Half-Life and Portal series, general discussion (v6) - Games

[QUOTE=Tuskin;49697565]Even then, they said that bit in Questionable Ethics is representative of their vision of Xen.[/QUOTE] Haven't played it in a while, I dont recall seeing a Xen habitat.

is hl3 confirmed yet?

There's a little lab area with some of those light up stalks that shrivel when you touch em, i think you have to walk through it to pull a lever or something

[QUOTE=SweetTea;49698203]is hl3 confirmed yet?[/QUOTE] if hl3 is confirmed anything, it's confirmed dead by marc laidlaw leaving valve IMO

haven't heard of gabe newell in years it's a little worrisome considering he aged so fast

[QUOTE=Exploders;49697727]Haven't played it in a while, I dont recall seeing a Xen habitat.[/QUOTE] It was a tiny room full of glowing plants and headcrabs in Questionable Ethics, it was also in the mod version.

[QUOTE=Exploders;49697727]Haven't played it in a while, I dont recall seeing a Xen habitat.[/QUOTE] Here, I recently just played through Black Mesa so I went back to the questionable ethics chapter just to get a screenshot since I couldn't find any on google. [img_thumb]http://puu.sh/n10GD.jpg[/img_thumb]

[QUOTE=Hell-met;49700544]haven't heard of gabe newell in years it's a little worrisome considering he aged so fast[/QUOTE]He poked his head out at the International in August. [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/Lconm7z.png[/IMG] He'll probably reappear at GDC, given all the Vive stuff going on.

he also sounded like he just ran 10 miles at steam dev days in 2014 [video=youtube;hOCl8-_mSUA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOCl8-_mSUA[/video]

[QUOTE=Sled Dog;49680565]I think it's the glock in the holster. The texture sheet of barney's model is strewn over it. When I look at the grip, I can see the texture for the bottom of his shoe![/QUOTE] yeah, i don't know for sure but i'd bet it was meant to use the world model glock's texture and somewhere along the lines the material got dropped from the model so it just reads the zombie guard material. What's amazing is it took me a few years to notice what should be really obvious

I feel like I'm one of 3 people who actually liked Xen, even if it wasn't as good as the rest of the game. It felt truly alien to me.

[QUOTE=megafat;49702580]I feel like I'm one of 3 people who actually liked Xen, even if it wasn't as good as the rest of the game. It felt truly alien to me.[/QUOTE] I always hear people weep that 'There were too many enemies and not enough ammo!' You're on the alien home world, what did they expect? No aliens? Besides that, there was ammo everywhere!

[QUOTE=Sled Dog;49703120]I always hear people weep that 'There were too many enemies and not enough ammo!' You're on the alien home world, what did they expect? No aliens? Besides that, there was ammo everywhere![/QUOTE] there was ammo in some secretive places. Otherwise I thought the best option was to have enough ammo, and run through the zen sections and use your ammo on the bosses, ignoring all the grunts unless they're in your way to the exit. Having recently played and finished half life that's what worked best for me. Also max that wasn't the first time I beat half life. That was like the 7th or 8th, counting the , ew, source version of it.

I liked xen more then the rest of half-life I was really upset it was so short

Xen to me is the definition of love it or hate it, and also getting more used to something the more you try it. The first time you play the game and end up there, it almost feels like the disorienting low gravity, the platforming, the abnormal and obtuse level design was all intentionally done to highlight how alien it is, while simultaneously besides a handful of parts that are just really goddamn annoying, it's not overly long nor difficult to run through on replays.

[QUOTE=TheRealRudy;49697607]boy i sure hope those were placeholders because that looked pretty shit[/QUOTE] i dont think it looks shit, i just think it looks too, i dunno, standard? for all their raving about how amazing their xen will be and how "it'll pretty much be its own game" and with all the time they're taking to release it i expect it to be wholly unique but still reminiscent of the original xen the questionable ethics xen looks decent but it literally just looks like high-def xen so if that's what it is what's taking so long

[QUOTE=WillerinV1.02;49704347]i dont think it looks shit, i just think it looks too, i dunno, standard? for all their raving about how amazing their xen will be and how "it'll pretty much be its own game" and with all the time they're taking to release it i expect it to be wholly unique but still reminiscent of the original xen the questionable ethics xen looks decent but it literally just looks like high-def xen so if that's what it is what's taking so long[/QUOTE] [t]http://combineoverwiki.net/images/3/3a/Gonarch_first.jpg[/t] Now thats a real fine Xen if I've ever seen one, we don't need no remakes of this beauty!

[QUOTE=Sled Dog;49702005]Here, I recently just played through Black Mesa so I went back to the questionable ethics chapter just to get a screenshot since I couldn't find any on google. [img_thumb]http://puu.sh/n10GD.jpg[/img_thumb][/QUOTE] honestly it's meh because it looks exactly like an earthly cave with some LED powered plants. The rock textures aren't alienish enough. And it's too dark. Same with the water

[QUOTE=Hell-met;49700544]haven't heard of gabe newell in years it's a little worrisome considering he aged so fast[/QUOTE] He will be at an upcoming Vive event.

