Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: mr.WHO on January 13, 2005, 02:13:48 pm

Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: mr.WHO on January 13, 2005, 02:13:48 pm
Well I just finished that game but after the end I have more questions than answers.
What do you think about the ending?
and who is that god damm lawyer looking guy?
Does valve planning a Half-life 3 or some mission packs?

Edit: That level in the citadel where you are riding at..well at something, it is amazing, why combine need so many human bodies? for slaves?
What do you think, does combine control whole Earth or only City 17? well if there is 17 then maybe there is 16,15 etc.
It looks like interior of citade (or only the basement, emm... kickass, goddamm, soper duper big basement :) ) is a big war factory.
Again what is your opinion? does combine preparing to conquer Earth or maybe other universe, or maybe to repel incoming invasion?
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: vyper on January 13, 2005, 03:09:21 pm
Point one - USE SPOILER TAGS

Point two:

Spoiler:
Did you see those frog-like things that looked like APC or something? Oddness.  
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: aldo_14 on January 13, 2005, 03:18:04 pm
Spoiler:

They're apparently 'mortar-synths'; tank like things.  Apparently, they have a complete set of attack animations, etc.
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: Carl on January 13, 2005, 03:18:44 pm
i think the thread title works pretty well as a spoiler tag.
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: vyper on January 13, 2005, 03:18:57 pm
*goes to investigate*

Edit:

Spoiler:

Darn. Why wasn't that in the game? I knew they missed stuff out. Grr.
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: Carl on January 13, 2005, 03:19:54 pm
here are the answers to all your questions: http://fragfiles.org/~hlstory//
Title: Re: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: Rictor on January 13, 2005, 03:32:08 pm
Quote
Originally posted by mr.WHO
Well I just finished that game but after the end I have more questions than answers.
What do you think about the ending?
and who is that god damm lawyer looking guy?
Does valve planning a Half-life 3 or some mission packs?


The lawyer looking guy is the G Man. No one really knows who he is, though he plays a significant part in both HalfLife 1 and 2. If you look carefully, you can see he's constantly following you, always just out of reach.

Check the website Carl linked to for as much of the story as anyone knows.
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: aldo_14 on January 13, 2005, 03:48:15 pm
Quote
Originally posted by vyper
*goes to investigate*

Edit:

Spoiler:

Darn. Why wasn't that in the game? I knew they missed stuff out. Grr.
[/B]


Spoiler:
They cut ****loads out... more than half the guns (OICW, 2 kinds of assualt rifle, molotovs, headcrab gun, 2 melee weapons, I think a grenade launcher, a wierd laser mine thing, another machine gun, sniper rifle the combine use, fire extinguisher, maybe another couple), bullsquid, ictyhothingy, combine & human assassins, that prowler thing (might have been the previous), the hydra, the armed type of security drone, an intro sequence on an icebreaker.  And less Strider sections than we were led to believe - supposedly the Striders were/are able to navigate under bridges and spear people, but you never see it.  Also a section explaining how the combine took over the world when you reach Black Mesa East, and also a level showing the combine 'air processing plant' which is converting the atmosphere.  And some alien which was capable of 'bashing a hole in a door and poking through an eyestalk'.

Oh, and the combine were suppossed to also use flare guns to call for reinforcements, too.  Also i remember early previews mentioning using beds (with modelled matress physics) to block sentry gun fire.

It's still a good game, but it could have been so much better... they really needed more variety in weapons and enemies.
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: Rictor on January 13, 2005, 04:04:53 pm
You can block turret fire by using the gravity gun to hold something in front of you. I tried it.

Though if everything in those spoilers is true...man, that would have been so awesome.
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: Slasher on January 13, 2005, 04:14:44 pm
I wish there had been more variety in enemies too.  The Combine grunts were basically your generic "human with gun" opponent, and I can play any number of games if I want to go against them.  The occasional smattering of ant lions, headcrabs, and zombies didn't really seem to help matters.
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: Carl on January 13, 2005, 04:19:07 pm
Quote
Originally posted by aldo_14


Spoiler:
They cut ****loads out... more than half the guns (OICW, 2 kinds of assualt rifle, molotovs, headcrab gun, 2 melee weapons, I think a grenade launcher, a wierd laser mine thing, another machine gun, sniper rifle the combine use, fire extinguisher, maybe another couple)
[/B]


that would have been too many to keep track of. it would take me too long to find the right weapon, which you don't want to do in the middle of a firefight.

