" doesn't mean they mimicked every aspect of it. If you actually looked into groom lake (an actual military installation) you'd realise it doesn't resemble BM at all.
>Who ever said they were private sector security?
Blue Shift
>They are just separate from the Cleaners. The original Barney model was clearly an MP.
Yeah and they changed it clearly because they went in the direction of BM not being a military installation. Actual military installations have uniformed military personal onsite, not guys in blue shirts with glocks.
>It's not a military base at all.
Debateable, was Groom Lake a military base, was it a CIA facility, or was it a scientific research center?
That was real-world inspiration for Black Mesa. It is certainly set in a similar sort of area.
>The marines basically are, although it's a distinct unit.
Just like detachments at Los Alamos were ultimately under the control of Oppenheimer, Breen would have been the one in complete control of Black Mesa, including all of the military units that would have been operating there.
>I think you've been reading fanfiction and applying it inappropriately.
Maybe, but I suppose anything not said specifically in HL1 could be considered 'fanfiction'.
However HL1 does heavily imply that Black Mesa is a military/intelligence/science black site along the lines of Groom lake, or Los Alamos when it was "Project Y".
Nah, they were conspiring with the government UNTIL the aliens really started showing up. Both the scientists and the marines weren't expecting the full on xen invasion. Remember the aliens were mostly underground and the marines were on the surface and top layers until the xen ships started showing up.
Marines are Marines, they aren't told shit other than "go here, shoot this". Obviously the government funding Black Mesa (the US) knew enough about what was going on that they had to send a cleanup crew. Even if "the government" basically boiled down to one small department of 5 spooks somewhere in Washington.
I think that was all Gman's doing.
Yeah, OP4 training mission and the diary or whatever that came with it states that HECU was preparing for a specific mission, but I don't think their commanders even knew what was about to go down, they just got orders from the "government" and started training people for hazardous environments. And as for the scientists, only Breen knew something big was about to happen because he approved the changed test sample. Everyone else, including your hl2 scientist pals like Magnusson or that cripple from decay had no clue.
I think this is some fanfiction you mistook for canon. Breen was given the authority to surrender on behalf of all Earth governments, this is only in hl2. He didn't actually exist as "Breen" before that, he was just an administrator that pushed for a test, today, on that sample. Which was also implied to just be Gman's work. The administrator is never mentioned again after that "highly trained professional" conversation.
And every scientist in the facility likely called the white house or US military, since they had that contract that Cave died mad about. The president likely just shat his pants over the public learning about aliens and called for a complete eradication of every witness, just like that one guy in office complex says. "I'm not sure I want anyone rescuing us. What if the world learns about what we do down here?"
HL2 was a glorified tech demo that had almost nothing to do with the first game imo.
I played Half life 2 and didn't know about shit about Half life 1. I loved Half life 2 but I could see it flaws (weak gunplay, tedious sections like the one with the car and the last chapters suck).
First time I'm playing Half life 1. I'm having a blast but I'm a bit disappointed by the movements that are too fast.
What's striking me is that everything is the same as half life 2 just more focused (of course the levels are less open) and with a better gunplay.
Like HL2 didn't improve on anything save for the graphics and physics + the gravity gun.
Oh and it's tedious to switch between weapons.
But I can't blame them: Graphics and physics in 2004 were already waaay harder than in 1998.
Yes, this is fair. The setpieces are less tight, the plot is less coherent, there's some gay attempt to project personality on Gordon through Alyx, Barney, et al (defeats the purpose of a silent protagonist). The only things that improved were the graphics and physics.
I understand more now the ranting about HL2 (which of course surprised me since I had a blast playing HL2).
HL2 can be as good as HL1 but that's it: Train section shits on car section, AI in HL1 is better (of course the lvl are smaller so it's easier to have a better AI).
When you look at it, there's no good solo fps that has managed to deal with these open areas.
That's why the 90's shooters were so good.
It's the same for the soul serie: Elden Ring open world sucks. The best part are its dungeons.
Yeah, I was really pissed off and ranted on forums about HL2 at the time, but I was a 20 year old edgelord. I'd probably enjoy it now if I cba replaying it.
Shut up
Explain how any of what I said is incorrect.
You are correct, he's just mad because he doesn't have a counter argument.
The number of people that survived Black Mesa can be counted with your fingers. Kleiner, Vance, and Barney know the truth about Black Mesa but none of it mattered when it all got nuked and the Seven Hour War happened shortly after.
Half-Life 2 feels like it was made by entirely different people than Half-Life. Everything about it feels so different.
>Everything about it feels so different.
You'd be able to very easily argue that the dissonance was intentional.
I don't know. I expect sequels to build and improve upon the previous game(s), not an entirely new game with a 2 slapped on the end of the title.
If only they had kept the tone of the beta.
In Raising the Bar, several devs said they specifically didn't want to do a retread of Black Mesa, including Marc Laidlaw, who said that he was the one who told Gearbox to nuke it in Opposing Force.
You can disagree with the decision, but it was a pretty conscious decision.
Every Half-Life has been made primarily to do something innovative. HL2 is basically a big tech demo but I still have nostalgic good feelings for it.
That is one of the things I like about HL2 and the series in general although I'm tired of HL2 storyline, wish they would wrap it all up in the next game and move onto something different again.
Eh. I highly doubt Ep3 will ever exist and I don't see how they can move to another setting unless they do a huge timeskip where the combine was defeated. I'm talking at last 200 years into the future at minimum.
Laidlaw releasing Epistle 3 was basically him giving up on Valve ever finishing Ep3 and finishing the story he was working on. I highly doubt we'll ever see a finished version of what Ep3 was being conceptualized as back in 2008.
I wonder how EP3 would've been recieved had it used that version of the story. Thought it was pretty good but I can see some people not liking it.
I think it was an appropriate ending, but definitely a downer.
It would have wrapped up the storyline of HL1 and HL2 so that the next Half-Life game would have been an even larger departure. Further taking Gordon (or Alyx) from the events of Black Mesa.
I don't think anyone other than Laidlaw should've continued writing the games. The people from Alyx can't even reach his soles.
I remember imagining what the Dyson Sphere scene would've looked like. I can imagine being absolutely blown away by it. That quiet realisation that everything you've worked for was for nothing. A mild incovenience to your enemy at best. I can see people seething that we didn't get a happy ending where you defeat G-Man and frick Alyx though. That timeline would've been interesting. Unless we get a proper HL3 I'm considering Epistle 3 the ending for the series.
The thing about EP3 is that hey had plenty of solid ideas for it but all been abandoned in the end in favor of chasing VR meme for over a decade only for Zuck to literally steal all talented devs and spotlight and prematurely kill VR industry,
>Zucc just wanted episode 3 and destroyed the entire VR sector to get it
>next game
It had been like 20 years at that point and the world was basically a post apocalyptic hellscape that had been controlled by the combine for all that time so nobody really gave a shit or probably even knew other than the few who survived Black Mesa
Yeah the government didn't exactly last into 2
Why not? I think hating government and wanting all governors dead is a normal thing.
it was 3 years ago but not now
why can't nonamericans understand self defense
Yuropoors are literally taught in school it's better to die than to fight back.
