I'm currently doing my yearly HL2 and episodes playthrough and I do see why Accursed Farms would be hesitant to do Freeman's Mind with this game.
While HL1 is easy, with very little dialog aside from the occasional asshole soldier or witless scientist, HL2 has a lot of dialog with Alyx. Which means that with their current characterization of Freeman, it'd come off as pretty misogynic with how Alyx gets a big hard crush on Gordan towards the end.
Not that it can't be done. They could always go full Archer after all. But it'd be difficult.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
-Surface Tension Uncut (Adds in missing Surface Tension maps)
-On a Rail Uncut (Adds in missing On a Rail maps)
-On a Rail Loop Mod (Adds in the initial rail loop)
-We've Got Hostiles Vent Mod (adds in the vent backtracking in "We've Got Hostiles")
-Black Mesa: Uplink (Uplink, updated for Black Mesa)
-HL1 Xen Levels Port (Straight port of the HL1 Xen Levels)
-Classic Vortigaunt Skins (Colored to look more like HL1)
-Crowbar Impact Sound Fix (Makes it so it generates the "Woosh" noise even when it hits something)
-Closed Captions Update
-Updated skill.cfg with jumping that makes the couch-jump not as necassary and makes the soldiers less omniscient.
and the most important mod of all
-HECU Radio Chatter Swap (Replaces the soldiers audio with HL1 versions.)
EDIT: I should say this is my first time playing a bunch of these, so I can't say if they're any good or not.
I wonder if Accursed Farms will do Freeman's Mind in HL2? Which I'd love, btw.
But if they do, how much you wanna bet that they'd get all the way to the end of Episode 2 before HL3 is released?
I'd bet on Sisyphus pushing his boulder to the top of that hill before HL3 is released.
He pushes it up all the time, the issue is that it then rolls down again.
I meant like actually reaching the top of the hill tho, not just the action of pushing it
Yes, he totally makes it to the top, all the time. It just rolls down again. It's not like he pushes it almost all the way then has to watch it fall. He continually succeeds, only to have his success immediately erased.
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I'm currently doing my yearly HL2 and episodes playthrough and I do see why Accursed Farms would be hesitant to do Freeman's Mind with this game.
While HL1 is easy, with very little dialog aside from the occasional asshole soldier or witless scientist, HL2 has a lot of dialog with Alyx. Which means that with their current characterization of Freeman, it'd come off as pretty misogynic with how Alyx gets a big hard crush on Gordan towards the end.
Not that it can't be done. They could always go full Archer after all. But it'd be difficult.
Ross Scott could always get other voice actors for main characters. As shown by Civil Protection, he (or someone he knows) can manipulate the source engine with ease, even pre-SFM.
I wonder if Accursed Farms will do Freeman's Mind in HL2? Which I'd love, btw.
But if they do, how much you wanna bet that they'd get all the way to the end of Episode 2 before HL3 is released?
I'd bet on Sisyphus pushing his boulder to the top of that hill before HL3 is released.
He pushes it up all the time, the issue is that it then rolls down again.
I meant like actually reaching the top of the hill tho, not just the action of pushing it
Yes, he totally makes it to the top, all the time. It just rolls down again. It's not like he pushes it almost all the way then has to watch it fall. He continually succeeds, only to have his success immediately erased.
Actually it is
he pushes it almost all the way then has to watch it fall.
I'm currently doing my yearly HL2 and episodes playthrough and I do see why Accursed Farms would be hesitant to do Freeman's Mind with this game.
While HL1 is easy, with very little dialog aside from the occasional asshole soldier or witless scientist, HL2 has a lot of dialog with Alyx. Which means that with their current characterization of Freeman, it'd come off as pretty misogynic with how Alyx gets a big hard crush on Gordan towards the end.
Not that it can't be done. They could always go full Archer after all. But it'd be difficult.
Ross Scott could always get other voice actors for main characters. As shown by Civil Protection, he (or someone he knows) can manipulate the source engine with ease, even pre-SFM.
That could work as long as he has a female actor to change up Alyx's dialog and expressions editor to reflect Freeman's personality interactions.
There's rumor that Accursed will be doing HL2, but only rumor.