Quote
Originally posted by aldo_14
Spoiler:
supposedly the Striders were/are able to navigate under bridges
[/B]


they can. in "follow freeman" if you run under a bridge, they'll bend down and follow you.
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: aldo_14 on January 13, 2005, 04:30:14 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Rictor
You can block turret fire by using the gravity gun to hold something in front of you. I tried it.
 


Yeah, but the point was that - IIRC - the demos actually had the bed, so when it was shot, the mattress would buckle and burst correctly....

Oh, and that stuff was definately cut; apparently that (and more) is in the book they released to go with.
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: Rictor on January 13, 2005, 04:31:01 pm
true

postcount= postcount+1
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: aldo_14 on January 13, 2005, 04:45:25 pm
No... you want postcount++

Saves typing and confuses people.

Or postcount+=1;

Which is even more irritating
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: WMCoolmon on January 13, 2005, 05:16:35 pm
It would've been nice to have had the guns in anyway, maybe they could've given you a different weapon set for a level or two.
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: Unknown Target on January 13, 2005, 05:23:35 pm
I liked the game, but there are some serious flaws that it seems everyone else didn't see. Case in point? The audio system. Footsteps a mile away sound like they're right next to you. It bugs the hell out of me, cause I don't know where the enemy is.
And the weapon switching is bogus. Tons of times I've tried to select, say, the crossbow during a heavy firefight. Rather than going "5" and you get it, you have to hit "5-5-fire" to get it.
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: aldo_14 on January 13, 2005, 05:36:03 pm
Quote
Originally posted by WMCoolmon
It would've been nice to have had the guns in anyway, maybe they could've given you a different weapon set for a level or two.


Am I the only one who felt the weapons lacked oomph? I don't think there was anything which felt particularly powerful IMO....
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: Unknown Target on January 13, 2005, 05:52:30 pm
The Overwatch Pulse Rifle really seemed to have a punch, and so did the crossbow and shotgun.
The Grav gun also felt like you were throwing something heavy, with everything except cinderblocks.
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: pyro-manic on January 13, 2005, 06:33:11 pm
The overwatch rifle was very annoying. Yes, it was quite powerful, but it still took most of a magazine to kill a Combine soldier at anything other than close range (if only because it was so goddamned innaccurate), and you never had enough ammo to use it for prolonged periods (with it burning through a whole clip in a few seconds, and you carrying 2 spares). I got really annoyed at that - you couldn't carry enough ammo for most weapons. The rocket launcher was a case in point - you only carried 3 spare rounds. That's not even enough to kill ONE gunship! I spent more time looking for rockets than I did firing the thing...

I liked the shotgun and the magnum - they were pretty useful, though again the inability to carry enough ammo meant that you couldn't rely on them for a protracted engagement. The gravity gun was great, though I wish it had a longer "push" range, something more like the "pull" range.

I actually loved playing the game - the environments were stunning, the sound was fantastic, and the graphics and lighting was sublime (much better than Doom 3 IMO). Playing it was great fun, and the characters were all pretty well defined (apart from the priest bloke in Ravenholm).

The thing I hated about it was the complete lack of major plot development, the limited number of bad guys (and the fact that you'd seen them all by about halfway through the game), the lack of alien enemies (besides the pain-in-the-arse headcrab/zombie mutations), and the fact that everything was underused. Dog, for example, was brilliant. I'd have loved to have played through a few levels with him, but he gets used only very briefly, in order to move heavy things for you.

