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

[thhrang]

These two were also finished and functional in HL2 but still didn't make the cut. I wouldn't really bother making any assumptions unless something real solid gets leaked.

They made the Houndeye one of the specific icons for a Source 2 HLX toolset thing which is why I consider it pretty likely, in combo with all the other code leading people to believe we're going to be returning to Xen. You are right though, it's not 100% confirmed.

 

[Coolio55]

G-man saying Alyx is so heckin kewl she could replace Gordon had all the meta subtlety of a brick. A sequel post-HLA was always going to be about getting rid of Gordon for the "superior" protagonist ala Last Jedi. Seeing as HLfags are so desperate they accept any fucking trash, case in point HLA turbo retconning Eli dying, which is as big a fuck you to people waiting for Ep3/HL3 as it could possibly get, they will happily lap up any slop that shits all over Gordon as long as they get a new game.

I half expect the Borealis to be the tutorial level that never gets mentioned again, just to get rid of that vestigial plotline as fast as possible.

I still think that it's going to be good but you gave me a vision of horror beyond words for a bit there.
If Half-Life 3 is crap, I'll just have to play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Pathalogic and Brigand: Oaxaca like everyone else and pretend that they're leaked PS2 spinoffs.

Do you think that it would be like Star Wars Episode 1 where there's pure cope for a year until everyone finally admits that it's shit? I can't even fathom what would happen. Star Wars at least had the EU.

 

[thhrang]

Do you think that it would be like Star Wars Episode 1 where there's pure cope for a year until everyone finally admits that it's shit? I can't even fathom what would happen. Star Wars at least had the EU.

The gap between ROTJ and TPM (16 years) is now shorter than the gap between HL2:EP2 and now (17 years). Let that sink in.

 

[Chieftain Coke Peanut]

If that's the case, it's Ross Scott or bust

That or Duke Nukem. Gorgeous Freeman was some weird shit but Gordon sounding like the Duke fit surprisingly well.

I know people jerk off Valve a lot but I'm still impressed to this day what they achieved with Half Life 2. Such a major shift from the first game in so many ways, yet it stuck the landing and everyone loved it. Graphics and gameplay still hold up to this day, and the story is intriguing for how little there really is of it.

 

[JayseeDenton]

Star Wars at least had the EU.

This is the fundamental problem with the half life series. Lack of material.

They wrote themselves into a corner with the combine. They're cool and the vibe of half life 2 is great in its own right, but it's too different. The Xen/RaceX aliens were more interesting to fight and the grounded 90s military feel of the humans fighting them was kino. Both of those things were essentially discarded for half life 2 in favor of a totally different enemy, ally, power dynamic, and setting.

The following half life games after 1 should have been about earth's forces all over the world fighting back against Xen portal invasions in a decades long war. We could have had shooters, RTS games, all of it. The 7 hour war basically forces the setting to skip all of that and go "nah, the story is about rebellion now". Half Life 1's setting never got a chance to shine because it was relegated to a matter of days in the cannon then replaced by something totally different.

Opposing force remains the best thing to ever come out of the series.

 

[Nameless One]

What makes Half Life special and memorable and one-of-a-kind is that it's simply not anything like these fucking franchises you dimwit retards. It's everything wrong with gaming. Milking. Furthermore you can just make half life style mods for other games and your own campaigns with source. What's the point? All the extra material we got ended up as dogshit and only Gearbox did decent jobs. Decay is dogshit. The extra material we have isn't anywhere near as interesting as the games themselves.

This is the fundamental problem with the half life series. Lack of material.

They wrote themselves into a corner with the combine. They're cool and the vibe of half life 2 is great in its own right, but it's too different. The Xen/RaceX aliens were more interesting to fight and the grounded 90s military feel of the humans fighting them was kino. Both of those things were essentially discarded for half life 2 in favor of a totally different enemy, ally, power dynamic, and setting.

The following half life games after 1 should have been about earth's forces all over the world fighting back against Xen portal invasions in a decades long war. We could have had shooters, RTS games, all of it. The 7 hour war basically forces the setting to skip all of that and go "nah, the story is about rebellion now". Half Life 1's setting never got a chance to shine because it was relegated to a matter of days in the cannon then replaced by something totally different.