I really hope they do. But on a practical matter, I don't see why they wouldn't. Even Rooster Teeth still does RvB after all these years, as Red Vs Blue is still their primary money maker. But ya never know.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
I wonder if Accursed Farms will do Freeman's Mind in HL2? Which I'd love, btw.
But if they do, how much you wanna bet that they'd get all the way to the end of Episode 2 before HL3 is released?
I'd bet on Sisyphus pushing his boulder to the top of that hill before HL3 is released.
He pushes it up all the time, the issue is that it then rolls down again.
I meant like actually reaching the top of the hill tho, not just the action of pushing it
Yes, he totally makes it to the top, all the time. It just rolls down again. It's not like he pushes it almost all the way then has to watch it fall. He continually succeeds, only to have his success immediately erased.
Actually it is
he pushes it almost all the way then has to watch it fall.
Just checked.
Uh... what did you check? In The Odyssey he makes it to the top.
I wonder if Accursed Farms will do Freeman's Mind in HL2? Which I'd love, btw.
But if they do, how much you wanna bet that they'd get all the way to the end of Episode 2 before HL3 is released?
I'd bet on Sisyphus pushing his boulder to the top of that hill before HL3 is released.
He pushes it up all the time, the issue is that it then rolls down again.
I meant like actually reaching the top of the hill tho, not just the action of pushing it
Yes, he totally makes it to the top, all the time. It just rolls down again. It's not like he pushes it almost all the way then has to watch it fall. He continually succeeds, only to have his success immediately erased.
Nah.
I mean, sure, there's variance in ancient storytelling. Especially in trifling details.
But nah. That boulder makes him fail every time. Arguably there's not much difference between success being rendered pointless and not succeeding in the first place, though.
Technically there should be two different sections, since you get knocked out in Apprehension the game doesn't map your complete journey between the room, the place you get drug and the trash compactor you get dropped into.
Also, I don't think the mapper accurate models the floor differences on elevators.
It doesn't really matter if the maps strung together make a logically coherent physical representation of an area as long as the maps provided the illusion of a logically coherent physical place, which Half-Life certainly delivered.
So I finished my mod-filled playthrough of Black Mesa and here are my thoughts on the mods.
HECU Radio Chatter Swap: A godsend. The marine dialog in Black Mesa was just the worst. THE WORST. Also came with a pack that replaces vortigaunt sounds with HL1 equivilants.
Black Mesa: Uplink- Pretty faithful to the original, though it kind of gums up the regular game's titles.
On a Rail Uncut/On a Rail Loop Mod/Surface Tension Uncut: I actually am not 100% sure what was new in On a Rail, due to having play the BM version only once or twice, but overall these felt like fuller experiences. On a Rail isn't comically short anymore, and we get to see the Alien push the marines out in Surface tension
We've Got Hostiles Vent Mod: It's kind of a cheat, as far as I can tell, as you're not actually backtracking, the game is just giving you that illusion, but it's still appreciated
HL1 Xen Levels: These were more than just a straight port; textures looked better and displacement maps were used to give terrain a bit more flavor. Overall it was super faithful, aside from the missing gonarch (replaced with tons of vortigaunts) and some stuff about the Nihilanth fight.
Overall, my biggest issues are still with the mod itself. Enemies attack too quickly, so guys like the Vortigaunts and Houndeyes can easily tag you before you can react, whereas in Half-Life you typically could get out of the way or kill them if you knew what you were doing. Also a Houndeye will die in a single shotgun blast in HL, whereas it takes two in Black Mesa. :razz: Also, Marines still suck, due to the way the monster mechanics work (I circled strafed around one and he was literally shooting out the side of his gun at one point.)
I still think I prefer oldschool Half-Life. Probably because I'm old.
Oldschool HL is definitely better. BM is still a free mod made for guys not getting paid for it, it's unbelievably rough around the edges. Maybe the new version will be better.
Unbelievably rough around the edges? That strikes me as hyperbole. What kind of edges are you thinking of?
naturally, there's some hyperbole
But there's truth there.
The military voices, which are nearly unanimously disliked, are a 'rough edge'. I don't mind that the generic scientist was made explicitly Eli, but there's a case to be made for that beat to feel shoe-horned in. The various meme-signs and stuff like Boom Candy are a little out of place. They're great - both had me giggling a little - but I can see it turning some people off.