The ending was very irritating, if only because it leaves you on such a cliffhanger, and tells you nothing about anything very much. I'm now half-expecting there to be a further sequel within the next year or so, like Kill Bill parts 1 and 2, to actually provide some storyline (obviously, I hope it's better than KB2, which was dreadful). As-is, it feels like a stopgap that was released in order to satisfy baying fans after the whole hacking thing went on. I keep thinking that Valve must have saved up all the really tasty stuff for later, or they've played a cruel trick on us all...
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: WMCoolmon on January 13, 2005, 06:47:49 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Unknown Target
I liked the game, but there are some serious flaws that it seems everyone else didn't see. Case in point? The audio system. Footsteps a mile away sound like they're right next to you. It bugs the hell out of me, cause I don't know where the enemy is.
And the weapon switching is bogus. Tons of times I've tried to select, say, the crossbow during a heavy firefight. Rather than going "5" and you get it, you have to hit "5-5-fire" to get it.


Agreed, it doesn't have very good directional sound (at least not with 2 speakers, I've never tried it with more than that)
You can change the way weapons switch as well, there's a fast-switching option in the advanced keyboard commands. You still have to press 5 twice (unless you're using the other '5' weapon) but it's more convenient.

Quote
Am I the only one who felt the weapons lacked oomph? I don't think there was anything which felt particularly powerful IMO....


The weapons didn't sound powerful, but some seemed pretty powerful. (Especially nonconventional ones, like grav gun + flammable barrel :D) A lot seemed more tactics based than spray-and-pray based - the pistol doesn't seem too powerful, until you start hitting guys in the head with it. I think the lack of any uber-weapons was more to help reinforce the feel of the game.

And, also, set up for the uber-grav gun at the end
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: Rictor on January 13, 2005, 08:03:00 pm
Magnum > all

I love that weapon so much. Next favourite is the crossbow.

Quote
(apart from the priest bloke in Ravenholm).

Don't be hating on Father Grigori. All alone with a town full of monsters, who wouldn't go a bit crazy and start devising sadistic traps to kill the zombies.

*sniff*

I love that guy.
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: pyro-manic on January 13, 2005, 08:10:16 pm
Nonono, I loved the character. There just wasn't enough of him, or much info about him. Plus I wanted his Winchester..... ;)
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: Corhellion on January 13, 2005, 08:27:06 pm
Mr. WHO most likely hasn't played Half-life 1...which is a pity...cause it's a kick arse game!

As for HL2...if you've seen any of the older footage...the source engine could do CRAPLOADS more than it can now...for instance...'blow holes in wooden objects'...like...actually shoots bits out the wood, so it can snap under it's weight and stuff like that, they also took out the 'gun cleaning kit' which was mentioned a few times (clean your gun after every fire fight to make sure your gun doesn't jam in the next one)

AS for the story...uh...seems pretty straight forward to me...Freeman is a hitman...killing whoever he's told to kill...'You knew your contract was up to the highest bidder, didn't you?' Someguy says near the end of the game...

And yes WMCoolmon that thing rules! It feels like you're a god or something..."Out of my way puny mortal" *BZURT*

Fun fun
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: redsniper on January 13, 2005, 08:36:12 pm
If HL1 is any indication, I predict extremely awesome mods in the near future. :nod:
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: aldo_14 on January 14, 2005, 03:25:35 am
Quote
Originally posted by WMCoolmon


The weapons didn't sound powerful, but some seemed pretty powerful. (Especially nonconventional ones, like grav gun + flammable barrel :D) A lot seemed more tactics based than spray-and-pray based - the pistol doesn't seem too powerful, until you start hitting guys in the head with it. I think the lack of any uber-weapons was more to help reinforce the feel of the game.

 


Well, I appreciate the thinking (or laziness) that went into having an ordinary bunch of guns, but  it's a bit annoying having to land several dead-on-the-head shots (with the smg) to take down the Metrocops..
Title: Half-life 2 ending & story
Post by: aldo_14 on January 14, 2005, 08:37:49 am
(http://img47.exs.cx/img47/8498/wtf30.jpg)
(http://img47.exs.cx/img47/9264/wtf29.jpg)
(http://www.hlfallout.net/images/content/enemies/synth.jpg)
(from http://www.hlfallout.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=28170)