Rebel FM
Rebel FM Game Club - Half Life 2+eps - Episode 4
We close out our Game Club series this week with another 2 hour show, as we discuss where Valve went with Episode 2 of the Half Life 2 series and where we think they might be headed. If you want to hear more, keep an ear out after the outtake for an extended Valve soliloquy!
(upbeat music) (upbeat music) Okay, we will be using this. Are we ready? - We have part of the ventilation trap. - Hello everyone and welcome to the final part of our Half-Life 2 game club. Sorry, so I don't even want to know the numbers. Let's just say for this one part four. You should've played through episode four. (laughing) Episode two. - I'd be welcome to the future. - You should've played through episode two. Alex died, by the way. Alex is dead. Alex is dead. - At a ripe old age of 68. - Again, you mean Alex is dead again? - Yeah. - So I'm Anthony Gaiagos from EatSlidGame.com as well as from GameSpy. With me is Arthur Geese. That's where you say hi so people can know you're-- - Oh, see, I'm just never used to whether or not we're supposed to say hi or you just like-- - I think in general you should. - Where you point, which is awesome for podcasts. - No, I think in general you should say hi so that people can associate your voice with what? - The voice that won't be saying much past the halfway mark in this podcast. - You've beaten it before. - I know what it's there for. - So that's Arthur, also Tyler Barber from EatSlidGame. - Hello folks of the world. How are you? Welcome to my boat. - Captain's vlog. (laughing) Also with us is a match anginae from area5.tv. - Hello, demon's soul sucks. And as well as Ryan Adano from area5.tv who's probably pondering a really clever line to start with. - It actually looks like he's pooping himself. (laughing) - He kind of always looks like that. - Aww, that's how I look. You just have a very dashing beanie though. - My mom squeezed really hard when I was coming out. (laughing) - I have him just peeping head. (laughing) - True story, that when I was born the doctor looked at my mom and told her that I had a pineapple head. (laughing) And then he squished my head into the horrid shape. - The browser shape? - Wait, he made say it? - It gives me the willies. - That's good. That's awesome that they can do that. - That's good 'cause now you're bald like me. - That's why? (laughing) - No, I'm saying it's good 'cause otherwise you'd have a baldness shape in head. That's even worse. - But who knows? Maybe it worked from-- - What if his eyeglasses were crooked or something? What if my head was fine and he ruined it? - Yeah, it's true if it's possible, totally possible. - So your head is beautiful. - So where we left off, the train hit direct. - Yup. - And that's where Half-Life episode two turns up. - Starts on a wrecked train. Which by the way, but when since I was playing this, I had just finished Uncharted 2 not so long ago, which starts out with a-- - Much better ranked train. - Right, but I was still in my head like, the first thing I thought when I hopped into episode two I was like, man, this isn't near as exciting as the one in Uncharted 2. And I'm like, ah, that's actually totally not fair. - Yeah. - But then they destroy a bridge. - And that was a lightning storm. - Right, because like right after that, when the train pieces start falling and like the portal storm destroys the bridge, I remember thinking that like, okay, well, they introduced all this awesome physics stuff in Half-Life 2. And now in this one, we're really seeing it come into its own, like the destroyed bridge and later on with the buildings and everything in it. - They developed some new technology. They had wanted to do some stuff like that in the past, but you probably noticed in the earlier Half-Life, maybe you don't notice anymore 'cause they probably passed the source engine. But when you destroy something big, the game would chug. That's just what would happen. So in episode two, one of the new technologies they developed is something where they can blow up something big and the animation starts, it's canned. So it always happens the same way. But then at some point near the end of the explosion once all the major pieces have landed and some of the little debris is kind of going out, then the physics engine picks up from there. And so at that point, anything can happen. But the beginning of the explosion is canned and that's why they can do things like, have you standing inside of a house when the thing explodes on top of you? - Did you hear me smart? - Did you hear this from the developers commentary? - I know, I actually didn't get to listen to the developers commentary on this. I only played through this one once on hard. I didn't get to play through it twice 'cause I was playing. - Well, but you've played through it previously. - Yeah, but I don't know if I've ever listened to the commentary. I actually have this information because I went to visit Valve before episode two came out on a preview visit and this is one of the things they showed off as a feature of the game, was their new CAN technology system. So that's how it works and why it works and why they could do these big environmental physics changing things like bridges breaking and houses blowing up and stuff. - But though I haven't played Uncharted to you yet and though it might not be as exciting as that train effect, I do like that feeling, and Ryan, you mentioned earlier that you feel like Lost was a heavy influence on this game. And now that I think about it, the intro reminds me a lot of that. We're just, you know, Jack's laying in the bamboo field, you know, and he sort of looks up like you're in the middle of this train looking up through the roof of it. - Yeah, I mean, I feel like they're pretty obvious. It's pretty obvious. I mean, there's a Dharma logo in Half Life 2 episode two and also, yeah, we'll talk about it when we get to White Forest. But anyway, I think they're very, they wear it on their sleeve. I mean, it's very clear, like, they're like, oh, these guys are doing episodic content with kind of like open-ended narrative that ask more questions than it answers. And, you know, we're kind of playing the same game just in different medias. - And that's a weird feedback loop because a lot of the stuff like that and Lost comes, like, was influenced by games, according to the creators, like, the sort of constantly engaging people in these weird little hidden clues and subtext. So to see them, see game makers take from Lost after Lost took from game makers is like a sort of weird feedback loop that will destroy the universe. - Yeah, well, you know, some people would say, it's not, Lost is not my favorite show of all time or anything like that. But I think it's very entertaining for what it is and it's like kind of a comic book-y, serialized, you know, video game-y sort of long-form narrative and it's interesting and goes lots of places and Half Life does some of those same things and so. - So, anyway, we, I guess-- - We get rescued from the train by Alex and there's no awkward hug. - No awkward hug, you just hand you a gravity on this side. - Yeah, that's weak. - I wanna knock or tug. - Exactly. - And this game hops right into the game. I mean, this game is like clearly a direct response to the people who played episode one and criticized it for not looking like a new place and, you know, feeling like the same art from Half Life 2 and, you know, not really, I think they're wrong with people who say that there's not many new gameplay mechanics in episode one. You know, this game is like, all right, look, we're in a new spot right now. It looks totally different and we're just gonna like start throwing the new stuff at you pretty darn quick. There's a few physics puzzles first but that first battle that happens really quickly with the new white ant lines that fire the acid at you, it's like, I mean, that battle is instantly like 10 times harder than like most of the battles in all of Half Life 2 and it's like, all right, look, we're gonna be serious this time. That plus the hunter, those enemies plus the hunters, I think really changed the battles in this game. - Yep. - So right after you get rescued, I can't remember, is it that right then-- - You go into a mine and-- - Well, first you go up to a cliff and you watch the, I think it's the signal being sent to the Combine overall. - It's a portal. There's a portal storm because the portal, they're opening a mega portal on the top of the location of the old Citadel that the Combine is. - Which is the same thing that they did at the