There's some roughness on display in the disparity between maps: some, iirc, are very well crafted (ignoring whether they're being faithful to the original). Others are fairly sloppy. While I cut them some slack (given the frankly massive project and disparate staff), stuff like theseanecdotalexamples definitely count as rough.
I seem to recall a few areas with show-stopping bugs, but I'm not positive where and when they occurred (or if they were part of the initial release), and I don't seem to have any screenshots.
Black Mesa: Uplink- Pretty faithful to the original, though it kind of gums up the regular game's titles.
How did they do the ending? Is it a cliffhanger like regular Uplink?
I played the crap out of HL: Uplink back in the day when I was a kid and couldn't afford full versions of games.
Same ending, basically.
As for Black Mesa's rough edges, I think it had a definite few.
The Soldier voices were utterly terrible, and detracted a lot from the experience, IMO.
Weapon and Monster balance wasn't great, IMO. Enemies react so fast they can shoot you through their own backs, and are vastly more accurate than you are. Charge-up attacks give you basically no time to react compared to the original Half-Life, which is especially dumb considering they take more hits to take down in Black Mesa, which is ALSO ALSO dumb given they give you less ammo overall on these things. Additionally, I felt there were a few encounters that were poorly tuned (the fight at the end of Lambda Core especially.)
Level design is a mixed bag; for every great reaction, there's either a truncated experience (Surface Tension and On a Rail, though I guess some people don't like On a Rail) or maps that are so ridiculously 1-to-1 with the original, that they'll do things like give you four packs of crossbow ammo, before you can even pick up the crossbow. (Which, in Black Mesa, means you can't pick up it's ammo. Even if you could, you can only hold 15 bolts, rather than 55 like in original)
And the entire ending of the game being missing.
It's not a bad experience, but it does have some really rough edges. I'm looking forward to the next release, which will be polished up and include the ending; as well as what the paid Steam version turns out to be.
Sounds like Freeman's Mind is on hiatus for a good long while at least. The creator wants to do a machinama movie (not Half-Life related) and is going to be putting his spare time into that, outside of stuff like his Game Dungeon videos.
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The pirate episode is my favorite so far.
I wonder if he will continue in HL2?
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
They announced the Steam version a year ago.
Those boys take their time, that's for sure.
I should probably give it an actual try this time.
But if they do, how much you wanna bet that they'd get all the way to the end of Episode 2 before HL3 is released?
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
While HL1 is easy, with very little dialog aside from the occasional asshole soldier or witless scientist, HL2 has a lot of dialog with Alyx. Which means that with their current characterization of Freeman, it'd come off as pretty misogynic with how Alyx gets a big hard crush on Gordan towards the end.
Not that it can't be done. They could always go full Archer after all. But it'd be difficult.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
-Surface Tension Uncut (Adds in missing Surface Tension maps)
-On a Rail Uncut (Adds in missing On a Rail maps)
-On a Rail Loop Mod (Adds in the initial rail loop)
-We've Got Hostiles Vent Mod (adds in the vent backtracking in "We've Got Hostiles")
-Black Mesa: Uplink (Uplink, updated for Black Mesa)
-HL1 Xen Levels Port (Straight port of the HL1 Xen Levels)
-Classic Vortigaunt Skins (Colored to look more like HL1)
-Crowbar Impact Sound Fix (Makes it so it generates the "Woosh" noise even when it hits something)
-Closed Captions Update
-Updated skill.cfg with jumping that makes the couch-jump not as necassary and makes the soldiers less omniscient.
and the most important mod of all
-HECU Radio Chatter Swap (Replaces the soldiers audio with HL1 versions.)
EDIT: I should say this is my first time playing a bunch of these, so I can't say if they're any good or not.
And every year I try to see how far I can get without dying even once.
But there are a looooot of bullshit kills in Half-Life.
So far the furthest I've made it is the segment where you're being chased by an Apache helicopter across a dam.
Then I stepped on a mine in the sand.
Ross Scott could always get other voice actors for main characters. As shown by Civil Protection, he (or someone he knows) can manipulate the source engine with ease, even pre-SFM.
That could work as long as he has a female actor to change up Alyx's dialog and expressions editor to reflect Freeman's personality interactions.
There's rumor that Accursed will be doing HL2, but only rumor.
