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It is unfortunately not much of an ending either. Sure Half Life ends cryptically too but it at least ends at an ending before that, not in the middle of it. Sure yeah sequels but even though we didn't know it at the time that turned out to not be a good decision on Valve's part.
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Jun 27, 2022 06:14
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The most interesting touch of this part of the game, to me, is Breen's office. You'd expect something luxurious for the Combine's chief quisling, but it's not really. Yes there's a desk and a rug and a globe, but more of the room is taken up by prisoner pods and the rail network. It feels obvious to me that this was never actually meant to be an office, Breen just slapped down whatever few luxuries he could get his hands on into a room that happened to have a view. There hasn't even been any indication that Breen or Mossman changed clothes during the two days since the raid on Black Mesa East. I choose to think of this as good environmental storytelling rather than them simply not wanting to make multiple models for characters.
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Jun 27, 2022 20:02
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The office has a very fancy doorway, too, don't forget that! The final "boss" was meh but the confrontation with Breen was great as a way to characterize a desperate, in-over-his-head flunky flailing for any way out of a losing situation he can find. "A host body?? You can't be... oh, all right!"
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Jun 27, 2022 20:06
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I think the Dark Energy sequence is mostly pretty good, it just needed to have a proper final boss fight before it. Take most of the enemies out of the Breen sequence, make it just some platforming/basic physics puzzles, and it's just a denouement where you watch Breen utterly fail to be a credible threat to you because he was never anything but a mouthpiece. Realistically, the final boss of the game is the big strider shootout at the end of Follow Freeman. Everything inside the actual citadel is a victory lap. A really fun one! But not one that puts your combat capabilities to the test. Half-Life has never been big on boss fights, but the battle at the horse statue could really have done with a bit more gravitas to work as a capstone.
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Jun 27, 2022 20:16
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GunnerJ posted:The office has a very fancy doorway, too, don't forget that! My favorite part of this is Breen blowing the poo poo out of his office with the gravity gun because he didn't know how it worked, then dumping it at the first chance in a panic as a completely helpless Gordon comes up the elevator.
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Jun 28, 2022 00:50
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Meaty Ore posted:My favorite part of this is Breen blowing the poo poo out of his office with the gravity gun because he didn't know how it worked, then dumping it at the first chance in a panic as a completely helpless Gordon comes up the elevator. It's great because when the soldier showed it to him, he was like "pfft what's this crap, chuck it over there"
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Jun 28, 2022 00:54
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I was going to ask what happened with Breen and the gravity gun, but it makes sense that he's clearly all talk even when it comes to his scientific chops. He keeps going on about how much more he understands about Combine science and tech, but can't figure out how to operate a gun without it blowing up in his face. He's just a snivelling midle manager who thinks he's intrinsically better than his subordinates because he's got a fancier desk, and nothing more. What was Mossman threatening him with anyway? A knockoff sonic screwdriver? It's also kinda unclear whether it's a weapon, a tool or both. And I'm sure everyone's already thought this, but the final pod ride really feels like a slap in the face to the player. You've spent the better part of two whole games finding alternate routes around obstacles and clever ways to use the environment against your foes, and then you're very bluntly forced by the game devs to tie yourself up so they can push you through the front door of the final boss's office. They could have had you at least get knocked out and captured before getting shoved into the pod, or maybe heroically sacrificing yourself to save somebody. And that's not even going into possibilities like "use the gravity gun to shove a combine soldier into the pod to distract Breen while you drop down from a ventilation shaft behind him". Crazy Achmed fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Jun 28, 2022 |
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Jun 28, 2022 09:04
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Crazy Achmed posted:What was Mossman threatening him with anyway? A knockoff sonic screwdriver? It's also kinda unclear whether it's a weapon, a tool or both. It was the hacking tool Alyx was using to operate Combine stuff. I have no idea if it could at all function as a weapon but clearly Breen didn't either.
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Jun 28, 2022 09:29
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 Part 1: Undue Alarm So the year is 2005. Valve's just released Half-Life 2 to massive acclaim, and wouldn't you know it, they want to go right back in. In April of that year, they announce that they're working on an expansion for the game, which they title Aftermath. The game, aptly, is set immediately after the end of HL2, and details the consequences of the Citadel's destruction, and Gordon and Alyx's attempt to flee a city in chaos. Folks at Valve say that the expansion is proceeding smoothly and should be ready very soon. Or at least, part of it. February 2006, it's announced that Aftermath is going to be divided up into multiple parts, with the first being titled Half-Life 2: Episode One. This will, they claim, allow the game to be released in a speedier fashion instead of leaving the fans waiting years for a complete product. There's no need for spoilers about reality, so as we all know, their idea of speedy delivery infamously doesn't work out for them. What caused Valve to lose their way? Well, as we dissect the two Episodes they ended up releasing, maybe we can find a clue as to why. Episode One more or less follows their plan for Aftermath. The Citadel's blown its top, and now we've got to figure out how to stop what's left of the Citadel from taking the whole city out with it. We're going to have Alyx following us for almost the entirety of this expansion, and Valve really hopes that we enjoy having her around and find her endearing. No really, it's one of the things they're experimenting with. Escort missions prior to this game, a lot of them are frustrating and the butts of jokes, and Valve's like, "What if we made a buddy character who doesn't suck?" Let's see if they succeed.