start of the Seven Hour War. - Right, and then Alex has like a little commentary just like that too, so the portal storm, it reminds me of the first days, you know? - Right, and so you see basically some sort of, the portal is causing some sort of sonic beam, sonic wave that basically sends out a radius of destruction around it. - It wrecks a bridge in a fucking sweet way. - Yeah, totally makes a sweet bridge break. - That's sort of like where Valve demonstrates that this will be the episode where you see things that you literally have not seen in any of the other Half-Life 2 stuff, like this is the only Half-Life game that actually can still put a hurt on some video cards just because of all the shit that they added to the engine in this one. Like there's a lot more particle effects and a lot more like atmosphere and ambient inclusion and things like that. - My shit would sometimes slow down during the parts where houses would blow up and stuff like that. That was pretty taxing. - This is the only bomb on my MacBook Man shit. - This is the only Half-Life 2. - This is the only Half-Life 2. - This is the only Half-Life 2 episode, I can't run it 1920 by 1080 without frame rate issues here and there. - I run it fine on my PC. - I turned it down to lower, between 720p and 1900 by 1200 but I maxed the effects just like just as a joke turned like anti-elasing up to whatever, 16 million percent or whatever. - For some reason, source actually performs better when you have any aliasing turned on. - Yeah, I turned on all the filtering effects, all the end stroking, filtering, all that stuff. I just maxed it all out and it was perfect. The frame rate was silky smooth. I knew this was the first time. So, for all the other game club sessions I've been playing on Xbox but for this one, I was like fucking I'm moving back to PC. This game is so combat focused. I need to be, I need to have a mouse in my hand and it was, even playing on hard, it was pretty fucking easy, relatively. And so yeah, I'm glad I did that. - So right after you and Alex get out, I'm having a hard time remembers. Did you go straight into a mine or is it? - Yeah, you, there's a mine right there right by where the train went. - You can't go in until the portal storm destroys the entrance. - Yeah, and you'll kind of walk inside and like I say, it happens pretty immediately. You get attacked by the new type of ant line that spits acid at you and there's, you only have your gravity gun for a moment. So, the first attack takes off a lot of damage and you can try to start throwing things at it but you kind of make a left around a bend and very shortly you find a gun and a shotgun. And there's some exploding barrels around and you can take out the guys that are fighting you and you're like, where the hell do I go? How do I move forward? Cause you can kind of see that there's a path on the, in front of you on the right, but you end up having to drop down and work your way back up on a ladder to come up on the other side and fight a bunch more of these guys before you pretty quickly end up in the ant line caves. - You guys gonna say, do you think? - But I mean, we're skipping over the whole Alex gets stabbed by the hunter. - That's, well, I don't, I think, I think a little, oh no, no, I guess you don't. - No, she gets, okay, so you go into this sort of abandoned train yard and like-- - You hear things. - You actually see the hunter like on a barn. - Oh, that's right, right, and Alex doesn't see it. - I think you do actually hop into the ant line caves just briefly before you get out there. You, cause you drop down, there's, you know, I'm trying to think of exactly, it's basically looks like a mine, it still looks like a mine area, and you fight a few of these ant lines, and there's just like a brief bit of, I could be tripping, but I think there's a brief bit of ant line caves and then you come back up and then you come out on the other side and that's where the-- - I think it just stays, I don't, I don't think it ever actually goes into the ant line caves proper. Like you see head crab zombies fighting. - Okay, maybe, oh, that's right. There's an elevator sequence, where you have to crank an elevator up. That's right, okay, yeah, you're right. - So, so you go into the train ride, you basically see it, Alex doesn't. Then you go in and look for a supply cache. - Well, you could, well, you're looking for a way to open the gate in front of the mine. - I really like that room where she gets the message, where she communicates with Kleiner, and that's where you can find the gnome that you take with you if you're gonna go on that crazy. - Yeah, it's really cheap, it's adventure, where you hate life. - I did. - You did it? You grabbed the gnome and took it? - Yeah, there's an interesting story that goes along, but yes, at this, when I got to the room, I was like sort of deciding, do I want the gnome? Do I not? And so I decided at this point, like fucking, I'm gonna take it. - That's awesome. - To be clear, the gnome is hidden underneath a shelf behind a box. You kind of have to grab it again and pull it out. It's not like it's right there sitting in front of you, but it is like the garden gnome from Amelie, and travelocity commercials, and your grandmother's front yard. And you can decide, it doesn't tell you to, but if you decide to kind of bring that thing along with you, there is an achievement for taking it and putting it inside the rocket. - At the end of the game. - At the very end, at Wake Forest. - Oh, yep, yep, it's present in some unique challenges. - Yeah, it does. - I mean, just actually-- - It's during the driving sections, I'm sure. - Oh, I mean, it seems like there's a little space behind the back seat you could get it wedged in there. - You can wedge it into the car. - But it does get unwedged. - Yeah, so you are. - As I experienced, many, many, many times. - I believe you. - I've never, I took, I started taking it with me, and I don't think I made it much further than the minds. - Yeah, I noticed before, I was like, "You know what, kind of don't care." Like, you can take that achievement. - The fun part that I had going that route was trying to figure out the most efficient way to take it. So there are parts where you leave and come back. So it's like, "Okay, I'm gonna leave it here." There are other parts where you leave and don't necessarily come back to that spot. - So if you leave it in one spot, even through loads, it stays there and you can come back and grab it. Okay, well, that's kind of cool. And you can leave clear out of space before having-- - And yeah, yeah, yeah, and the same is true, you know, through the whole game. You can go several loads, several load screens and come back and it will still be in the same spot. - That's crazy, I had no idea. - So, so you're in the little thing and you go inside the building to get the gate console? - So yes, the Hunter, you come out, there's a short battles, Zombines are back, and then yeah, you walk into this train yard, a Hunter is up above on some building, Alex doesn't see it, you hear it, I love the sound design during the session of the game. You're constantly aware that something's there and if you've spotted it, you know what it is and you know you're gonna have to fight it and you're like, damn it, I don't wanna fight this. What's it gonna be like? And that's the thing is they don't even let you fight it, which makes it an even scarier battle when you finally do get to fight it. - Well, especially because it comes up to you and it hits you with one of its feet and basically just takes you completely out of the action and right there it establishes that this is an enemy not to be fucked with and then it fucking kills Alex. Like the most unkillable character of the last game. - And the thing that made the last episode so goddamn much fun was that you get to walk around with her the whole time and they tease you by letting you start with her as well and so you're like, God damn it, are they really gonna do this to me? And of course, momentarily, just later, the Vortigant comes and turns out that he walks around with you and you know, begins the beginning of this cool co-op adventure. - I didn't even think about that when they took her away, they replaced her. - With a Vortigant. - And I really like, I don't know, it's one of the, again, I just love, sometimes Valve's sound work is just really amazing and voiceovers are amazing. I love the Vortigant call when he's like, oh, I'll call it in my brother-in-a-day and see what he is. (groaning) That's so awesome. It's just a really good sound