Obsessed
no one said it's wrong or immoral you immense fricking homosexual
>murders an entire division of glowies
how the frick did gearbox get away with it?
>government realized they've fricked up and sent death squads to exterminate every possible witness
>government realized even the death squads cant handle the situation and sent in a glowBlack person death squads to exterminate everyone, even the previous death squad, and nuke the place
this is how you know this game wouldn't be released these days
Its a little bit too realistic how tht Govt would behave.
Also gives you an idea of what the dev team were like / thinking to have a plot where the military shows up to kill a bunch of civilians, then some glowies show up to kill the military.
and finally gman overrides the nuke timer to "now" which kills all leftovers, civs, military and glowies too.
perfect cleanup
OP force being cannon would have led to some far more interesting stuff in HL2, but the games are just gameplay and tech demos, the story is literally there just to tie it up, which I'm not complaining about.
The government decided that Randy is enough punishment.
>Opposing Force ends
>Shephard in stasis until the Gman needs him
>Freeman no longer controlled by Gman
>Freeman keeps meddling
>Shephard released from stasis and into the boots of a Combine super duper elite to intercept Freeman
>Shephard released from stasis and into the boots of a Combine super duper elite to intercept Freeman
That's moronic. Gman has no need to hunt or kill Freeman.
>Gman has no need to hunt or kill Freeman.
Yet...if going by Half-Life: Alyx's ending.
And also what about Hunt Down the Freeman?
As that's about as "canon" as OP.
>.if going by Half-Life: Alyx's ending.
Only morons care about that.
CAPTAIN
WE'RE SO FRICKED
Thank you based furry, inflation fetishist, br´ish and epic gamer Pyro
President Keemstar had me on the fricking floor for a good 5 minutes when i first heard it
No, I hope Valve never does anything with OP or with BS.
Randy's grease has tainted enough of the franchise already, no need to canonize it.
Entropy Zero 2?
My ebin headcannon is that when Gordon goes to fight g-man, the chapter title "Opposing Force" comes up, you see Gman adjust his tie and leave as a portal opens and a VTOL containing Shephard arrives for your boss fight
:basedjak:
That's a cool idea, too bad you're a total coward who was afraid people would call you cringe and so decided to put a ironic "Basedjak" joke as a "H-haha I'm not being serious you guys!"
>killing all the scientists for a coverup
>use regular Marines for the job
It really should have been some super secret government agency.
Hecu are defined as special forces
They arent regular marines lol
HECU were special forces part of the marines core. They operate exclusively at Black Mesa.
>also laughs at amerimutts millitants being two digit iq
kino game
braindead marine jokes are an american national pastime
Marines have always had a stereotype of being moronic grunts. One of their nicknames is literally "jar head" lmao
Yoredead Freeman? I thought his name was Gordon
>*lip smack*
Doesn't make sense. I'll have to doublecheck. Heh.
That's just how foreigners pronounce it.
>We are coming for your ass
yore free dead man?
>waco
>ruby ridge
>cultural fallout of Vietnam, hippie movements, religious separatist movements still lingering
>us openly involved in very questionable campaigns in south america like contra and grenada
>cold war ending left people feeling like all external enemies were gone
>conspiracy media such as the x-files
9/11 massively changed the climate of america
> People are starting to notice, we better do some more stuff to stop them noticing.
You could also kill hundreds of glowies in Deus Ex, it was a different time.
Yea but it's a cyberpunk game.
HL1 is meant to happen in present day.
>also murders countless slaves
>genocides a whole species (killing its last member)
>murders a mother and her babies (gonarch queen)
>murders more mothers and babies
(and lion queens)
>anally rapes animals and uses them as weapons
How did he get away with it?
Remember how one of the concepts of a potential enemy was a tenticle monster that just rapes Gordon?
I want to see the alt. universe where that ended up going through.
So much based shit got cut from HL1 and 2 it's unreal.
It gets cut either because (1) it sounds good on paper and turns out to not be so great in practice, or (2) it turns out to take too long to implement properly so they cut it in order to redirect time and resources to finishing other stuff that they decide will have more impact.
>How did he get away with it?
he didn't, at least not yet. Alien slaves in HL2 have canon lines in which they mention how they haven't forgotten what Gordon done, but can close their eyes on it for the time being
Shitposting aside Gordon really didn't have a choice, it was either kill or be killed in that scenario. I think the Vorts understand this.
I Don't remember that at all, they worship the ground you walk on is all I remember
you have to remember the vortigaunts have this fricked up hivemind, gordon is both their savior and ultimate terror, if it wasn't military soldiers or scientists fighting the aliens, it was this homieh with a crowbar beating you to death
Black person what?
Vorts literally treat Gordon as a fricking deity that liberated them.
If anything, they don't give a frick that a few hundred of them got killed in the process.
This shit always irked me, there's no way all of them can know Gordon killed Nihilanth, he literally disappeared after he did the deed. Who the frick told them what happened?
They're a hive mind
They're a hivemind, they all know Gordon.
Oh, and in HL2 the vorts imply that they can see things happening through time with their vortal magic. Chances are they were perfectly aware you were gonna kill Nihilanth from the moment the resonance cascade happened and you were teleported in the middle of a vort group.
NTA, but I dunno about that deity thing.
He sure is important, but I always felt that it was an attempt at hm, lightly cracking the 4th wall. You know, the "far distant eyes look through yours" stuff. To me, they are pretty much obsessed with him because the player is the driving force of the world around them. If you don't move on, nobody else moves on. Even though that "Free man" stuff boils down to just combat, because you cannot even kill friendly NPCs or walk away from the objective to do whatever...
And all their interactions always had a hint of threat to them, at least that's what I've felt. They don't shy away from being condescending to you.
Hive mind, they saw him enter the chamber, and chances are they can see stuff happening without actually being present. Of course they would be watching when Nihilanth gets a visitor that he telepathically talks to the entire time.
>To me, they are pretty much obsessed with him because the player is the driving force of the world around them. If you don't move on, nobody else moves on. Even though that "Free man" stuff boils down to just combat, because you cannot even kill friendly NPCs or walk away from the objective to do whatever...
the final half life plot redpill is that the story is a meta-commentary on player choice in video games, and the g-man is the literal personification of the game developer providing you the 'illusion of free choice' despite having carefully laid out the exact path forward for you to take. you literally start and end hl1 in a tram car, ie, 'on a rail', and are given a choice at the end that really isn't a choice at all.
>tfw gordon canonically hit the nihilanth in the brain with the crowbar
here's your (You)
These fricking homosexuals always try and fire hitscan lightning at you the very frametic a pixel of your boot appears in their field of vision. Frick 'em all.
This. The only thing they deserve is a single shotty to stagger them out of animation followed by a double shot and then getting gibbed by a crowbar
>valve really made Quake's Shamblers one of the most common enemies in their game
And I'm supposed to feel "pity" and "sorry" for these fricking things? Are you fricking kidding me?
