Half Life thread - Discussions about Valve's FPS magnum opus(es) and any related content (spin offs, expansions and etc)

[BibiLivesMatter]

Npcs that are smart enough to use cover, flank, and cause distractions. but stupid enough to randomly get stuck in geometry and unnaturally quick turn to opponents with inhuman speeds.

 

[DOORSTUCK]

• Barney finally gets Freeman the beer he owes him.
• Jiggle physics, not for boobs but for some Xen creature.
• Headcrab origin story. If not direct, some kind of environmental storytelling of how they came about.
• You can look down and see your feet.
• Flashback to Black Mesa segment.
• GMan revealed to be actually a good guy.
• At some point in the reveal trailer a watermelon is going to be eviscerated.

 

[ChickenFriedFan]

• Barney finally gets Freeman the beer he owes him.
• Jiggle physics, not for boobs but for some Xen creature.
• Headcrab origin story. If not direct, some kind of environmental storytelling of how they came about.
• You can look down and see your feet.
• Flashback to Black Mesa segment.
• GMan revealed to be actually a good guy.
• At some point in the reveal trailer a watermelon is going to be eviscerated.

Destructible terrain like Red Faction but way better.

 

[Star Classic]

Alright I'll post some predictions, these are mostly serious

Spoiler: Long

- the vortigaunt "marriage" between Gordon and Alyx will come into play within the plot, I imagine that this will be what prevents G-Man from killing Alyx or Gordon outright. If one dies, they both will.

- Shepherd will NOT appear nor be mentioned. If he does that I think he'll be a final boss.

- portal/aperture references, but nothing substantial.

- that one concept art of the advisors boarding the Borealis will be remade in the game.

- most of the enemy roster from HL2&EP will be a for sure. With some supplementary guys from Alyx coming in like the charger likely to replace the shotgunners. Houndeyes are pretty much a for sure. Bullsquids will not reappear since if Antlions are coming back, Spitters/Workers are pretty much a guarantee and as such Bullsquids are unnecessary. Maybe Gargs and Ickys?

- cremator will be planned and scrapped again.

-nothing will be explained.

- Either none of the Valve old guard is involved, or all of them are.

- 2 vehicle sections, just like 2. I'm betting a snowmobile for the arctic.

- We could possibly go back to Black Mesa, maybe a flashback section
- Mary Kay Irwin/John Patrick Lowry will be new characters instead of being the citizen VA. Basically the same situation that happened with the scientist models in HL1.

- Consoling Couple will appear.

- Griggs & Sheckley will appear.

- Gordon will receive that beer from Barney.

- Pulse Rifle, Spas 12, Crowbar, and Gravity gun will be the only returning weapon designs, with all the others being new designs. Putting my money on another similar Revolver design and the Pulse SMG from Alyx.

- there will be another mission impossible laser room.

- Kleiner and Magnusson appear again, but only as slight hellos and goodbyes, they won't be very important to the plot.

- D0g ends up destroyed somehow.

- Eli will die (for real this time)

- Barney will be your main companion for the game, I could see him dying, especially to give players reason to save Alyx and go after the G-Man

- Weapon variety will only slighty be expanded from HL2. Possibly we might see the Tau Cannon finally return. Other possibilities are SLAMs and Snarks.

- The major locations will be the Arctic where we search for Borealis, then we get sidetracked to Xen, then the Combine Offworld or maybe even Overworld as the finale. Possibly an epilogue where we enter the G-Man's workplace.

- Gordon will die at the end to fulfill the Christ figure archetype.

 

[Newcomer 42]

-The game will be fully playable in toaster-type PCs and have a day-1 release with no/few bugs.

 

[GlupShitto]

My big predictions are that your allies will be able to talk to you via AI like a less retarded version of the Fortnite Darth Vader, that there'll be at least one meta joke about HL3 taking this long, and that it'll end on another cliffhanger. I also suspect that there'll be a teaser for another game in the world of Half Life (whatever happened to that asymmetric VR game?)

 

[RSU 1741]

Does Half Life 3 even deserve to exist at this point? Despite memes, the Half Life games (bar expansions) have essentially been platforms for Valve to fuck around and improve gameplay concepts.

Half Life 1 took the Quake 1-era shooters and introduced "realistic" setpieces and a great care for environmental narrative. The fact that its gameplay loop was quite good cemented it in its position as a classic.

Half Life 2 existed for the memes in physics. It's still an incredibly well-made game with an amount of detail and care you can't find in most places, but its gameplay loop was inferior to HL1. Furthermore it fell into the "episodic gaming" meme of the mid 2000ies and we saw how that turned out. And the HL2 style of FPS was defeated by CoD clones in its own genre, a lot of 2000ies mid-tier shooters aped HL2 but in the end it was the pseudo-military FPS that won.