effect. - Yeah. And then he says like, you know, that they're gonna meet us in the caves below or whatever and but it's like, they always talk about how they communicate on this different plane of existence and stuff like that. It makes you wonder, how far away were those guys really? When they're replying? - I know right, since they can basically, they can teleport if they want to. - Yeah, it seems like they can do something. - I don't know, I mean, what does that, what exactly is this? - Well like, the thing is, well yeah, but like when you get to, when they-- - Are they just bending space and time and that way? - Yeah, but when you do the Alex healing sequence, after you get the goo from the caves, they're all standing there glowing purple, just like they're glowing purple when they-- - Yeah, at the beginning of the first-- - So it's like, I think they have to use this stuff as like, I don't know, as power, it's their psychoactive substance and like it and it gives them the power to move through the portessence. So maybe they can't do it like just on their own without like this extra special link-up ability. - The extract, yeah. - Yeah, well, is it a, they were good at Antline husbandry? - Yeah, that's what they-- - That's how they know how to get there planning, yeah. - So you start walking with the Bortagon, but you really don't get too far. You hop in this elevator and it like starts crashing down before he's had a chance to get himself an Alex inside. And that's why you end up making your first, everyone's right there. You finally make into the Antline caves and your first venture in there is alone. You don't have the Bortagon or Alex with you. And I think that helps make it scarier than that. And again, those fucking acid spitting Antlines that have perfect aim and are deadly. I mean, they just kill you so quickly. - Yeah, but you're scary too, but even the little babies actually really disturbed me. The first time you roll up on one and they start doing the really shill, the shrill tones. - Yeah, and the sound design on those things is awesome too, and like, and you step on them, they make their little sounds and yeah. - 'Cause you're kind of like yourself back on them? - Yeah, totally worth it. - Yeah, I love there's achievement for killing 300 of them or whatever. - I think is why they make them as much noise as they do because you will always know when you're around, when you're going to be chirping. - You have to kill all of them. And so though I've only beat Half-Life episode two, episode two twice now, I've actually attempted to beat it four times. So it's like every time I try to kill all these grub worms, but I never get it. Like I'm just one somewhere. - Yeah, they're all, that's 'cause they, like every little cave that you go in, you know, there's grubs at one end or the other. - And there's at least like two or three that you only have one chance as you're falling to kill. - Oh yeah, 'cause there's a couple of tons of the spots right through them. - Yeah, so let's see, you kind of make your way through a few of the caves before falling into, and I guess we can talk more about it. The combat in these, I like these areas 'cause they're pretty organic looking, you know, a term that's thrown around a lot in game design, but they are, I mean, and they, sometimes the sliminess on the walls maybe looks a little cheesy, but there are times when it looks really good, your flashlight reflects off it in an interesting way. - And I liked playing this game during a time when my, one of our roommates was in the room and walked in, he's a Half-Life fan, but he watches us play modern games all the time. He walked in while I was playing this part and he was like, man, this game still looks like really, really, really good. And I was like, you know, it kinda, it does. I mean, it's not, it's not their design. - Exactly, I was like, our direction goes really, really, really long away. - And like, I love the little, I love the attention to detail that they have, like the, anywhere that there's the grubs, you know, they're slim around them, glows on the wall. And so then they have the areas which are, they're like slimed over or webbed over or whatever, and that's where they've stored bodies for feeding with the grubs. - Grin, pinata, grin, pinata. - The thing that I like about, well, I was just gonna say in like those little areas too, where they're clearly feeding areas for grubs or where those are covered in slime as well. So it makes sense like these little caves where they, where they house their young, you know, there are always consistently this color and this glow and all that good stuff. - And then jumping, jumping up ahead a little bit, as you get closer and closer to the, the center of the hive later on, it becomes a more grisly site where you realize that it's not just the ant lines that are eating people like they're dragging bodies back so that the grubs can feed on them, where you'll go into like these - The earwaxes. - Slick it out. - The earwaxes are just like coated with blood. That's some of the most truly disturbing sections of a half-life too environment where you're in like these giant, like, just sort of, - Charnel houses. - To me, it makes me think like I'm just inside someone's incredibly snotty nose. - And it's like, ordinarily this, these are the sections of games that I like the least, like, oh, I'm inside the fucking flesh monster. - Yeah. - Oh, I'm inside the cave. You know, caves usually aren't interesting or meat walls, they're not usually that interesting, but there's something about the story, the visual storytelling and half-life that makes these, you know, it's like, oh, this is how the ant lines, like, society works. You know, like, it's not like you get the whole picture, but it's like a brief glimpse into it from the perspective of the sky who's trying to break in real fast, grab this shit and get out. And, you know, it's just a really interesting thing to see finally after interacting with ant lines in all these different ways across the half-life too. - And weren't they originally going to put the ant line caves in half-life too, but then they decided not to? - Yeah, they actually, there was an ant line king who was this giant, you know, who's a giant beast. Gordon's this little speck compared to him, you know. - It's like, it looks like a termite queen, I think. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, basically. And, you know, it's just another one of those things that got dropped, like, the air exchange or whatever that place is called, like, just never. They developed a whole bunch of story for this game that's never gotten used, and that's, again, like, we're talking about loss, that's what makes it interesting to get little glimpses out of it. - And this is where they show you that they've worn some lessons from the last two games, which is that you're in the ant line caves for about 10 or 15 minutes, and then you come out of the ant line caves, and you're in a completely different combat scenario, and then you go back into the ant line. - So let's talk about that scenario. That's another, basically, defend the turret, room with turrets, but this time you've got four passageways. AI companions, and there's some hopper minds around, and, hopefully, you think the guys there are comedic, at least some extent. - Oh, well, also, I guess. - Like, right before you get to this part, though, I really like it, because you bring the vortigaunt with you into the ant line cave so that you can get to that area. - That's afterwards. There's actually a break in the middle of that section. The vortigaunt's already there with Alex when you get there, and he's waiting for the rest of his friends to come, and then once the rest of his friends get there, and one of 'em comes with you to go with you to get the extract, so that's what he's saying. There's a break in pacing here where you go from ant line caves to outside of ant line caves, and I thought I was thinking that when you go into the ant line caves that first time that the vortigaunt comes with you, and he doesn't. - No, they get left behind, because he's a little bit of bridge. - They get left behind, so you haven't, that's why, you know, the grip pinata stuff, you haven't even seen that yet. That comes much later after you've done this turret section. - I was out of the room for a second. Did you guys talk about how candy man is the vortigaunt now? And not Lugasa Jr. - Oh no, no, no, they changed. - Yeah, they changed voices. - It's not Lugasa Jr. doing the vortigaunts in this game, it's Tony Todd. - Aw, I