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

"It was all a dream/protagonist crazy in a mental hospital" is one of the most overused cliches in Sci Fi. I think there wasn't a series of Star Trek without there being an episode where that was the plot. Good thing there is Aperture Science and the nuking of Black Mesa that are outside of Gordon's perspective that kill that theory pretty handily.

[QUOTE=Garfuncle;46990243]"It was all a dream/protagonist crazy in a mental hospital" is one of the most overused cliches in Sci Fi. I think there wasn't a series of Star Trek without there being an episode where that was the plot. Good thing there is Aperture Science and the nuking of Black Mesa that are outside of Gordon's perspective that kill that theory pretty handily.[/QUOTE] Tbh those are some of my favorite episodes of Star Trek. But I don't like the idea of it being in Half Life. It diminishes Gordon as being this pawn of the powers that be which I think is a central theme of the games. Gordon is always acting under someone else's will whether he knows it or not. Ironic to his name Freeman.

[QUOTE=Garfuncle;46990243]"It was all a dream/protagonist crazy in a mental hospital" is one of the most overused cliches in Sci Fi. I think there wasn't a series of Star Trek without there being an episode where that was the plot. Good thing there is Aperture Science and the nuking of Black Mesa that are outside of Gordon's perspective that kill that theory pretty handily.[/QUOTE] Nope, those are also dreams.

I hate the "It was all a dream" cliche It totally detracts from the overall experience and makes what happened in the game/story feel completely pointless. If this was going to be a plot point in Half life 2 beta im grateful its gone now.

Imagine beating episode 2 and Gordon waking from a sleep, and then start talking. This establishment of a silent character completely thrown out the window. [sp]Episode 3 will just be 15 minutes long, continuing right after the death scene. You wake up and Kleiner looks over you and says "The shock from the test chamber must've really knocked you out, Gordon. Nothing major happened and we finished the experiment after we took you out and it was a success." *Roll credits[/sp]

[QUOTE=austin0331;46992461] Episode 3 will just be 15 minutes long, continuing right after the death scene. You wake up and Kleiner looks over you and says "The shock from the test chamber must've really knocked you out, Gordon. Nothing major happened and we finished the experiment after we took you out and it was a success." *Roll credits[/QUOTE] Everyone knows that episode 3 is where Gordon wakes up from his methamphetamine high and sees that he shot everyone in Black Mesa. The only part of Half Life that was canon was when you replayed Half Life 1, impulse 101'd, and killed everyone. The Black Mesa Incident really was entirely your fault all along!

Let's just make this a mod and call Half Life done.

[QUOTE=Cows Rule;46988460]It's based on some sound files and textures from the beta, the sound files are garbled but mention immersion therapy or something. There's a video if it I'll try and find it. [editline]22nd January 2015[/editline] OK I thought there was a video so I'll explain what I remember. In the leak there's an audio file of some people saying Gordon needs to be reimmersed, then there's a part where all these ghost textures and some of them are excerpts from psychology related texts. So some people think that Half Life might all be a dream and Gordon is just crazy or something. I'm still pretty sure there's a video but I can't find it.[/QUOTE] I think i can remember something like that. It was some sort of training room with Kleiner or someone like that, but something goes wrong and Gordon goes down a corridor and opens a door, then there's a G-man scene and it resets before things went wrong. I can't find it now though.

[QUOTE=nightlord;46995032]I think i can remember something like that. It was some sort of training room with Kleiner or someone like that, but something goes wrong and Gordon goes down a corridor and opens a door, then there's a G-man scene and it resets before things went wrong. I can't find it now though.[/QUOTE] Thank you, at least I'm not crazy. It was definitely in the old hazard course for HL2.