Opposing force remains the best thing to ever come out of the series.

I think Opposing Force isn't the best thing to come from the series but that's because I don't see Half Life as a normal FPS series but rather a weird hybrid of simulator, puzzle, platforming and FPS.

 

[30+GameOvers]

I know people jerk off Valve a lot but I'm still impressed to this day what they achieved with Half Life 2. Such a major shift from the first game in so many ways, yet it stuck the landing and everyone loved it. Graphics and gameplay still hold up to this day, and the story is intriguing for how little there really is of it.

Half Life 2 is a phenomenal achievement, especially on the technical side, and the only people downplaying it are retarded zoomers who weren't alive when it came out.

 

[Star Classic]

This is the fundamental problem with the half life series. Lack of material.

What material are we missing? I think there's plenty enough, not even counting the community's contributions. The only time I would say HL is missing content is in relation to
- Maybe a comic, which isn't a possibility since the guys doing the 2008-9 era Valve comics probably don't work there anymore.
- Episode 3, which is now a pipe dream that only the community can parch.
- Another HLVR game which'll never come.
- HLX which at this point is a certainty.
3/4 of these are unobtainable, and the only that IS is the one that truly matters.

Also OP4 being the best thing to come out of the series? Really? Good sure, but c'mon man, the Episodes are far better.

 

[Kane Lives]

What material are we missing? I think there's plenty enough, not even counting the community's contributions. The only time I would say HL is missing content is in relation to
- Maybe a comic, which isn't a possibility since the guys doing the 2008-9 era Valve comics probably don't work there anymore.
- Episode 3, which is now a pipe dream that only the community can parch.
- Another HLVR game which'll never come.
- HLX which at this point is a certainty.
3/4 of these are unobtainable, and the only that IS is the one that truly matters.

Also OP4 being the best thing to come out of the series? Really? Good sure, but c'mon man, the Episodes are far better.

If nothing else, OP4 scratches that very real itch of the plucky humans fighting back against the superior alien vibe that the other games in the series do not. I actually wished we had something similar for HL2 era games, but I can understand why they didn't make it. (Organized resistance that isn't the City 17 underground rebels or the White Forest Base is apparently not a thing anymore.)

 

[JayseeDenton]

What material are we missing?

Just something of any kind. I can beat the entire half life gauntlet of HL > OPFOR > Blue SHift >HL2 > Lost coast >Ep1 and 2 >portal 1 > portal 2 in five days even if i'm taking my time. Could probably do a glitchless speedrun of it all in 15 hours.

I'm not saying more is always better, but for 27 years worth of content that isn't much. Valve's "don't release anything that isn't absolutely 1 billion percent perfect" goes from being an asset to a hinderance at some point. The cut content from half life 2 all looked so cool. The other extreme: ie disney star wars releasing truckloads of dogshit, sucks as a well but i think there's a middle ground.

Also what I was really getting at was the impossibility of even potential stuff for the half life 1 era specifically. From what we know it seems to be relegated to 2 days at black mesa which has been explored to death, then the rest was the combine invasion. We know the 7 hour war was extremely one sided and then nothing ever happened(tm) until gordon came back 20 years later. I think this is why they're having to dip into alternate universe nonsense.

Half Life is essentially two completely unrelated (both really damn good) settings with a shared protagonist. I've always wanted more from the vibe half life 1 had and due to the way the story was written we will never get it. Xen was genocided and the remaining aliens are feral or on the human's side.

Also OP4 being the best thing to come out of the series? Really? Good sure, but c'mon man, the Episodes are far better.

OOooooofffff I loved the episodes when they came out because I was a thirsty teenager desperate to see what happenned, and I was impressed by the cinematic technical moments. But there's 0 new weapons, only 3 new enemies, the new mechanics are largely gravity gun gimmicks... The majority of people who push the "hl2 is just a tech demo" are massive cunts about it but they're not entirely wrong.

