- Joined
- Nov 25, 2024
Nah, that was mostly the fault of Episode One and Two. HL2 ended in such a way that you could do the next story. The problem is Valve made themselves and the players care about these characters (unlike say HL1) and because HL2 was developed in the era of nonstop progress with video games and graphics as a whole there was still room for more, the problem is Valve went about the worst possible model to deliver that new content.
What arc? if you mean the Combine, Episode Two concluded that plot point. They're not getting reinforcements, so they are stuck with a population that no longer tolerates them and can repopulate, which the Combine for the most part cannot do.
With HLX, the Combine are probably going to be the enemies in the same way the covenant is the enemy in Halo 3. They're the major enemy faction, but they're not the overall threat that has to be dealt with. They're a fill in for an enemy that you can't really do lucidly (G-Man and his employers, the space CIA)
There's an Eric Wolpaw quote going around from like 2021 where he pretty much states the Combine aren't going to be the major threat for any future entries.
Me thinks given the stuff we know about HLX, the first 3rd will deal with getting on the Borealis and Arctic, to use against the Combine. The second 3rd will be set on the Combine Offworld (yes the "permanent offworld reassignment" offworld) where we'll set in motion a universal scale workers revolt and use the Borealis against the Combine like in Epistle 3, thus pretty much sealing the Combines fate. The last 3rd will be set in Xen ("The borderworld, Xen, is in our control for the time being") where we'll deal with G-Man directly and rescue Alyx and hopefully get something that can help rehabilitate the planet like was seen in Portal 2.
Funnily enough, the plot/ending for HLX I predict will be like if BioShock Infinite made sense.
To be fair, a new graphics card can mean going from having a pool of 250 games to 500 easily, regardless of whether they're worth playing or not.
VR is a new frontier (that also has largely failed) and doesn't have much going for it in terms of having AAA 8-9 hour experiences minus Alyx. Adding onto this: it's more technically involved, and its more physically involved, some people get motion sickness and it can be pretty tiring. Luckily I'm not beholden to it unless I use smooth movement which is too much for even me. It also doesn't help that most people came to the "this is just the Wii with extra steps" conclusion before I did.
That's odd. I suppose that it would scary to a normie, but I don't remember the game doing much with horror outside of Jeff and the chapter spent in the dark. I guess Alyx is scary mostly to due to it being pretty tactile, and Jeff is done pretty well, even on later playthroughs. A fun fact is that Alyx was actually going to be much more horror and nihilistically focused, but Valve felt that it was "too depressing" even for Half-Life. I'll let you guys be the judge of whether that was the right call or not.
I don't really find HL games scary, more depressing, Ravenholm being a good example. I would say the ideas behind HL are more scary, like the Seven Hour War and the Black Mesa Incident are pretty horrifying to think about as real events, that people would live through. The only part I remember finding harrowing was Surface Tension with the battle quickly going from bad to worse in Black Mesa and the final chapters of Opposing Force where the facility has largely been abandoned and flattened, with very little people or even aliens left. I'm glad they never did anything for the Seven Hour War, it would take the Lovecraftian-ness out of it.
