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Welcome back! I honestly can't remember if I knew about the bonus rooms the displacer can take you to. I feel like I must have at some point but its not conjuring up any memories at all. On the other hand I absolutely remember the spore launcher and barnacle "gun". The barnacle because it probably killed me more times than most enemies in Half Life and the spore launcher because I had the same reaction you did. Something about a lot of biological weapons really appeals to my imagination, either in adorable ways (snark, spore launcher) or slightly disturbing ways (Republic Commando's "laser" cannon). The image of aliens getting issued a spore launcher and getting attached to it like a soldier and an explosive sniffing dog is just so strong. Edit: New update at the bottom of the previous page if this is a still a thing that matters!
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# ? Oct 25, 2023 06:45 |
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# ? May 9, 2024 00:13 |
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Kibayasu posted:Edit: New update at the bottom of the previous page if this is a still a thing that matters! It might or might not be. I've got the rest of the game recorded, and it's logging in at an hour-ish, so I'll be getting to work on the final update shortly. My goal is to knock this game out so that it's not weighing on me, then head back to Half-Life 2 to do the Episodes. I'm waiting for the Peer Review mod to be finished for Half-Life: Decay because, well, I think it'd be cool to show off, which means that this thread's going back in the freezer once I'm done here.
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# ? Oct 25, 2023 14:43 |
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...The number of times I played Opposing Force and never realized the alt-fire on the barnacle reeled it out. I thought you just had to live with the fall damage.
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# ? Oct 25, 2023 15:47 |
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Cythereal posted:...The number of times I played Opposing Force and never realized the alt-fire on the barnacle reeled it out. I thought you just had to live with the fall damage. The bit I didn't mention is that it's not so much reeling out as the game just drops you while keeping you tethered. You have to hit the left click again before impact in order to bob a bit and reset your falling speed. Like I said in the video, super primitive concept, but you've got to start somewhere.
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# ? Oct 25, 2023 16:51 |
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I love that your character pets the spore launcher after feeding it.
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# ? Oct 25, 2023 20:45 |
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Carbon dioxide posted:I love that your character pets the spore launcher after feeding it. It's a good boy, Carbon.
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# ? Oct 26, 2023 17:57 |
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Spore launcher is good, but Shockroach? Shockroach is shockroach and is fantastic weapon for many situations.
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# ? Oct 26, 2023 19:49 |
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The fact that you can pet the spore launcher is adorable and hilarious. Shame the snarks are hostile and cannot be petted as well.
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# ? Oct 27, 2023 00:17 |
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Part 6 (final): Worlds Collide Last update for Opposing Force, and it's been a long time in coming. This covers four whole chapters in the space of an hour: Pit Worm's Nest, Foxtrot Uniform (clever, Gearbox, very clever), The Package, and Worlds Collide. The farther you get into the game, the more action-packed and crazy it gets, which is unfortunate, since it means that the slowest and dullest stuff is reserved for the bit of the game where folks decide whether or not it's worth their time. I said it in my post-mortem, but I think in retrospect, Opposing Force did everything that an expansion pack needed to do in that time period. It took the gameplay of the original Half-Life, added more features, weapons, and enemies, and introduced a brand new scenario that lasted a decent number of hours with boss fights, tough encounters, and some...okay puzzles. I would say that, from a technical standpoint, Gearbox accomplished precisely what they set out to do. Does the game do anything that makes it stand out compared to the original? I would say probably not. Nightvision, rope swinging, and use of a grappling hook are all really neat ideas, but they're novelties, not strong enough to carry the game by themselves. The Artifact in Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil turns the game entirely on its head and changes the way battles are done, while the three tools above are just that: tools. The Nightvision does make for an incredibly tense section in the video, which you'll know when you see it, but fighting enemies as they lunge into your fuzzy view isn't what I call particularly enjoyable. Still, if you liked Half-Life, then this game is offering more of that, and that's got to definitely count for something. I think I began to enjoy it more when I realized that you're meant to fight dirty instead of running and gunning like you're in an arena shooter, and the game really clicked once that idea fell into place. You've got to approach a game on its own rules, and all the whinging I'd been doing before was because I wanted it to be Black Mesa, and it was never intended to be Black Mesa because Black Mesa wouldn't exist for like 20 years. Anyway, what's next? Well, while I mentioned wanting to start on Decay in the update itself, my plan is to finish out Half-Life 2 and wait and see if the Peer Review mod gets finished within the next few months. I'll hop over to the other thread I made and get started on HL2: Episodes 1 and 2, and by the time that's done, we'll see whether I play the PS2 version of Decay or maybe something newer and shinier. Time will tell. Small correction to the update itself: I realize in retrospect that I was calling the machine gun a Light Assault Weapon or LAW, but the actual designation is Squad Automatic Weapon, or SAW. I feel like either one sounds cool, but I'd prefer to set the record straight since I didn't catch it in editing. Oh, and I figure someone will ask this: The backwards text revealing the name of Gearbox's lead designer is a reference to Doom 2's final boss: the Icon of Sin, which had a line that said, when reversed, "To win the game, you must defeat me, John Romero!" Unfortunately, unlike the Icon of Sin, you can't noclip into the Gene Worm and see Randy Pitchford's severed head. More's the pity.