had no idea. - He's like a total character actor that does a ton of genreship, but people probably know him best as the candy man. - Interesting. - Or he was in the Night of Living Dead remake. - He was. He was also in the first two final destination movies. It's a funeral director, a mortician, or something like that. He's been in a lot of shit. But he's also in the rock. - Yeah, but that whole defend the area one with the turrets and the hopper mines and everything wouldn't have been nearly as exciting if it wasn't for it being essentially being a three way combat. And by three way, I mean, it's like you and the AI and the ant lions, like, well, you're not fighting the other AI guys. - Yeah, I got to say that. But like, and then it's like, it was so satisfying when like everything comes in all at once and then the vortigaunts come in. And then it really is a three way combat. - Once the vortigaunts come in, though, it's over, it's just a show. - It is, and it's a great show, though. - The thing I really like about it is that I've tried to approach this thing different ways every time I do it, I think. Or that's what I thought is like, okay, I think I remember how to do this sequence the correct way, which was that I'm gonna take both of the turrets and just pull them down to the left and right of Alex down at the lower chamber and let all the ant lions come at me. And I realized like, yeah, this is kind of dumb. It's not really working. They actually, you know, they tell you there's that Vio that says like, Gordon, you take care of two and three and we'll take care of seven and nine or whatever. And so I kind of just like played along with them to a point until they start coming from like three directions at once and then move the turrets back to the left and right of Alex down at the bottom section. And at that point, as long as the AI is doing something, the turrets are standing up, which they, they can basically take out anything. When they're both there, they're almost unstoppable. And then me running around with shotgun or SMG with unlimited ammo 'cause there's ammo crates. It's like super, it's just a really fun, chaotic battle sequence. - Can those guys, can they die? - I've never seen them die because they have lines of dialogue. - I've heard one scream like he was about to, but then he didn't. - And the, I actually did it mostly the way that they told me to this time as well, but right at the end, I noticed that there was one time when I was transferring turrets from one area to another or maybe got knocked down or something, that as I was holding it, it was still firing with the ant lines. - Yeah. - So at one point I just picked one up and was like carrying it around. - Hopefully do that. - Let's hold it like a gun. - Yeah, just holding it like an auto turret. - So once the turrets though eventually blow up, that's, is that right when the Vortigaunts come in? - Yeah, because like the lights, the light on the main tunnel is flashing like crazy and everyone thinks that it's gonna be like this giant thing of ant lines. - That's right. - And it's a fucking troop of Vortigaunts. - Yeah. - And then there's one last final wave of ant lines that's like they're coming from every direction, but of course the Vortigaunts are fighting with you and it's completely crazy. - Oh I do, well I was just gonna say like, what I felt about this section when it gets the most tactic is like it captures best, like the best video game version of aliens, the movie, like where, you know, where I'm just like picturing my head like Hudson. Fuck you, you want some more? Go with this one. - Yeah, come from every angle. - What I like is that it starts simply and almost every combat scenario in episode two does this. It starts simply establishes something and then slowly turns the screws and will take something away or add like a new wrinkle. Like it constantly changes these combat scenarios. And in a way, it seems like an experiment for what they, what they ended up doing for Left 4 Dead, where like they're these sort of crescendo events that start one way and just sort of build up and build up. - Yeah, what's cool about-- - Sorry, go ahead. - Well I was just saying like, what's also cool about this encounter is they tell you what to expect from each tunnel with how many lights are turned on, which I think is something that's really interesting too. It's just more communication. - And it builds so much tension because when all of a sudden all three or four tunnels pop up and they all have three lights on, you're like, oh fuck, I just barely made it through the last one. - It's like a motion tracker. - Yeah, and like the, ah crap, I forgot what I was gonna say. Never mind, somebody else, go speak. - So you eventually, you know, the Vortigants come in, they take a look at Alex and-- - Oh, I remember what I was gonna say. - Oh shit, I like that you raised your hand right now. (laughing) - It was-- - I move that we do that from now on. - Well, it's like the, it does the typical valve thing where if you're really paying attention and you're listening to the dialogue, you can get the story just out of what's happening. And this was the first time that I noticed right when you come into the ant line, right when you come into this area and the ant lines are first attacking, they're like, what the hell, you really stirred them up, Gordon, they're never like this. - We should be fine if you don't, as long as they step on their grubs. - Yep, and I'm like-- - I killed everyone again, I'm caught. - I'm like, oh, I might have stepped on one or two guys. - Or 176. (laughing) - Anyway. - Okay. - So yeah, so the Vortigants come in and-- - So this was an area where I could leave the gnome since we go up that elevator unit, and I knew we were coming back. - You just leave it there and you know you come back there. - So I didn't have to carry it through all this. - That's nice, that is nice. - So yeah, the Vortigant comes with you and you get into the more technical, fun parts of the caves here. I mean, there's the, I mean, I guess we're sorta jumping ahead, but there's the elevator sequence. - At the end of this, yeah. - It's not really the end. - It's actually kind of a lot of the other sequences. - I know there's a lot of elevator sequence. Half-life loves its elevator sequence. - Well, I mean, just in this part in particular, there are like two or three extended elevators. - There's one where you have to find the one where the, he mentioned that there's one of those thumpers around, and so you kind of make your way towards it. There's a few kind of shacks and-- - Yeah, that's right at the end, that's right before you come back up with the-- - It's not. - No, that's before you're alone with the guardian. - You haven't even got to the essence, the extract yet. - By that point. - So the reason you're going into the airline case is because the only way that the board of guns can save Alex is by you finding the, the-- - The extract. - The airline extract from the main hive, which they can use to heal her vortexence. - Yes, mm-hmm. - And so, yeah, so-- (laughing) Yeah, there are, I guess there are a few sequences. There's one where he, you know, you come into the room and there is another elevator and the board of guns, like, telling you how good you are at solving puzzles, like, you know, the three men is the master of solving this talk. I'm sure you'll be able to figure out how to open this door. And of course, his magic, his magical gate opening power is that he can power up the generators that kind of move you forward and, you know-- - He really, Valve always has, has like, you know, puts you in arenas that are, I mean, like any game that, you know, a lot of times they're locking you into a space and closing you out. And they always do a really interesting job, clever job of, like, closing you into a space and then having an interesting sort of mechanic to get you out. And for, for this part of the game, the win button is the, is the board of gun who can power up the generators and move you forward. - So there's the elevator sequence where you have to go and find a gear and lower him down to the area. - That's at the very end. - Yeah. - That's at the very end. - That's, that's the elevator that actually takes you up right with all the board of guns. - Yeah, when that's where you go back to Alex. - That's where you go back to Alex? I thought where you went back to Alex was after the, after there's the big Antline versus-- - That big Antline battles earlier. - The Antline versus the zombies. - The zombies, yeah. And like a bunch