MisterBibs posted:

- They backed themselves in a narrative corner with Gordon being a mute cypher

SubponticatePoster posted:

There's something...disturbing about the turbine rotating like that. It looks like the plane is about to take a huge poo poo. No F-35 pun intended.

minato posted:

Sounds like someone needs to watch Freeman's Mind

bobjr posted:

minato posted:

Sounds like someone needs to watch Freeman's Mind

minato posted:

Sounds like someone needs to watch Freeman's Mind

Randaconda posted:

https://i.imgur.com/inLOjvQ.mp4

Subjunctive posted:

I don't get what's going on here.

Subjunctive posted:

I don't get what's going on here.

Son of Thunderbeast posted:

Looks like he's distraught over something (either his team losing or maybe he just got a text saying his wife died or something) and his friend directs his attention to show they're on camera (I think) so he tries to be enthusiastic and strong for the camera

quote:

86 min: The camera picks out a Welsh fan who’s having something of an emotional moment. He must have popped up on the big screen, too, because suddenly a huge roar goes up from the Welsh fans. The tears of this young man soon turn to elation as everyone around him bundles in to show their support. Now that’s togetherness.

Perestroika posted:

To be fair, HL2 is literally 13 years old at this point. When it came out, a lot of it was pretty goddamn groundbreaking as far as FPSs went. Actually discernible facial animations, a detailed physics simulation embedded into gameplay, a story that's told indirectly in a very immersive fashion, a number of unique enemies and weapons, and all of that based on an engine that turned out to be one of the most versatile and lasting engines in the industry. Setting up turrets in Nova Prospect was cool at the time because few (or perhaps no) other games at the time allowed you to just pick up a thing, plop it down anywhere, and watch as it's rocked back and forth and eventually knocked over by enemy gunfire.

Of course, the rest of the genre quickly caught up to that level and eventually eclipsed it, and now much of that is fairly standard fare. But at the time it came out, it just blew our minds. So apparently quite a few people are hoping that a theoretical Half Life 3 would be another massive leap forward like that, no matter whether that's actually possible or feasible.

Zaphod42 posted:

The real problem is valve have learned they make way more money off Steam as a platform and multiplayer games like CSGO and DOTA which they can charge for loot packages and make constant income on a few models rather than big boxed $60 one-time-sale single player games like Half-Life.

They tried to do their "hats" business model on Portal2 and it didn't work because nobody cares to buy micro-transaction cosmetics when you're only playing single player or co-op.

As a result, we'll probably never see another single player game from Valve again, half-life or otherwise. If they do it would basically be a bad business decision that they only committed to as a passion project to finally finish the series, but even then if they were going to they would have by now. Way more profitable to just... not.

Also HL1 took 6 years, HL2 took 9 years, and the reason they did the 'episodes' was because presumably HL3 would take like 12 years of development to actually remotely deliver on expectations. Again, its way more profitable to crank out new CS and DOTA guns and skins instead.

Zaphod42 posted:

HL2 took 9 years

chitoryu12 posted:

Are you counting the episodes in that? Half-Life 2 was released in 2004 when the first was released in 1998.

Besesoth posted:

The homeowners' association of Presidio Terrace, a private street in San Francisco, failed to pay their tax bill for about thirty years, so in 2015 the city decided to auction off the street to pay the bill.

Tina Lam and Michael Cheng bought it for $90,100. They now own the street and sidewalks of Presidio Terrace - and the homeowners are furious, especially since...

chitoryu12 posted:

I wouldn't really give too much of a poo poo if Half-Life Episode 3 or whatnot is basically the same iterative improvement as Episode 2 was. I just want some kind of conclusion to the storyline.

FogHelmut posted:

Half-Life Free to Play

DontMockMySmock posted:

A friend and I were having a discussion recently about how many of the videogame companies we used to trust to make good games have lost that reputation, what with things like Blizzard devoting its life to Hearthstone and Overwatch, Valve dedicated to Steam and microtransactions, Maxis now owned by EA, etc. And we came to the conclusion that these days, the most trustworthy developer is loving Bethesda. The Glitch Kings of the loving industry are somehow now better known for making good games than the companies that brought us Starcraft and Half-Life.

Zaphod42 posted:

What? Bethesda is still poo poo.

Blizzard was great when it was a studio; now its Activision West and its basically got none of the same staff as it used to. They went from 50 devs before WoW to 500 devs after wow's launch. That's too much growth too fast.

What's also sad is another dev I would consider to be an all time great is Square, and the last couple Final Fantasy games have been real disappointments.

But there's plenty of cool devs out there. The big thing is that companies are kinda arbitrary. After working at one place for a few years people burn out and switch to something else, or spawn their own companies. The guys who made Diablo 2 went on to make Torchlight. They're still cool, they just aren't called "Blizzard" anymore.

Cythereal posted:

I'd also mark Bioware as a former great, but they've also fallen on hard times lately, most prominently with Mass Effect Andromeda. They're still almost the only game in town for sprawling Western RPGs.

Kennel posted:

Yep, Wales was going the get a surprise draw against England but then England scored with 5 minutes left. Those are Welsh fans.

e. Wait, England actually scored 7 minutes after that gif so it wasn't a reaction to the goal (presuming it's from Euro 2016).

e2. Okay, enough snooping for me, here's a bit from Guardian's live report

DontMockMySmock posted:

A friend and I were having a discussion recently about how many of the videogame companies we used to trust to make good games have lost that reputation, what with things like Blizzard devoting its life to Hearthstone and Overwatch, Valve dedicated to Steam and microtransactions, Maxis now owned by EA, etc. And we came to the conclusion that these days, the most trustworthy developer is loving Bethesda. The Glitch Kings of the loving industry are somehow now better known for making good games than the companies that brought us Starcraft and Half-Life.

Randaconda posted:

Fake, we Americans can't win soccer games.

Elizabethan Error posted:

his team came back from losing

Zaphod42 posted:

As a result, we'll probably never see another single player game from Valve again, half-life or otherwise. If they do it would basically be a bad business decision that they only committed to as a passion project to finally finish the series, but even then if they were going to they would have by now. Way more profitable to just... not.