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[Half-Life] 25th Anniversary Update and Documentary

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Posts

  • LJDouglasLJDouglas Registered User regular
    Peewi wrote: »
    Syzygy wrote: »
    Yeah what IS up with that ending?
    How did 19 year old past Alyx change... What she changed? Episode 2 went on after that scene didn't it? Wouldn't sad future her remember changing that scene? Also how can she be there in that scene mourning when she got pulled out of the plot by... the guy, as 19 year old Alyx?

    Ok, how the hell do I do spoiler tags? This is getting ridiculous.

    Wrap the text between [ spoiler ] and [ /spoiler ] without the spaces.
    Some messed up time fuckery is going on here.
    Best I could guess to try and resolve all time fuckery without going spare is to assume it's a different timeline. So the Alyx from the Half Life: Alyx timeline has somehow jumped into the main Half Life timeline, or merged with the Alyx from that timeline. Otherwise Gordon Freeman dies getting beaten to death by metro cops 5 minutes after arriving in City 17, since Alyx jumped into the future and wouldn't be there for all of Half Life 2.

  • DonnictonDonnicton Registered User regular
    LJDouglas wrote: »
    Peewi wrote: »
    Syzygy wrote: »
    Yeah what IS up with that ending?
    How did 19 year old past Alyx change... What she changed? Episode 2 went on after that scene didn't it? Wouldn't sad future her remember changing that scene? Also how can she be there in that scene mourning when she got pulled out of the plot by... the guy, as 19 year old Alyx?

    Ok, how the hell do I do spoiler tags? This is getting ridiculous.

    Wrap the text between [ spoiler ] and [ /spoiler ] without the spaces.
    Some messed up time fuckery is going on here.
    Best I could guess to try and resolve all time fuckery without going spare is to assume it's a different timeline. So the Alyx from the Half Life: Alyx timeline has somehow jumped into the main Half Life timeline, or merged with the Alyx from that timeline. Otherwise Gordon Freeman dies getting beaten to death by metro cops 5 minutes after arriving in City 17, since Alyx jumped into the future and wouldn't be there for all of Half Life 2.

    It sounds like you missed the post-credits scene.

  • augustaugust where you come from is gone Registered User regular
    edited March 2020
    LJDouglas wrote: »
    Peewi wrote: »
    Syzygy wrote: »
    Yeah what IS up with that ending?
    How did 19 year old past Alyx change... What she changed? Episode 2 went on after that scene didn't it? Wouldn't sad future her remember changing that scene? Also how can she be there in that scene mourning when she got pulled out of the plot by... the guy, as 19 year old Alyx?

    Ok, how the hell do I do spoiler tags? This is getting ridiculous.

    Wrap the text between [ spoiler ] and [ /spoiler ] without the spaces.
    Some messed up time fuckery is going on here.
    Best I could guess to try and resolve all time fuckery without going spare is to assume it's a different timeline. So the Alyx from the Half Life: Alyx timeline has somehow jumped into the main Half Life timeline, or merged with the Alyx from that timeline. Otherwise Gordon Freeman dies getting beaten to death by metro cops 5 minutes after arriving in City 17, since Alyx jumped into the future and wouldn't be there for all of Half Life 2.

    Only thing I think makes sense
    Gman releases Alyx without her memories and the events of Alyx and HL2 & etc take place as we know them.

    august on
  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    august wrote: »
    LJDouglas wrote: »
    Peewi wrote: »
    Syzygy wrote: »
    Yeah what IS up with that ending?
    How did 19 year old past Alyx change... What she changed? Episode 2 went on after that scene didn't it? Wouldn't sad future her remember changing that scene? Also how can she be there in that scene mourning when she got pulled out of the plot by... the guy, as 19 year old Alyx?

    Ok, how the hell do I do spoiler tags? This is getting ridiculous.

    Wrap the text between [ spoiler ] and [ /spoiler ] without the spaces.
    Some messed up time fuckery is going on here.
    Best I could guess to try and resolve all time fuckery without going spare is to assume it's a different timeline. So the Alyx from the Half Life: Alyx timeline has somehow jumped into the main Half Life timeline, or merged with the Alyx from that timeline. Otherwise Gordon Freeman dies getting beaten to death by metro cops 5 minutes after arriving in City 17, since Alyx jumped into the future and wouldn't be there for all of Half Life 2.