Based vorts filtering the casuals.
>filtering
You dumb Black person.
I hadn't considered that vortigaunts were mini-shamblers before.
vorts are ezpz unless you're playing on hard
i love the fastet attack but i hate the higher HP
>Also murders trannies
>PhD in physics
>and sector I want
>300 dead zogbots
Because people aren't (weren't) moronic and know that video games are different from real life.
you sure?
>robot with a gun
show me the walking talking combat-ready robot that exists right now IRL
the ZOGBOT-9000 but he needs crayons once in a while
Let me clarify.
Germany censored HL1 because of their laws. The soldiers were turned into robots because apparently cannot depict violence against police or military.
Don't forget about the green robot blood.
Germany is well beyond a cuck-state so it's more of a pitiable action to sell their game to the people there. VALVe games have some funny censorship for German copies like TF2's party gibs
Imagine wanting to join a faction that enlists people like this.
It was the American dream
>turns a mysterious esoteric alien race into fricking jar jar binks
how did they got away with this again? what reddit writer is responsible for it?
>mysterious esoteric alien race
Only because they were flanderized by Half-Life 2 though. In Half-Life 1 they are much more interesting but you wouldnt know that, you've never played it.
That one Vort had a screw loose, none of the other ones act that way.
he was lobotomized, he's a tragic character.
He had a brain injury.
>Points at singular character who has literal brain damage and proclaims everyone is like him
Do you also have a brain injury anon?
If you weren't moronic you would've noticed that every vortigaunt in HL Shartlyx acts borderline human, with overobudance of onions pixar-like gesticulation, almost like an ADHD zoomer. Their motion being too rapid in contrast to previous games, in which their motions were portrayed as fluid, almost clumsy at times. Whoever was in charge of vortigaunts in HL Alyx obviously didn't know what they were, or how to portray them right. Too bad! Should've gone making skins in CS:GO.
>casually climbs a wall and runs away
?t=144
I think you are geniunly autistic.
Crayon iq morons like you are a part of why we cant have nice things in games
Autism speaks.
this samegay business is getting old, lets pack it up little guy
Pure autism.
they're simply better when characterized as allies, they were nothing more than cannon fodder in HL1, having an alien species allied with Gordon makes the universe a bit more interesting, expands the lore of aliens to be more than just mindless enemies that charge at you with no thought
it's implied that gordon has some sort of special bond with vortigaunts. i always wondered how.
My interpretation is vortigaunts see time non-linearly so they probably know that he's basically a messianic figure that saves everyone and they're guiding him along his path.
i always thought that weird room you're teleported to where you're surrounded by vorts in hl1 isn't actually real. maybe that's where they took notice of him.
It's probably an early version of the vortessence where they communicate in HL2 and Alyx.
>it's implied that gordon has some sort of special bond with vortigaunts. i always wondered how.
They were enslaved by the Nihilanth, and you kill the Nihilanth
hl2 they were already being used as secret easter eggs like the singing one.
Did you play some other game, moron?
He just posted this cutscene as an argument on how vorts are jar jar in this game. No point in arguing with him, he's obviously severely autistic.
>tfw you realize you've also been murdering scientists the entire game
scientists.... had a hard life
25 years later and I still hate the tentacles in Blast Pit. I know how you're supposed to get past them but it just feels so janky and every time I do it I feel like I'm going to get killed.
Same here. Everyone cites On A Rail or Interloper as their "that part", but whenever I get to Blast Pit, it makes me reconsider what I'm doing with my day.
"that part" is usually the moment when, from game start, you stop and ask yourself if you have played enough of the game for one day. Questionable Ethics for me because i feel it is a step up in difficulty right before the real test of Surface Tension.
You think you have it bad, that alien was just chilling in a cave somewhere and suddenly the Nihilanth teleports it into a random cement hole on an alien planet
The part immediately after that where you fall through the ceiling and its almost impossible to not take fall damage filters me. I always get through the tentacle section with barely any health and get softlocked unless I enable sv_cheats.
You mean the part where you're crawling in a pipe?
I know the section before that has a pool of toxic sludge with a med station and a suit charger, so you should have the health for that drop. And there are no enemies between the tentacle and the garg, so I don't know what you're struggling with. Are you like, swimming through the river of green shit or something?
I remember playing the game on hard and being royally fricked up by the time I got to that part and don't remember being able to find health.
Right after you get a revolver and before you jump onto a small pipe over that green hell you can spot a ladder with both stations at the bottom. If you saved after this point it might not be possible to go back there though. But like the other anon said, the table has 2 medkits on it, you should be able to survive that drop even on 1 hp.
You're supposed to fall on the med kits
>wtf why weren't americans mad about a guy defending himself!?
Do yuros really?
I mean HL1 wasn't that long after waco and ruby ridge
Because it's not a dictatorial shithole and you're allowed to do that. Also, it's the US, their national mythos is built on anti-government rebellion.
After Waco lots of Americans were mad at the feds
>decide to check why The Specialists wouldn't work on Linux despite having a linux build for servers
>It's interfacing the wrong binaries
>install amxmod and have it interface with it's binaries
>works
Neat.
Why did they remove Specialists from Steam?
Gordon is not a terrorist with some anti-American agenda. Gordon is just a scientist caught in between an alien invasion and the US army cleaning it up.
Because we're not sensitive like you esl trannies. Now get mad.
>How the frick was this game popular in the US???
Most of you newshitters wouldn't get it, but lots of vidya used to be centered around nerd's fantasies and interests, and that includes owning meathead morons such as jocks and dudebros, who were commonly militarygays irl.
Self-defence against an overreaching tyrannical is a right of all God-fearing Americans.
t. bong
Military worship is un-american
>"Btw, I used to be a guy but then a woman came to the office and I was mad." - tran texture designer
I think that was highly unnecessary and unprofessional for this serious piece of documented history of Hlaf-Life and Valve. It's all about me, me, me with transvestites.
There are no trannies in the documentary
wtf are you on about
Just a very hardcore masculine lesbo fren. Better option than tran.
she's not trans you doofus
Do you also think Jamie Lee Curtis is a troony?
Yes, as are many "women" in hollywood.
I transvestigated that gal and she's just a super dyke that is old now.
why does it go to a black screen on the main menu I can't play the game any more wtf thanks Gabe
It's remarkable how well this game holds up.
Good games may age but they never become bad
It surprised me when I first played it a few years ago with how modern it felt. The only thing that dates it is the graphics.
Can someone tdlr me on the lore of this game?
I didn't quite get the resonance thing.
I thought they test some shit on a new rock (where did they get it???) and it spawned portals in the whole site.
However I'm at a lvl (Questionable Ethics) where it seems that they were already doing some testing on Aliens.
