Half-Life Retrospective

well well isn't this Jasmine like old times valve a company that went from being an underground development team to one of the most profitable companies in the United States and they have one series to thank for that regardless of whether or not they want to acknowledge that fact the first game showed the world how first-person shooters and video games as a whole could uniquely present a story the second game showed the world what a dynamic physics engine could add to an interactive experience the series made us laugh made us cry it scared us been motivated us it was an incredibly engrossing series of shooters that the world will never forget and the world still hasn't forgotten as of today valve is not the company we once knew they're more focused on funneling their time and resources into services virtual reality and brain interfacing yet despite making strides in all of these fields they'll never be the company we want them to be again and I've come to terms with that but for those of you watching that I've never played half-life simply want to remind yourself of why the series is revered to this day or want to know why valve ignoring their roots is disheartening for fans of their work allow me to take you on a journey through half life's impacted legacy I'll be addressing as much as possible to give you an understanding of the breadth of the series development design technology narrative presentation etc and how these elements tied together to create each experience let's revisit not just Black Mesa in city 17 but everywhere in between I'm Liam Triforce and this is half-life [Music] gabe newell dropped out of Harvard University to work at Microsoft later stating that he learned more there than he ever did at Harvard during the 90s he was convinced of two things videogames being the future of entertainment and their solidification as an art form the games to do this for him were doom in Super Mario 64 respectively he and Mike Harrington left Microsoft in 1996 to form valve assembling a crack team the valve got to work on a horror first-person shooter using the quake engine which was something that Sierra online were looking for at the time the stars aligned for them to pursue this ambitious project the heavy modification of the engine led to the creation of gold source with completely rewritten artificial intelligence systems and support for complex skeletal animation the latter would be an asset and realizing the team's vision for their first game a narrative driven first-person shooter Gabe Newell once stated in an interview half-life in many ways was a reactionary response to the trivialization of the experience of the first person's onra many of us had fallen in love with video games because of the phenomenological possibilities of the field and felt like the industry was reducing the experiences to least common denominators rather than exploring those possibilities our hope was that building worlds and characters would be more compelling than building shooting galleries outside of RPGs and action-adventure games that were releasing around the late 90s video games storytelling felt increasingly limited although cutscenes dialogue boxes and more traditional storytelling devices had been implemented into the medium games didn't really have anything that they could call their own dialogue boxes create more dynamic versions of a picture book sometimes this can mean interaction is key and unfolding more of the story but sometimes this can also barely even resemble that picture book mentality cutscenes are what the name implies scenes intercut between bouts of gameplay the medium didn't have its own quintessential method of storytelling that was unique and couldn't be replicated in anything else half-life aim to give video games that missing element the question now is how did they do it what does half-life bring to the table as a whole they restarted development after e3 1997 and faced many twists and turns after that but half-life finally released on November 19th 1998 to critical acclaim let's take a look at Valve's debut title good morning and welcome to the Black Mesa Transit System the games first moments immediately sent ripples throughout the minds of fans critics and developers alike half-life fades into a lengthy tram car ride there's little movement and little interaction to be had and yet the game is demonstrating so much of its inner workings and its thesis is on full display you were able to get a glimpse into the world you're about to explore you get to see all these scripted sequences taking place simultaneously and watches the employees at Black Mesa go about their daily routines all while the trams voice lines give you context for the place you're in and an ambient music piece plays that is dissonant yet intriguing at the same time relaxing yet somewhat unsettling the calm before the storm if you will this was a great way to set you up for the unprecedented level of world interaction and immersion that would come into play shortly thereafter since you can't really leave the confines of the tram it avoids sensory overload is you can only take in as much as you can spot and process while aboard the tram while this may seem gimmicky and restrictive 20 years later that's probably only because several games after half-life decided to create their own interpretations of the tram scene I find it to be impressive in demonstrating technology and ideologies that just didn't exist in games before half-life this is even more apparent as you step foot inside Black Mesa NPCs give you context for what you're supposed to be doing but you can do whatever you like is they babble on you can investigate in the different areas of the facility and familiarize yourself with the hallways of Black Mesa this is a necessary part of the process for conditioning yourself to the game it was important back then and it's still important today back then being able to personally investigate the environment around you and converse with scientists and security guards without control ever being taken away from you that was unheard of it's still important because after you've found your way around the facility acquire your HEV suit and enter the test chamber you'll still have to find your way back up after the incident occurs and while headcrabs and houndeyes roam the halls it's nice to have a somewhat clearer vision of where you're going next familiarizing yourself with black mesas confusing halls can prove to be useful in addition to all this way you decide to interact with the world is all up to you you can analyze the books and pictures inside Gordon Freeman's locker or Nuka casserole in the microwave the way you interact isn't necessarily integral to the game's narrative it's all just reflective of how you decide to play the game after the incident you are free to react to people you meet however you like this is also what makes gordon freeman a great vessel for the player to embody his existence is defined as a 27 year old theoretical physicist that graduated from MIT that tells you how he got to black mesa but it tells you nothing about his character that is a role for you to fill out the resonance cascade is an unexplainable hiccup that left me in shock as it occurred you're teleported to an alien world and then you're surrounded by vortigaunts and finally you're left in the test chamber to your own devices from here it's up to you how do you decide to go about escaping black mesa you can help scientists and security guards escape with you the former group will heal you and the latter will fight alongside you they'll all react to situations appropriately discuss the goings-on at Black Mesa giving context to certain events I'm not so sure I want to go to the surface what if the world finds out what we were doing down here this line is haunting as it brings to question the ethics of black mesas experiments and foreshadows things to come a thought that persists in my head is always the question of what happened a question without an answer and to be fair there's nothing wrong with that and unanswered questions would become a recurring theme in the half-life series a theoretical physicist should have something to theorize about right it's too bad Gordon won't have time to figure out these things though is he's kind of busy swinging a crowbar at aliens in terms of practical implementation scientists and security guards will help you open locked rooms containing useful supplies like health packs and ammunition however there's another option here the game allows you to mercilessly slaughter them killing security guards will allow you to pick up their weapon while killing scientists grants you nothing at all I can admire how these choice driven elements are focused enough to feel warranted and have purpose while guiding these characters can be cumbersome due to their occasionally won't keep having it's rewarding in the end and it connects you with the world even more however you could be rewarded in the moment by getting an early pistol off of the security guards corpse of course you could play out by ear and be completely ambivalent the choices present allow you to create a character out of the blank template left by Gordon and have different outcomes depending on the situation these choices are anything monumental in the face of games like Deus Ex for example but they are contextualized quite well that line the scientist spouts will make you question the ethics of what you were quietly participating in but as the military invades the facility and attempts to kill all the witnesses including you the tables start to turn maybe that's why when the game forces you to escort characters rather than giving you a choice while I don't particularly like fighting with their unreliable AI from a narrative standpoint ax to make even less sense to kill them in the face of the military being the clear villain and while we're on the subject even some of the Marines hold resentment for the people that put them up to the task of silencing the people working at Black Mesa this is what makes it so difficult for me to fight against them overall they might be my enemies but they've been forced to carry out an unspeakable act and in the meantime there's three teams fighting at once the staff at Black Mesa the aliens in the military everyone has a common enemy but they still remain pitted against each other not enough games address the morality and tragedy of situations like this it's really interesting stuff and it's what makes the Black Mesa incident such a great setting for any work of fiction I love it when people write stories about some of the scientists that could have worked at Black Mesa or the Marines that were forced to kill innocent people there's a lot of depth to the concept that deserves to be explored from a narrative standpoint half-life tells a story that unfolds mysteriously but beautifully so and the full scope of the tragedy is endlessly enticing it allows the player to react and engage with the narrative and interesting ways unseen at the time yet still respectable today people react to what's happening at Black Mesa accordingly and the focused decision based gameplay allows you to gain even more insight into the incident as a whole if you really want to and on top of that it never takes control away from you allowing you to experience it however you like I love this games take on a video game narrative and it's no wonder to me it influenced the industry the gameplay of half-life may not be as influential as the way it presents its narrative but that's okay because half-life brings enough to the table to feel like a unique shooter and it's still influential in its own right this might not be immediately apparent in combat as your weapons are relatively standard for the majority of your playthrough you get a crowbar a pistol or revolver a shotgun some grenades a submachine gun or assault rifle depending on the model you're using it takes a while for the variety to be a parent but the decision-making between using certain weapons is what makes the selection so interesting to do this the game eases you into its assortment of weapons remarkably well you first find a crowbar which is not only more effective than you might have expected it will also be a great ammo saver throughout the game you can kill headcrabs by hitting them with a well-timed swing and then by following up with a flurry of swings as there reorienting themselves a lot of the enemies have an opening like this because half-life has an interesting quirk in its AI enemies can only perform one action at a time they can't run and shoot simultaneously for example they need to stop moving before they can attack you while it may seem like a rudimentary AI design I believe this was - this games benefit when enemies aren't attacking you there's an opening for you to take advantage of so while you can use the pistol or shotgun you've found to take down zombies and for two guns you can also look for an opening and just wail on them saving ammo in the process this is also why using security guards in combat is useful it distracts enemies with another target thus allowing you to take them out while their guard is down all of this also gives the crowbar purpose throughout your adventure whereas in shooters that preceded half-life like quake I would almost never touch melee weapons there was never a reason to get that close and if I was gonna do so I'd have a shotgun at that point which I can find an insane amount of ammo for all over the place even when you get a shotgun in half-life ammo can grow scarce if you rely exclusively on it this is why the crowbar became so synonymous with half-life it's reliable and it has purpose back to weapons though yes most of them are relatively standard stuff and it stays that way for a while most weapons do have an alternative firing method when you right-click instead of left-click though for example the shotgun will fire two shells at once although the cooldown before you can shoot again will be longer and the submachine gun has a grenade launcher this gives you alternative strategies for dealing with enemies the grenade launcher being fantastic for clearing out groups of enemies while also being easy to access and the shotgun burst is great for getting easy kills on four and zombies like most great shooters the Arsenal you build will eventually give you the opportunity to strategize the revolver comes along soon after these weapons and it is absolutely