Opposing force on the otherhand perfected the level design, took out a lot of the more obnoxious aspects of HL1, added several new weapons and enemies, had allies play a more crucial role... it was so much content for an expansion pack. I also love the military feel of opposing force, 90s military hardware killing aliens with a mixture of sci-fi guns is just awesome.


It had the element of okay now that i've played this i can never go back to vanilla half life 1 and the episodes do NOT outprioritize vanilla hl2 in that way.

 

[30+GameOvers]

Speaking of Half Life supplementary content, what are your thoughts on Black Mesa? I know they removed some things like Einstein scientists, but they added a whole bunch of new content as well like entire extra sections/longer levels and a completely redone Xen. This on top of better graphics makes me wonder if this is the best way to play the game today, especially if you didn't experience the original back in the day.

 

[Blackstar]

Speaking of Half Life supplementary content, what are your thoughts on Black Mesa? I know they removed some things like Einstein scientists, but they added a whole bunch of new content as well like entire extra sections/longer levels and a completely redone Xen. This on top of better graphics makes me wonder if this is the best way to play the game today, especially if you didn't experience the original back in the day.

It's enjoyable up to Xen. I liked the aesthetics and soundtrack but it turns into a slog and strays too far from the original. I liked the addition of human outposts containing only death and failure but it should've been way more desolate and a wasteland instead of an alien jungle full of life. It's supposed to be a place the Nihilanth was trying to escape from. Aside from the infinite ammo gluon gun segment the final part wasn't fun as gameplay slowed to a halt having to go through annoying puzzles.

 

[thhrang]

Speaking of Half Life supplementary content, what are your thoughts on Black Mesa? I know they removed some things like Einstein scientists, but they added a whole bunch of new content as well like entire extra sections/longer levels and a completely redone Xen. This on top of better graphics makes me wonder if this is the best way to play the game today, especially if you didn't experience the original back in the day.

To stir the pot, I like to bring up that one of the guys who designed Half-Life 1's levels prefers playing Black Mesa.

https://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/Dario_Casali

Casali's Half-Life 1 Developer Commentary Playlist

 

[MF-690T]

This is a really stupid question and I apologize in advance: by releasing The Orange Box with HL2 & the two episodes (but not the third), didn't Valve sort-of imply that there wasn't going to be a third one? I don't get why'd they would release a technically unfinished collection, especially in an era where not everyone would be able to download updates/DLC easily.

 

[thhrang]

This is a really stupid question and I apologize in advance: by releasing The Orange Box with HL2 & the two episodes (but not the third), didn't Valve sort-of imply that there wasn't going to be a third one? I don't get why'd they would release a technically unfinished collection, especially in an era where not everyone would be able to download updates/DLC easily.

HL2 released in 2004, HL2:Ep1 released in 2006, and HL2:Ep2 released in 2007, debuting on the same day alongside the Orange Box. The Orange Box bundled HL2 and its' episodes together, alongside Portal and Team Fortress 2. For the first little while shortly after release, Gabe still talked about Ep3.

 

[Blackstar]

This is a really stupid question and I apologize in advance: by releasing The Orange Box with HL2 & the two episodes (but not the third), didn't Valve sort-of imply that there wasn't going to be a third one? I don't get why'd they would release a technically unfinished collection, especially in an era where not everyone would be able to download updates/DLC easily.

Going off of what was said in the Half Life 2 doc, they got stuck making Ep 3 and couldn't find a way to innovate so they took a break from Half Life and went off making other games, so it would've made sense for them to bundle up everything they had done so far if the next installment wasn't soon.

 

[Bear Powers]

I'm always up for replaying HL1. I have no real desire to touch Black Mesa ever again. A million times that for the Xen section. That some, usually younger, people see BM as the proper, updated way to see Half LIfe is a fucking crime.

Re: that article and interview - Casali also says that their Xen is the one of the best parts of BM, which any person in full possession of their faculties knows is just objectively wrong.

 

[Slav Power]

These rumors equate to nothing.
View attachment 7709239


But if something happens, valve need to one-up the cinematic mod

Spoiler

View attachment 7709390
View attachment 7709391

I have seen the FULLY MODELED CERVIX but I have never seen the FULLY TEXTURED CERVIX until now

Half Life 2 is a phenomenal achievement, especially on the technical side, and the only people downplaying it are retarded zoomers who weren't alive when it came out.