Alyx existed for the VR memery.

Valve always pushed for some kind of novelty, technological or design-wise, for HL. To make a HL3 in 2025+ it would require some neat idea on how to put some real gameplay innovation or have at its disposal people with excellent knowledge of FPS design. Alyx as a shooter is intensely mediocre in design, supported by the novelty of VR. Do they still have people that "know" how to make a fun FPS?

It's striking how a lot of people care about teh plot. I'm not going as far to tell that the HL plot is meaningless, and all that matters is ambience, but I'd be more worried about the bones of HL3, engine, design and gameplay.

 

[GratsTheat783]

I hope we get to play as Lazlow, the greatest mind of our generation.

 

[thhrang]

- Either none of the Valve old guard is involved, or all of them are.

IIRC, McNigger's said that HLX is basically a retirement project, something that the old guard wants to push out before they retire and move on. I'm inclined to believe it.

- Kleiner and Magnusson appear again, but only as slight hellos and goodbyes, they won't be very important to the plot.

Remember that canonically, they are literally right outside the hangar we've been stuck in for 20 years. I don't know how they'd write around them, at least in that instance, because they should probably be running into the hangar right after the HL:A postcredits scene ends (they probably would've seen/heard the postmortem of the Advisor ruckus).

Also, Kleiner and Eli's philosophical disagreement regarding what to do with the Borealis was a focal point in Ep2:

And since Eli is still alive, I'd expect this argument to be continued in at least some way.

I don't want them to shaft Kleiner and Magnusson in exchange for new characters. I want them, and hopefully Barney, to actually shine. Maybe they could stretch to include Russel. But I'm invested in the established character's stories more than anyone else, really. And I want justice to be done for them.

Valve always pushed for some kind of novelty, technological or design-wise, for HL. To make a HL3 in 2025+ it would require some neat idea on how to put some real gameplay innovation or have at its disposal people with excellent knowledge of FPS design. Alyx as a shooter is intensely mediocre in design, supported by the novelty of VR. Do they still have people that "know" how to make a fun FPS?

It's striking how a lot of people care about teh plot. I'm not going as far to tell that the HL plot is meaningless, and all that matters is ambience, but I'd be more worried about the bones of HL3, engine, design and gameplay.

Have you read this?
(The screenshots are from June and there's since been more added on that site itself.)

 

[Ambient Occlusion]

FPS single player campaigns are in such a shitty state right now. Aside from Nu-DOOM and COD, they're few and far between. I'm just hoping for a solid experience.

Have you read this?
(The screenshots are from June and there's since been more added on that site itself.)

To me, that ambient_npc_manager entity alone is the most damning evidence. I don't think there was ever a Houndeye model in Alyx and that one looks new. Also there are no proper NPCs in CS2 to manage either, so it wouldn't make sense for that game.

 

[Neodanthril]

Half life one is my favorite boomer shooter

 

[Creative Username]

FPS single player campaigns are in such a shitty state right now. Aside from Nu-DOOM and COD, they're few and far between. I'm just hoping for a solid experience.

valve only really releases half-life when it will define a generation in its genre, and these days they could do it by simply being well above average
nobody should expect it to be the finest game ever made (good way to disappoint yourself) but it's quite safe to bet that it'll be fairly fun

 

[NSJAP]

 

[wholetthegodsout]

Does Half Life 3 even deserve to exist at this point? Despite memes, the Half Life games (bar expansions) have essentially been platforms for Valve to fuck around and improve gameplay concepts.

Half Life 1 took the Quake 1-era shooters and introduced "realistic" setpieces and a great care for environmental narrative. The fact that its gameplay loop was quite good cemented it in its position as a classic.

Half Life 2 existed for the memes in physics. It's still an incredibly well-made game with an amount of detail and care you can't find in most places, but its gameplay loop was inferior to HL1. Furthermore it fell into the "episodic gaming" meme of the mid 2000ies and we saw how that turned out. And the HL2 style of FPS was defeated by CoD clones in its own genre, a lot of 2000ies mid-tier shooters aped HL2 but in the end it was the pseudo-military FPS that won.

Alyx existed for the VR memery.

Valve always pushed for some kind of novelty, technological or design-wise, for HL. To make a HL3 in 2025+ it would require some neat idea on how to put some real gameplay innovation or have at its disposal people with excellent knowledge of FPS design. Alyx as a shooter is intensely mediocre in design, supported by the novelty of VR. Do they still have people that "know" how to make a fun FPS?

