Official Half-Life 2 discussion thread.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2004-11-20 04:41pm

YARG! Goddamn Zombie bastards, you cannot continue running uninterupted when I put a shotgun shell in your face!

Thank God that level is over, now its on to driving. Ant Lions and Combine aren't exactly easy, but they're not as annoying as damn black Headcrab motherfuckers. I now have got a rocket launcher, time to make someone pay.

ArchMage · Post by **ArchMage** » 2004-11-20 04:52pm

this game is so easy i want to vomit.

Seems to me that every level was designed to show how 'cool' it is to move barrels around.

Valve? shitty ending? NOOO!! I dont believe it [end sarcasm]

Played it through a few times (on the patheticly easy hardest difficulty). garbage time now.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2004-11-20 05:37pm

Mr Bean wrote:
InnocentBystander wrote:
My theory is that after the "fall" of the city 17 citadel there'll be a big war between combine from other cities and city 17, now under rebel control. This would, of course, put you in Barney's shoes (because I'm sure gordon is off working for G-Man on more profitable ventures).
I can just see it now, the cover?
A bloodstain Gordan stands atop a broken pile of debrie crowbar in hand, Barney stands behind and to the side holding a American esk flag with the Lamada symbol promit, hordes of armed rebels stand behind them and broken Combine bodies at the base of the pile
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you... Half Life 3- Liberty

*edit well maybe having a Volg hold the flag instead would look better but what to do with Barney?

American Flag? I don't know... recall that city 17 is in Europe. We know trains are the primary means of transportation between cities, we know that City 17 is the "big one" because Breen is there. Thus it is "likely" that there a few cities left, other than those reachable via train from C17 (I forget how many are on the bill boards, but I think there are, perhaps, a half dozen). This would mean that *most* of the resistance weren't, at any time, Americans (unless America had taken over the world by that time...). I think a Lambda flag would be best (esp. considering it's the mark of the resistance

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2004-11-20 06:02pm

ArchMage wrote:this game is so easy i want to vomit.

Seems to me that every level was designed to show how 'cool' it is to move barrels around.

Valve? shitty ending? NOOO!! I dont believe it [end sarcasm]

Played it through a few times (on the patheticly easy hardest difficulty). garbage time now.

There's always one in each group who will complain when being served lobster and steak.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2004-11-20 06:56pm

InnocentBystander wrote:American Flag? I don't know... recall that city 17 is in Europe.

American esk, not American a good semi torn Lamada and stripes knockoff

We know trains are the primary means of transportation between cities, we know that City 17 is the "big one" because Breen is there. Thus it is "likely" that there a few cities left, other than those reachable via train from C17 (I forget how many are on the bill boards, but I think there are, perhaps, a half dozen).

The manual and game both indicate that there is a Citadel in every major metro area its stands to reason that unless they simpley vaped America and Canada there are some Cities left in the North American reigion, likley the alien lifeforms fucking up the local ecosystem means that one simply can't live out on the farm anymore(Such as the Antlion's on the beaches)

This would mean that *most* of the resistance weren't, at any time, Americans (unless America had taken over the world by that time...). I think a Lambda flag would be best (esp. considering it's the mark of the resistance

Agian American esk not strait up American never said that
And I point out that Black Mesa was in New Mexico its intresting that all the folks we ment in the first game are back and in this European location

Side note the train bit just seems to be smart thinking on the Combine's part to control transportation, if the only transit is mass transit its hard to head for the hills when the Combine give up and start taking out the popluace

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2004-11-20 10:20pm

Mr Bean wrote:The manual and game both indicate that there is a Citadel in every major metro area its stands to reason that unless they simpley vaped America and Canada there are some Cities left in the North American reigion, likley the alien lifeforms fucking up the local ecosystem means that one simply can't live out on the farm anymore(Such as the Antlion's on the beaches)

Chances are there are a few cities left in the Americas. The problem isn't the aliens messing up the ecosystems it's the aliens themselves. Aliens are all over the wilderness, it's simply unsafe to live outside of an urban center. I honestly don't know what feeds the ant lions, but they seem to make do well enough. I would guess that the zombies don't really die, and head crabs... well they look for a host, if they don't find one, who knows. People can't live out in the wilderness and farm because they'd get over-run by aliens. Though, I suspect, there could be food growing encampments outside city limits in regions which are geographically defendable. They would, of course, be walled off and have lots of guards and stuff.

Mr Bean wrote: Agian American esk not strait up American never said that
And I point out that Black Mesa was in New Mexico its intresting that all the folks we ment in the first game are back and in this European location

Perhaps there are in fact cities in America, and the black mesa folks, sometime after the citadels were established, made their way to City 17. Or perhaps Breen (who they worked for) brought them to City 17 shortly after he became the "Caretaker" of earth. They decided they didn't like the way things were going and up and left, and founded the resistance and whatever. After all, if they are with Breen, they, most likely had free reign to do what they pleased, eventually they all pleased to dissolve into the crowd.

Mr Bean wrote:Side note the train bit just seems to be smart thinking on the Combine's part to control transportation, if the only transit is mass transit its hard to head for the hills when the Combine give up and start taking out the popluace

People really can't head for the hills, the hills are teeming with wild, feral, aliens. The resistance had to resort to moving people a couple at a time (or as few as 1) from C17 to Black Mesa east, which, as you might recall, was really only at the "edge" of what would be considered the city (think about the map, it's a map of City 17, and black mesa east is there). BME could have, of course, been an old cold war bunker or something, long forgotten (which would explain how Eli could have moved in without trouble).