So I don't get it: They already knew how to make portals and import aliens? Then why the test at the beginning of the game? And that means that freeman and his colleagues were all part of this (aka bad guys)??
freeman was being kept in the dark
it's been like a year or 2 so my memory isnt clear but i can try briefly explaining it
>gordon works at science facility
>no one really gives a frick about him
>other scientists experiement with technology trying to create wormholes
>resonance ensues
>military tries to cover it up and gordon just tries to fix as much as possible before getting the frick out
>aliens from xen are controlled by this giant baby frick that gordon later kills
>gman recruits him or something because he sees his chad energy
>he's now hailed by people as a legendary king because of his adventures
that's so wrong it's not even funny
ok then you try, i already gave it a shot and im not going to look at a 5 hour video looking for gordon's birth certificate
You were little 99% correct, other anon is being a douche
They already were experimenting with those crystals for teleportation and were only able to warp to Xen iirc
The sample you experiment on at the start of the game is purer than any other they've ever seen, I think in HL2 it's stated that it was provided by the Gman
Not sure if Gordon knew anything about the teleportation experiments beyond that, afaik the instrument in the initial experiment is supposed to be a spectrometer
Black Mesa already had teleportation working, but it was a black project(only select few knew). They knew about Xen and the aliens long before the resonance cascade happen and they were studying both.
The anomalous materials lab was doing tests on the energy crystals to understand what their purpose is and how the energy can be used but they did not know about the black projects in which the crystals were being used.
Gordon Freeman was handpicked to work at Black Mesa, if I remember correctly he was at the facility for less than a month before it all went to shit.
The resonance cascade happened because they pushed way too hard on a way too pure sample, the gman was the one that suggested to the administrator they run the experiment this way and was the one that gave them the sample.
The sample in question it was the purest they ever found and worked on.
He was handpicked because of his papers or something on crystals and how they could let you travel dimensions or harvest power or some shit.
No, he was handpicked because of a recommendation from Kleiner and because of his work on some quantum entanglement crap they made up which basically translates to "how to teleport things".
His work was only theoretical, of course.
i thought the papers specifically mentioned using crystals or exotic materials
Radioactive materials
I still don't understand how he just showed up with a sample and Breen was like "say less brah"
There honestly isn't enough information, I'd bet you the administrator got blackmailed or threatened, or was just greedy which is why the administrator was extremely anal about things not going wrong, because he obviously knew something was going to go wrong.
>when the lads over in energy physics are literally destroying everything
He probably bribed him by showing him his future as the world's leader. You know, deal with the devil style. Or just got threatened like Eli was, or something like that.
He's aware of Gman, remember how he says that Freeman's contract was up for grabs when you're taken to his office? Of course they talked.
Actually you might be right, I really can't remember exactly. Either way it was on teleportation using radioactive shit.
Black Mesa discovers teleports, baits gov'ment into a contract, Aperture science discovers portals and seethes about BM.
BM then figures out that you teleport by using a "border world", like a pathway between worlds. Sends people there and brings back aliens to study.
One day you were going to study another one of these super powerful crystals from Xen but Gman switches it out for another, this causes the resonance cascade, aliens teleport in, turns out this a counter-invasion by Nihilanth who wants to take over Earth. You send a satelite into orbit to help your pals close the portals but it fails, they then learn it's because of Nihilanth, then they send you to kill it.
Then that whole ordeal catches the attention of the Combine, which might have been Gman's plan all along.
>Gman switches it
More like talks the administrator into using his sample instead of the normal one. It's not like he went into storage and switched them when nobody was looking.
Yeah, I just figured this would convey the meaning with less hassle. He's 100% responsible for this new sample, anyway, and that's what causes the whole shitshow.
Not just use this sample that was purer than anything tested before but also increase their equipment's power above 100%. I remember before HL2 when people called G-man "The Administrator".
They've been experimenting with the portals and aliens for a while before the cascade. Ever wonder why your HEV suit has combat modules showing ammo counts, our why Gordon's training includes weapon use? It's because it was designed for exploring hostile alien environments, not for regular lab work.
My guess is they wanted to send Gordon to Xen for a suicide mission and no one told him, what a good prank
There are a bunch of dead guys in HEV suits by the time you get to Xen, so I guess it's not impossible. Who knows how long they've been there for?
america and it's freedoms of expression are truly something to behold, at least while we still have them
>GIs just murder fellow americans in cold blood
I know military homies ain't the smartest of the bunch but I still think that's way too much. CIA Black folk I can see, but regular military guys just murdering american civilians en mass? no way.
Once you get to the satellite array rocket a couple of marines are lamenting that they didnt sign on to kill civilians
Theres also a set of marines that comment that the marines are out for revenge against freeman because he is literally the only one who fights back (which is only half true because the security team will fight back but are usually found hidden behind barricades or being killed by aliens)
I always assumed that by the third day of the incident as the marines begin to pull out most of them have unofficially decided to not kill any more scientists (if they ever did in the first place) to focus on the aliens. But because gordon has killed so many troops at that point they still try to kill him, personally.
It's a common trope in the genre that Half Life belongs to. It's lampshaded a few times like the other anon pointed out
Because jarheads are morons. No one cares about Semper gays.
GORDON WE'VE ELIMINATED THE ENTIRE UNITED STATES MILITARY! THAT DOES NOT INCLUDE THE GLOWBlack folk SUCH AS THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY AND LAW ENFORCEMENT
How would (you) fix Hunt Down the Freeman?
What did you find shitty about the game? How would you improve it?
That's basically just Op4 isn't it?
>How would you improve it?
Fricking delete it.
I would tell the creator that he isn't Kojima and to stop the forced need to replicate Phantom Pain.
Seriously, the entire mod is the guy screaming "MAN I SURE WISH I MADE PHANTOM PAIN"
I would hunt down the fricker who made it.
> Hunt down the shitty game dev starring AVGN
Get rid of the SFM cutscenes and trim out everything from the stuff with the 7 hour war and the sequence of him hunting Freeman.
The Gravity Gun made me upgrade my PC to play the game and gmod.
people weren't sensitive back then like you you foofoo fairy homosexual
I played HL2 when I was 14. I had nightmares because of the ravenholm demo. I wasn't expecting this since the game cover was just the face of a dude wearing glasses. The only hint was the rating.
You can only respond to this post if you completed all 8 steam-released half life campaigns on hard mode (1, BS, OF, 2, 2E1, 2E1, 2LC, Alyx)
I played all of them but Alyx. If I had money coming out of my ass for the VR equipment, I would. I just watched a walkthrough of it on Youtube.
Reminder that both Black Mesa and Hunt Down the Freeman are canon because Valve are morons with their IP.
Good luck convincing anyone.
>I don't like it so it's not cannon
Not how it works buddy.
I saw that they updated the visuals a bit and made it wide screen now. Does anyone got a comparison to what it used to look like?
>all these zoomers discovering the kino that was hl1
hope they give away the 1998 Thief at some point, to renew the interest on the franchise and hope for a proper remaster
If The Antlion worker could talk, this would be it's lines
"INVADERS" "Hope you like poison" '*baby voice* Aww look at the widdle grubbies You're gonna grow into a big and strong antlion oh yes you are oh yes you are" "PUNCH IT BOSS"
What was Nihilanth's endgame? Invade Earth? Close the portal? Escape the Combine?