of, like, explosive materials to throw around. - Right. - There's two elevators, but the elevator's only big enough for one of us and I'll take the one and you take the other and then you get to watch the battle taking place below you. - It really goes crazy with the Antline versus headcrab zombie dynamic, which is actually kind of cool that you get, I mean, that's one of the fun parts of the first Halo game in particular was where you could see these giant battles between the flood and the covenant. - Right. - And they definitely do some of that in this between those two sides and they do it more later in the-- - Well, and it's just like when they talk about in the commentary in episode one about how they discovered that they liked it through play testing that people liked it when they saw the enemies fighting each other. So they were including more of that in episode one and then in episode two, they just totally ratcheted it up to where you have these massive battles going on between the enemy factions and the allied factions. - So, after, so when do you actually get to the essence? Is it after the big fight with you? - Yeah, you have to remember there's like, there's various caves here where they're, you know, they're basically like railroad tracks and you know, there's little parts where the Vordagon is with you and you're like shooting supply crates out and these railroad carts are falling down. - So what sort of raiders of the Lost Ark slash Temple of Doom, mine car moments? - Right, there's this for some reason. - And they do a good job of kind of like, you know, everyone is starting to hate the word pacing, but you know, the pacing in this is great where you're in deep in the Antline caves and this like kind of turquoise, shiny bit areas with water and grubs all around, shining bright yellow and then you're in these brown caves with these cool sort of Eastern European or Russian looking kind of graphics all over and then are totally abandoned and the zombies are there in depth taken over. - The color of the environment you're in determines the kind of enemy you're gonna be fighting too because if you're in a mine, you're fighting at crab zombies and if you're somewhere blue, you're fighting airlines. - And the combat in general in these sections is just, I don't know, I think it's, the encounters are just better and it's partially because the enemies are more distinct and more fun. Just the addition of that one ranged Antline unit totally changes up the way that those battles go down. But anyway, yeah, I mean, this isn't the most exciting section of the game in once you're replaying it. I don't think anyway, I mean, it's still fun to play through. - It sort of blends together. - Exactly, it's all like this kind of cave-y areas. It's very, you know, you're trying to get in there, get the essence and get out and aside from the, that hold down the fort turret sort of moment in that room that kind of connects everything, it's just a bunch of mines and stuff. - Yeah, they tell you. - Until you get into the defender and the earwax canals once you finally get closer to the core and then the actual area where you grab the essence from or the extract from is really, those are really cool looking areas. But then again, I think most of these levels are great looking as you're going through them and then you kind of ramp up. - No, I was gonna say he's right, that your wax part is the next part that stands out the most. - And that's because it's you versus this giant thing that will fucking destroy. - Well, it's not even you can't kill it. - It's not even you, yeah, it's not even you versus just you running from hole to hole, hoping you make it in time. And I don't know, there is something like, like when you're playing it with headphones or good sound that it is pretty scary hearing. Something coming up on you, it initiates that same response of when, I don't know, someone's chasing you. - And of course, the design, the level design in those areas is such that, you know, it's like, it's the, you know, Arthur was mentioning there are times in games when you figure it out, it makes you feel dumb. Well, this is one of those times where you just go with the flow and you always end up hitting the right hole. - Yeah, you know, well, because there are multiple ways to where you need to be. - But the lighting, you know, you'll be in this dark cave and then all of a sudden there's this kind of like bright yellow light and a little bit of red of blood and like totally draws your eye in and you're like, "Oh, that's where I'm heading." And it's like right when your sprint is running, you know, you've used all your sprint, you're about to run out and the guy's right. - I would actually like slide into the hole. - Exactly. - Or you hit, you know, he hits you one hit that pushes you inside the hole and you're like, and then you land on health and you're like, "Oh, that's exactly what I'm talking about right there." - And when he hits you, he does the same thing that the toxic ant lines do. Like he knocks you down to almost nothing and then you slowly start regenerating. - Oh, does he? - Yeah, 'cause he's glowing. - Yeah, and then it also like-- - Neurotoxic. - When you fall down into the earwax areas and you're supposed to run forward, the caves that you run out of are always pointed in the direction that you need to run. You don't need to turn around and like run the opposite way. - Oh, the other thing is which makes sense because they're tunnels off of the main chamber. - Right, well, it makes sense and it's great level design for making the scene, for making that whole scene both intense and quick to move through. And also-- (whooshing) (laughing) - That's the sound of walking through the earwax now. (laughing) - Makes you like stepping a poop. - Yep. - Yeah, another just like alien flashback that I had was like Aliens 3, the scene where all the prisoners were running from the alien in the giant maze. - The doors are coming down, yeah. - Yeah, like I totally had just little flashback moments of that scene from the movie during this section. Like just barely making it inside the cave. So this section where you're running from the earwax, it actually ends with you getting into the chamber to take the egg, right? - Yeah. - Take the essence. - It's this really pretty glowing chamber with all these like-- - Looks like a wasp nest. - Yeah, they go as blue. - I feel, is it right after it? Because you have to, you kind of evade the-- - When you go to-- - You fix the elevator by finding the gear. - That's right, okay. - And avoiding the fucking barnacles as they just decide, including the barnacles just seems, I don't understand how the barnacles would survive, although I totally saw barnacles catch ant lines and just destroy them. - There you go, that's how they survive. - He didn't land. - But yeah, you, it's not directly one to the other. There's a little bit of-- - You bring the vortigante on. - 'Cause you go back to the vortigante. Yeah, he comes down and then the chamber is right there and there's that, the room where you put the gear on the elevator, again, just kind of dumb, but that's a really great looking room. I think that looks like the caves but sets itself apart in some ways by, you know? It's where the caves in the mines overlap. - Right, exactly. - I just like that it makes sense that you find a gear on another piece of machinery that's broken in a corner, which is the second time in all of Half-Life 2, where you do that because in Half-Life 2 proper, there's the part where you have to put the three batteries in the thing. - Praise that thing. - Oh no, great, that thing is a episode of mine. - And that doesn't even make sense. It's like, "Oh, where can I find the wheel for this?" Behind a bunch of boxes, whereas in earlier in Half-Life 2, where you have to open a gate by throwing three batteries and you look in a car hood and you find a battery there. - Well, you also look on the top of this tower that's way above you, and one under a bathtub, you know? - That's my car battery up here, man. I'm like gonna get it. - There's some weird ones, but yeah, there's something. I like in Half-Life 2, not to go back totally to a different Half-Life, but my favorite thing about that puzzle is that there's way more batteries than there are battery holes. - Which is good. - Yeah. - It's really cool. So you can find it in any of these number of different ways. - That's one of the few puzzles in Half-Life 2 where I felt smart. There you go. - But you get the gear off the broken piece of machinery after you pull the switch. - Yep. - Like