    Only thing I think makes sense
    Gman releases Alyx without her memories and the events of HL2 & etc take place as we know them.
    It feels very appropriate for the G-Man to be aware of the future, and to make a deal with you in the past, to change the future, in the past, that he then collects on in the future, and you don't remember any of it.

  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    edited March 2020
    august wrote: »
    LJDouglas wrote: »
    Peewi wrote: »
    Syzygy wrote: »
    Yeah what IS up with that ending?
    How did 19 year old past Alyx change... What she changed? Episode 2 went on after that scene didn't it? Wouldn't sad future her remember changing that scene? Also how can she be there in that scene mourning when she got pulled out of the plot by... the guy, as 19 year old Alyx?

    Ok, how the hell do I do spoiler tags? This is getting ridiculous.

    Wrap the text between [ spoiler ] and [ /spoiler ] without the spaces.
    Some messed up time fuckery is going on here.
    Best I could guess to try and resolve all time fuckery without going spare is to assume it's a different timeline. So the Alyx from the Half Life: Alyx timeline has somehow jumped into the main Half Life timeline, or merged with the Alyx from that timeline. Otherwise Gordon Freeman dies getting beaten to death by metro cops 5 minutes after arriving in City 17, since Alyx jumped into the future and wouldn't be there for all of Half Life 2.

    Only thing I think makes sense
    Gman releases Alyx without her memories and the events of HL2 & etc take place as we know them.
    I assumed that would happen as soon as Alyx started seeing Combine advisors all over the place.

    My take on what happened.

    The Gman doesn't experience time linearly. He can stop by in our time as he pleases, and is subject to linear forces while he's here (Hence why the Vortigaunts and Combine are able to mess with him with the right tools.) but as shown he can see the future (or possible futures at least).

    Alyx rescues the Gman, which impresses him enough that he sees her as a viable replacement for Gordon once the Vorts have Gordon defect. He exchanges her service for the opportunity of saving her father, but it's important that her father had to originally have died before his intervention, otherwise there'd be nothing to intervene on. He wipes her memories of the event, otherwise she could potentially maneuver things so that she doesn't have to save her father (Setting up a huge ambush in the helicopter room, for instance)

    My guess is either due to the Vortigaunt fuckery, or perhaps the Gman's own influence, Gordon experienced the first timeline (as seen in Episode 2) and thus knows things have changed and Eli went from being dead to alive.

    Interesting that they kept the "Alyx becomes the new Gman flunky" aspect of Epistle 3, but got to it in an incredibly different way. Wonder if a theoretical Half-Life 3 would be about the Gman forcing Alyx to capture the Borealis while Gordon tries to stop her?

    Heh, I wonder what the Project Borealis people think of all this now that their game's entire premise just got retconned.

    Also, @Syzygy could you edit your post to put that in spoiler tags, as it isn't hard to figure out what you're talking about and I'd hate to have someone get spoiled on the new Half-Life game after waiting 12+ years. :)

    Undead Scottsman on
  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    edited March 2020
    I finally got around to beating Black Mesa today.

    Wow, what a great game. The whole time you've got this strange feeling of deja vu running around Black Mesa even though a lot of stuff is updated or tweaked... and then you get to Xen and it's all new, baby! Seriously, Xen is like a whole quarter of the game and outside of a couple of chase sequences that were basically "freeze up and don't know where to go and you're dead" it was really good.

    DarkPrimus on
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    I still think Xen was too damn long, but it's still super high quality.

  • PeewiPeewi Registered User regular
    Whenever the next Half-Life thing ends up happening, I wonder if they'd give Gordon a voice or if they'd keep him silent.

    Of course that's assuming that the next Half-Life thing will even feature Gordon.

  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    Peewi wrote: »
    Whenever the next Half-Life thing ends up happening, I wonder if they'd give Gordon a voice or if they'd keep him silent.

    Of course that's assuming that the next Half-Life thing will even feature Gordon.