It's striking how a lot of people care about teh plot. I'm not going as far to tell that the HL plot is meaningless, and all that matters is ambience, but I'd be more worried about the bones of HL3, engine, design and gameplay.

I simply think the game can be success just based on the fact that there are barely any non COD non Boomer shooter type singleplayer FPS games these days.

Now I know some of you will jump in and say Half-life is a boomer shooter. But as a boomer myself who played the original Half-life I can say that is not the case, at least compared to what kids these days ironically refer to as a "boomer shooter". As you pointed out the original half-life focused on immersion and a realistic world with little cool details (for the time). It also had slow paced exploration, puzzle solving, and horror elements. It wasnt about bunny hopping around at 90 mph firing a rocket launcher. Today's "boomer shooter" usually lock you into an arena where you phase waves of respawning enemies like NuDoom.

So I think if HL3 is a full fledged singleplayer campaign inspired by the first two games with some modern elements added in it will justify its own existence.

 

[RSU 1741]

Now I know some of you will jump in and say Half-life is a boomer shooter.

Boomer shooters have some variety. I loathe what the genre has become, because much like artsy pixel RPG they have become a parody of themselves, mindlessly aping some themes without understanding the meat of the genre. Or they're simply mediocre as fuck and thus boring.

Half Life 1 is a weirdo beast, because it tricks you. Because Gordon Freeman in HL1 can bunny hop entire levels shooting the Tau Cannon and the Rocket Launcher like a maniac, because he's still in mechanics a Quake 1 era FPS protagonist. It's simply that the levels aren't built (most of them, at least) to support such playing style. Half Life 2 was even slower and had a bit of a original sin of being a "setpiece" shooter, where the developers felt the need to show how clever they were with every single design choice, where everything is a tad different.

HL2 and its imitators lost the battle against first military shooters with "cinematic" and MP focus, then against third person cover based shooters. Boomer shooters are weirdo re-interpretations of a genre, but the very family of "Half Life-likes" isn't too common, I agree. Making 3d shooters is also fairly more difficult than quirky 2d sprites, stuff like Phantom Fury and the incredibly overrated Dusk are kind of a proof.

 

[Creative Username]

Because Gordon Freeman in HL1 can bunny hop entire levels shooting the Tau Cannon and the Rocket Launcher like a maniac, because he's still in mechanics a Quake 1 era FPS protagonist. It's simply that the levels aren't built (most of them, at least) to support such playing style.

quake: HURR HURR HURR *BOOM* HURR *ogre noises* *BOOM* HU-*BOOM* *splat splat splat*
hl1: you can try that, but if you don't get stopped dead by a puzzle, you will be ground into red paste by the hecu marines

 

[sodaboard]

adding time travel fuckery to the game is an immediate cop-out that ruins any sense of progress or meaning in choices. because now you've given yourself a precedent to go to any point in time and undo/change certain events and give yourself free reign to explain how those changes will affect the future. does this mean alyx was never with gordon during 2 and its episodes? did she just spontaneously disappaer during the hangar scene to save her dad? are there any other events that were changed because of this that we can exploit? time travel is an excuse for lazy writing and not having any good ideas after twenty fucking years.

 

[Blackstar]

 

[Slav Power]

View attachment 8176760

Geoff you cockteasing son of a bitch

 

[Star Classic]

adding time travel fuckery to the game is an immediate cop-out that ruins any sense of progress or meaning in choices. because now you've given yourself a precedent to go to any point in time and undo/change certain events and give yourself free reign to explain how those changes will affect the future. does this mean alyx was never with gordon during 2 and its episodes? did she just spontaneously disappaer during the hangar scene to save her dad? are there any other events that were changed because of this that we can exploit? time travel is an excuse for lazy writing and not having any good ideas after twenty fucking years.

If they do anything beyond what they did with the ending of Alyx and some stuff with the Borealis then I'll shame Valve for it, but otherwise I will defend Alyx's ending because I think Epistle 3's existence and what the general populace's idea behind the plot of EP3 would be was what "forced" valve's hand into doing what they did. On a meta level it feels like they were saying sorry for leaving us in the dark for 13 years, and in the story it meant that they were no longer shackled to a pretty much pre determined plot. We were expecting an adventure in the arctic with Alyx for years. They tried to do it and didn't work. It's just time for something completely different. I'm just glad that at the very least the mysterious nature of the G-Man makes it fit rather than being too much of an asspull.

Besides, I'll just hide behind a blanket statement that Laidlaw messed with the idea of time travel in Epistle 3 so it's automatically ok