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Nov 5, 2023 22:33
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It lives. 
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Nov 5, 2023 22:43
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Sheesh. I never realized you could just catch the falling debris. I thought the gimmick was that you had to grab the energy orbs and hit the falling debris with them to knock the debris away. I found this segment really, really goddamn hard. 
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Nov 5, 2023 23:37
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Cythereal posted:Sheesh. I never realized you could just catch the falling debris. I thought the gimmick was that you had to grab the energy orbs and hit the falling debris with them to knock the debris away. Better off than how I approached this section the first time. I did look up and see the falling debris, but what I thought was, "Oh, I need to dodge this." Took me a couple times where the elevator got smashed to pieces before I realized that maybe I should do something about that.
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Nov 6, 2023 04:14
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I remember some speculation that the Combine slug who does psychic eye pokes at you is actually Breen in a slug body based on the recording you see just before that, hence why it's so pettily hostile.
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Nov 6, 2023 12:10
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GunnerJ posted:I remember some speculation that the Combine slug who does psychic eye pokes at you is actually Breen in a slug body based on the recording you see just before that, hence why it's so pettily hostile. Mhm. It's a reasonable interpretation based on how the information is laid out to us. After all, you would assume that the game wouldn't take special care to repeat the line about "a host body" unless it was somehow important. On the other hand, it could also be the Combine Advisor who Breen was talking to, since the pod begins moving after the screens suddenly fill with the Advisor's face. The Breenslug theory gets a bit more credence in Episode Two, but we'll touch on that when we get to that. Actually, question: I've been leaving off the Developer Commentary feature for Episode One because it's a bit distracting, but would you folks like it if I did a secondary video for each update where I listen to the commentary nodes? Might give a bit of extra perspective about how the game was put together.
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Nov 6, 2023 14:02
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I learned literally last week that apparently in any Source game with dev commentary, when dev commentary is on you can right click and press E simultaneously to warp to the next commentary node. Might help streamline those vids a bit.
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Nov 6, 2023 18:40
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I'm going to go on record here to say I don't really like this first rather long part of Episode 1, including upcoming parts, and perhaps surprisingly it has nothing to do with Alyx. I never liked the super gravity gun, or at least how it was used, and the energy ball puzzles weren't very interesting either. There's still a level of Valve quality to enjoy but it just goes on for so long until you get what I consider to be the "fun" part of Half Life.
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Nov 7, 2023 06:33
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Just letting everyone know that I am working on the update. Just got myself sucked into a few other things like school courses, hanging out with relatives, and playing assorted new releases. Super Mario RPG, Star Ocean 2, and stuff like that. ETA is probably Wednesday.
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Nov 20, 2023 19:10
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Or I could post it a literal month later. Eco: Being an active member of a community is kinda like drugs. Ep 1, Chapter 2: Direct Intervention This update is a short one, a really short one. Honestly, they could have mashed this and the previous chapter together with how little time it takes. It's just moving around an out-of-control reactor and plugging in three devices. Putting that doctorate to really good use, I tell ya. Still, this chapter is another example of the connection Valve's trying to establish between Gordon and Alyx. Quite a few personal moments here. I didn't think much about it when I first played, but Merle Dandridge really knows when to give a wisecracking performance or when to go softer and more serious. Alyx is a well-rounded character, not just a spunky action star, and I'm enjoying seeing it play out with a newer perspective.
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Dec 18, 2023 16:43
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I think part of the mine 'puzzle' falling flat is that there's nothing puzzling about it. You have two options: grab the mines, or push them away. When you grab them, Alex immediately tells you what to do, and only after both mines were turned did the combine show up to get mined. It's an on rails cutscene masquerading as a puzzle, so it doesn't make you feel clever at all.
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Dec 19, 2023 02:15
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| # ? May 8, 2024 19:36 |
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When I first played this it took me a... while to get the stalker cage thing off of Alyx because despite pulling being exactly 1 of the 2 things you can do with the gravity gun it didn't occur to me to pull.
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Dec 22, 2023 05:52
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