I really hope they do. But on a practical matter, I don't see why they wouldn't. Even Rooster Teeth still does RvB after all these years, as Red Vs Blue is still their primary money maker. But ya never know.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Nah.
I mean, sure, there's variance in ancient storytelling. Especially in trifling details.
But nah. That boulder makes him fail every time. Arguably there's not much difference between success being rendered pointless and not succeeding in the first place, though.
http://gzalo.com/halfmapper_en/
Also, I don't think the mapper accurate models the floor differences on elevators.
Everything but Xen it looks like.
Edit: Oh and any of the expansions.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
HECU Radio Chatter Swap: A godsend. The marine dialog in Black Mesa was just the worst. THE WORST. Also came with a pack that replaces vortigaunt sounds with HL1 equivilants.
Black Mesa: Uplink- Pretty faithful to the original, though it kind of gums up the regular game's titles.
On a Rail Uncut/On a Rail Loop Mod/Surface Tension Uncut: I actually am not 100% sure what was new in On a Rail, due to having play the BM version only once or twice, but overall these felt like fuller experiences. On a Rail isn't comically short anymore, and we get to see the Alien push the marines out in Surface tension
We've Got Hostiles Vent Mod: It's kind of a cheat, as far as I can tell, as you're not actually backtracking, the game is just giving you that illusion, but it's still appreciated
HL1 Xen Levels: These were more than just a straight port; textures looked better and displacement maps were used to give terrain a bit more flavor. Overall it was super faithful, aside from the missing gonarch (replaced with tons of vortigaunts) and some stuff about the Nihilanth fight.
Overall, my biggest issues are still with the mod itself. Enemies attack too quickly, so guys like the Vortigaunts and Houndeyes can easily tag you before you can react, whereas in Half-Life you typically could get out of the way or kill them if you knew what you were doing. Also a Houndeye will die in a single shotgun blast in HL, whereas it takes two in Black Mesa. :razz: Also, Marines still suck, due to the way the monster mechanics work (I circled strafed around one and he was literally shooting out the side of his gun at one point.)
I still think I prefer oldschool Half-Life. Probably because I'm old.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
naturally, there's some hyperbole
But there's truth there.
The military voices, which are nearly unanimously disliked, are a 'rough edge'. I don't mind that the generic scientist was made explicitly Eli, but there's a case to be made for that beat to feel shoe-horned in. The various meme-signs and stuff like Boom Candy are a little out of place. They're great - both had me giggling a little - but I can see it turning some people off.
There's some roughness on display in the disparity between maps: some, iirc, are very well crafted (ignoring whether they're being faithful to the original). Others are fairly sloppy. While I cut them some slack (given the frankly massive project and disparate staff), stuff like these anecdotal examples definitely count as rough.
I seem to recall a few areas with show-stopping bugs, but I'm not positive where and when they occurred (or if they were part of the initial release), and I don't seem to have any screenshots.
How did they do the ending? Is it a cliffhanger like regular Uplink?
I played the crap out of HL: Uplink back in the day when I was a kid and couldn't afford full versions of games.
Same ending, basically.
As for Black Mesa's rough edges, I think it had a definite few.
The Soldier voices were utterly terrible, and detracted a lot from the experience, IMO.
Weapon and Monster balance wasn't great, IMO. Enemies react so fast they can shoot you through their own backs, and are vastly more accurate than you are. Charge-up attacks give you basically no time to react compared to the original Half-Life, which is especially dumb considering they take more hits to take down in Black Mesa, which is ALSO ALSO dumb given they give you less ammo overall on these things. Additionally, I felt there were a few encounters that were poorly tuned (the fight at the end of Lambda Core especially.)
Level design is a mixed bag; for every great reaction, there's either a truncated experience (Surface Tension and On a Rail, though I guess some people don't like On a Rail) or maps that are so ridiculously 1-to-1 with the original, that they'll do things like give you four packs of crossbow ammo, before you can even pick up the crossbow. (Which, in Black Mesa, means you can't pick up it's ammo. Even if you could, you can only hold 15 bolts, rather than 55 like in original)
And the entire ending of the game being missing.
It's not a bad experience, but it does have some really rough edges. I'm looking forward to the next release, which will be polished up and include the ending; as well as what the paid Steam version turns out to be.