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# ? Oct 29, 2023 22:40 |
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I liked Opposing Force and its weird maximum science/conspiracy angle with all the alien and experimental guns. Half-Life 2 never did quite click with me.
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# ? Oct 30, 2023 00:09 |
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Half-Life 2 always felt like a tech demo for Source for me instead of a real game.
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# ? Oct 30, 2023 00:16 |
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First, I played Black Mesa when it was just out and had horrible jump physics. No idea how it squared up, but your LP looks fine, modulo Xen Puzzles Second, I played, HL, OF and BS three times, roughly, not in recent past. Blue Shift is the weakest of the three. Opposing Force is the best when it is it's own game set in Half-Life universe, and weakest when it tries to do "HL did this, let's do it on our own". Thankfully, they skipped On the Rail, and I like On the Rail! Pit Worm is weak and horrible compared to Blast Pit Tentacles. Gene Worm is better than original Gronatch, but still quite dumb. Can't compare to Nihilant. Still, the games are a classic and I suggest that everyone who enjoys FPS must play Half-Life Anthology. GoldSrc version. And, to everyone, go and watch 100% of Hazardous Course 2. It's a parody mod of HL and you will see abuse of wonky physics like no tomorrow. And On The Worse Rails, that only a mother can love. But it also has the Ladder Climbing Section, and by gods, aren't GoldSrc ladders wonky. Do you know that you can climb on the ladder if it's on an angle or horizontal? That both sides of a ladder are climbable? And that HL2 engine can also kill you with ladders, horribly (but this bit of knowledge is courtesy of Garry's Mod streams) Finally, Congratulations on the successful conclusion to the LP!
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# ? Oct 30, 2023 16:55 |
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Also, I'm surprised you never used the displacer during the final boss arena. IIRC that area of Xen is particularly gorgeous, I think one of the areas you see in the ending to the original Half-Life.
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# ? Nov 1, 2023 12:42 |
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Cythereal posted:Also, I'm surprised you never used the displacer during the final boss arena. IIRC that area of Xen is particularly gorgeous, I think one of the areas you see in the ending to the original Half-Life. That is correct. It definitely uses the same map background, at the very least. I don't have much of an excuse for not showing it off, other than I didn't want to capture every single location.
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# ? Nov 1, 2023 15:27 |
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I'll always remember that above ground bit after the tunnel nest. It was in the demo, you get to pick up both the spore launcher and the machine gun before the fight but as soon as you start fighting outside the demo will start fading to black. It was such a tease.
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# ? Nov 6, 2023 10:00 |
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https://twitter.com/valvesoftware/status/1725586211551719463 https://half-life.com/en/halflife25 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbZ3HzvFEto Time makes fools of us all.
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# ? Nov 17, 2023 20:27 |
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# ? May 9, 2024 00:13 |
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Carbon dioxide posted:https://twitter.com/valvesoftware/status/1725586211551719463 Honestly, it's a really good update. Polishes the game, adds previously-inaccessible content, and makes it more accessible for modern play. The only trouble is, of course, a good amount of folks have played Half-Life already.
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# ? Nov 18, 2023 01:05 |