[QUOTE=megafat;49702580]I feel like I'm one of 3 people who actually liked Xen, even if it wasn't as good as the rest of the game. It felt truly alien to me.[/QUOTE] I agree, but the big problem i had with Xen was that it didn't seem like a place where the Xen aliens would evolve or even begin to live. Now yeah it was the "boarder world" and basically a refuge camp for interdenominationally stranded life forms, which works fine for the Vorgs, but the headcrabs, houndeyes and bullsquids are basically wildlife, i never really got how they were supposed to be there in the first place, let alone live there. Doesn't even seem like something you could just explain with "The combine did it" because why would you relocate a pack of lions to Antarctica? It makes no sense

[QUOTE=Trilby Harlow;49706084]I agree, but the big problem i had with Xen was that it didn't seem like a place where the Xen aliens would evolve or even begin to live. Now yeah it was the "boarder world" and basically a refuge camp for interdenominationally stranded life forms, which works fine for the Vorgs, but the headcrabs, houndeyes and bullsquids are basically wildlife, i never really got how they were supposed to be there in the first place, let alone live there. Doesn't even seem like something you could just explain with "The combine did it" because why would you relocate a pack of lions to Antarctica? It makes no sense[/QUOTE] The Combine didn't put the wildlife there, dimensional breaches of presumably various types did. Same with how headcrabs, houndeyes and bullsquids suddenly appeared on Earth. They didn't go on purpose, but evidently found the environment hospitable enough to survive, both Xen and Earth. [editline]9th February 2016[/editline] If Xen appears too barren to host wildlife, I think we can chalk it up to graphical limitations.

[QUOTE=Chrille;49707022]If Xen appears too barren to host wildlife, I think we can chalk it up to graphical limitations.[/QUOTE] Compared to the outside cliffy areas of black mesa with its blocky geometry, xen would look out-of-place and very demanding to the computers of the time if valve tried to make it look more lush with life and shit. Xen is simple and straight to the point good.

One thing I didn't understand about Xen was the vast amount of nothing. Like, you'd get a few stray islands here and there, and then one big one in the middle, and then, nothing, for 1-2, probably billions of kilometers. Where's everything else? Another question on my mind is what would ACTUALLY happen if you fell off one of the islands. The screen goes black in-game, I know, but what would REALLY happen? Something to wonder about. You would probably fall asleep before hitting anything I suppose.

I'm with the rest of you in having disdain towards Xen. I did not enjoy the level design and the platforming aspects of it. It's certainly no Citadel like level design, especially when you possess the super gravity gun and launch Combine soldiers into oblivion.

[QUOTE=brenz;49707320]One thing I didn't understand about Xen was the vast amount of nothing. Like, you'd get a few stray islands here and there, and then one big one in the middle, and then, nothing, for 1-2, probably billions of kilometers. Where's everything else? Another question on my mind is what would ACTUALLY happen if you fell off one of the islands. The screen goes black in-game, I know, but what would REALLY happen? Something to wonder about. You would probably fall asleep before hitting anything I suppose.[/QUOTE] According to the Combine Overwiki, which helps cements some of the ideas I already had, it isn't a world in and of itself but more like a dimension cobbled together from various displaced species and lands, an asteroid belt in an abnormal nebulous void. "Borderworld" ala what others call it seems like a gross misnomer or a vast simplification to emphasize its teleportation uses instead. It's hard to estimate what else there'd even be, beyond more asteroids and facilities made by the Nihilanth's forces - or what it looks like now that the G-Man and his mysterious employers are in control. Odds are unless he hits another asteroid, Freeman just.. falls forever. It's actually kind of nightmare fuel to try to consider falling forever in an alternate dimension that seems to have no worldly basis.

[QUOTE=RikohZX;49707468]According to the Combine Overwiki, which helps cements some of the ideas I already had, it isn't a world in and of itself but more like a dimension cobbled together from various displaced species and lands, an asteroid belt in an abnormal nebulous void. "Borderworld" ala what others call it seems like a gross misnomer or a vast simplification to emphasize its teleportation uses instead. It's hard to estimate what else there'd even be, beyond more asteroids and facilities made by the Nihilanth's forces - or what it looks like now that the G-Man and his mysterious employers are in control. Odds are unless he hits another asteroid, Freeman just.. falls forever. It's actually kind of nightmare fuel to try to consider falling forever in an alternate dimension that seems to have no worldly basis.[/QUOTE] Well, considering that there is clear direction for gravity, there should be some kind of planet deep below, maybe a glass giant, which would explain why it's so cloudy.

[QUOTE=HL_Tentacle;49707888]Well, considering that there is clear direction for gravity, there should be some kind of planet deep below, maybe a glass giant, which would explain why it's so cloudy.[/QUOTE] The weird thing about that is that almost each area of Xen has a completely different background, including stuff that seems more microbial or extremely abnormal. There's a breathable atmosphere, lowered gravity, but seemingly no mass beneath, and each area is like a different pocket of space within the dimension or something. It makes no real sense, especially with context in mind that even the aliens there aren't native whatsoever to the location.

People seem to be forgetting that the Xen habitat in Black Mesa's QE won't represent the final product by any means. Pretty certain that the devs have confirmed that several times whether through posts, streams, etc.

The Xen habitat in QE compared to the real thing is probably like a fish tank compared to the ocean floor. [IMG]https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51kVtD-RyZL._SL256_.jpg[/IMG][IMG]http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/03/57/3a/c5/coral-world-ocean-park.jpg[/IMG]

[QUOTE=SageJFox;49710179]The Xen habitat in QE compared to the real thing is probably like a fish tank compared to the ocean floor. [IMG]https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51kVtD-RyZL._SL256_.jpg[/IMG][IMG]http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/03/57/3a/c5/coral-world-ocean-park.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]an apt way of putting it