Invade Earth to get out of Xen, he didn't want to be stuck there. Likely wanted to hide from the Combine too. Maybe expected them to invade Xen eventually instead of Earth?
He escaped the combines when he fled to the border world.
He wanted to invade the Earth because the border world was ass.
Little did he know that the combines already knew of his locations and had plans to murk him.
>How the frick was this game popular in the US???
most gamers back then were nerdy dudes
I have jacked off to her.
Butt-catching-crowbar technique!
Hardest enemy in the game.
The only one who actually searches for you if you make a sound.
Nah it was the perfect enemy to use those laser mines
>runs to the other side of the map
>pew pew pew
>deals 105130519 damage
>takes a single bullet
>runs to the other side of the map
>Netflix made Half Life show
Netflix would have turned Barney into a woman, make Gman black, make Cross and Green gay and made Adrian a neonazi. And Freeman would have been turned into a turbo simp.
>Adrian a neonazi.
Neonazi representation matters
>and made Adrian a neonazi.
that would be kino though
HL2 is better and im tired of pretending otherwise.
Squids attacking headcrabs never gets old. I wish there were more maps where different enemies attack each other. Alien grunts and human grunts attacking each other was cool.
IT SHOULD'VE BEEN ME, NOT HIM!
What happened to them?
we dont know
if we go by twitter commentary from randy fricking pitchford which shouldnt be taken as canon at all
>gina died
>colette in gman freezer
>kills the ugly hag and keep the frickable hag in the freezer
gman has fricking taste.
>25
>hag
and again as I said, offhand twitter commentary by randy shouldnt be taken as a form of "canon"
>25 is hag
anything above 16 is hag, also people take what randy says as canon because why not?
>has TWO PHDs at the age of 25
HOW.
suckin dick
shes definitely lesbian with colette though
Colette strikes me as exclusively Coffee sexual
Wasn't one of them married or did I dream that up?
I think at one point Gina was going to be Gordon's wife. Gabe had this whole idea that you could choose to play Gordon or Gina and the campaign whole unfold slightly differently depending on who you choose and the two would cross paths several times. Then the other devs told Gabe he was insane to suggest something that complicated so late in development
based gaberino always pushing the team to their limit
sounds a bit like azure sheep honestly
Colette was 31, Gina is 25
Gina died, Collete unknown, probably dead too.
Crazy to think these two managed to get to the surface from the same test chamber as Gordon hours before him.
Rank the games
HL1 > HL2 = HL2:EP2 > HL2:EP1
Haven't played Alyx so can't give it an honest ranking. Played a bit of it at my buddy's place and it was quite fun though. Pic related is my tierlist of each level.
>Haven't played Alyx so can't give it an honest ranking.
Don't bother, it's a fricking joke.
>HL1 > HL2 = HL2:EP2 > HL2:EP1
correct, but hard disagree on the pic
>correct, but hard disagree on the pic
How so? Curious what you think
Mind you, I haven't played episode 1 & 2 in years and only played some of the HL2 chapters this year so I might be misremembering certain things from each chapter.
>Highway 17 not on S
homie that bridge section alone warrants an S.
Nah, the bridge is tight but the rest of the level is just on a rail.
EP2 > HL1 > Alyx = HL2 > EP1 > OF > BS > Decay
Alyx => HL2E2 = HL1 => HL2 > OF > HL2E1 > A pile of turds > BS
Americans love killing their own more than anyone else. Just look at all the abortion rates in the US.
I don't quite get it: At the end of HL1 you close the portal. Then why does HL2 and its portal storm happens?
HL1 portals are created by Nihibaby, HL2 is just full on invasion by the combine.
How does the combine know about earth?
Resonance cascade and subsequent invasion of Nihilanth forces of Earth caught their attention
The resonance cascade from back mesa
Probably saw the frickery of teleportations happening during HL1, or when Nihibaby got killed they investigated what was going on.
The combine are an empire spanning across entire dimensions. Think of the multiverse like an endless hallway lined with doors. Each door has an entire dimension behind it that could look like anything. 99.999% of those doors are going to have nothing of value. Now consider the idea that our dimension getting invaded was like our dimension's door opening, and spilling out lights and sound. The Combine saw activity behind our door and decided to invade to take advantage of whatever was on the other side.
The initial portals were from the resonance cascade, which should have been stopped by the rocket you launch. The Nilanth keeps the portals open from Xen until you kill him, which releases a shitload of presumably interdimensional energy that might have caused more portal storms.
The Combine piggybacked off the portal storms to invade a weakened Earth.
>The initial portals were from the resonance cascade,
BM crew knew how to travel to Xen even before that event. The unstable portals that spawns all the aliens after the cascade are because of the baby I presume.
>BM crew knew how to travel to Xen even before that event.
it's what the doctor tells you in lambda core, it's one of the explanations as to why you can find other teams that "disappeared" from venturing in the "world beyond" before gordon.
Yeah Lambda was the secret project within the secret facility. Godda love that.
HL1 is peak 90's X-Files conspiracy schlock so the top secret government research facility having an entire wing dedicated to an even more top secret ultra black project is just par for the course.
I just started rewatching the X Files. 5th-8th Grade, sitting in the basement with the lights off watching Mulder and Scully fighting for THE TRUTH while I waited for mom to get home and make dinner. It was pretty comfy.
Any episode that had William B. Davis in the guest star billing was guaranteed kino
I also loved X-files but the show shat the bed after season 6. Mulder just leaving for a season or more was the final nail.
Yeah. At that point it was popular though and Fox wanted to milk it even after Gillian Andersen followed David Duchovny out the door. The show was pretty dependent on having both of them on board.
>in the end the safest company ended the world instead of the rival shitshow that proposed to the government shitton of ideas per week and recieved no founding.
Cave Johnson was a dick tbqh.
if Gman had not given the sample to black mesa and glados didnt go on a nerve gas spree , im 100% sure the frickers at Aperture would have been the one to somehow create a resonance cascade by pure accident while testing a Machine that can Bake Chips using Interdimensional Heat Source
Black Mesa was just more level headed, while Aperture they were just shitposting their way into science.
Though, one day i would still like an explanation onto why the Combine simply investigated Aperture before?
Has Glados just killed everyone that tried?
Even G-Man says that the Vortigaunts first experience of humanity were a crowbar to the face.
I think Glados managed to hide almost all information on Aperture from them, including the location of their headquarters. IIRC in the Portal ending you can see it's pretty much just a couple of office buildings and a parking lot above ground, 99% of the facility is underground, but that explosion could have turned some attention towards them. Not like a couple hundred turrets could have stopped the Combine.
Glados could just flood the place with neurotoxin and kill all the combine.
Combine have gas masks, Anon. I'm sure if they saw their dudes dying they would have issued oxygen tanks or just straight up sent some drones. Besides, they know Aperture was doing something related to teleportation, the would have sent an entire army to learn more about that. They do know about the Borealis, afterall.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. The fact that they don't know where Aperture Science facility is. That's the best defense Glados has in the first place.