some kind of idiot going, why isn't it working? - It's moving. - And it shows you. - Ring, ring, ring, ring. I am a sad machine. - I'm a nerd. - So then you bring the board of gone down and you go to the main chamber, you get the ant-lane goo, which he extracts. - He crafts into a very lovely ball. - And holds, and then you go, you take that elevator back up to... - To the rest of the board of gone sent to Alex and then they started the healing process. - Yeah, you can roll human extract into a ball. I've seen it done. I've seen it done on Mythbusters. - Yeah, I do like that they pull you, that they, first of all, they leave a space for you to stand in the middle of the ceremony, but they pull you and it supposedly make you a part of it as well. - Yeah, they intertwine some of your notation. - Right, but I'm talking about the game design of having you stand there so that you can perfectly see everything that's going on around. It's just a nice framing visual. - And that has my favorite effect in all of Half-Life 2, which is the sort of pulsing energy thing where you see the muscles underneath Alex's skin. - That was very scary. - I haven't seen any other game do something like that. - And you guys know you have, you still have movement and camera control during the session. - Yeah, yeah. - Just a little bit. - That's what I like a little bit. - And not only that, this is when the G-Man finally comes back in 'cause he's waiting for that moment when the Vortigaunts are distracted by something else and all of a sudden he has the chance and he takes it. And this is one of my favorite G-Man sequences ever. - It's also because they establish him as a character as opposed to a force. - Yes. - And then all of a sudden you're like, wait, is he kinda on our side? Maybe he's, no, he can't be close to him. - Well, he flies to the Vortigaunts have their own agenda and that they're not necessarily on the side of humans. - And he lets you know that like, you know, he reminds you that all the people in Black Mesa that you're now in cahoots with like, probably talked to him back in the day and like, hadn't he, you know, were on it. - That doesn't imply that. - Well, no, he definitely tells Eli is the only, is the, I think the only person that's still there that spoke with the G-Man. - Our mutual friend. - Yeah, mutual. - Our mutual friend. - I just like the chapter. - I like that he implies that there are interests other than his own and they're competing interests in a situation that-- - Which is what I thought he was talking about, Vortigaunts. - No, no, the Vortigaunts think that Gordon is the one that will sort of save the universe. - See, I kinda got the impression that he was saying that the Vortigaunts aren't necessarily as noble and out for humanity. - I got that in person too. - As they're making themselves out to be. - I mean, he just drew the fact that, in the beginning, fire health. - I laugh 'cause you said it like you're saying that, Tyler. - He's just, he's just too weird. - Tommy, that-- - He's not too generic. - Yeah. - He's too generic. - I mean, he just brought up the fact that at one point, right, during Half-Life 1, we fought the Vortigaunts. - I mean, they were slaves, like the only experience they had with a human is coming down a hallway with a crowbar. - Yeah. (laughing) - I mean, and here we are again, Ryan, at another sort of lost crossroads where they have characters where you don't know if they're bad, like they'll play characters bad for a long, long time and then turn 'em over. - I would, yeah. - And we're at a part where we're experiencing as this character that we are, 'cause it's all from first person, a sort of dimensional shift in real time, but with camera moves. When you go into the G-man's office, I guess, he's got a big freaking desk. - Yeah, and there's slow zoom. - It's like a slow camera pan slowly zooming in. It's all very strangely crafted from a game that's always shown you everything from first person. Now you're watching a cutscene that you sort of don't have very much control over, and 'cause your freedom is no longer with you. It's his game again. - It's his game again. - But I mean, it's told in first person, I was actually thinking about this today as I was playing it. And the reason that it still feels consistent with the rest of it is because, as Gordon, you would be immobile. Like you were-- - Yeah, he's in your head. - He has you exactly where he wants you so that he can basically tell you this is the score, and you may think that you have free will, but these are the pieces that people have put in place, and I've made my moves, and they've made theirs, and you were all pawns of this. But apparently, Gordon is one of the few that can occasionally do something unexpected. He is an unforeseen consequence. - Yes. - Mm-hmm. - All right, so Alex is back to life. - After the G-Man whispers in her ear to tell her father-- - Tell the lie, yeah. - Yep, which is the other thing-- - Which is the other thing. I'm half-life one of her. - I love that he sneers when he says you're, you know, like your father, implying that maybe that isn't her father. I mean, it's kind of, it's almost not there, but it's there, watch it again. Look at that video on YouTube, I see you are third. - Well, yeah, yeah, seriously. - He could just be like sneering because he doesn't think-- - He's in like, mm-hmm. - 'Cause that just be like a valve inside jokes since originally Alex was supposed to be Eli's daughter. - No, but he's telling him, he's saying this line at almost a sentence or two away from when he's talking about how he got Alex out of the, out of Black Mesa, you know? - When I took her, you know, out of, he's like, he's basically saying like, I cared for, you know, to some extent, or I made the decision to make her upon in this game. And at that point, that's where they'd be like, I said events in motion that allowed her to survive. - I mean, I'm just saying, look at the way, look at, go back to what you're talking about, Ryan, because-- - Yeah. - And look at the way he says you're a father. - Even the Vortigaunts imply that Alex has some crucial importance in the Vortescence. So I don't know, maybe she is. - And now your Vortescence are intertwined. - Yeah, well, but they already knew Gordon was badass, so that's no surprise. - So they, the-- - We are co-terminus. - And the G-Man, the G-Man implies that, you know, that he took, he took Alex out of Black Mesa under his, under his own auspices and against the advice of the other people that are his organization, his extra-dimensional race, whoever they are, that they don't like that he did that. So it kind of implies that he's sort of playing something of his own game as well, that he's not just under the influence of some larger organization. - He's been. - He's a gory and a guy. - He's been. - That's why he's been. That's why he's been. - This is not the Geek Box. - All right, so now-- - I just happen to be watching a lot of Lost Season 2 and Season 3 right now. It's just funny, 'cause anyway, we'll keep going. - So now you're gonna head towards White Forest again when you're with Alex. - Right, but this is the, this is the beginning of one of the first coolest scenes where, you know, I love this part, it is so awesome. - Thank you. - Oh my God. - No, the, you know, episode one was the game where Alex came with you for the whole time and here for the first time, not only are you fighting with Alex, but you're fighting with Alex and the Vorda at your side. - Yeah. - The super, the super awesome Half-Life team. X Black Mesa coming in to take down some of the fuckers. - Like a Saturday morning cartoon or something. - Exactly, no, but that, okay, so there's that sequence where you walk out of the caves for the first time and you get to watch the Combine kind of amassing troops and sending them towards the North. - And towards White Forest. - White Forest. - Giving day parade. (all laughing) - There you go, the advisors are coming by, they're looking great this year. - I mean, really, they might as well like have a string coming down with the combine troops. - Like, actually they're floating. (all laughing) - But yeah, it's a combine party, man. - But the Striders are really lovely this year. (all laughing) - The sound effects are great too, 'cause it makes the, makes those striders seem so menacing when you can hear every footstep from across a can. - And they, and they point out that that's like the Combine March to War because they're heading in the direction of White Forest. - Yeah. - White Forest. - So there's a-- - I almost