    With the Mass Effect trilogy firmly in the rearview mirror now, it's time for another Shepard to step up again.

  • PeewiPeewi Registered User regular
    I'm suddenly reminded of how people were certain that Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device was a reference to Adrian Shepard and that he'd be the player character in Portal.

  • augustaugust where you come from is gone Registered User regular
    edited March 2020
    Gman:
    When Gman talks about his employers, the scene teleports to a gas giant orbited by some kind of biological matter.

    In the final chapter of Half-Life 2, Breen has this speech to Eli as Breen tries to convince him of... something
    Carbon stars with ancient satellites colonized by sentient fungi. Gas giants inhabited by vast meteorological intelligences. Worlds stretched thin across the membranes where [the] dimensions intersect... Impossible to describe with our limited vocabulary!

    I think you might be seeing the Gman's employers in that moment. The actual practical effect of knowing that the Gman's employers are floating space brains is probably nil, however.

    august on
  • DonnictonDonnicton Registered User regular
    august wrote: »
    Gman:
    When Gman talks about his employers, the scene teleports to a gas giant orbited by some kind of biological matter.

    In the final chapter of Half-Life 2, Breen has this speech to Eli as Breen tries to convince him of... something
    Carbon stars with ancient satellites colonized by sentient fungi. Gas giants inhabited by vast meteorological intelligences. Worlds stretched thin across the membranes where [the] dimensions intersect... Impossible to describe with our limited vocabulary!

    I think you might be seeing the Gman's employers in that moment. The actual practical effect of knowing that the Gman's employers are floating space brains is probably nil, however.
    Slylandro.gif

  • HardtargetHardtarget There Are Four Lights VancouverRegistered User regular
    Syzygy wrote: »
    Yeah what IS up with that ending? How did 19 year old past Alyx change... What she changed? Episode 2 went on after that scene didn't it? Wouldn't sad future her remember changing that scene? Also how can she be there in that scene mourning when she got pulled out of the plot by... the guy, as 19 year old Alyx?

    Ok, how the hell do I do spoiler tags? This is getting ridiculous.

    no, that's specifically when it ended

    steam_sig.png
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  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    edited March 2020
    Zxerol wrote: »
    Location spoiler @ 0:52-1:00, if you care about that sort of thing.

    https://youtu.be/FRoJpmez1po

    Undead Scottsman on
  • ZxerolZxerol for the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't do so i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered User regular
    Location spoiler @ 0:52-1:00, if you care about that sort of thing.

  • WinkyWinky rRegistered User regular
    This game was pretty incredible. I was very pleased. There were some segments that were wonky, but there were also a couple set pieces that rank up there with some of the best ones in any Half-Life game.

  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    Zxerol wrote: »
    Location spoiler @ 0:52-1:00, if you care about that sort of thing.

    Oh shit, forgot about that, my bad.

  • manwiththemachinegunmanwiththemachinegun METAL GEAR?! Registered User regular
    edited April 2020
    I just can't believe the story has been advanced, however marginally.
    People died waiting for this.

    manwiththemachinegun on
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    edited April 2020
    Given some of the mechanics of this game, and that the possibility is now open for non-Gordon Half-Life games again, I would totally be down for a game where you play as a vortigaunt.

    > https://www.moddb.com/mods/point-of-view

    I mean an offical game where you play as a Vortigaunt.

    > cover-256.png

    Fine, a NEW official game where you play as a Vortigaunt.

    Seriously though, I think it's a good fit for VR, especially given (Alyx spoilers)
    How much fun running around with Vort lightning at the end was

    Undead Scottsman on
  • Lucid_SeraphLucid_Seraph TealDeer MarylandRegistered User regular
    okay so alas my own horrific motion sickness means I cannot play this game

    but I am sold on the concept by Juggling and Headcrab Friend

    See You Space Cowboy: a ttrpg about sad space bounty hunters
    https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
  • CanadianWolverineCanadianWolverine Registered User regular
    edited April 2020
    Half Life Alyx Ending Spoilers:
    All I have to say about say about any theories around G-man now is the following things:

