[gemeaux333]

Did you know about the Barnacle's eating behaviors in Half-Life games ? :

[Ninety-Six]

Marph's videos opened my eyes to the insane amount of details put into the HL games, but especially HL1. I remember having my mind blown when he put up a video explaining the roach AI. I didn't even know the roaches had AI. So much detail I think most people barely ever noticed. After watching his videos I admit I've become a little disappointed in the sequel for not having the same amount of insane pointless detail.

[OpenMaw]

What's really insane is how much was cut. The videos he has of restoring old functions is equally incredible.

i think the big failing of Half-Life in that regard is it doesn't present enough opportunity for these things to actually shine even as background elements.

[DisgustedGrunt]

Gabe Newell is sending a garden gnome to space


Achievement unlocked
Little Rocket Man

[gemeaux333]

Thats a novelty idea for sure, Gabe Newell even pay 1$ to Starship Children hospital for every person watching the event, and of course its a reference to the Half-Life 2 Episode Two achievement
It also is a test for a new 3D Print process

[gemeaux333]

Devs have added devs commentaries for around 3 hours of commentaries for the 147 points of interests in the game

[Tea Monster]

Wow.

Those Source 2 graphics are really out of this world!

[DisgustedGrunt]

Valve added a new achievement to hl2ep2, hl alyx and l4d2.



the timeline is getting weirder.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Must be a reference to this. Shooting Chomsky into space so he can demilitarize it.

[DisgustedGrunt]

the absolute madman finally did it

[gemeaux333]

I imagine how/what it will be when he will do Half-Life : Alyx ^^
but he is most likely to do Half-Life 2 first

the point is, in Half-Life Alyx, already in easy mode shotgun shells are scarce, in medium and hard you will hardly find enough of them to get the job done... but the upside is this is the only VR game where shotgun is working properly/intuitively (in over VR games they are disastrous as it seems)

[Aristotle Gumball]

Might be the only person who doesn't hate Xen so much. As a kid it felt about as amazing as the initial sections of the game. Then again I've always been good at & fine with first person platforming. Residue processing absolutely can fuck itself, though.

[Ninety-Six]

I never really hated Xen either. Wasn't really my favorite, but that was mostly because of the overabundance of Controllers and Grunts that were present, which remain my least favorite enemy types of Half-Life. I also never had an issue with the platforming being fairly good at it myself. Hell I particularly enjoyed the longjump module and actually loved how it controlled. I'm sad you never see it while in Black Mesa proper since you can move really fast with that thing and it's fun to chain them together to bounce around a room.

I remember on the few deathmatches I played, I usually ended up being a terror on the server by just finding a module and a shotgun. Combined, the result was speeding right into an opponent's face, unleashing a double barrel blast, and then longumping away before their corpse hits the ground.



Good times.

[DisgustedGrunt]

Yeah i don't hate it either, but Interloper is a PITA. Specially the last stretch with the spinning elevators, the lack of cover from aimbotting Vortigaunts, and the 200 Alien Controllers.
But i just keep going cause after that there's only Nihilanth left, and he's a pushover. Dunno what Civvie is on about the fight, you don't have to get teleporter. It's been probably 10 years since last time i left Nihilanth slow teleporters catch me.

[gemeaux333]

I actually always loved the xen part and never had any issue there

Do you remember this warehouse where every single squarre metter is tripmined with nuclear weapons at the ceilling ? Well, there is a resurgeance on this level in Half-Life : Alyx, when you reach this section you quickly find out, no tripmine bu an always increasing concentration of explosive barrels stuck in the ground, the walls and the ceilling, this is where you understand you must care where you are firing and your stress factor reach 100, and not only that because there are also headcrab zombies and barnacles to make your life even more miserable, especially the barnacles who can make barrels explose only by trying to eat them while zombies direct the barrels on their tongues...

[Aristotle Gumball]

I wish they'd included Mr Friendly in the final game. They should've had him on the floor at Residue Processing, then it would've been a cruel (read cool) and unusual punishment instead of the boring mundane bullshit it actually is.

[jkas789]

I like Black Mesa.