[QUOTE=Cows Rule;46995057]Thank you, at least I'm not crazy. It was definitely in the old hazard course for HL2.[/QUOTE] Found it: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_2yIIZ82XU[/media]

Half Life 3 will just be [sp]a 2 hours long turret section like those in nova prospect, about 10 minutes of battery puzzels before visiting a bombed out Ravenholm with 6 max citizens in tow like in Follow Freeman (not actually new levels, just modified old ones, father Grigori is established to be dead too), before insta-teleporting to the Borialis where we're subjected to Gman explaining every action he's ever taken, why, and going to extreme detail about the combine and the black mesa incident dissolving any sense of mystery from the series. Also that he fucked Gordon's mom.[/sp] Game of the year 2016

[QUOTE=nightlord;46995124]Found it: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_2yIIZ82XU[/media][/QUOTE] I think it doesn't mean that all of Half-life was a dream, just the G-man sequences wasn't that map supposed to be like a virtual training room that g-man made for gordon before waking him up on the train anyways

Half-Life 3 is just going to be [sp] 20 hours of a remastered version of on-a-rail[/sp]

[QUOTE=Tommyx50;46998918]Half-Life 3 is just going to be [sp] 20 hours of a remastered version of on-a-rail[/sp][/QUOTE] On A Rail 2: Off The Rails.

[QUOTE=Cows Rule;46995057]Thank you, at least I'm not crazy. It was definitely in the old hazard course for HL2.[/QUOTE] I made a post way back in like 2010-2012 that had the original audio files. can't get the files anymore because my main hard drive is failing. I tried looking for the post for a half hour, but was unable to find it. Basically though, I think I had some weird theory about HL2 really being a "training" for Gordon's usefulness elsewhere. The audio lines talk about re immersion therapy and stuff like that.

So why does everybody hate Half Life: Source, again? I joined the gaming scene too late to be a part of the hate.

[QUOTE=Ardosos;46999477]So why does everybody hate Half Life: Source, again? I joined the gaming scene too late to be a part of the hate.[/QUOTE] I was under the impression people hated it because it was just a port to Source and people were expecting a graphical update as well. Actually I believe the Black Mesa mod started out of disappointment that HL: Source wasn't a remake. I liked it though, it was a bit more playable than the Goldsrc version for minor things like better follower AI and a few less load screens.

[QUOTE=Ardosos;46999477]So why does everybody hate Half Life: Source, again? I joined the gaming scene too late to be a part of the hate.[/QUOTE] Marphy is probably in the process of a detailed explanation for you. In short, it's buggy and the graphical advancements of the source engine make the game actually look worse, since it's applying more realistic elements to a less realistic design

[QUOTE=Ardosos;46999477]So why does everybody hate Half Life: Source, again? [/QUOTE]Half-Life: Source broke Half-Life in just about every aspect imaginable: AI behavior, sound, animation (many play at incorrect speeds, some don't play at all!), map scripts, map lighting, map textures, weapon damage, and so on. And this doesn't even begin to cover the specific "improvements" they made! Some classic visual comparisons between Half-Life and its special Source brother: [t]http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/541769761831975274/845A0C31D6310539E555F785E1B71A66DD3CE9BD/[/t] [t]http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/541769761831930643/F9E4F8B46309E7712407EF1CF0C47BD019E727DA/[/t] [t]http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/599266384745712440/A00F2A548E4526E41527FC8EAEF446E2B55AA303/[/t] [t]http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/599266384745715636/D0FEBB31189572BD0B6028A627B0BB90EF9DCC8B/[/t]

Source, shmource.

[QUOTE=Marphy Black;46999704]Half-Life: Source broke Half-Life in just about every aspect imaginable: AI behavior, sound, animation (many play at incorrect speeds, some don't play at all!), map scripts, map lighting, map textures, weapon damage, and so on. And this doesn't even begin to cover the specific "improvements" they made! Some classic visual comparisons between Half-Life and its special Source brother: *screenshots* [/QUOTE] Its been a while since I've played through HL:S and the original version but I don't recall many of those problems, though I could be wrong. Did any of it get patched out or is it still present today?

In its defence, Half Life: Source is usually the choice for media folk. Thats what Freeman's Mind was filmed in, and iirc the maps and content can be mounted in Gmod.

I thought HL: Source was made to prove at a point that it was easy to move content from old to new. Or at least I feel I read that somewhere. There's a handful of aspects that I do like, such as npc shadows (which are inconsistent though), and the way lighting is handled on V_models. Changing the water was a really bad move, because in HL the liquid textures make it super obvious that they are different liquids. Such as clean water, dirty water, radioactive waste, Xen healing pools, and Xen muck/water. HL:Source it all looks like water.