devastating in terms of range and damage however it has limited ammo and refills are hard to come by the crossbow is similarly devastating with some enemies going down in one hit and it has incredible range at the cost of bolt travel time it's up to you to choose when these two weapons might be appropriate the weapon selection gets really interesting once you enter the second half of your playthrough most shooters had a rocket launcher during this era it felt like a staple lining up shots as people fall out of the sky and using it as a jumping tool started to become second nature for seasoned quake players half-life flipped the preconceived notion of what a rocket launcher is expected to be on its head by doing something pretty [ __ ] cool the rocket launcher and half-life allows you to guide your Rockets to wherever you're pointing on the screen this allows you to kill enemies from virtually anywhere as long as you can master guiding rockets the creative weaponry doesn't stop there as the tau cannon has introduced shortly thereafter this weapon is pretty damn powerful especially if you charge it up it also shoots through walls if you charge it up and the charge time is proportional to the thickness of the wall ax can shoot through it shares ammo with the glue on gun which is well just take a look at what it does also unusual are the snarks that you can send out towards enemies tearing them apart in the hive hand which is great for attacking enemies around corners as the bugs he shoot will curve and lock onto a target it also feels good giving alien grunts a taste of their own medicine for once as much as I love the weapon selection in this game it does suffer from a critical problem the sheer number of weapons in the game renders some of them obsolete and others remain entirely situational for comparison quake had eight weapons with most of them sharing ammo types therefore employing a sense of quick decision-making in combat which weapon would be best for this enemy type how much ammo will I have left and will I need this particular ammo type soon all through a small yet well-rounded selection of weapons half-life has nearly double the amount of weapons of quake and the problem I often ran into was a lack of incentive for going back to certain weapons because the SMG and the pistol share the same ammo going back to the Glock seems silly as the SMG fires infinitely faster and does a somewhat equivalent amount of damage you might decide to use the Glock in order to save the ammo but at that point you're better off using the crowbar which not only swings at a decent rate but also does more damage per swing than a bullet from the Glock so that weapons out the tripmines are the most situational weapons in the game and you really have to look hard for a use for them I don't see half-life is a very tactical game you can employ tactical strategies in combat but the pacing of the combat doesn't allow for decisions that are slow and methodical the game is very heavy on movement that enemies will punish you for staying in one place for example the military just love to throw grenades at you and an attempt to flush you out the vortigaunts can hit you with their electricity from anywhere as long as you aren't obstructed by a wall alien grunts have bugs that track you down as previously discussed female assassins are designed to hunt you down I could go on I'm not trying to say the tripmine has no use whatsoever because that's just wrong they're just not viable in a game like this hell the c4 render them obsolete thanks to them serving the same function with full control over detonation so we can cross the tripmines off the list to the tau cannon is effectively replaced by the gluon gun as well as it has a steady and predictable pace for its ammo consumption in comparison while also getting the same jobs done faster these are the most egregious examples of what I'm talking about but you can go further than that the hive hand for example can beacon Fenian but with so many other guns that allow direct confrontation it shouldn't be your first choice when dealing with enemies it's mainly useful as an alternative when you need to conserve ammo the revolver remains useful in close quarters encounters after you retrieve the crossbow but using it cleverly as a ranged weapon doesn't feel as smart a decision after that these last two examples aren't as big a deal to me as my problems with the weapons I mentioned earlier and as you can probably tell I am a much bigger fan of the less is more approach to weapons in a shooter introducing these powerful weapons do give the game a great sense of progression but even in quake I found myself going back to earlier weapons due to them being well balanced so that's the conflict I have with the game stance on weapon progression and having situational weapons at all doesn't really help something else that's frustrating is the level designs reliance on platforming while half-life's controls aren't nearly as slippery as quakes they still aren't finely tuned for situations like jumping across storage crates and especially not for walking fine lines you can negate the slipperiness by holding the use key as Gordon will walk slowly when you do this but that sometimes isn't an option when you need momentum or you need to jump through a platform above you it's really finicky and when revisiting first-person shooters from around this era I remind myself of how glad I am FPS games eventually tightened up their controls or nixed platforming altogether apart from that hiccup however half-life's level design is top-notch we've already elaborated on how the game silently conditions you to navigating the halls of black mesa through memorization and practical application and this persists throughout the game levels often require you to perform this memorization and this is done through puzzles that require navigation and a loop opening doors and finding shortcuts in order to get the full picture this is exceptionally done in the lambda complex and it's challenging all the same as the toughest enemies in the game have to be taken down along the way this is how the majority of levels in half-life your design and they always keep you thinking about potential solutions even bosses are dealt with in this method in blast pit while distracting the tentacles here with distant sounds caused by grenades and whatnot you need to infiltrate the different parts of the facility in order to utilize the rocket engine in order to deal with the gargantuan blocking your way and power up you'll need to traverse your way around the rail station and turn on the various components to the transport network the same boss appears in surface tension and this time need to utilize the military's own air strikes to clear the way for yourself and destroy the enemy this design philosophy is implemented poorly in one instance however the chapter on a rail is absolutely dreadful and I'm sure those of you that have played this game know what I'm talking about in it you'll need to slowly work out a path for your little train car to proceed through not only are these tunnels long and elaborate but they also have obnoxious turrets placed out of view so that you can't react to them in time and many many moments where you need to leave your car behind and do something in order to keep your cart moving sometimes this means slaughtering a plethora of grenade loving military soldiers and sometimes it could be as simple as finding a button this stop-and-go nature is not - this chapters benefit it could have been fun if it didn't take so long but Auto Rail is at least the only chapter in the game I outright hate overall great levels in this game no doubt about that the overall setting of half-life also emits this eerie atmosphere in which nothing is certain and anything could happen the story that slowly unfolds as you acquaint yourself better with black mesa makes for one hell of a rich storytelling playground the soundtrack composed by Kelly Bailey also enhances the various moods of different scenarios reinforcing that disturbing atmosphere from that first moment on the train this is apparent but the soundtrack can amplify the impact of the resonance cascade through a track that literally echoes in your ears [Music] it can heighten the intensity of encounters while staying true to the setting through an electronic rock v [Applause] [Music] and even fit the fight with the testicle touting going our clickin gloves it's a fantastic soundtrack and much like the quake soundtrack it sounds far too high-quality and distinct for the game itself the game looks ugly as sin nowadays despite the technical strides it made in 1998 and the sound files are all bit crushed the compression being laughable sometimes that's why the music sticks out to me so much it doesn't sound hindered at all and yet unlike quake the music is rarely even part of the game most of your adventure lacks music it's just an eerie silence accompanied by the occasional ambient sounds of the facility and a couple of screaming scientists that that's why when music does show up it's all the more meaningful and enhances any scenario great [ __ ] decision right there the sound design in half-life is overall impeccable too it's seriously some of the best sound design I've heard in a video game few sounds are as iconic to me as the health and HEV recharge sounds or the ATVs voice lines warning you of hazardous environments or ammunition depletion ammunition depleted I thought this suit was made for radiation anyway the various sounds you hear when interacting with stuff also stick out to me the guns sound powerful and just hmm this game pleases my eardrums I've elaborated on all of these aspects in depth narrative combat level design atmosphere and yet these aspects aren't necessarily segmented I mentioned half-life's gameplay not changing the world when looked at from a glance but perhaps the most revolutionary thing about half-life's design is how seamlessly it blends all these elements together without you even being conscious to that fact it silently manages its pacing this way creating an engaging experience through little bits of each element blending together to create a game that keeps you engaged it seems like a simple process really but not many games can pull off this kind of design cohesion half-life balances all of these elements well and consistently so apart from monorail [ __ ] that level the climax of the game totally caught me off guard the first time I experienced it I was enamored with the concept of Zen but I didn't think I'd actually be able to visit it it's a very visually interesting world and it carries with it a unique atmosphere that hearkened back to the Lovecraftian setting of the game half-life was built from more importantly though it introduces you to all kinds of new challenges utilizing the long jump module to clear the various platforming challenges isn't the most fun in the world as you might have already guessed but the new enemies you get to fight in Zen make it all worth it from the colossal head grab with a giant testicle to the giant baby in the sky Zen proved to me that half-life still had a few tricks up its sleeves it's a little rough around the edges with its relentless platforming and difficult enemy placement but it's nothing I can't forgive in the face of creatures like the Gaon arc I can't say I saw that thing coming the giant baby known as the nihilanth is an extremely disturbing final boss its overall appearance and the way it speaks are both nothing short of unsettling dealing with it feels more like a traditional boss battle and aside from that one last obnoxious platforming section it is a pretty cool showdown once you take down the nihilanth a familiar face will appear before you although the model name refers to the character is g-man he is never given a name this mysterious man could be seen in all kinds of different places around Black Mesa and his purpose was unbeknownst to you until now his speech is slow and you can practically feel his breathing Budden freeman in the flesh or rather in the hazard suit I took the liberty of relieving you of your weapons most of them were government property as for the suit I think you've earned it his employers wish to offer you a job as you were able to fight your way through Zen and take control back for them whoever he might be referring to the game gives you one last choice either take the portal and await your next assignment or stay behind and be killed by the creatures anzen from here this man would take on a much more foreboding presence in the mind of any half-life fan initially seen as some weird guy that could be found in different locations around Black Mesa some of them impractical he is now in complete control of your destiny and that sets the stage for infinite possibilities half-life is one hell of a game and while certain aspects of the game stick out to me as antiquated its core design philosophy shines through and has unquestionably stood the test of time if playing through it still feels like a big deal to me today I imagine the impact it left in 1998 was astronomical I wasn't able to jump on the half-life train until about a decade later but it's clear to me just how much of an influence the game left on the industry without a doubt halflife included the level design tool world craft upon release and valve would also release a software development kit to the public as well as you'd expect a plethora of third-party mods would begin popping up in both single-player and multiplayer forms in order to promote the SDK valve hired the creators of the quake mod team fortress and had their newly assembled team port the mod to gold source the SDK also sprouted mods such as counter-strike and as we all know these two games would have a prosperous future to go over every popular mod for half-life I'd have to talk for ages but it is an important part of half-life's history a lot of developers making mods for half-life would eventually have a bright future in the industry half-life was a playground for all kinds of new talent to let the creativity shine in valve would even bring some of these people on board for future games as I just mentioned half-life and gold source both meant a lot to these developers their passion for the game led them down exciting paths yet another result of the game's impact early attempts to follow up on the success of half-life would be crafted by Gearbox Software whom you might know of today for creating Borderlands and for Randy Pitchford Xand naen rants anyway gearbox partnership with valve would result in the expansion known as half-life opposing force released on November 19 1999 although it doesn't take very long to complete it is an incredible burst of creativity despite carrying with it a few missteps that were results of half-life lingering issues it is really really good opposing force introduced Adrian Shepard a soldier sent to infiltrate Black Mesa after the resonance cascade however what's interesting about this scenario is you're never issued the orders to silence the scientists your helicopter goes down before you can learn more about your mission scientists hint at this fact as other Marines have flooded in and started killing them but by no means do you have to do this you can make Shepherd out to be whatever kind of person you think he should be the g-man also directly messes with Shepard at the end of the game he reveals that he was in contention with his employers about Shepards fate but he eventually prevailed I admit I had nation with those who adapt and survive against all odds they rather remind me of myself before no other reason I have argued to preserve you for that time the g-man places Shepard in stasis and to this day his next chapter remains unwritten Shepard really is an interesting character considering the perspective but opposing force isn't just interesting for its narrative it introduces a handful of new weapons that either add to or replace items in your arsenal the wrench and knife are your melee weapons this time and both have practical uses the wrench deals a decent amount of damage and you can wind up a powerful swing by right-clicking conversely the knife functions similarly to the crowbar and speed and damage but you can also backstab certain enemies for an instant kill this is something I wasn't aware of on my initial playthrough of the game but that's pretty [ __ ] sweet you also have two pistols one of them being the standard Glock and the other being a desert eagle this powerful pistol replaces the revolver but I'd argue that this decision was for the best considering how many other options you have for damage output you also get a sniper rifle replacing the crossbow a light machine gun and a few unique tools the dispatcher cannon is essentially the BFG from doom it'll shoot a large ball of green light that shocks anything in its surrounding area speaking of which the shock Roach has electric bolts that deal a modest amount of damage however its ammunition constantly regenerates the spore launcher feels like a bizarre-o grenade launcher in practicality and it can be my go-to for dealing with tough enemies in late games especially considering how plentiful their ammo becomes the last weapon isn't used for dealing damage you use the tongue of a barnacle to grapple to designate its spots this is pretty cool and it's vital in fighting the expansion's final boss which involves great problem-solving and reflexes by the way opposing force really does feel like valve could have made it all in all it's not very long but that's what makes it concise and considering everything it brings to the table in such a short time span I'll continue to revisit it as much as I do the rest of the series it's so good it definitely sets an example for future expansion packs as in it expands the universe of the game and explores new gameplay paradigms within the boundaries of its base game and engine not enough to be a fully fledged sequel but have to be a worthy addition to the half life anthology and I mean above all else you can follow Gordon into the Zen portal only to fall to your death and be met with a splash screen warning you of your paradoxical behavior this is the real highlight of the game here as much as I love opposing force I can't really save the same for half-life blueshift released on June 12 2001 originally meant as an exclusive bonus for the Dreamcast version of half-life the port was canceled late in development as the Dreamcast was dying quickly and gracelessly blueshift feels like nothing more than what it was intended to be some extra levels for the Dreamcast version Barney Calhoun isn't fleshed out as an interesting vessel for the player to embody like Freeman and Shepard before him and player choices oddly restricted this time there's even a scenario where your character is implied to have spoken to a character as dr. Rosenberg responds during a scripted event as if you gave him an answer and guess what a forced escort mission ensues yeah it's not great I also find it odd that NPCs don't even react to you shooting wildly around them just because you work there but in some scenarios as soon as you kill them the game end you hello speaking of restrictions not only can you not obtain any of the weapons from opposing force here but you don't even obtain every weapon or encounter every enemy featured in the original half-life nothing new at all when you consider that this was initially a Dreamcast bonus it might soften the disappointment a bit but it does suck that it doesn't bring much to the table and most of what it does bring is annoying a port of half-life for the PlayStation 2 did come out on November 11 2001 and it featured an exclusive cooperative campaign called decay it's a glorified Sven co-op map pack and although it tries very hard to convey a serious narrative and tie a half-life plot events to it I can't take it seriously at all it's just too funny watching your partner do leg tuck jumps around the screen while you're supposed to be paying attention the pack itself does implement really interesting cooperative puzzle solving and being able to watch each other's backs and tough situations add up to an expansion that I can definitely recommend modders have made it fully playable on PC since its release and I'll include a link to that in the description they even poured it over the bonus chapter where you play as a vordigan which is definitely something I want to check out because I don't have the time in my life to get all a ranks in half-life decay after the ps2 port though half-life news would grow silent for a bit valve were working on something that would take them through the shakiest development cycle in the history of the company half-life 2 following up half-life was not going to be an easy task you make a game-changing shooter that revolutionized so many different aspects of game design as a whole and now you're asked to go and do something like that again where do you begin well very early on valve knew they wanted to double down on player interaction and immersion they would focus on developing a new engine using gold sources of Base implementing features such as a dynamic physics engine thanks to a heavily modified version of havoc in addition to fidelity being increased significantly valve would also work on creating realistic facial animations in order to properly convey emotion thus letting players connect with characters more naturally the journey to figure out how they would utilize these things took them down a six-year development cycle full of interesting twists and turns along the way half-life 2 was always going to be set during the aftermath of Black Mesa however the setting was initially much much darker an ominous green air is a recurring element throughout early concept art for half-life 2 and it was the results of the air exchange this created the heavy brown and green aesthetic that you can clearly see in a lot of half-life 2's concept art while the purpose of this element is debated I believe leaving an ambiguous makes it even more terrifying this created a foreboding atmosphere and further emphasized the horrific power of the combine the combine were truly an oppressive force and it seemed that citizens truly didn't have any freedom left in any aspect of their life enemies known as cream eaters roamed the city incinerating corpses and otherwise patrolling the streets no cream eaters didn't come from Xen as horrific and alien as they might look they've been built from parts created by child workers and factories even if you're a citizen seeking some form of escapism the combines cruelty will still manage to slip through the cracks the man hack arcade would have let you take control of a man hack in order to kill fleeing rebels only for it to be revealed that it wasn't a simulation indeed the combine controlled the population in every way imaginable citizens were even being forced to wear gas masks while out in the open in order to conserve oxygen as this cut line of dialogue implies the truth conserves valuable oxygen what you're hearing is the predecessor to who would become Wallace Breen known as the console and as a lot of characters change throughout the narratives development like Alex and Eli so did gameplay elements several weapons were cut and interaction with the physics engine was treated as a more integral part of the game's design valve really trimmed the fat when developing the game and while I do think about what might have been with a lot of this games early plot elements in general atmosphere there's a reason we have the game we know today if you'd like to learn more about these earlier otherwise abandoned concepts for half-life to check out half-life project beta a website dedicated to preserving and restoring half-life 2's development a lot of these elements are in a playable state and are available to download from their website definitely worth checking out if you're interested at all after finally settling on a direction development continued and the game would evolve into what we know as half-life 2 today the game was finally shown to the public for the first time at e3 2003 and its initial showcase blew people away along with unfathomably realistic facial animations for the time and advanced shading and lighting effects previously infeasible to run in real time valve also showed off the source engines physics system for the very first time complex and dynamic physics systems were slowly becoming a more common occurrence in games but half-life 2 was special it gave the player full control over every aspect of the physics and the way different objects interacted with each other was unbelievable to think that a system like this would be put in the hands of players was baffling could you give the player this much control without breaking the game how could they do it well valve demonstrated how this would positively impact the game's core design by demonstrating an early version of Ravenholm in which your resourcefulness would play a vital role in making it out alive for example using any kind of household item as a weapon the list goes on really this glimpse was enough to elicit an insane amount of anticipation for the game and I love going back to this video just to reminisce over how much of a big deal it was for the people watching I feel the same way about the Twilight Princess reveal in 2006 and the Metroid Prime for revealing 2017 seeing a bunch of like-minded people come together and just flip their [ __ ] over a surprise announcement for one of your favorite game series just feels magical this anticipation however led to some unfortunate side effects while the proposed September 2003 release window was exciting at the time something would happen that would confirm this window was wishful thinking at best that month Valve's network was compromised and along with the source code for the source engine a playable version of half-life 2 was leaked the game was clearly in an unfinished state and proved to the public that there was no way in hell the September release window was going to be met which was an embarrassment on Valve's part on top of this several early maps from various stages of development were also leaked and that's where the fascination with the beta for half-life 2 would initially begin the world now had access to all kinds of assets valve never intended for anyone to see well the hacker was eventually arrested this resulted unsurprisingly in a massive delay valve took another year to polish the game up and rework several components thankfully anticipation for the finished game only grew as the months went by and as the new launch date approached only time would tell if the game really was a worthy successor to half-life a book called half-life 2 raising the bar was released shortly after the launch of half-life 2 and along with the plethora of information about the development of the series it also contains a pretty emotional foreword by Gabe Newell which I think everyone should hear as I write this I have the world's worst case of stage fright after six years and tens of millions of dollars after break-ins and lawsuits after marriages and children and divorces and deaths were about to ship half life to you the reader know how the launch of half-life 2 went you've read the reviews seen the sales figures heard about awards or the lack thereof and best of all you've played the finished game we've done none of these did we create a worthy successor to half-life did we live up to gamers expectations did we pull it off you know and I don't and that seems terribly unfair to me right now half-life 2 finally released on November 16 2004 it went on to receive near unanimous acclaim and like its predecessor has been hailed as one of the most influential video games of all time [Music] [Music] it's hard for games from 15 to 20 years ago to feel completely timeless even the most timeless of games that play like that could have been released yesterday have something about them that remind you they're a product of their time Max Payne shooting in bullet time are so well done that the only thing that reminds you it's a game from 2001 are those ugly-ass graphics Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 introduced the revert and allowed you to continue your combos perpetually but it's visuals soundtrack and overall mood remind me of the scanner mentality of the late 90s and early 2000s that may not be a bad thing but for people getting into the series today it's gonna be a little jarring whether they be technical or design elements there's always something that pulls me out of whatever I'm playing from that era there are a few games that definitely transcend the era they were released in however and half-life 2 is one of those games I've replayed it countless times over the years and virtually nothing about it feels antiquated to me the game's graphical capabilities may not be as impressive as they were in 2004 but they were such a huge leap forward at the time that they look about as good as some games releasing in the early 2010's this is a testament to the source engines flexibility it stands the test of time and it's still being utilized today in games like titanfall and apex legends yeah the game has quarks in its artificial intelligence but these quirks are still a problem games faced today they haven't gone away with time AI can be difficult to program programmers need to create all these unique functions to account for various scenarios and both play testers and average consumers can find cracks in a game discovering a scenario developers hadn't thought of before that doesn't excuse the issue but it hardly means it's a product of its time but I'm getting ahead of myself how exactly is half-life 2 a timeless experience and what does it bring to the table in comparison to the first game more importantly why is it still heavily discussed and cited in various forms to this day well let's take a look rise and shine stur Bremen rise and shine the g-man wakes Gordon out of stasis foreshadowing the damage and consequences of black mesa 20 years later so wake up mr. Freeman wake up and smell the ashes I think most of us know this intro by heart at this point the g-man proves to be a more menacing presence this time since it feels like he's in total control every time I'd see him this time around I'd always feel uneasy who is he what is his real mission who are his employers yet again questions without answers and I'm totally fine with that this monologue also gives you an up-close and personal look at Valve's complicated facial animations I discussed earlier to this day these animations will always seem more impressive to me than motion capture because of how lifelike they actually seem that's not the same motion capture doesn't have a place in games but because it mimics reality it can channel this rather uncanny feeling games can render some really insane visuals in real time these days and developers are taking advantage of that by making them look as close to real life as possible this screenshot from the Last of Us 2 is kind of freaking me out actually valve could have taken the easy way out and mocap their actors but instead they created everything entirely from scratch they even consulted with a research psychiatrist to make sure their facial expressions were entirely accurate this technological push is probably what inspired this imitation of reality we see in games today and to be honest that's not a bad thing motion capture allows voice actors to become well actors full-fledged actors delivering convincing performances embodying the characters that they're portraying what's impressive about half-life 2 in comparison is how realistic they seem without falling into uncanny valley if it was Valve's goal to enhance narrative presentation this way they definitely met that goal every line the voice actors delivered are characterized and contextualized by these animations dr. Kleiner's finger-pointing and firm posture dr. Beane's conniving and dehumanizing gestures even the zombies and civil protection for example the animations all aim to further develop these characters in a subtle way subtlety is probably half-life two strongest suit and storytelling bar none no info dumps and no overbearing presence of science fiction half-life 2 integrates the combines presence into the everyday lives of citizens and city 17 and if you want to learn more all you have to do is take a look around if you pay attention to dr. Breen speeches you might learn about how he negotiated with the combine for the survival of humanity despite this they continue to control the population by enlisting humans in their armed and using a suppression field to prevent reproduction it's a really sad situation but of course as half-life has established thus far you are in control of how much you want to learn about the world around you you can interact with citizens around the neighborhood or you can initiate an accelerated back hopping the CP towards the cafeteria behind you in dr. Kleiner's lab you could pay attention to whatever him Barney and Alex are talking about or you could learn about the 7 hour war when the combine took over you could find a picture of everyone at Black Mesa stare at the g-man through a TV or literally anything you can think of while they babble on about God knows what truthfully the dialogue in these scenes are interesting and well written and they establish some pretty great characters - I'm glad valve opted to create properly defined characters this time around because a world like half-life definitely deserves an exploration of these characters lives I know it's a bit odd that they disregard the possibility of Gordon slaughtering scientists in the first game but they do so for a reason the Black Mesa incident affected so many people to begin with and it's cool meeting survivors like dr. kleiner and Eli Eli's daughter Alex is your companion throughout most parts of the game and rather than spouting exposition and context for what you're supposed to be doing she instead explains how she feels about a situation and lets you know what people were doing and why they were doing it I mean she'll give you that exposition no doubt about that but it's kept to a minimum personality-wise she's feisty but that is definitely a positive trait she can vouch for herself and kick ass when she needs to she's also intelligent and along with building a giant mechanical companion named dog she can also analyze situations well sometimes too well and she can go on for a while but it's in her nature I suppose she also has reason to be skeptical of people like Judith Mossman who actively betrays the resistance she claims it was to keep Eli alive but that wasn't exactly a guarantee at the time just as Breen's negotiation for the fate of humanity is riddled with uncertainties a lot of these events are beyond your control but watching the characters genuinely and properly react to them is what allowed me to connect with them I mean we're in a unique situation here how we connect with these characters is an entirely subjective thing Gordon is but a vessel and the game's asking you how you feel about this not him that's what it all comes down to if you don't give two flying fox about and buddy in this game you don't have to pay attention to them unless you're in an elevator with them but I think they all play off of each other pretty well and have generally likeable dynamics so it's easy to pay attention to them for me overall I think the point of these characters is to demonstrate that they are a small piece of a much bigger resistance team most NPC's in half-life 2 have a story to tell and piecing them together can contextualize your adventure and your end goal if the main characters are meant to be one note at least they have entertaining personalities at this point Gordon doesn't really have anyone or anything left your priorities are yours and yours alone if you want to learn more about the combine and what they've done to humanity you can do that or you can spray bullets like a madman and make your way to the Citadel without a shred of concern for anyone around you this is a philosophy that I believe was lost in future half-life games as they decided to focus more on the plot but I don't even mind that much either the point is half-life 2 gives you every opportunity to care about what's happening and you can look as deeply as you want into the circumstances of the characters for example here's something I concluded while thinking about the vortigaunts after being freed when Gordon defeated the nihilanth the Vorta sided to fight alongside humans and push back the combine as best they could what I concluded it was that they learned English by listening to humans and since people called them the vortigaunts when referring to them I believe that's why you hear them save the before referring to a proper noun like the freeman or the Alex Vance this is stuff that you don't have to pick up on but it's there if you're interested in the world like I am reminds me a lot of Metroid Prime you don't have to scan everything around you but it gives you context for what's going on and that can be interesting to some people and yet with all this world building and lore on our hands half-life 2's take on science fiction feels downplayed in comparison to the last game but don't get me wrong that's exactly what I love about it it's what makes the world of half-life 2 feel so close to home you have the looming presence of the Citadel the aforementioned mysterious appearances of the g-man and combine forces gradually reveal their powers to you through iterations in power for their soldiers all progression and ideas and yet it all feels rounded in reality I'm driving down highway 17 and smashing through combine forces but at the same time I'm stopping to stare at the tire swings in the comfortable vibe of the abandoned home that families might have lived in at some point I'm not reflecting on the possible science behind the combines power I'm reflecting on how the combine might have affected people on an emotional level this isn't an absurd feeling this is Avoca neither with couples comforting each other and with corpses filling the streets it's a very dark time for Humanity this hopeless atmosphere is what makes the parts where you're alone in an abandoned environment feel depressing yet all the more poignant this game's atmosphere is beautifully diverse varying from tragic and empty to abrasive and frightening once again this atmosphere is enhanced by Kelly Bailey's fantastic soundtrack a few songs are reused from the first game but they're warranted the track that first played when you were entering Black Mesa now plays as you pull up in front of Eli's lab a reminder of past events what we now associate with valves theme song now plays when you put the HEV suit on they all feel like appropriate reuses and the new tracks are even better and more appropriate not many a Kelly Bailey's compositions can rival the sheer amount of atmosphere created by the track lab practicum which plays when you are as far out as possible on highway 17 crossing a ruined bridge amidst the fog [Music] CP violation places you're evading civil protection in the city seventeen canals and while it ends just as you make it out of sight it picks up again as they start using explosive barrels on your ass [Music] I could go on but I'd be here all day half-life 2 soundtrack is phenomenal same goes for the sound design once again there's no limits how far they can go with sound design this time the ambience of city 17 is truly one-of-a-kind the sounds of scanners floating around the overwatch announcements and CPT radios going off all clash with the look of a city that should feel comfortable but the sounds pull you right back into the reality of the situation I also love the sounds all the enemies make the combine radio chatter is hard to make out but it is iconic I also love hearing civil protection flatline when I kill them just as an audio cue to keep you on your feet the cries the zombies Meghan this game still creeped me out most other games use cliched guttural moans and growls for zombie noises but because zombies in this game are created when a headcrab takes over the hosts the noises are pained moans and a cries for help these cries are accentuated when zombies are lit on fire the weapons sound even better this time around I mentioned they pleased my eardrums last time but some of the weapons in this game brought me to proverbial climax this is a small sampling of half-life 2 sound designing you really can't get the full scope unless you play it yourself but yeah it's incredible alright I've talked long enough about the context and circumstances of the game how about we discuss what in the game actually plays like well as I mentioned earlier half-life 2's claim to fame is its dynamic physics engine a game where you play as a theoretical physicist should have something to do with physics shouldn't it solving physics puzzles is a cool way to connect with that one bit of backstory that felt irrelevant before you know seeing as all you did on the job in Black Mesa was push a cart and press buttons and yeah Barney makes sure to poke fun at that good job Gordon throwing that switch and all I can see your MIT education really pays for itself perhaps the best thing about the physics engine is that it's integrated so heavily into the core design of the game that you're not even thinking about it most of the time just like how the first game manages pacing which this game does just as well when this officer knocks a can over and asks you to pick it up the physics engine is silently doing its job and you can experiment even more in this first part of the game maybe by placing cement blocks on a seesaw when you kill enemies their limp bodies hit the ground in a satisfying manner thanks the engines ragdoll physics and as soon as you see the bodies begin to fall you can focus on another anime in order to get past these barnacles here you can distract them by rolling some barrels down for them to suckle on some of them being explosive the vehicles have legitimate weight to them because of the engine and thus feels satisfying to control when you blow up an explosive barrel others in its vicinity will explode - thus allowing you to cause a chain reaction it's the little things that add up and discovering these things are some of the many ways half-life 2 silently conditions you do it's physics and they test you practically with physics puzzles like this one here where you need to use barrels to lift the ramp out of the water since the barrels have buoyancy they'll lift the ramp and keep it steady as you drive across with your airboat an unusual and clever puzzle and the game has taught you to think outside of the box up to this point so it's inclusion makes sense as you accustom yourself further to the subtle complexities of the physics the game decides to give you full control of these objects using the gravity gun a tool that can carry most objects and launch them at breakneck speeds the tutorial for this weapon is actually pretty quaint as they have you play catch with dog outside of the lab then the game decides to let you loose with the gravity gun in one of my favorite levels in the game raven home definitely channels that early half-life 2 aesthetic we discussed earlier and because it's so visually different from anything else in the game it's immediately appealing the mysterious but trustworthy monkey Nona's father Grigori will be your guide throughout your trip and it's probably best that you have someone by your side because this place is crawling with zombies however the level highly encourages that you expend as little ammo as possible as there will be a large ambush with newer and more powerful zombies just a little down the road so what's your alternative here using literally anything and everything as a weapon crushing zombies with a car flinging buzz saws through rows of them the town is your oyster raven home can be experienced in many different ways thanks to its many methods of completion and it's unusual atmosphere in self-contained plot is something to behold every time I leave Raven home and I hear father grigory's crazed cackling behind me I remind myself of just how cool and unique it is in comparison to the rest of the game and how outside of city 17 things can be much much worse if both teaches and tests you want things related to the physics engine and its atmosphere is unlike anything else in half-life 2 and after you exit you don't see another resistance member for a good while but when you do it's cathartic the physics engine it's always a part of half-life 2's design it's a simulation it seamlessly integrates itself into the game and acts how you expect it to I'd like to sit here and list the instances where it surprised me or impressed me but the truth is they could be endless whether you're manipulating it to progress through sections solving puzzles or using it in combat the game wants you to utilize it as much as possible it succeeds in both being a front and center part of gameplay as well as silently acting in the background I'll let Project Lead J Stehly summarize its importance I was watching a play test and they were just messing around punting a tire swing back and forth trying to get it to loop over the top they had it almost there but not quite so they ran forward to hit it again but missed and the tire ended up at landing on their head killing them they just sat there laughing thinking it was the greatest thing in the world it wasn't so much that the tire had killed them but they had just done it themselves they had found a clever way of interacting with the world in the game and let them do it it wasn't really so much about realism as it was about discovering how the game and the world were reacting to them in ways that they hadn't seen before then finding out that we're surprising and interesting consequences but what else about half-life 2 has been improved well the few complaints I did have with the original game have since been addressed escort missions are basically non-existent Alex can hold her own most of the time and the rebels you bring along with you don't need to survive it's always nice to have extra help with you and keeping the medical live is an absolute must when you're low on health but never are you required to babysit them and prevent their deaths platforming does still exist in half-life 2 but thanks to the tighter controls in the addition of a sprint function you have more control over your movements but what's best about these overall platforming sections is how you can approach them most of them are created out of unique situations that require ingenuity from the player as well as general knowledge of the physics engine in the chapter sand traps you find out that the sand is crawling with antlions in order to escape you need to create a path for yourself by scavenging for any kind of debris in collecting it with your gravity gun placing the different pieces in just the right way so you can make it across without having to deal with them of course no one's telling you to do this you can run across the sand and Massacre antlions if you really want - but it's moments like these that make half life to shine and then demonstrate how you can turn something that didn't work very well the first time into something truly creative and interesting this isn't an isolated experience either how about limboing under lasers in a tight room still a platforming challenge but under a new context with revamped controls the only other problem I had with half-life was the weapon selection getting somewhat confused toward the end of the game if you recall in contrast half-life 2 has much fewer weapons to choose from however I believe that this was - this game's benefit because there aren't as many weapons to choose from I found a use for each and every one of them the USP allowed me to stay back when dealing with weaker enemies the revolver SMG shotgun crossbow grenades and RPG are all useful for the same reasons they were in half-life 1 and they function identically - there's a secondary automatic gun known as the pulse rifle and while it lacks accuracy it sure does pack a punch its secondary fire launches a pulse grenade which will bounce all over the place and disintegrate everything it touches if you use it in a small room you will absolutely wreck [ __ ] not a huge selection of weapons right and most of them are the same as the first game but not only do these weapons all serve a purpose you also have the gravity gun which allows you to use anything as a weapon and make it through combat in creative ways there's the trade-off so I'm not really bothered I know I criticized blue shift for having a weak selection of weapons - but blue shift didn't really bring anything to the table at all whereas half-life 2 did it exponentially so combat scenarios have also been made more interesting links to the gravity gun the physics engine a focused weapon selection and much tighter controls most of the time you need to be light on your feet as the combine will outright bum-rush you follow Freeman is a chapter that best exemplifies this as the combine go all-out with every enemy type imaginable they surround you and push back with everything they've got you need to be quick and smart with your weapons especially when dealing with Striders and choppers the combine is infamous for something though they will just throw their lives away charging at you with no concern for their well-being although the Marines could only perform one action at a time it was figuring this out that would give you the advantage here the advantage is to have them run at you and then you can just overpower them however because the combine are programmed to play so aggressively it makes encounters with them more intense and less exploitable there are scenarios where you can hide behind something and then assault them as they turn the corner but if they have grenades then that's out of the question this is also infeasible if they have a shotgun I don't know why they decided to do this but combine shotgunners can shoot faster than you could process what's happening to you in claustrophobic levels like Nova Prospekt this can be a [ __ ] to deal with the combine soldiers are generally the focus when it comes to enemy variety in half-life 2 they're in control of the population now and they've taken care of the Xen outbreak mostly you'll still see a few barnacle zombies and headcrabs around and even a few new variations that will challenge you on your journey these poisonous headcrabs can be a little annoying and to add insult to injury there are even zombies with piles of poisonous headcrabs on top of them also these fast zombies are a primary reason Raven home is such an intense level but aside from that yeah you'd better get used to the combine and to be honest I don't really mind that much half-life 2 places you in many different combat scenarios that keep the act of killing combine soldiers interesting Nova Prospekt is probably the best instance of this creativity the place is really difficult to break into and that's why a friendly vortigaunt teaches you how to take control of the antlions with bug bait this forces you to think differently bobbing and weaving as you find an angle to throw the bug bay to combine outposts you'll even be doing this when you finally make it to the recess area of the prison as you throw the bait at watchtowers and whatnot the fun doesn't end there though Nova Prospekt reintroduces the antlion guard from the chapter sand traps only this time you have bigger weapons and a lot more debris to use against it after that you reunite with Alex and prepare for a combine ambush this tower defense motif was first introduced at the lighthouse in highway 17 as he had to keep combine forces and choppers away from the resistance while dealing with Striders and choppers may get repetitive toward the end of the game the feeling of satisfaction when you finally take these behemoths down is euphoric I also adore how they scripted the chopper here as you're supposed to run up the stairs while avoiding the bullets the chopper is filling the lighthouse with Nova Prospekt zeroes in on this concept of tower defense and considering the level is already claustrophobic enough coming up with a game plan and adjusting it a soldier's flank from different directions is a hell of a lot of fun there's no correct answer all you have to do is survive game has prepared you for this you've been fighting with combine and all kinds of different scenarios and you've learned how annoying yet fragile turrets can be now the game is allowing you to apply that knowledge in a unique scenario this is why I love Nova Prospekt as a whole and these tower defense scenarios only continue into the chapter follow Freeman like as you revisit the city 17 Plaza you have to fend off a ton of combine soldiers your supplies are limited and you have to make the most of them it's really cool I mean I'll be real with you all of these scenarios are why I love the combat in this game as a whole it's simple shooter combat done really really [ __ ] well without you being conscious to it the game trains you to face all of these different problems they all blend together perfectly in a stream of intelligently designed combat scenarios and puzzles just like the first game only this time it's a sequel that trims the fat of the original and creates a world with as much depth as the player wants it to have outside of immersive Sims it's hard for me to come across games that do this so well and that's why I love half-life 2 even the climax of the game while not quite needing the grandiose scale of Xen still reveals the true scope of dr. Breen's negotiation when infiltrating the Citadel you discover what happens to citizens that are captured like Eli was there turned into stalkers soulless husks of what were once just citizens attempting to resist they mindlessly served the combine and the concept of them possibly remembering who they once were is disturbing I can't forgive the roller-coaster ride they put you through as it gives you context for the final battle and a clear reason to hate dr. Breen plus the game hadn't had a tram ride sequence yet so it works here and what's more they powerup your gravity gun allowing you to blast through combine soldiers and throw giant computer monitors and bouncy death orbs at them just wreck [ __ ] it's a nice reward for everything you've been through and the final frontier has you blowing up Breen's portal reactor only for one of the best ending sequences in the history of anything ever to ensue got to get out of maybe we still have time dr. Freeman is it really that lead time again it seems as if you only just arrived you've done a great deal in a small time span you've done so well in fact that I've received some interesting offers for your services ordinarily I wouldn't contemplate them but these are extraordinary times I don't really know how to conclude my evaluation of this game obviously I do think half-life 2 is an incredible game and a textbook example of how to make a video game let alone a first-person shooter but I know I'm not alone in feeling that way you've heard the praise you've most likely played the game and you know why it's such a big deal what can I say that hasn't already been said you know perhaps I could say that the design of half-life 2 needs to remain in the public consciousness half-life 2 isn't a game that should be forgotten you can design a linear shooter with the same level of depth that comes from shooters with RPG or open-world elements you just have to take the leap and that's why I believe half-life 2 stands the test of time it took that leap to show the world that linear shooters didn't necessarily have to railroad you or limit your choice in progression that's why it had such a massive influence on shooters and that's why it still stands on its own two feet at least that's how I feel about it and I'll be sure to revisit city 17 for years to come support for half-life 2 by an excited community has not ceased and will not cease if you thought half-life 1 had a lot of mods halflife 2 makes that pool of mods seem like a shallow pond valve once again released the SDK for their engine ensuring that a waterfall of mods would be pouring onto the Internet some of these mods were prominent enough to gain a standalone release like black mesa a full-on remake of half-life using the source engines many features to create an entirely new experience Garry's Mod allows players to experiment more casually with the source engines physics and get creative kind of like medium molecules LittleBigPlanet its tools are relatively easy to understand thus people poured thousands of hours into it creating all sorts of wonderful things it's also spawned its own multiplayer scene with classic modes like prop hunt hide-and-seek and one of my personal favorites you touched it last a nice friendly game of hot potato where the ball explodes there are so many mods to play and I encourage you to explore this field if you haven't already there are so many awesome mods out there the point is the Source engine is easy to develop for and can handle whatever people decide to throw at it like I mentioned before titanfall 2 was developed in the Source engine obviously it was heavily modified but the fact that they were able to get anywhere with an engine that has been around for almost two decades is pretty impressive and a testament to the engines abilities of course half-life 2 itself received support from valve for a long while shortly after the release of half-life 2 a deathmatch client would also be released I didn't really discuss half-life deathmatch and that's because outside of the large amount of community support I find it to be largely unremarkable I like using weapons from the single-player in a multiplayer setting and crossfire is one of the best maps in any deathmatch FPS but it's nothing I'd write home about half-life 2 deathmatch is pretty cool though using the gravity gun to get kills on other people that are also using the gravity gun is an adrenaline rush I always have a lot of fun whenever I jump on half-life 2 deathmatch even if it's lack of support nowadays is a little disappointing it was also largely overshadowed by counter-strike source which was bundled with most copies of half-life 2 upon release and feels like a full-fledged game in its own right so you can see why it got left in the dust but I do wish half-life 2 deathmatch got the support it deserved with all kinds of different modes and whatnot the insanity that sooo when playing half-life 2 deathmatch makes it worth checking out valve also released an extra level for half-life 2 a year later on October 27th 2005 called half-life 2 Lost Coast as you can probably guess it was meant to take place during the highway 17 chapters of half-life 2 and valve instead used it as an outlet to demonstrate the source engines HDR capabilities you can get the full picture if you turn on developer commentary while you play through the level a feature that valve would subsequently included most of their games released thereafter essentially it gives insight into various parts of the levels design and the tech behind HDR one thing I found interesting is how they regretted not utilizing vertical level design more often I remember that one instance outside of Black Mesa in another instance outside of Nova Prospekt as the two most memorable uses of this kind of design I do agree that I could have done more of this it was a unique setting for dealing with enemies Lost Coast is a nice burst of excitement that I can imagine only left fans hungry for more half-life indeed valve had a much bigger responsibility on their shoulders they revolutionized the field twice and despite the success of the half-life franchise they were aware that people would be foaming at the mouth for more therefore rather than taking a decade to attempt the same feat they would feed their fans more content with the existing engine narrative and gameplay concepts this could further develop the characters we've come to love and expand comfortably upon ideas presented in half-life 2 this approach led to the conception of half-life 2 aftermath which would eventually expand into an episodic approach to content delivery valve would assemble multiple teams that would leapfrog each other in order for content to be delivered at a steady pace gabe newell himself was convinced that this episodic model was the way of the future even though he would doubt this models feature only a year later and then he'd finally go back on his stance in 2011 but at the time he was very excited this would allow them to deliver a full sequel in short bursts once the trilogy was complete we'd have the equivalent to a full game on our hands what could go wrong right half-life 2 episode 1 released on June 1st 2006 after several delays even the word frequent is subject to valve time apparently but let's take a look at the first game in the episodic trilogy some people may view episode 1 is a generally underwhelming addition to the franchise its drawn-out intro lack of major innovation short length and god-awful ending sequence where you travel back and forth to escort rebels are seen as points of contention and I understand those complaints I agree that the intro has far too much watching and waiting for scripted sequences to end without any real interaction and the game treats its first minutes as a potential intro to half-life babying you into mechanics that should have already been second nature if you play shooters even if this was somehow a person's first half-life game this isn't their first shooter I find it highly unlikely they would need to learn how to traverse platforms and whatnot the intro does pick up however once you re-enter the Citadel and work your way back down to city 17 combat is entirely focused on utilizing the gravity gun much like the climax of half-life 2 they even remind you of the importance of movement here by having you dodge fast-moving orbs in a tight corridor puzzles require you to analyze situations thoroughly even this early on throwing these orbs around may seem like a mindless task but you'll also have to solve these orb puzzles while changing the trajectory of your launch and factoring in the bounce of the orb all while dealing with combine soldiers so thankfully the game picks up the pace quickly on the topic of innovation Episode one does add a few notable things aside from a couple of cool new enemies like the zombie and that suicide bombs you and methods of dealing with said enemies like plugging up ant lion nests with cars Alex now reacts more believably to your actions and she'll participate more actively in combat this upgrade makes sense as she sticks by your side throughout the entire game it's nice that you can treat her as an equal and more cooperative situations by shining your flashlight on enemies and dark areas for example this lets Alex do the work and it saves you ammo in some scenarios she'll actually hold enemies down with her foot and execute them it's a great extension of her abilities and overall presence in half-life 2 but aside from that there aren't many other noteworthy changes to the game the only new scenarios I remember visiting were a hospital and a parking garage but the former was very similar in structure to other buildings you'd explore in half-life 2 so yeah I get it to be fair an episodic sequel that released a year and a half after valves biggest game yet wasn't gonna be very over-the-top and impressive and that contextualizes the game's four to five hour runtime that's not to say those hours aren't packed exciting gameplay because they are episode one is still a great [ __ ] game it has the same clever use of the gravity gun and your own resourcefulness to solve puzzles and really engage in combat scenarios like the dark parking garage that you have to survive in and the final showdown with the Strider where your cover won't last long and sometimes you'll have to make your own it's got the same seamless design and implementation of ideas that you should come to expect it's more half-life 2 and that's fine with me although there is one unlockable achievement that brings episode 1 up from being just the simple expansion of ideas already established and that achievement is known as the one free bullet in which you clear the game by only firing a single bullet from your pistol that bullet being used to break the lock on a gate in the parking garage you can only use your gravity gun crowbar rocket launcher and grenades to finish the game this will force you to completely rethink your methods of dealing with enemies you'll have to use anything you can find as a weapon if you think in my pack a punch it'll have to do remember why I love Draven home this achievement can really make episode 1 feel like you turn that level into a full game the physics engine was always an active part of half-life 2's design as I said before whether you were aware of its integration or not however using what you could find as a potential solution to a problem is all up to the player to discover and this is a great way to put that philosophy to the test and I recommend everyone give it a try it's a great challenge and a lot of fun this also gives context to Alex's revamped AI programming as you'll need a reliable partner when you're not using mo remember that scenario when you're shining your flashlight on enemies for Alex to shoot it allows you to make it through without firing a bullet it's little things like these that make me appreciate the design of episode 1 more and more as time goes on it certainly doesn't save that escort section though it only makes it worse it is really that bad I've danced around this topic already but before you can have your final showdown with a Strider and escape city 17 you got to make sure a group of rebels make it to their train this requires trekking back and forth over and over again dodging an onslaught of combine while simultaneously attempting to keep a certain number of rebels alive it gets repetitive very quickly and while we have come a long way since the pitiful escorting of half-life 1 the reason this is so grueling is because it goes on for so long it's an efficient way to completely destroy the game's phenomenal pacing up to this point but yeah the game ends on a positive note episode ones gravity gun driven design and new additions make playing through at a great time and while I don't revisit it nearly as much as I'd like to I all still remember my time with it fondly and that's what it all should come back to following the release of episode 1 development on the other to episodic installments continued the overlapping technique seemed to be working in valves favor and even more episodes were on track to be released after episode 3 launched Arkane studios signed on to develop an episode called return to Raven home and Warren specters studio Junction point we're also taking on their own episode things were moving along nicely and half-life wasn't going anywhere on top of all this valve dropped a bombshell during EA summer presentation in 2007 half-life 2 episode 2 the elusive vapor where Team Fortress 2 and the incredibly unique and impressive physics based puzzle game portal were all going to be bundled together in a package called the orange box this package overall is a testament to Valve's incredible commitment to creating games and it seems like no matter what they decided to tackle they would come out on top the orange box represents valves monumental influence on the industry and will forever encapsulate the sheer amount of passion that was present in those offices as much as I'd like to talk about portal and Team Fortress 2 in addition to episode 2 that's not what this video is about maybe someday but not today alongside those two games half-life 2 episode 2 released on October 10th 2007 and it's a very strong contender from my favorite game in the entire series [Music] [Applause] [Music] remember how I said opposing force was concise Episode two is the same way and well it doesn't bring much new to the table and weapon or enemy variety it does however create a heavy focus on open-ended combat if you recall I love tower defense scenarios and situations where you need to traverse a massive area and kill enemies in order to progress I love levels like Nova Prospekt and chapters like follow Freeman for these reasons episode 2 is all about that from the intense encounter with the antlions while the vortigaunts heal Alex's injuries to the houses that get bombarded by combine forces episode - heavy focus on combat is what makes it a consistently engaging game I also loved the last two showdowns that take place in the rocket silo and well all over white forest they cram the toughest enemies they can into the rocket silo making it a truly claustrophobic experience it's like if the hulls of Black Mesa were just filled with enemies and then they open combat up to the aforementioned white forest battle and it's a lot of fun you need to drive around preventing the Striders from making it to the base by taking them down with the Magnusson device while they will take down Striders upon detonation the hunters surrounding them will make sure they shoot down the device before you can blow it up hunters are the one big bad that valve added for episode 2 and they are threatening enemies they'll shoot darts that explode after a while and if you get some stuck to you be prepared to take some heavy damage they take quite a few hits to kill but they aren't gonna drive you insane the best strategy in this situation is to drive straight into them which is fast but isn't easy and can leave you open to their attacks but when you do drive straight into them it's a wonderful feeling I also love dealing with the big momma ant lion in this cave here there's not much you can really do to slow it down so whenever you manage to distract it you only have a limited amount of time to scurry towards the nearest tunnel it's a pretty scary experience most of these encounters are also heightened by Kelly Bailey's soundtrack both episodes 1 and 2 featured interesting use of guitars as the distortion simulated the sounds of a Strider episode 2 features some of the best music half-life has seen for sure it kicks ass [Music] [Music] that's not to say the heavy focus on combat means Episode two doesn't feature the hallmarks of previous half-life games because it definitely does it wouldn't be a half-life game if it didn't seem lessly blend elements together physics based and exploration based puzzles are still alive and kicking and while they aren't gonna change the game here they still contribute to the overall design half-life has established for itself it's also quite nice to be visiting somewhere other than city 17 for once white forest feels like it should have been peaceful and that's why it's so disheartening seeing how the combine have affected it the atmosphere it emanates definitely has range in that regard one gameplay element that I am not particularly a big fan of is the game's idea of an alternative challenge remember the one free bullet episode - version of that is bringing a garden gnome prop all the way to the rocket and throwing him inside it's a good way to demonstrate how the source engine can remember where objects are placed in the world but actually doing this can be a repetitive nightmare especially when you have to travel by car the little [ __ ] just won't stay put and will roll out of the car if you move even just a teeny tiny bit too fast you could launch him ahead and then catch up with him but that isn't much fun either it's too bad that this achievement doesn't teach you much about the game's design it was a neat way to demonstrate a feature of the Source engine but it totally backfired in practice conversely what this game does really well as narrative presentation episode 2 sets up many plot elements that are nothing short of intriguing although it does have a slow start as soon as the g-man intervenes things start to get interesting he has never done this before he usually just likes to watch and wait as the events unfold and as we're closing the book on an adventure and starting a new one he'll fill us in after all that's what his employers want just like Gordon take care of the event set in motion it's his job right that's why the vortigaunts reaching out and saving Gordon was such a big deal in episode 1 any interference could potentially ruin whatever his plans may be thus g-man throws you a curve ball he actually needs you to take care of Alex this time more than anything implying that she may be of some use he also tells Alex to relay some rather unsettling words and I think you know what those are you see your father relay these words prepare for unforeseen consequences at first it's obviously not clear what he means but as they slip out upon meeting up with the resistance Eli immediately knows what to do he knows it must have something to do with the borealis the borealis is a fabled ship rumored to have been used by Aperture Science for something it's not known what but earlier dr. kleiner relays what he thinks it might have been used for of course a debate ensued we don't really have context for any of this at first other than the combine possibly wanting to harness its power but once Eli reminds us of the words of our mutual friend things become a little clearer or do they see as Gordon and Alex are about to leave for the Arctic to research the borealis the unthinkable happens a combine advisor bursts into the hangar and picks Eli up restraining him and since it was demonstrated previously what combine advisors could do to people both us and Eli know there is a much time left [Music] with the death of Eli the true meaning of the g-man's warning becomes clear yes he may have been warning us about the borealis but he was also warning us about the death of Eli and how that would affect everyone around him and watching him lifelessly dangle above the ground as a result of the g-man's meddling still hurts my heart to this day and now we have to wonder how alex is gonna deal with this I love episode 2 as a whole for its evolution and combat and level design but what makes it stand out to me is the number of exciting plot elements it sets up this would prove to be the mother of all cliffhangers and video games Eli is dead and as you and Alex are about to race towards the borealis and beat the combine to the punch many other resistance members believe the borealis should be preserved in research rather than destroyed the story could go in so many different directions and with the mystery as large as the borealis itself I was drowning in my own endless anticipation for the final chapter yeah there's not a next one [Music] they didn't make a next one and they were saying they're not gonna make another one so we'll never know what happened does that make you sad oh sorry [Music] after one's box we have to get Episode three out you know how the trilogy ends and they're a bunch of loose ends and narrative arcs that need to come to a conclusion in Episode three the main thing that we're working on right now after we get the orange box out the door is gonna be episode three a plan for half-life is to get through these three episodes we are at the midpoint in our trilogy of episodes which will conclude in Episode three we're not I'm not saying anything about about episode three I really don't have anything to say about episode three right now I got nothing to say about half-life we don't have anything about half-life for episode three you the next 10 years would be riddled with consistent anxiety ever since the release of the Orange Box in 2007 Gabe Newell went from insisting they'd finish the story to saying absolutely nothing at all no cancellation no hope for the future virtually nothing from valve themselves they say this is because they only want to talk when they can be crisp on things in order to avoid past mistakes that resulted in delays and broken promises this would have been a respectable approach if the silence didn't last 12 [ __ ] years I've cherished the brief period of time where they released concept art for episode 3 and openly discussed concepts they wanted to explore we didn't have a release window to consider but it at least fueled my imagination and my excitement for Gordon Freeman's continuing adventures but let's analyze this whole situation let's look at where things went wrong and consider everything that occurred since the release of the Orange Box in 2007 in the wake of that collections warm reception Gabe was adamant that the company's primary focus would be half-life 2 episode 3 in order to finally finish the story Gabe mentioned exploring the series psychological horror roots and Doug Lombardi discussed doing something pretty ambitious with episode 3 possibly due to the emotional weight of the story they had to conclude they needed to go all-out with this one but this would result in episode 3 evolving into something more and thus it was taking a lot longer to develop Doug Lombardi even reaffirmed this stance back then stating that the wait between episode 3 and episode 2 would be longer than the distance between half-life 2 and episode 2 in 2008 the last piece of concept art was released by valve and that's all we've seen from them in regards to episode 3 after the turn of the decade valve poured their focus into portal 2 while suddenly growing silent on the future of the half-life series both Doug Lombardi and Gabe Newell refused to comment on the future of the series and would simply say something along the lines of we have nothing to share at this time it was around this time that leaked strings related to episode 3 were being found all over different valve games particularly Alien Swarm and portal 2's SDK speaking of portal 2 that games released brought with it a couple of very frightening prospects Geoff Keighley speculated that it would be Valve's last single-player game though gabe newell disputed this stating that he wanted social aspects of multiplayer games to be integrated into single player games portal 2 has remained the last single-player game they've made so this would become more troubling to think about as the years went by in addition to that remember the episodic model announcement i touched upon earlier yeah now you have context for that so episode 3 has been cancelled right well it'd be easier to believe that if the leaks didn't continue it seemed like development was proceeding on to a fully fledged sequel to half-life 2 with valves mailing list leaking in 2013 and a certain txt file leaking in 2015 and revealing potential gameplay elements for this fabled sequel while these leaks were tantalizing it was far from being actual communication the lead writer of the half-life series Marc Laidlaw would also confirm that archeins returned to Raven home was cancelled in 2009 with junction points episode following suit I would have loved to see Raven home again and learning about that magnet gun that Junction points episode was gonna use got me really excited for the possibilities with puzzles in combat obviously valve didn't care enough to pursue these episodes any further and both arcane and junction point moved on to different things Geoff Keighley reflected on something in no clips half-life documentary that would confirm to me that valves priorities lie elsewhere when half-life 2 one game in the decade at the Spike Video Game Awards Jeff mentioned wanting to tease something with our friend the g-man at the very end he asked valve if they could do this secretly hoping that they had a super high-res model raring to go for an incredible teaser I'm sure he's paraphrasing but here's what Jeff said their response was like kind of a Saval I'm like hey you know could we get like the g-men model and I was hoping they're like oh yeah we got this new g-man model or get sundown you and it's like they're like no we got to like go and find we don't know where it is and it's like somewhere and it's like it's just not like there wasn't actively like oh yeah we've been working on this super high res g-man we're gonna use for it it's just it wasn't even sort of part of the conversation yeah not a lot of Hope huh a lot of creative people that used to work at valve have since left the company Marc Laidlaw Chet Faliszek Doug wood Kelly Bailey Viktor Antonov they've all left and worked on other projects even the writers for the episodic half-life games in portal Jay Pinkerton and Erik Wolpaw the company for a brief period of time I feel like this was due to valve not releasing a new game in house since portal 2 when creative people aren't allowed to flex their creative muscles of course they'll want to move on this coupled with a lack of communication made it very clear to me that Valve just didn't give a [ __ ] about their games anymore they were making a fuckload of money why should they have to expend the effort to make a video game anymore and then when they finally announced a new game in 2017 it was artifact at this point I had grown numb valve wasn't even on my mind by the time they announced this blatant attempt at cashing in on a trend half life had become a distant memory and I believe that's been Valve's goal this whole time and just keep silent and people will stop asking right as I was wrapped up in other games and enjoying the rest of my 2017 summer break Marc Laidlaw out of nowhere posted something on his blog that would give the world exactly what they wanted closure in a letter titled epistle 3 Marc writes about the adventures of characters that sound similar in nature to some familiar faces from about a decade ago Gertie Fremont L Avant and what's this hyper boria they keep talking about yeah it didn't take very long for this to be interpreted as the hypothetical plot for episode 3 allow me to go over the translated plot provided by Jack effin where names and pronouns there are as they should be and discuss it overall normally I'm against putting plot summaries and videos like these but this is kind of all we have to work with isn't it in episode 3 Gordon and Alex were supposed to travel to the Arctic in search of the borealis as predicted after her father's death Alex had to find the courage to carry out the rest of the mission and this dedication inspired the resistance to follow suit Eli's death would be a prevailing dominant theme when motivating character decisions it seems and the atmosphere would have been fairly grim you'll soon understand what I mean by all this Alex and Gordon head for the borealis in that helicopter we saw at the end of episode 2 only for it to be taken down by something Gordon and Alex meander their way through the snow and ice after that incident eventually stumbling upon a combine base where Judith's coordinates said the borealis would be as it turns out it was only one of many locations where the borealis was go to be as it was phasing in and out of reality just as dr. kleiner foreshadowed in Episode two and combine forces were studying the borealis in hopes of harnessing its power some resistance members also wanted to study the borealis as we know but the knowledge of the borealis carries with it could prove to be overwhelmingly dangerous plus we got to remember what g-man said before they could get any further however Gordon and Alex were captured not by combine soldiers but by minions of dr. Breen if you recall Breen's fate at the end of half-life 2 was left ambiguous presumably he died but it's not like we knew what would have happened if a portal reactor were to erupt with a person still inside of it now instead of exploring that murk decided to say that his consciousness was preserved by the combine so they could use it later sure why not what is more impactful however is Breen's presence in the scene his consciousness was uploaded to a massive version of those slugs from episode 2 this idea is something marc laidlaw teased on twitter from 2012 to 2014 and seeing it come to fruition would have been really unsettling dr. Breen confesses to Gordon and Alex that the combine would not let him go and he asks them to end his miserable existence as a grotesque monstrosity Alex would rather let him suffer in life but the player ultimately would have had the choice to either kill her spare dr. Breen wall out of sight of Alex I say this might have been the case because of Marx careful wording Alex believed that a quick death was more than Wallace Breen deserved but for my part I felt a modicum of pity and compassion out of Alex's sight I might have done something to hasten the slugs demise before we proceeded this can also grammatically speaking imply that Gordon killed Breen but based on the concept for Gordon as a character a vessel for the player to embody it feels odd that Gordon would imply something or explain how he feels about a situation in his writing rather than outright say it keep this in mind if he's outright saying something it means that it was meant to occur if he's being intentionally vague or expressing subjective emotion about a situation I believe a modicum of choice or personal debate would be the result in the final game and I'm pointing this out for a bigger reason - you'll understand soon enough anyway as Gordon and Alex proceeded they found Judith in a combine interrogation cell Alex and Judith have always had a certain level of a animosity towards one another and with Eli's death still weighing heavily on her it's no wonder she would explode on Judith I imagine Alex would have blamed Jewish delivery of the borealis information to Eli as the cause of his death Judith reiterated her previous point that she served as a double agent in the best interest of the resistance and that she deeply cared about Eli and Alex and everyone else and although Alex still didn't believe her Judith was essential in bringing the borealis into existence so that they could all board it once it was docked the three of them rushed towards the ship with Combine in hot pursuit aboard the borealis Gordon Alex and Judith all scattered in order to seek control of the ship and in doing so they learned about its history they discovered the bootstrap device assembled by researchers a temperature science in order to create a self-contained method of teleportation no entry or exit portals just instantaneous transmission this is how the ship was able to blink in and out of reality on its own however as the seven-hour war ensued Epirus ient staff used the bootstrap device to teleport it away from combine forces however since the device lacked proper testing they didn't realize that it also teleported through time in addition to space this is how it ended up in the present-day Arctic and soon after the team had come