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2004-11-20 10:29pm

HL3?
Well it seems I was wrong; you play as Alyx, not Barney. Funny, I thought barney, I mean, Alyx doesn't exactly go around in a hazard suit... or body armor, at least barney has the light combine soldier's armor. Whatever, this should shine some light on the story, hopefully!

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2004-11-20 10:35pm

InnocentBystander wrote:HL3?
Well it seems I was wrong; you play as Alyx, not Barney. Funny, I thought barney, I mean, Alyx doesn't exactly go around in a hazard suit... or body armor, at least barney has the light combine soldier's armor. Whatever, this should shine some light on the story, hopefully!

That's total bollocks. Newell said before he might like to do an expansion with Alyx and Dog, but nothing has been stated about Half-Life 3, other than it is going to be made.

Pcm979 · Post by **Pcm979** » 2004-11-20 10:41pm

Bah! I want more Cpl. Adrian Shephard! Although I'm not sure if HL2 takes the events of OpFor or Blue Shift into account...

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2004-11-20 10:43pm

Fuck, how do you get past a gate after you make it over the bridge on the (first?) buggy mission? I kill everything but can't open it.

Pcm979 · Post by **Pcm979** » 2004-11-20 10:45pm

With most of the gates, you have to find the power source. You'll have to be more specific if you want me to be.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2004-11-20 11:00pm

The gate:

The power source:

DeadM · Post by **DeadM** » 2004-11-20 11:01pm

I don't know if this is the right gate, but just follow the powerlines from the gate to a building, and inside this building is a powersupply which needs 3 batteries or something.
The first one is already in place and the second is inside the building.
The third is outside in the trunk of a car.
Just put them all in place and maybe flip a switch and your gate's open.

EDIT: Yeah that's the one. Except I remembered wrong about the batteries.

Pcm979 · Post by **Pcm979** » 2004-11-20 11:02pm

Ah, that one. One of the fuse boxes should be already in there, another on the bed, and a third on top of the windmill. You have to fling stuff at the tile with the Gravity Gun.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2004-11-20 11:21pm

Half Life 2 benchmarking article done by anandtech

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2278&p=1

To sum up, #1 place goes to ATI. #2 and #3 place go to NVidia.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2004-11-20 11:21pm

I believe the battery placement is random. My third battery was quite definitely underneath an upturned bathtub outside.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2004-11-20 11:21pm

Mines was inside a car. They're car batteries anyway.

Pcm979 · Post by **Pcm979** » 2004-11-20 11:23pm

Funny. Mine's always been on top of the windmill.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2004-11-20 11:29pm

There's four or five batteries around, yo.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2004-11-20 11:37pm

Well, I found it in the windmill, none in cars though. And how long is the Ant Lion sand part? Its getting tedious.

Pcm979 · Post by **Pcm979** » 2004-11-20 11:38pm

It's not too bad. I had to noclip to get past the bridge, though. God bless thumpers.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2004-11-21 01:48am

Pcm979 wrote:Bah! I want more Cpl. Adrian Shephard! Although I'm not sure if HL2 takes the events of OpFor or Blue Shift into account...

Well it really doesn't matter for either of them, they are honestly trivial. Barney Calhoon (sp?) was just some security guard who helped a couple scientists, second rate ones at that, escape. Did they make it to where the present storyline is? Perhaps, but E&K are the real movers and shakers of this age. As for shepard, well it'd be a little hard to find a good spot for him. He's a soldier, ya he survived some tough shit, but he's a soldier he's trained to do that; Gordon Freeman on the other hand is just some schlub scientist who just "saves the world", so to speak.
Not only that, there is no more army, poor shepard is going to be a little out of his element.
We have to keep 1 thing in mind, the G-man is not on Earth's side! There's no US army for him to go back to, he doesn't know anyone (like Freeman does), the most he might be useful for is to, perhaps, join the rebellion and do a bit of ass kicking. Or at least, that's all I can think of!

Pcm979 · Post by **Pcm979** » 2004-11-21 02:13am

I at least want closure on what happened to him. We know what happened to Barney, after all.

Anyway, the events in OpFor can't be said to be trivial. The invasion by the new aliens, the nuking of Black Mesa.. Yet none of the X aliens (That's what they were called, right?) turned up in HL2. Or were even mentioned, for that matter.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2004-11-21 02:25am

Pcm979 wrote: Anyway, the events in OpFor can't be said to be trivial. The invasion by the new aliens, the nuking of Black Mesa.. Yet none of the X aliens (That's what they were called, right?) turned up in HL2. Or were even mentioned, for that matter.

Probably because they were attracted to Black Mesa because of the Resonance Cascade... but Shepard closed up their portal.

The Combine were attracted to Earth by the Cascade as well, but for whatever reason, they didn't show up immediately. Probably because they were planning.

Pcm979 · Post by **Pcm979** » 2004-11-21 02:30am

Closing Xen's portal hasn't done much, going by the Headcrabs, Barnacles and Vortigaunts everywhere. I see your point, however. I suppose I was really thinking of the stage 2 Zombies introduced in OpFor. I was expecting to see at least one.