said White Castle. - Oh, and then that also reminds me when-- - In what many brokers do. - The Vortigaunts talk a few times about how, you know, there's still advisors to find, as though the Vortigaunts are hunting down advisors. - I mean, I'm pretty sure that they are hunting down advisors at the Vortigaunts. - Right. - That'll come into play more in episode three that Vortigaunts will say, okay, look, we have to take these motherfuckers out. - Vortigaunts are probably the only ones that can resist their mental abilities, to pin you down and stuff. - I mean, when you find the advisor, you find-- - Well, and dog. - And several resistant-- - I'd play, I'd play like the side mission where you get to play as dog, hunting advisors down and tearing their brains off. That'd be awesome. Okay, just so you know, Ryan is saying he would, not that there is a side mission. - No, there isn't a side mission. - No, I don't have a, yeah, no, I'm, yeah. - It's the secret. - I was just a side mission in Ryan's brain. - Yeah, exactly. No, okay, so back to the scene though, you kind of go and you run forward and there's a fight against, you know, the Guardian. It's the Guardian that was in the thing. - It's the Guardian and the Antline Warrior. - Yes. - And these fuckers on Hard, this was the hardest section in the entire game for me. - Really, you didn't just hide within that little like, circle of-- - I think they can break it. - Like, no, as long as you're in there, they can't quite get in. - It wasn't that I, hiding wasn't the problem. I could've stayed alive forever. It was that you can't move forward until you kill them. - And I'm very low on ammo. Normal shots don't do anything. You pretty much have to use explosive barrels and physics objects that are lying around, at least on Hard, at least in my experience. - I used them as well, yeah. - So, yeah, I just had a lot of random quick saves where like, you know, random quick save problems where you have a quick save and you're like, okay, I need to move right. Right now, or else I'm gonna get hit by this thing that's flying at me. And then, you know, two seconds later, the Guardian throws the, the exploding barrel towards me. And if I catch it, just right, I can hawk it back at him and, you know, get a perfect shot on him. - As opposed to the cars that they will occasionally throw at you. - Oh, they do that too. Yeah, it's awful. But it just took a while, took a lot of running back and forth and finding all the explosive barrels with the very little bit of life and no shield that I had to make this part. - I like that they introduce a new kind of exploding barrel in this one. - It's more like a propane tank. - Well, yeah, like the red sort of slightly skinny propane tanks. - Yeah, it's the skinny propane tanks. As opposed to the red scuba tanks. - And not the super thin red tanks that were in Ravenholm, that light zombies on fire. - I like to think of them as torpedoes. - Yes, these ones look like propane tanks and the other ones look like oxygen tanks. - Like they actually aren't there, but there are propane, white propane tanks as well. - There are, but they don't explode. - They do concussive, explosive damage, but not flamey explosive, concussive damage. - I opened up the console to see what was going on. - It was really quite interesting. - And I took them into Gary's mod and constructed a vulture on statue out of the, and then I shot it with the pistol. - So you kill them. - And then you get on an elevator. - Oh, but you get on it right away. - After you have to fucking fix it because it's stuck up there, so you get to jump up. And of course, there are blackhead crabs on these. - And you probably got hit by a rock that came up off the mountain too. - I didn't, this is actually a really weird sort of area. Like they just go all out with the particle effects, and this is like, it's super-- - Yeah, we need to get to throw a crowbar at this jamming thing. - Like it's super misty and like weirdly atmospheric in this part, and I don't, it doesn't really explain why, but it's just like, we need to test these shaders out, guys. Pick somewhere. - Okay, so you go up the elevator. - Yeah. - And then you go into, I want to say mine or me. - Well, no. - Okay, so you're trying to get to the outpost, to get the car, and as soon as you get to the elevator and after you fight the ant lines, the vortigaunt says that he's worried because the centuries should have seen you by now. And as you're climbing up to the top of the elevator, you see another one of the head crab bombs. - Yep. - So that, generally that indicates that shit is going wrong. - Yeah. - And then like, and then in almost the very next room, it's that you figure out that the combine did attack, but that the combine got destroyed by the zombies. - Right, yeah. It's over resistance fighters and combine. - Yeah. - Everything killed each other. - Yeah. - Which this is another room where you can leave the gnome because you come back, but you just have to like, lean it against the gate. - So you know that stuff is where the hard part with the gnome is, like, the hard part with the gnome is just like finding a way to wedge it into your fucking car. - That is the hardest part. - But we're getting there. Slowly but surely we're almost at the car. - We're almost to the sweet ride. - So the cool thing is, is that this is another section where Alex gets the sniper rifle and you get to use that to your advantage a lot, which was fun. - Well, I remember the very first time I played episode two. When I got here, I was excited because I thought, oh, badass. Finally, I get to use this really cool sniper rifle. - Nope. (laughing) - It's powered down this time, Tyler. You don't understand. (laughing) - It's like episode three. - Also. - You mean the sniper rifle. - In that spot over the ledge where Alex and the Vortigant see the car and before she grabs the rifle and sends you forward, there's a G-Man sighting there as well. - Oh, is there? - I mean, I was looking for G-Man sightings. - If you, the bridge, the bridge with that teeter totters that you eventually have to push all the cars off of, which is kind of, in your car is even further down the way, kind of closer to you off on the left, right, when you walk into that space, if you look down the G-Man is just walking along the street right there. Yep. - It's cool. - I mean, he does say during his speech that he wishes there was more that he can do than just watch. So that doesn't indicate that he's still watching. I mean, does he appear at all in episode one? - Yeah. - I mean, others and we'll see about that part. - No, I don't think so. - I could've sworn he did. - No, I'm pretty sure he doesn't. There's like none of that and there's none of the Lambda locators and it's kind of like this weird, non, yeah. I don't know, that's part of why-- - It is, for me, the dejected step child of the Half-Life 2 of Yua. - Yeah, but I mean, it makes sense narratively that he's not around and stuff. And that's why when you do see him again here in this game, it's like, oh shit, he's back. - Well also-- - Well, by the time episode two comes out, they've pretty much abandoned the idea of it being episodic anyway, 'cause they were so far apart from each other, you know? They were originally supposed to be three to four months apart and so they probably felt by the time episode-- - Yeah, I think it was more like six months to a year apart, but they didn't even hit that. - Yeah. - I mean, he does say that since your friends are distracted, then I can actually do this. So that could be why, too. - Yes. - So yeah, so yeah, I was just happy to finally see him back in there, 'cause it's like just one of those exciting moments where you're like, oh, I caught that, but I might've missed it, and if I, you know, whatever, it's something that not all my friends are gonna see, so that's cool. - So you got there as a zombie gauntlet? - Yep, which is actually probably the best zombie gauntlet in Half-Life 2. - There's also the-- - Except for Ravenholm. - I actually, I think that this is more fun than Ravenholm. - Yeah, you shame it. - I just, I think Ravenholm looks, Ravenholm looks way cooler, is a more cooler environment to go through, but as far as fun to play, like fun to fight, fun to set up these situations where you can kill zombies in creative ways and feel like a badass, like this definitely-- - Oh man, but where could you really kill zombies in that creative of ways during this part? - It's not killing them in creative ways so much as being creative with the way that I set myself up and