[QUOTE=Rasputinator;47000040]Did any of it get patched out or is it still present today?[/QUOTE]There was one fruitless attempt by Alfred to fix a handful of bugs in Half-Life: Source in late 2013. That was the first ever real attempt in the nine and a half years since its release, for the record. One particular issue he attempted to fix was one of the more obvious game breaking hit box bugs (oh, there's definitely more than one) involving the Apache: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08cUc_DQ3JE[/media] In his attempt to fix this issue, he inadvertently made the Apache completely non-solid to rocket projectiles: [t]http://i.imgur.com/PEX64Lx.jpg[/t] He did not end up fixing this bug, one that he introduced himself, before he gave up entirely on the game. It's rather befitting when you think about it, though, considering the general quality of Half-Life: Source in general. Any attempts to fix its flaws will inevitably make it worse!

[QUOTE=UberMunchkin;47000678]I wonder if there'll be a Half-Life: Source2 just for Valve to demonstrate how easy it could be to port Source games over to Source 2 :v:[/QUOTE] It would probably get fucked up worse than the 2010 update.

I thought I was already familiar with Half-Life: Source's most glaring issues, but this game still manages to surprise me at times! I just came across another humorous example that was evident even at the main menu. When you first enter the silo in Blast Pit, Barney is supposed to rush into the room and cause a ruckus, getting himself killed by the Tentacles in the process. However, this situation doesn't play out correctly in HL:S because the Tentacles are incapable of damaging him: [t]http://i.imgur.com/sZc7je5.jpg[/t] Thus, the two foes continue attacking each other futilely for eternity. Because Barney never stops shooting, he acts as a permanent sound distraction, meaning the other Tentacles in the silo will never bother to attack you either. This makes the encounter rather anti-climactic, if I say so myself. This is also another recent 2013 Alfred bug introduction as I know Tentacle damage worked at some point in the past. Also, you can see that Barney's animations are broken in this screenshot. Half-Life has animation blending that allows Barneys to aim up and down while firing. This blending is broken in Half-Life: Source, so he remains aiming forward even though he's actually shooting down at the base of the Tentacle.

Hey looks Marphy Black is pointing out flaws about Steampipe HL1:S Alfred broke the gravity more in the Steampipe update causing you to be able to jump over various parts of the map. [video=youtube;7bkQAQ3d3-M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bkQAQ3d3-M[/video] (I really need to make more of these videos since you can do it for most of the chapters) They also made HLDMS from a buggy mess that was atleast playable to a broken mess that you don't even want to touch. [QUOTE=Marphy Black;47000680]He did not end up fixing this bug, one that he introduced himself, before he gave up entirely on the game. It's rather befitting when you think about it, though, considering the general quality of Half-Life: Source in general. Any attempts to fix its flaws will inevitably make it worse![/QUOTE] He actually basically gave up on Steampipe altogether [editline]24th January 2015[/editline] I would also like to point out HL1:S after the Steampipe update now using that GameBanana pack for the HD Pack, and I provided a fix for it and they never added it. [editline]24th January 2015[/editline] and who can forget this wonderful bug [t]http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/32984014124261473/2C230039662B86E58B64D03D0EECC5D3D145C721/[/t] [editline]24th January 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Marphy Black;47000966]This is also another recent 2013 Alfred bug introduction as I know Tentacle damage worked at some point in the past.[/QUOTE] when Steampipe was first added, the tentacle didn't take damage to anything, you could just walk through Blast Pit, hell, I believe it still remotely doesn't hurt you like 1/8 or 1/4 of the time.

[QUOTE=Marphy Black;47000680] In his attempt to fix this issue, he inadvertently made the Apache completely non-solid to rocket projectiles: [t]http://i.imgur.com/PEX64Lx.jpg[/t] [/QUOTE] fyi the tiny cockpit window area is still solid to rockets it's also still vulnerable to bullets so gj alfred EDIT: almost forgot about this: [T]http://i.imgur.com/yKNm90d.png[/T] still have no idea how the fuck they managed to do this. DOUBLE EDIT [QUOTE=Theuaredead;47001096] and who can forget this wonderful bug [t]http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/32984014124261473/2C230039662B86E58B64D03D0EECC5D3D145C721/[/t] [/QUOTE] the skybox view on the other side isn't much better. [T]http://i.imgur.com/PCfXCpz.jpg[/T] the bugtrain ride never ends with half life: source

on all my playthroughs of hl:s i never encountered any of those bugs tbh

Alyx is a bad character in HL2