Stop mixing Portal with Half-Life you dumb Black folk
>b-but the connection is real and actually in the games
Yeah and it's obviously a mistake considering what they did with Portal 2's setting and the complete ignorance of the Borealis in HL Alyx. The two IPs have vastly different tones and if you're one of those people thinking Gordon will interact with Chel someday you're literally no better than a Marvel soiboy.
Chel is 100s of years in the future, probably. So that's not happening either way.
And when Borealis is such a big deal in HL, you can't just elect to ignore a part of the story like that.
This. It worked with Portal, but the sequel killed it.
The combines would have found that hole in the ground and wrecked it.
for all we know the events of portal 1 happen during Gordon wrecking shit up in HL2 which would have the combine not giving a shit about an explosion in the middle of the us
That's moronic on multiple levels
HL universe can work with Portal 1, but not with 2.
Why can't it work, in your opinion?
How would Gordon fricking up a city somewhere in eastern europe affect in any significant way things happening in US?
How would a lab as big as Aperture Science, as seen in Portal 2, go undetected for so long? It would have huge heat signatures and any sonar-scan device would have detected there's some frickery there.
We don't know if the place where Aperture is located in isn't a wasteland with frequent portal storms. The Combine might just not have enough people to survey an entire planet, you realize that? The whole place is self-sufficient and underground.
> heat signatures and any sonar-scan
Again, portal storms mess with that. Hell, antlions probably mess with that.
It's cannon that portal storms aren't really a thing during HL2, it happened a lot during the Black Mesa incident and the combine invasion but it died down in the following years.
Even if the whole place is self-sufficient it would still be detectable with a variety of technologies that we already have. You can't blame a hole several miles deep and nuclear reactors on antlions.
Also we know it's not in the middle of nowhere, there were offices and labs above ground. During the ending you see a guard's post.
The exact location of the Borealis is a new discovery, but not its existence or the existence of Aperture. They were known competitors of BM in the portal/teleportation industry so the combines must have been interested.
There's also another mod called Snowdrop Escape which does the same mix, but they go even further and add Aperture's "Multiverse Theory" into the mix.
Pretty gr8 mod.
Nah, Entropy Zero 2 is proof that you can mix HL and Portal and do something good with it.
tbf, entropy zero 2 mostly mixes it with portal 1 with some very minor elements from 2, like wilson having a conciousness and cave johnson existing at all, which are mostly inconsequential. theres no quirky personality cores or mantis men or peanut water blood or stupid bullshit like that. also, i dont like how they made aperture just a giant fricking void in portal 2 when it was clearly an actual facility in the first game.
I think all those were just contained incidents, anon. No bearing on actual story.
most of the portal stuff in EZ2 doesn't develop on anything significant either, but all the portal assets are from portal 1 and not 2. so its clear they were going for the portal 1 vibe for those sections and not the p2 one.
When Glados dies, the rest of the facility is still operational. As is the party recovery bot, or whatever that thing that drags Chell back is. I'm sure they would have fixed that hole in the ground to make it look as if nothing ever happened.
Yeah, because the combine forces would have arrived there and only give it a look to see if anything is amiss, right?
Not like the combines would have been interested in the research that was going on at Aperture considering their situation. Not like they were actively looking for the lab and Borealis.
>Not like they were actively looking for the lab and Borealis.
Not necessarily but finding Aperture would have given the Combine an upper hand that they've been looking for this whole time (local portal technology)
They weren't actively looking for them, they were after Eli Vance and Kleiner. People who know about teleportation technology and had a working teleporter right under the Combine noses.
They only get alerted to Borealis when Mossman sends that encrypted message.
Nope, she gets attacked as she is sending the message. The combines were already in the area, probably doing the same thing the rebel forces were doing.
What if they just followed her? Kleiner and co. seemed very surprised when they finally saw that transmission, so it must have been a fresh discovery.
>Literally wasted dozens of medal of honor recipients and astronauts on shitty bouncing gel experiments in the 1950s.
Yeah no
black mesa is the safest company btw , apperture were the ones doing the moronic shitshow experiments and then wondering : "WHY THE FRICK DONT THE GOVERNMENT FINANCE US ??"
and black mesa killed off 99% of earth's entire fricking population
Were portals the most advanced thing Aperture was working on?
I love the constant joke throughout the portal games that aperture could create the most mind-bogglingly advanced future tech possible but the actual business side of things was so horribly mismanaged that the company still went under anyways.
Bring back Gina and Colette
make a note saying that shephard died offscreen and wont be returning
>Half Life: Alyx
>Half Life: Barney
>Half Life: Colette
I love how Colettegays have a seething rageboner against Shephard for some reason.
nah just pointing out how obnoxious shephardgays get, we're both in the same situation
>Even scout got a reference
Wtf?
theres a small bobblehead thing painted to look like the scout that you can pick up in the game
Scout bobblehead in one of the offices
>Bring back Gina and Colette
Yeah and I want the games to retcon on Gina being dead in OpFor.
>crossfire
>crossfire
>crossfire
>crossfire
>crossfire
Stop doing this you fricks. Play some different maps for once
*presses button*
Nothing personell kid.
I will play crossfire
I will play dust 2
I will play 2fort
And there is nothing you can do about it.
>be elite marine deathsquad sent in to cover up black mesa disaster
>should be a cakewalk of a job, it's just a bunch of limp-wristed scientists
>insert via helicopter, patrolling a hallway
>this nerdy looking fricker comes bhopping down the hallway past my squad at 2000 hammer units per second
>sends a rocket flying our way before we even have time to react
>mfw
Gordon even isn't half of it. The grunts ended up in a war against an entire alien invasion. They had to retreat like it's Afghanistan eventually.
>Gordon even isn't half of it. The grunts ended up in a war against an entire alien invasion. They had to retreat like it's Afghanistan eventually.
It's one of the ebst parts of the game.
>Forget about Freeman!
>Colette
>Sheperd
frick that , bring back my boys X-8973 and R-4913
what makes you think they haven't?
I always thought the two vorts you kill in ‘the package’ were X-8973 and R-4913. The timeline matches up.
I want Prospero, doesn't matter if it's an unfinished build
I just went through the warehouse and only 3 female assassin's attacked me, and they died very easily. Weren't there more? Also, is water supposed to look like this when submerged?
>"Let us contact the military about how we fricked up and unleashed alien hell on earth , surely they will come evacuate us"
absolute brainlet
Rosenberg is lowkey one of the most important characters in the HL universe. He was literally the one who created the whole teleportation technology.
Sure, but given how essential their tecnology is to the Combine, you'd imagine they would send everything they had to Aperture.
Idk if Neurotoxin would've stopped.
Shephard is referenced in Portal 1 but it's more an easter egg than anything solid, and likely just something one OP4gay put in without anybody noticing
Where?
The office keyboards have differently colored keys for all of the ones you'd need to spell out Adrian Shephard
confirmed by Doug Lombardi to have been a freak coincidence as ASHPD was the acronyms for Aperture Science Handeld Portal Device
It's more letters than just ASHPD though, it's ASDHERIPN
not a lot that could be tied to aside from Adrian Shephard, but like I said it was probably snuck in very last minute by someone who wanted the easter egg getting through without being shot down because op4 isn't canon
Is the obsession with opposing forces something you had to be there for? It's literally just gearbox quoting as many 90's action movies as they can and slapping on AI teammate sequences that barely work
How did Half-Life get away with having such kino enemy designs?
Here is the actual experimental BDU/camo used by the Marines, while running a combat exercise called the "Limited Objective Experiment 1" back in 1998.
Post-desert storm, Panama aesthetic pretty much.
OpFor had the best HL aesthetics.
Too bad about the rest of the game.
>Too bad about the rest of the game.
yeah it kinda sucked.
But I still play the shit out of it because it's KINO, just like Blue Shift.
Each at least once a year.
post social security number then
?
Black Mesa Blue Shift Chapter 5 when?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLsxSwPlFro
I liked the Xen vortigaunt section in Black Mesa where you run around the little village before things go down.
I feel like black mesa xen could've just been cut down by like, 3 maps and it would be miles better
>that godawful giant tree map in Xen
>that part in Interloper where you have to go to 3 different rooms to kill all the controllers in each room
>that part in the middle of Gonarch's Lair where you do water puzzles for a whole map
all 3 of those maps frick up the pacing and kill the momentum
I like most of the Xen parts in Black Mesa. I don't think it goes on for too long and does a better job at conveying the lore.
>I don't think it goes on for too long and does a better job at conveying the lore.
it does. You really see that the BM guys went all-in on recreating Zen from the ground-up since it is 100% their own thing. Which is partly why they didn't want to "trim" parts of it down, even though they're objectively bad. Alltogether, the good Zen parts outweigh the bad ones by a significant margin.
*Xen
Why is half of this thread arguing about Breen calling in the marines when it is literally said canonically that this moron called them in
It's just one weird anon trying to push his fanfic
>canonically
Hey Randy, how you are doing, you greasy frick?
>Hey Randy, how you are doing, you greasy frick?
prolly good since he got /vm/ Black folk to help him shill risk of rain: reslop and the incompetent fricks from volition.
Americans hate their government I don't know why you think they'd take offense to that
OK I need to ask this cause its been on my mind for a long time. What was the point of the rocket launch in the the underground chapter? The security guard said it was needed to close the Portal but nothing happens and the game never refers to this ever again. Did I miss some or is it just poor writing?
You stop seeing random teleports of "wild animals" like headcrabs and bullsquids in favor of "tactical" teleports of alien slaves and soldiers actively targeting you.
>You stop seeing random teleports of "wild animals" like headcrabs
Im pretty sure headcrabs still teleport in the surface tension chapter sane goes for Vorts but I guess you could say it happens more rarely? I always figured it was the nihilanth sending his grunts first to soften up the defences and then sending his actual army.
In Surface Tension the headcrabs come up out of the sand. New ones no longer teleport in.
Ah shit youre right. I need to replay half life again last time I played it I got filtered by surface tension on hard Mode. I dont know if im just shit or if that is the hardest part of the game even harder than Xen
IIRC it was to create an satellite link to re-establish teleport contact with Xen, since the local relays were either damaged during the resonance cascade or disabled by the military
You stop the portal storm, but Nihilanth kept open, that's why you go to Xen to kill him.
Wait, wasn't it cannon that the satellite got shut down by the government because it was an unauthorized launch or am I going crazy?
It being an "unauthorized launch" was why the Marines came in and stopped it. Gordon had to go in for a "manual override"
I think you are thinking of the fact that the military has stopped the launch, right before the final button press so Freeman could come in and do that. The whole control room is filled with dead scientists.
At the start of On a Rail, the guard tells you that the government aborted the launch, but that the lambda team needed the satellite in orbit if they were ever going to close the portal. You launch the rocket, which indeed stops the random teleports, but the alien soldiers are still coming in, and you find out why when you reach Lambda Core, where the scientists tell you the portal is being kept open by the conscious will of an alien, and that you have to go and kill it.
It's a bit weird and probably a leftover from the early original plans for the game. You were actually supposed to launch a nuke yourself to end the facility but they changed the premise during development, and the map was probably already made so they just repurposed it.
That might actually explain why nobody ever mentions the rocket ever again after launching it not even the guys who gave you the task in the first place (lambda team)
Well, at least HL2 Ep2 re-addresses the satellite plot.
I still find it funny that one fricked up crystal experiment can just blow up an entire giant science facility that goes on for who knows how many miles/kilometers in the desert. Everything gets fricked instantly from that one frick up, everywhere disaster and chaos. Computers exploding, walls crumbling, scientists losing their shit. Still love it though, very few games show you what happens during a disaster in progress, most just show the aftermath after weeks/years whatever.
The resonance cascade was mostly localized and probably had some small chain reactions from other parts of the facility hosting their own experiments into Xen.
The facility only exploded because the G-Man set off a fricking nuke after the events of OP4.
do (you) me , this is the definitive level tier list
>power struggle
>suck
delet
ravenholm is a bit overrated....
For me, Lowlife is the better horror chapter than Ravenholm.
NTA but I thought Freeman Pontifex(?) from episode 2 where you're in the abandoned steel mill was the best zombie section in the series, just the right amount of scary plus action and a good atmosphere. lowlife was never scary to me since Alyx is with you the whole time and the encounters are much more about straight combat than slowly creeping through an infested area
Worlds Collide sucks and you fricking know it
Xen rated too high
Northern Star rated too low (genuinely the scariest level in vidya I have ever played, though it might be because poison headcrabs terrify me..)
Freeman Pontifex and Under the Radar too low
Sandtraps too low
Riding Shotgun too low
Quarantine Zone one tier too high
>ravenholm & highway 17 in S-tier
yeah, I'm thinking this is bait
not that anon, but I feel like "around the time of release" that might be true. But also "at the time" I was a fricking kid, Still driving in that car was amazing, and cutting the zombies in half and creepiness alone blew me away back then.
>at the time
If I weren't replaying HL2 at this very moment I would have agreed with you. But Highway 17 is not as good as you remember. It feels like a list of chores you need to do until you get to Nova Prospect. There is no challenge or cool chase sequence, just a long line of "oh yeah the road is blocked, gotta do X thing to continue".
>ravenholm could probably be put down a tier or two
It's shit. You remember it being much worse than it really is. Nonsensical puzzles, awful level design. Muh >horror
doesn't work when you've got a HEV suit and a 30 shotgun shells.
>Muh horror
This is the one thing that I dont agree with. Half Life always had a little bit of horror in it. Hell some might sugest its a horror game
>This is the one thing that I dont agree with
suit yourself but it's hard to force the player into a tense situation where you have 4 fully-loaded guns and the power of gravity in your hands. I remember the episodes having much better horror aspects.