like, okay, well, I'll wait till they walk past that barrel and blow it up, and then I'll take out that guy, and then I'll turn on this gas and fire just as the black head crab carrier walks down. - Oh shit, not everyone came out. Gotta go re-light the fire and set anyone back. - It just feels like a much more well-designed level. - And I like the one where Alex snipes the exploding barrel after she waits for a couple of zombies to get close to it, and then she's all, yes! It's like, yeah, that's exactly what I would have done if I was standing up there with a computer. - And it's all so telling you that, hey, maybe you might wanna do this. - Yeah. - I just, I like there's a part in here where there's a dumpster that's got some boxes and they're kind of bumping around in there. - Through Grenada. - I just, I always walk up to it and then have the guy like hop out at me, but this time I was like, I know it's in there. Fuck it, I'm walking away, and I went through the door and he like jumped out as I went through the door, but I didn't have to fight him, so I felt like I won that situation. - I mean, that's such a great part though. Like, you walk out and you're like, are those boxes moving? - This is, and it's like the horror movie moment where you're like, I'm a retard, I'm gonna go see what these things are. - Oh, excuse me, a retard. (laughing) - I really doesn't make it better, but I'm gonna go. (laughing) I'm gonna go, sorry, I've been drinking. I wouldn't have ordered it. It's just one of those words I've been saying since I was six years old, what am I gonna do? I'm sorry, I was a bad kid. Anyway, you become the horror movie cliche character, you know, main character where you're like, did those boxes just jump? - I'm gonna go look. - And they just did. What's in there? I'm gonna go check this out. And sure enough, one of the worst enemies in the game, the crazy fast-moving zombie comes out and you feel like a dumb ass. - So you fight your way through. You fight your way through and you get up to the bridge and you get the car. And it's kind of weird because the physics puzzles, you understand that they, what, do you wanna? - Well, is there, is there, is a bunch of the toxic - Yeah, it brings you back to the radio action platform. - I was wondering, there's a-- - 'Cause it's across all of that. Like, I didn't even do any of it. I just hit sprint and went, - And jumped from thing to thing, yeah. - I can do it with very few moves this time. Like, I did it and it was pretty straightforward and pretty easy, but, oh, no, it actually wasn't. 'Cause I decided to try to learn to play with default controls this time on keyboard. I'm a guy from switching back and forth with you on a PC that your controls are screwed up. - They're not now. I said, why don't you do? Like, how do you, what, non-default control scheme? - You jump on, right? - Okay, so it's a, yeah, I used to play, so I started playing PC games back in the Doom and Quake sort of days and there weren't things like secondary fire and so having jump on my right mouse button seemed to make sense back then. And then I played a lot of Half-Life 1, I mean, a lot, not just single player, but I played a shitload in the multiplayer and-- - Same way. - Same way, yeah, my controls was jump is right mouse and space bar was crouch and since there's a lot of, which is, you know, fucking screwed up 'cause that's where space is, or jump is supposed to be. And since there's a lot of crouch jumping where you have to like jump and then hate crouch, yeah, I was just driving me nuts. So this part of the game where you're trying to jump over the toxic stuff where I'm trying to do a bunch of crouch jumps and sprints is totally screwed up. 'Cause I moved, 'cause I moved jump to where crouch used to be and then crouch was in a weird spot and I wasn't happy with where it was, but yeah, essentially, it's funny 'cause I thought this section was in episode one, but it's totally not, it's a-- - Because you hate it. - Yeah, because I hate it. I hate it. I fucking hate jumping. - I can't talk, you know what? I can't talk shit about your back-ass words PC controls 'cause I always play South Paw in shooters. - You crazy. (laughing) Okay, so we get to the zombie gauntlet. - Okay, yeah, get up to the car. - Did anyone else go into the shack before the bridge thinking, "Hey, I'll pick some stuff up and get ready." - Yes, dude, I had 13 health in there and I was like, "I just made it up there." I thought, "Oh, I'm gonna be fine." Oh, shit, except there's a rape train in here, so I'm gonna-- (laughing) - You know what? We shouldn't even be saying that either because as we've quoted before, like any rape victim would not, so you know what rape is like? Being attacked by a combine zombie and a fast mover. - That's true. (laughing) - But if they had 13 health though and no shields, (laughing) it is kinda like that then. - When you put it that way, it definitely sounds less stupid. (laughing) - All right, so you-- - So I threw a grenade in. - And I'm not making fun of you because I said rape before you did. - You get up to the car and you do the bridge. We're getting this through this fucking bridge. - After being raped in the car. - And so, yeah, that was part-- - A physics puzzle. - That's a weird physics puzzle 'cause it's on such a scale that you wouldn't really think, like, do they really want me to tilt the whole fucking game? - It doesn't feel realistic at all because that shit would not happen. It also would hold pieces. - It also just gives itself away right at the beginning 'cause you're like, "Well, are they gonna stop me "from moving forward? "Is it possible for me to break the game in such a way "where I'm gonna have to reload by, you know, "what I'm mentioning is by pushing all the cars off?" - The cars off. - If I push all these cars off, then I literally can't try anything else. So it either works or it doesn't work. That's what you can do. - Do they turn the screen black and just automatically restart if you knock all the cars over to you? - No, you knock all the cars off the bridge. - The bridge takes the way it's supposed to and you go on with the action. - Yeah, you don't actually have to stack the cars on one side of the bridge. - The first time I played it, I stacked the cars all on one side. - I'm pretty sure that the first time I played it, I may have driven the car off of the bridge. Like, I don't even remember why, but I definitely like did not do this correctly the first time. - Ah, yeah. And so you get the car to the other end of the bridge. Alex has a cool line about how it first seems like she hates it, but then she's like, "This car is awesome!" - And then you leave your friend in the border going behind you. - And I think that's the line where he-- - Shotgun, unless you want it. - Right, and I'm like, "There's only two seats." And then the Vortigaunt leaves you 'cause he has to go hunt advisors. - I wouldn't want the Vortigaunt to sit on top and zap things. - Yeah, right. - There is a backseat to the car and I wish it would function as it looked like it should have-- - To hold a gnome. - To hold a gnome. - How far did the gnome rocket off due to a physics glitch when you tried to do that, Tyler? - Well, I mean, actually, if you put it in through the back window, it gets stuck in midair and just kind of floats there. But if you're going really fast and you hit bumps and shit like that, it can get dislodged and just shot right out of the pass. - Are you playing on Xbox also? - Yeah. - Oh my lord. (laughing) - It just doesn't sound fun. I'm glad you did it though. And it's cool to know that it sits in places through loads and that you can leave it in spots. I'm glad that you did this experiment. - I mean, watching Twitter over the last week, a lot of people apparently have been doing that achievement and like Bill Mudram was like, "I have finally got that fucking gnome achievement in episode two and I'm like that you are more of a man than I am." - I mean, I knew about it right from the beginning but I just thought like, it's awesome that that's there. That's totally not for me. - I tried to do it for like 45 minutes the first time I played through episode two and I was like, you know what, this is some fun. - I had a safe file. - I'm playing it back in the day where I tried to do it but I didn't make it very far. - You look so jolly when you're carrying a company's looking at that. (laughing) - I think you should, if one of the, there should be a secondary even more achievement that gives you more points for taking photos of them in really like scenic locations. - