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

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HL 3...is it still happening?

  • No and anyone that still thinks that it will is delusional

    Votes: 289 45.6%

  • Yes, they just need a few more years to perfect it so it can another game changer in the industry

    Votes: 187 29.5%

  • Shouldnt it be called "Two Lives and a half" instead?

    Votes: 101 15.9%

  • Half life is overrated, you neckbeard homos

    Votes: 57 9.0%
  • Total voters
    634
thhrang said:
For some reason Crowbar Collective (Black Mesa's developers) just randomly released this video on their channel.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=y7M4rXeAmZw
Their stance on the question is basically "play, or at least try, Half-Life 1 first."
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Why is this even a question? Games arent like movies.

You dont have to watch the original The Fly, The Thing and The Blob to watch their unironic superior 80s remakes, its a bonus if you do but they are all different experiences.

Half Life is a genre defining game and Black Mesa, even at its most "similar", is still a pretty reimaginative styled remake that borrows a lot from HL2's game design (thats not a criticism but it goes to show that you can only truly appreciate what B.M does if you have the experience of HL1, the expansions and hell, even some of its mods, under your belt.)
 
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Big KUDOS for crowbar collective for this... Someone simply cannot appreciate Blak Mesa fully if missing out the fundamentals of the original.

Edit: yeah the shameless advertising plug at the end giving a bit of a sour taste of the video... Doesn't help that thing looks like an asset flip slop either.
 
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The handsome tard said:
Why is this even a question? Games arent like movies.

You dont have to watch the original The Fly, The Thing and The Blob to watch their unironic superior 80s remakes, its a bonus if you do but they are all different experiences.

Half Life is a genre defining game and Black Mesa, even at its most "similar", is still a pretty reimaginative styled remake that borrows a lot from HL2's game design (thats not a criticism but it goes to show that you can only truly appreciate what B.M does if you have the experience of HL1 and hell, even some of its mods, under your belt.)
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because normies
 
Just finished Black Mesa. I thought it was really good. Took about 25 hours to beat, much longer than I expected. I really loved the vistas in the Xen wilds when you first arrive. I liked the juxtaposition of the human factory/garbage disposal place and the alien factory.

Took me a few tries to beat the nigger alien baby, but that was cause when his nigger head opened up I kept trying to shoot his nigger crystal with the rocket launcher. After two restarts I remembered the goo gun and killed him in like four seconds lmao. I only played the original a little back in the day but never beat it so it was fun to go back and beat it.

Maybe one day I'll play vanilla Half Life but for now I'll move on to Half-Life 2, which I also played a little and never beat back in the day.
 
Taki Supremacy said:
for now I'll move on to Half-Life 2, which I also played a little and never beat back in the day.
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How spoiled are you on story/character stuff in totality from that partial playthrough & subsequent cultural osmosis? If you're completely unspoiled on most things I think it would be fascinating to see your thoughts on things as you play. Especially the Episodes.
 
Playing half life 2 and it’s episodes with some simple mods, half life 1 ammo limit as well as increasing mag sizes. Updated character models to have 5 fingers and increased flashlight fov. For the lols I installed a x2 zombie speed mod, makes them actually dangerous as they both move and attack twice as fast.

Hard to get crosshairs from the steam workshop to work without breaking other mods, sucks because how bad the default is.
 
thhrang said:
How spoiled are you on story/character stuff in totality from that partial playthrough & subsequent cultural osmosis? If you're completely unspoiled on most things I think it would be fascinating to see your thoughts on things as you play. Especially the Episodes.
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I'm only going back and playing these games because I listened to a podcast called "Acceptable Loses" where they talk about grim-dark universes or dystopias and why they suck. They did an episode on Half-Life, but they really only covered what it's like to live under the Combine, not any thing that actually happens in game. Actually most of what they covered could be inferred from just the first 45 mins of play in Half-Life 2 I've put in so far so they didn't really spoil anything.

Back in the day I only played for one night when a friend brought the game over, the furthest I remember getting is the airboat section. I never played any of the episodes and really have no idea what happens.

So sure, i'll take some notes while I play lol.
 
Half-Life 2

-I'm just playing on normal and trying to get through the game, no extra achievement hunter shit

-Just as a recap, I didn't like the run from the combine cops and blade robots mostly cause I got a little lost in areas that your just supposed to run through really quickly. Probably me though, I came from playing Black Mesa where there is a red light you can look for if you get lost. I really hated those fucking blade-bots.

-I also kept forgetting about the physics puzzles, like i'd get to an area and be like "wtf" and then remember after five minutes of running around i'm supposed to stack concreate blocks or use air barrels to raise something up, again my fault.

-Do these people have a religion around Gordon Freeman? They seem to see him as a messiah. I wonder what they have been told about him. There's a name for this disconnect between what the player does in game and then the cut scenes.

I was told of this idea referencing the Uncharted games, where in the 4th game the main dude is talking to his son and his son asks "Have you ever killed anyone" and the facts of the games are "yes, Nathan Drake has killed like a thousand people" but Nathan says some shit like "Only in self defense". I can't think of the name for that disconnect now.

I know in the previous game, well Black Mesa at least, Gordon has fucking killed an entire fucking brigade of Spec Ops, taken out tank and APC vehicles, invaded an alien world, killed dozens of aliens, and killed a huge alien nigger baby. But do the people in this game, referring to him as sort of messiah figure, know all of that? Idk anyways

-Are the headcrab zombie people still alive? I think I here them screaming for help as I beat them down with the crowbar.

-According to the speech by Breen, the resistance do see Freeman as a messiah figure.

-Got to the airboat level, the last section I remember playing back in the day.

-Fuck this helicopter

-I guess the vormiguants are good guys now. Thank God I now have a gun on this fucking airboat now.

-FUCK THAT HELICOPTER RIGHT INTO THE FUCKING GROUND *finale of the 1812 Overture plays as I rape the copter into the ground after three tries*

-Saw the G-MAN

-Judith is 100% a traitor. Calling it now.

-Still don't get what Freeman's place in all this is or why they think he is so important. They just refer to him as a guy that was there on day one and an MIT graduate. I mean Eli wants him to take off the HEV and put on a lab coat to help with research so they can't know of how much of a fucking killer Gordan is.

-Gravity gun training was really cool. I hope Dog makes it. Alice, or Alex or whoever is too much of a badass to die so I'm not worried about her.

-Welp, off to Ravenholm.
 
Taki Supremacy said:
-I'm just playing on normal and trying to get through the game, no extra achievement hunter shit
-I guess the vormiguants are good guys now. Thank God I now have a gun on this fucking airboat now.
-Still don't get what Freeman's place in all this is or why they think he is so important. They just refer to him as a guy that was there on day one and an MIT graduate. I mean Eli wants him to take off the HEV and put on a lab coat to help with research so they can't know of how much of a fucking killer Gordan is.
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This was a secret in the airboat chapter, I'll show you this so you don't have to like, backtrack and find it yourself:
Make of it what you will.

Thread guys reading this, please don't autistically explain or spoil anything for the newcomer, fresh perspectives are rather uncommon, I'm quite enjoying this. Let him speculate and post these thoughts as he goes along blind!
 
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Nothing comes close to playing the streetwar chapters for me for the first time. I don't care if they were rushed, I loved the atmosphere of them. There's something about urban combat with space aliens that's just cool as fuck.
Bravo to playing it for the first time in years, hope you like it as much as we do.
 
Taki Supremacy said:
Do these people have a religion around Gordon Freeman?
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I mean, from their perspective, all of the events of HL1 happen, he closes the rift single-handedly, then he just disappears off the face of the earth for twenty years, and suddenly reappears in Eastern Europe where all his old colleagues happen to be, and he hasn't even aged a day. Eli's initial reaction ("lemme look at you, man") says a lot.

Envious of you, enjoy your playthrough.
 
thhrang said:
This was a secret in the airboat chapter, I'll show you this so you don't have to like, backtrack and find it yourself:
Click to expand...

Ah, thanks. Yeah that adds a lot more context, if the Vortigaunts are talking about Freeman like that then yeah there's defiantly a messiah aspect to him for the resistance. When I was playing Black Mesa I got to the first section of the Alien Factory and killed three or four of the vortigaunts before I realized they weren't fighting back. Then after I activated the teleporter in that little village area, those yakub lookin sons-a-bitches attack and possess the vortigaunts I had left wandering around to attack me. From that point forward any vortigaunts I ran into got the business end of the crowbar.

So i'm glad they forgot about that lmao.

Blackstar said:
I remember when I first played HL2 Water Hazard was the coolest part of that first playthrough.
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It was really fun once I got that fucking gun and could fight back.

Pale Empress said:
Eli's initial reaction ("lemme look at you, man") says a lot.
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Yeah but then right after that he asks Freeman to take off the HEV, put on a white coat and do lab work. There's some disconnect there I thought.

Like bro Freeman took out a whole fucking company or two of spec ops, a few tanks, a few apcs, a helicopter, and thats before mentioning the aliens he kills on the way. THEN went through a portal, fought through an alien wilderness, fought through an entire alien factory tower thing and killed a giant alien nigger baby.

And then Eli asks this inter-dimensional God-Warrior: "Can you do some math calculations for me?" I just hyper focused on that and was wondering how much the resistance actually knows about Freeman's exploits, but the clip provided by @thhrang gave me some more context.


Anyways, thanks for the interest in my playthrough. Unfortunately my work vacation has ended so my next playthrough post will probably be next weekend, or maybe New Year's Day.
 
Taki Supremacy said:
Yeah but then right after that he asks Freeman to take off the HEV, put on a white coat and do lab work. There's some disconnect there I thought.

Like bro Freeman took out a whole fucking company or two of spec ops, a few tanks, a few apcs, a helicopter, and thats before mentioning the aliens he kills on the way. THEN went through a portal, fought through an alien wilderness, fought through an entire alien factory tower thing and killed a giant alien nigger baby.

And then Eli asks this inter-dimensional God-Warrior: "Can you do some math calculations for me?" I just hyper focused on that and was wondering how much the resistance actually knows about Freeman's exploits, but the clip provided by @thhrang gave me some more context.
Click to expand...
My understanding is that they wanted Gordon to work on the teleporter because he's one of the like five living people with the qualifications to do so and it's the central part of their plan to help people escape from City 17.

Eli, Kleiner, and Barney escaped from Black Mesa along with Gordon so it makes sense they don't see it in the mythological way the average resistance member who only knows rumors and stories about it might. To them Gordon is that weirdo who'd blow people's food up in the microwave in the break room who also happened to travel to Xen and kill a big monster. They don't really seem to know much about the actual amount of fighting he did beyond that and an awareness that he probably encountered hostile human and alien soldiers at some point that they would have from their own experiences at Black Mesa. Also, based on the events of Blue Shift Barney has a power level comparable to Gordon and has also singlehandedly wiped out entire squads of marines and if I'm remembering correctly went to Xen breifly too. Since only Gordon has his own religion it seems like he's mostly just known for killing the Nihilinth, stopping the invasion from Xen and freeing the Vortigaunts by doing so. Most of the mysticism seems to come from the Vortigaunts who are more into that sort of thing while to the rebels he's more a symbol of the resistance and a celebrity they want to follow around and help out. At least, that's my interpretation. Half-Life 2's story has a lot that can be inferred from small details and it's easy to misremember stuff.
 
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