I dont think its about the enemies being strong anon. Its more about the fact that you can see what happened before you got there. You can hear screaming of potential survivors, headcrab Zombies are scary once you realize the victims are still alive and the fact that the one guy who helps you is a madman.
I agree with you but environmental horror doesn't work as well on a repeat playthrough. You gotta keep players somewhat engaged else it becomes a chore.
For a 2004 game, Ravenholm has top-tier atmosphere. Replaying the chapter now, I realized how barebones it really is. Frick, I really with we got the Arcane Ravenhom game
>But Highway 17 is not as good as you remember
That's what I'm saying. For its time it was extremely engaging. But of course by today's standards it falters.
ravenholm could probably be put down a tier or two but I will extinguish your entire bloodline if you think highway 17 isn't one of the best levels in the entire series
>The Quarantine Zone at the top
It's a glorified Route Kanal with gravity gloves.
b8
>play as women
>one of their chapters is called Domestic Violence
lmao
A: They weren't Marines. They were a secret fictional military branch called "HECU" specifically meant for goverment coverups. They were all former marines/army thought.
B: they were depicted compotently, they were much harder to fight than any of the aliens. You had to utilize alien weaponry, snarks, and scientific tech to beat them, also you had to take advantage of the chaos of them fighting the Xen forces to beat them. This fit the trope very well of the "scientist using his brain to win" thing that was in a lot of movies at the time.
C: Their existence led to Opposing force where you play as them. Opposing Force was easily the best half life game and among the best games ever made.
What is this fricking obsession with Op Forces i keep seeing?
The game was fricking freely available for everybody at this point, it's a short shitty expac with some comedically bad design and starts gearbox's obsession with quoting as many 90's films as they can
>spacing
I've been here long enough to know nobody's ever fricking answered
The teammate AI sections don't work, the new characters like the fat donut cop are cartoonish, the game sniffs it's own ass so much one of the puzzle solutions is connecting a "valve" and "gearbox" in a 50/50 collaboration
Bro they had Duke Nukem's voice actor do all the Marines' lines, bro!! Broooo!!
Duke!! NUKEM!
Everyone called them marines and grunts tho. Nobody knows what the frick a hecku is
I always wondered if the Events of Half Life was their first actual Mission. At times they seem like they have no idea what they are doing
in shepard manual that came with the game its written that apparently their instructors had trained them for months to do interventions into place like black mesa , it seem the sole purpose of the HECU was to go to black mesa if anything went Fubar
OP4 implies they are all patsies and getting wiped out by some spooky black ops unit themselves so probably
HECU was a Gearbox invention
Ravenholm sucked and I'm tired of pretending it didn't.
It's maybe an A- on first playthrough and a very convincing C on any other playthrough.
Just like most of HL2, replaying it really drives home just how shit the game design is.
>replaying it really drives home just how shit the game design is.
absolutely agree. It's just very boring and barebones. I get that they remade the game in literally a year but the lack of attention to detail really shows.
Hopefully the episodes are better.
Episode 1 is the absolute worst game in the franchise (except maybe Blue Shift) and a complete letdown.
Episode 2 is...fine? It's about the same ratio of decent to shit as half life 2, but condensed into a much shorter package.
>Ravenholm sucked and I'm tired of pretending it didn't.
who the frick says ravenholm is good? it's boring as frick and only grigori's speeches make it somewhat bearable, you get hammered with zombie shooting arenas and waiting for that car trap to lift is pain.
Maybe I'm just autistic but on a rail was unironically one of my favorite parts in the game
I liked it too but the one thing that pisses me off to this day are the Electric rails that damage you. I know im moronic to get damaged by them but its still annoying
>on a rail was unironically one of my favorite parts in the game
Black Mesa has the full level and it's kino. I vividly remember getting filtered by the original on a rail when I was a wee lad.
>the bottom of the rocket dont line up with the upper part which dont line up with the silo hatch
holy shit that shouldnt make me that mad , but frick
I always liked it too. I even usually do all the side stuff in the level, just because.
>parts of the rocket don't align
I'm angry that I didn't realize Valve's evil trickery sooner
on a rail is great because you're just wandering aimlessly through the deepest bowels of the facility running into all sorts of different situations
My opinion should be taken with a grain of salt cause I kinda dislike this franchise in general but by the time I got to on a rail, I just wanted to get out already.
Got tired of using the stupid cart and just did the whole level on foot lol
A marine biologist. Hoorah.
lmfao
Ravenholm is based and crucial for lore building and I'm tired of you morons getting filtered by it.
The concept of the headcrab shells are so fricked up
Why not just bomb people to death instead of having to clean up the zombies after?
I get its effect as area denial though
its bassicaly psychological warfare for the combine , you denie an entire area as well as scaring shitless anyone who would try to rebel or else you turn their town into a zombie hellhole
not to mention less collateral damage. you basically make your enemies kill each other
problem is having to deal with headcrabs that didn't find a host after
>problem is having to deal with headcrabs that didn't find a host after
Human problems, don't wanna think about it.
Phsychological warfare? You're not dead under that head crab.
>If you frick with us, we'll make sure you wish you were dead.
always wondered how the frick the headcrab let his host live for years
hell in alyx you find zookeepers that when their face is revealed you only see a fricking skull , these guys must have had a headcrab on them since a little after the 7 hours war
the zombies seem to go into hibernation mode if they can't find some food after a while, like in HL2 onwards you'll find zombies 'sleeping' on the ground and they only wake up once you approach.
the poison zombies are the only ones that don't have a sleeping state we can see, which leads me to believe that they're kept awake and alive 24/7 by the headcrab
i think the same , those poor fricker look like the headcrabs on their back are injecting him with toxin all the time with the way they pulsate
Me, I wonder how is it that fast headcrabs can turn their victims into a stringy skeleton that runs faster than a healthy human. They look like they're nearly completely decomposed. I mean, if your muscles mutate to the point where bones are showing, you can't really just run or jump like that, you know?
Seeing all those almost fresh normal zombies right next to those thin guys that look dug outta a grave feels weird. Also, they really could have made more models for that normal zombie, even back then the first time I saw them I though valve was lazy if they just made a single model for the most iconic enemy in the series.
Ravenholm is the scary level. Some people like the scary level. Others don't.
> crucial for lore
None of Half-Life 2 is crucial for lore.
Ravenholm is the physics/TECHNOLOGY level actually. They were so proud of it they made it the demo.
I mean fair, you could light zombies on fire, set off physics traps and slice zombies in half and that was all cool
>charges you while spamming shotgun shots
The combine shotgunners are the only cool soldiers throughout hl2
I did not care for the alien level. It insists upon itself.
Was i the only one as a kid that liked to play as the canon fodder enemies when we playd in the woods and shit???
What's with schizos trying to convince us the game is bad?
That? Who cares!
More importantly How is he 27? He looks 40
Chud genetics
HL had chad zombies that break through walls, HL2 has weak b***hes that just attack wooden objects and can't break a simple fence.