I was alive when it came out but sure as hell not old enough to be able to barely use a computer, let alone know about such video games, and even then I can tell that for 2004 Source was insanely impressive, especially when the other game that I know and played a lot that came out in 2004 is GTA: San Andreas, which was impressive on it's own but HL2 definitely thwarted it when it comes to graphics, facial animations and physics. It's not the age as much as it is being retarded and not being able to do the basic mental function of looking at events that happened before you were alive thanks to historical records of them, conceptualize what it was like back then and understand why it was impressive.

 

[Star Classic]

Speaking of Half Life supplementary content, what are your thoughts on Black Mesa? I know they removed some things like Einstein scientists, but they added a whole bunch of new content as well like entire extra sections/longer levels and a completely redone Xen. This on top of better graphics makes me wonder if this is the best way to play the game today, especially if you didn't experience the original back in the day.

Complicated. I like the 2012 mod version better because it feels closer to a Valve product in aesthetics and level design. Really does feel like if Valve released a remake of HL1 themselves.

Xen is good besides the complete disregard for HL1's Xen aesthetic but drops off hard at Interloper. Just thinking about the sheer number of Controllers you have to fight makes my blood boil. Why oh why did they shaft the Alien grunts in favor of those retarded flying little shits?

Cutting OaR was also incredibly gay.

To stir the pot, I like to bring up that one of the guys who designed Half-Life 1's levels prefers playing Black Mesa.
View attachment 7714784

https://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/Dario_Casali

View attachment 7714791 Casali's Half-Life 1 Developer Commentary Playlist

To be honest I agree, I think in terms of level design its just objectively better. Even with all of the bad Interloper sections in BM it still makes for a better experience for a normie.

Interloper is just a cursed chapter regardless of what version you play.

This is a really stupid question and I apologize in advance: by releasing The Orange Box with HL2 & the two episodes (but not the third), didn't Valve sort-of imply that there wasn't going to be a third one? I don't get why'd they would release a technically unfinished collection, especially in an era where not everyone would be able to download updates/DLC easily.

Nah, Gabe literally starts the dev commentary by saying "we're at the midpoint in our trilogy..." which to add feels like a stake going through my heart every time I hear it.

Although, this is something interesting: you ever notice how in the credits for HL2 there's this symbol?


So for EP1 they instead used the Valve logo:


However for EP2 they switched back to the HL2 logo:


Given how HL2 ends in a way that wasn't really meant to be continued at least in the setting of City 17, I always liked the idea that it was a sign of things to come in the sense that EP2 wasn't going to continued. Obviously it wasn't designed that way, but it always felt fitting to me.

It had the element of okay now that i've played this i can never go back to vanilla half life 1 and the episodes do NOT outprioritize vanilla hl2 in that way.

Huh, I'm the exact opposite. Gonna say something out of pocket but I think HL2 kinda sucks until after Ravenholm. Past that and I think its great, maybe peaks at about Nova Prospekt/Entanglement or the street wars.

The episodes meanwhile are all killer no filler besides the bad finales for both (Yes even the strider section at the end of EP2) minus those finales story content.

EP1 is better HL2, unironically.

Going off of what was said in the Half Life 2 doc, they got stuck making Ep 3 and couldn't find a way to innovate so they took a break from Half Life and went off making other games, so it would've made sense for them to bundle up everything they had done so far if the next installment wasn't soon.

The thing that I really hate is how they're going on in the background about "yeah we never really had any innovative ideas for EP3." Meanwhile in the footage you have a literal Frozone gun doing cool stuff which would've sufficed for literally anyone in 2008. Sometimes I really don't get Valve's perfectionism and need to drive technology forward.

 

[Star Classic]

In somewhat unrelated HLX news, in addition to the strings found in Source 2 CS2 received a complete animation system overhaul including the weapons which have been improved since the 13 years ago they were first introduced via CSGO

I imagine with these new animations we can infer that HLX's will be pretty similar in terms of quality and I gotta say they do look pretty slick especially the reload animations.