    - In Half-Life 1, G-man offered Gordon Freeman a choice that also sucked while holding a brief case before he was "hired" which had Gordon disappear from Earth too.
    - Multiple G-Mans: Before to the best of our knowledge G-man as a singular entity, now though ... being in seen through out the games doesn't mean you are seeing the same G-man, just a possible G-man, since its not just/only the folding of space to teleport aka portal gun power that the G-man has some proficiency in, a more apt description of him would be like ... they have the power of butterfly effect.
    - Gordon Freeman, PhD in theoretical physics: G-man may be pissed at Gordon working with the Vortigaunts but this ending may have just shown off why G-man wanted Freeman to go after the Combine in HL2, for capturing G-man and also that he was only able to use Freeman until after Alyx had freed him. Its not super clear when the vault first appears itself, want to bet it was the main thrust of the original reason the Combine invaded Earth and captured it so quickly. It may also demonstrate why G-man wanted the Vortigaunts freed from Nihilanth, so they couldn't be used against him in HL1.
    - I am glad revenge for making Alyx cry was had and they topped it by having it be Alyx that got the revenge instead of Gordon, that's hella cool.

    CanadianWolverine on
    steam_sig.png
  • SceptreSceptre Registered User regular
    edited April 2020
    Beat it.


    Near ending mechanics/sequence spoilers
    When I realized they were giving you vortiguant lightning powers, I was so stoked. Excellent echos of the super gravity gun from HL2. When they interrupted that with a god awful low-g grenade tossing sequence I was flabbergasted; it ruins that entire end sequence! Just give me more combine soldiers to zap and puzzles to solve!

    Ugh. I played through the game on my OG Samsung Odyssey. It worked really well for 95% of the game... except for throwing. I could not reliably throw a single thing, which sucked. Grenades would either drop to my feet as though I never tossed 'em, or they would fly waaaay too fast across the room, over shooting whatever I was trying to hit. I wanted to use grenades, but it was almost never worth it.

    Ending spoilers
    Of course, OF COURSE, the final section of the game is all about throwing stuff. I was lucky to hit anything with the vortigaunt powers, and the grenade hallway took me 6-7 tries because I had absolutely no way to toss the grenades reliably. It was all very frustrating, up to that point the game was a solid 10/10 even though I was using an older headset.

    That said... holy shit. What a ride. What an experience.

    EDIT: Wanted to add, I played through the game on a practicaly ancient i5-2500k CPU with a GTX970. This was below the minimum requirements by quite a bit.

    For the most part it ran extremely well! A couple hiccups here and there but that's to be expected. I was blown away by the visuals in a few parts, can't imagine what they would be like with everything maxxed out.

    Sceptre on
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    Mod to play Alyx without VR. Dunno how well it actually works, though.

    https://www.pcgamer.com/the-first-mod-that-will-let-you-finish-half-life-alyx-without-vr-is-here/

  • Phoenix-DPhoenix-D Registered User regular
    Mod to play Alyx without VR. Dunno how well it actually works, though.

    https://www.pcgamer.com/the-first-mod-that-will-let-you-finish-half-life-alyx-without-vr-is-here/

    Most likely extremely badly, given the control differences.

  • ThirithThirith Registered User regular
    While I loved Half-Life:Alyx and it made me care about Half-Life again, I cannot help but wonder how the grenade corridor at the end of the game ever made it through testing. That bit was a perfect example of VR jank that otherwise the game had avoided.

    webp-net-resizeimage.jpg
    "Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    I felt like I had grenades figure out at one point, but then all of a sudden I completely didn't and I don't know how it happened.

  • ThirithThirith Registered User regular
    It's especially boneheaded since they had the
    green energy. There's zero reason why they'd suddenly make you use grenades that float as in zero-G, which makes it really difficult to throw them. The vortigaunt energy is also somewhat annoying because you need to grab it from the walls and you can run out of it, it seems, but that's minor compared to their stupid decision to have a bit that's grenades-only.

    webp-net-resizeimage.jpg
    "Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
  • ZxerolZxerol for the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't do so i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered User regular
    edited April 2020
    That part was immeasurably better when I remembered you could lob them underhanded.