[MusicallyInspired]

jkas789, on 20 January 2021 - 01:13 PM, said:

I like Black Mesa.

Me too.

[gemeaux333]

I like Black Mesa too, never get enough of it ^^

[Newken]

Half-Life: Decay as a single-player expansion pack for PCs.

Half-Life Decay: Solo Mission (work in progress)

Demo 1 is out!

[Ninety-Six]

Interesting. On the one hand I've already played and beaten the other Decay port numerous times, so it seems a bit redundant. Especially seeing as Dr. Green is just being erased despite the dual-pronged level design that worked well enough with the switching mechanic that was in place.

On the other hand though, not having to babysit a braindead bot, especially in fights as heavy as the finale or the one at the end of mission 4 which was the bane of my existence because of how often the bot died, would be a wonderful upgrade to the experience.

[NightFright]

Decay actually went completely below my radar. Then again, I never played on console before I recently got a Switch (gifted). How does it compare to Opposing Force or Blue Shift?

[MusicallyInspired]

I haven't played it either. I know it's co-op much like the co-op levels in Portal 2. That's all I know. Oh, and Dr Rosenburg is in it from Blue Shift, isn't that right?

[DisgustedGrunt]

i played the PC port; It can be played solo, even beated solo. Some parts are a PITA of course because the game expects 2 players (mostly puzzles honestly, with 2 or 3 combat areas iirc).

The bot AI is horrendous (seriously, don't expect it to even act in self defense), so just leave it at the beginning of the map until you reach an area that needs 2 players to progress, then swap character.

[Ninety-Six]

NightFright, on 09 March 2021 - 01:34 PM, said:

Decay actually went completely below my radar. Then again, I never played on console before I recently got a Switch (gifted). How does it compare to Opposing Force or Blue Shift?

In my opinion the quality is about on par with them. I do like it, but I would say it's probably my least favorite due to the aforementioned fights, and yeah constantly swapping can get a bit tiresome. Still, the puzzle solving element makes excellent use of both characters to pull off some neat solutions that just wouldn't be possible with one character. In fact I'd say the puzzles are probably my favorite part of Decay and probably has some of the best in the entire HL series.

I do recommend giving the existing PC port a try. It runs pretty well and doesn't require anything absurd. The only downside is that you have to select the maps manually. The original used a menu selection since the chapters are individual missions, and that's carried over but it has the maps in alphabetical order for some reason. You can't play the ones you haven't unlocked yet so you at least won't be playing them out of order.


Also the PC port adds in its own unique way to unlock the bonus level where you play as two vortigaunts. In the PS2 original you could only unlock it if both characters got an A rank on all missions. But if you're playing alone that's pretty much impossible. So instead it adds its own secret "cheat code" that has you poke around in a certain chapter looking for specially hidden secrets that reveal the code. A clever solution, actually.

MusicallyInspired, on 09 March 2021 - 05:27 PM, said:

I haven't played it either. I know it's co-op much like the co-op levels in Portal 2. That's all I know. Oh, and Dr Rosenburg is in it from Blue Shift, isn't that right?

Yep, he's in there. You actually spend the first three missions helping him call in the military before leaving him behind.

[Newken]

Decay: Solo Mission (Demo 2)

It's getting better and better!

[gemeaux333]

Valve is working on 2 more Half-Life games, and one of them is an expansion to Half-Life: Alyx probably related to Barney Calhoun (formerly under the name "Blast of the past")

[Malgon]

Came across an official mod by Crowbar Collective for Black Mesa in regards to the Xen levels in Black Mesa. Haven't tried it myself but the description sounds pretty neat:

Quote

As featured in the "Xen Museum Update". An official mod made by Crowbar Collective which showcases some cool Xen concept arts, sketches, plans, and most importantly: a hub to launch into old development versions of all the Xen maps across the entire 5 year history of the development of Xen!

https://steamcommuni...=1_2108_9__2107

Sounds like it's worth checking out to see how the team reimagined the most notorious section of Half-Life!

[Newken]

Half-Life Decay: Solo Mission's dev has been hired by 3D Realms.

[Ninety-Six]

Sounds like it's contract level design work like Levelord was.