to that realization they noticed they could see aperture science at the moment combine forces closed in at the same time as the resistance were fighting off the combine in the Arctic in the present day Alex felt that this was a central staging area for the combine to invade other worlds while they fought to keep combine forces off the ship they were also seeing a plethora of different moments in time seeing different versions of themselves from past instances on the ship it seemed absolutely maddening and I would have loved to experience this in the interactive medium and as a time travel device the borealis works really well it avoids a massive time paradox because if time travel were to be properly utilized the entire cannon would be destroyed because combine could just easily undo the existence of humanity if they wanted to I mean gee man can presumably travel through time but come on I'd like you to tell me what exactly the g-man is doing throughout half-life but yeah kudos to Marc Laidlaw for not [ __ ] it with time travel it's really hard to get it right on the topic of utilizing time travel that's just it there is no way they could have done this without risking the destruction of time flow therefore it seemed like the only outcome the situation would be the destruction of the borealis just as Eli wanted however Judith's commitment to research overpowered Alex and she prepared to shut down the bootstrap device it really seemed like the game would have taken this route and dealt with the impending risk of paradox if the combine were to cease the borealis however just as that thought is beginning to materialize Alex shoots and kills Judith I imagine her devotion to fulfilling her father's dying wish and her hatred for Judith's actions up to this point finally pushed her to take drastic measures before you can process Judas death the story moves on it seems that drastic measures would be the only course of action from here on out Alex steered the borealis towards the combines Dyson Sphere aiming to deal a fatal blow to their power supply once and for all but then as Gordon and Alex were headed for certain doom in the name of the combines destruction the g-man appeared before them instead of placing Gordon in stasis like he usually does in situations like these he plucked Alex from the borealis instead presumably because she made the decisions that would lead to the combines destruction which is really [ __ ] interesting however as the g-man exited and the combines Dyson Sphere came into view Gordon or rather you were to realize that the borealis would barely even leave a mark on the combines power supply however the vortigaunts come to your rescue just as they did in episode 1 as the borealis explodes upon impact with the Dyson Sphere you are placed elsewhere presumably somewhere far far away on a remote shore the g-man has left you behind and all that remains our memories while Gordon and Alex did preserve the flow of time by destroying the borealis and they granted Eli's dying wish the combine might have persisted and the fate of the resistance is left up in the air anything could happen at this point and that's all she wrote episode 3 was an incredibly ambitious finale no doubt about that I'm willing to bet valve at least tried to get this game off the ground but the scope of the project in their shifting priorities led to half-life being left in the dust without a conclusion but now we have that conclusion not in the form of a game mind you but we have closure the letters closing paragraph has a double meaning it both represents what might have been running through the players heads in episode 3 and also marks final thoughts on the matter I spoke of my return to the shore it has been a secure his path to lands I once knew and surprising to see how much the terrain has changed enough time has passed that few remembered me or what I was saying when I last spoke or what precisely we hope to accomplish at this point the resistance will have failed or succeeded no thanks to me old friends have been silenced and fallen by the wayside I no longer know or recognize most members of the research team though I believe the spirit of rebellion still persists I expect you know better than I the appropriate course of action and I leave you to it expect no further correspondence from me regarding these matters this is my final episode yours an infinite finality Gordon Freeman PhD while it is a beautiful conclusion to a decade long wait it is also marks call to action mark can't give the world a half-life game it's up to us to pick up the pieces and create something out of what he's left for us and with games like Project borealis and boreal Aleph on the horizon as well as the incredible epistle three game jam it's clear to me that the spirit of rebellion does still persist it's 2019 valve is releasing their new virtual reality headset in June known as the valve index features that have been detailed include feeling the audio playing through the headset in a module in the front that allows for expansions the controllers have insanely accurate finger tracking technology but despite these major innovations the problem with valve releasing a headset is the fact that they cannot be competitive at this point without bundling the headset with software let's think about this valve must have spent a lot of time and money working on this headset so in order to make that money back they need to charge a reasonable price that's why the headset bundled with its controllers and base stations cost $1,000 but because it cost that much a lot of average consumers will be turned off they won't be motivated to fork over a grand for these new features especially if they're not being utilized effectively hypothetically they could have sold the headset at a low price and relied on steam to rake in the cash they need but guess what epic games are stealing their business now so the ball is in valves court no matter which way you look at it they need something else to drive sales valve needs a game to push the features of their headset and that game could potentially break VR into the mainstream and hopefully make the medium a mainstay in households nationwide aside from Canada by the way virtual reality needs that push right now from what I can tell it's only seen as a novelty to most outside consumers these days and valve has thought about this in an interview with Tyler McVicker of valve news network Gabe Newell said that he was jealous of Miyamoto because he was able to design games in conjunction with hardware and with this headset on the way he was most likely hinting at future software being developed to accompany the headsets features and legitimize the product and the eyes of consumers supposedly valve has three full VR games and development yes you heard me correctly not only are they making video games again but they're making three video games simultaneously that elusive number but obviously as they are VR games they won't be traditional sequels to any of the games we know and love but they just might be related in spirit of the three VR games we know what at least one of them is thanks to leaks that date back to June of 2015 that game was initially leaked in an update for the Steam VR app destinations and it was being referred to as HL VR strings found in subsequent updates implied that progress was being made on the project and not only does it feature the return of Zen but it also has at least one segment that requires the player to speak the more I think about this project the more I think it could actually convince new players to finally bring virtual reality into their lives but that would mean completely blowing everyone away that would mean making the best VR game to date and revolutionizing the medium valve hasn't pulled something like that off in a very long time a lot of their creative people have since moved on to other ventures regardless of whether or not this mythical half-life VR game releases I just want to say one thing remember when I mentioned that the world hasn't forgot well I wasn't just referring to the impact the series is left I was also referring to the 12 years of silence we've been put through the lack of communication valve has displayed is frankly saddening from their perspective they've decided keeping us in the dark about the twists and turns they're facing is for the best but in doing so they've left fans to their own devices they've been forced to be stringed along by frustratingly dubious leaks and rumors when it gets to the point where so many creative people are leaving the company it feels like it's too late for them to make a game again of all the creative people that have left Marc Laidlaw implied his frustration with not being able to finish the episodic trilogy at the very least I mean that's why we have epistle three these people want to move on they want to be creative they want to make art but despite the silence or the prospect of a VR game coming out I think what's most important is the passion fans have shown for the lack of a proper continuation to the half-life series it speaks volumes to how important art is to our everyday lives because a half-life some of us have decided to develop our own games some of us have started writing our own stories we've created our own art because we were inspired and it makes us happy or if that's not the case it's a well deserved method of escapism something that can help us forget about our problems in everyday lives if only for just a few hours at a time we can immerse ourselves in another world before returning to reality that's why I think people are so frustrated about the lack of proper closure at the heart of it all we need these experiences and you know what gabe newell has echoed these feelings and he understands where we're coming from you know I get it I mean I'm I'm a fan of TV shows I'm a fan of writers I'm a fan of movies I'm a fan of games and I certainly understand why people are like you know hey that I remember this awesome experience and I'm starting to get worried that I'm never gonna get to have it again he also discussed the possible future for valve franchises aside from explaining that they want to use the right tool at the right time he also said this the only reason we'd go back and do like a super classic kind of product is if a whole bunch of people just internally at valve said you know they wanted to do it you know and had a reasonable explanation for why it was but you know if you want to do another half-life game and you want to ignore everything we've learned you know in shipping you know portal 2 and in shipping you know all the updates on the multiplayer side you know that that seems like a bad choice so we'll we'll keep moving forward but that doesn't necessarily always mean what people are worried that it might mean I get it they want to move on and they want to learn from their mistakes but based on the decisions with artifacts and the lack of communication regarding future software and Team Fortress 2 updates it seems like they're still struggling in some regard so no valve no matter what you may or may not announce in the future even if it is half-life related we won't forget we won't forget the decade of silence we won't forget the hole you've left in our hearts no matter how you try to make things up to us you might think it's mature to stay silent until you can confirm what's going on but when you leave so many people in the dark for this long when you've promised something it's hard for your consumers to stay loyal I won't be boycotting you I just wish I could look at you the same way I did all those years ago in all my years of playing video games very few series have been as essential to me as half-life from what it brought to game design and interactive storytelling as a whole I firmly believe it deserves to be held in high esteem and yet it's not even my favorite series from valve portal is even so I was still passionate enough to make this monstrous analysis of the half-life series that's how much I care about half-life and how much I once cared about valve I want this to serve as a testament to the series impact and legacy some of you may have heard about all this a million times before but if I was willing to go out of my way to explain why the series is so important to me and why I think it deserves to be remembered I'm sure there are others that feel the same way I may have been harsh on valve as a company but that's only because I love their games art is something that many people turn to as a form of escapism and for one of their biggest inspirations in life to suddenly fall off the face of the earth for a decade yeah it's gonna be disheartening that's why there have been so many undying pleas for a return because we love art and if art didn't have consumers moreover if you didn't have consumers valve where would you be that's why half-life deserves to be talked about that's why art deserves to be discussed because it's such an important part of our lives and it can shape us as people I mean I'm sure I wouldn't be the same person I am today if I didn't have art and entertainment in my life if I wasn't learning lessons from the things I watched in the games I played and I know I'm not alone on that all in all half-life did wonders for the industry and it still stands the test of time and it will stand the test of time for years to come do you agree or disagree with things I said in this video well now it's your turn to talk let me know how half-life has affected you in the comments below because I love discussing art that's why I'm here and that's why I'll continue to be here I'm here because I love to share my experiences they've helped me grow as a person and I want to explain why and how well with all that said I've been liam try for us and I'd like to thank you for watching holy [ __ ] I didn't say halflife3 once in this video oh how did I do that [Music] [Music]

Channel: Liam Triforce

Views: 1,269,734

Rating: 4.8814583 out of 5

Keywords: half-life, half-life 2, episode one, episode two, opposing force, blue shift, decay, ps2, pc, steam, valve, episode three, epistle 3, project borealis, boreal alyph, retrospective, review, analysis, critique, liam triforce, the orange box, half-life 3

Id: MwgcK2rX7SQ

Length: 108min 5sec (6485 seconds)

Published: Thu May 16 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

I still secretly hold out hope for a half life 3

[u/kraftymiles]

2 hours long?!?

[u/[deleted]]

No awp’s!