    Zxerol on
  • ThirithThirith Registered User regular
    When I did that, the grenades would fly upwards rather than downwards and explode somewhere near the ceiling, usually too far beyond the enemies to damage them. I was reasonably fine with the grenades when there was proper gravity, but at the end there? Nope.

    webp-net-resizeimage.jpg
    "Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
  • BloodySlothBloodySloth Registered User regular
    edited May 2020
    Alert, internet: I have completed Half-Life: Alyx. Hot damn, what a climax. Great game. Great game. Except...
    I lugged two bottles of vodka in my arms from the distillery to the end for nothing.

    Edit: I super want to play through all the games again. I might have to pick up Black Mesa and do a full runthrough of the story.

    BloodySloth on
  • Big DookieBig Dookie Smells great! Houston, TXRegistered User regular
    I just finished it too. It's crazy right? I mean, that ending is basically confirmation that...
    HL3 is actually coming at some point, right?

    Steam | Twitch
    Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    Big Dookie wrote: »
    I just finished it too. It's crazy right? I mean, that ending is basically confirmation that...
    HL3 is actually coming at some point, right?
    The ending of HL2:Episode 2 implied there was more half-life coming and we saw how that turned out.

  • BloodySlothBloodySloth Registered User regular
    My brother and I were actually joking about that yesterday after I told him I finished the game (he got into VR a few months before I did)
    Coming in 2035: Half-Life: Another Totally Left-Field Spinoff!

    I thought the post-credits bit was surprising specifically because it felt like Gordon was being shelved as a player character going forward. Not that this is a bad thing, necessarily, but everything else about Alyx feels like a passing of the torch. Hopefully it doesn't take another 13 years to get more game, but in case it does, some left-field spinoffs I'd enjoy:

    Half-Life: Eli
    Half-Life: That One Vortigaunt Guy (My brain is injured. Ow.)
    Half-Life: Jeff (the headphones-only VR experience)
    Half-Life: Headcrab Edition

    Secretly, the headcrab thing is my favorite idea.

  • Big DookieBig Dookie Smells great! Houston, TXRegistered User regular
    edited May 2020
    Big Dookie wrote: »
    I just finished it too. It's crazy right? I mean, that ending is basically confirmation that...
    HL3 is actually coming at some point, right?
    The ending of HL2:Episode 2 implied there was more half-life coming and we saw how that turned out.

    I mean yes, obviously it took them forever. BUT...
    They did deliver more Half-Life, even if it was years and years later than it should have been. What's really interesting is that Alyx isn't just a standalone prequel/spinoff leading up the events of HL2. It's that, but the ending also ends up being both a retcon and direct continuation of the end of Ep2.

    In a weird way, they almost could have called the new game Episode 3 instead of Alyx and it would have made sense in context. Now that I've finished it, it's hard not to view it that way.

    Sorry if I'm retreading old ground from this thread, still haven't had a chance to go back and catch up, but I just finished it last night and couldn't help but jot some quick thoughts down.

    EDIT - Okay, caught up on the thread now. Looks like this was discussed a little bit a page or two ago, but still. I'm pretty fascinated at how they managed to tie things together so well and pave the way for future games. Even if they do take another 15 years to come out.

    Big Dookie on
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  • urahonkyurahonky Registered User regular
    I think I'm at the end of Black Mesa? As much as I appreciate the changes to Xen I feel like I just want the game to end at this point. I haven't finished HL1 in a while but isn't the giant testicle monster the last boss and then it cuts to G-man? Now going through some Doom-looking area.

  • augustaugust where you come from is gone Registered User regular
    New Xen is like they had something to prove so they tacked on a whole new game on the end of the game.

    It has good ideas but it's about four times longer than it should be.

  • PeewiPeewi Registered User regular
    urahonky wrote: »
    I think I'm at the end of Black Mesa? As much as I appreciate the changes to Xen I feel like I just want the game to end at this point. I haven't finished HL1 in a while but isn't the giant testicle monster the last boss and then it cuts to G-man? Now going through some Doom-looking area.

    No, the last boss in HL1 is the giant floating baby.

  • urahonkyurahonky Registered User regular
    Don't get me wrong... New Xen is really good and feels like Valve made it. Lots of clever ideas and stuff but man just let me see the credits haha.

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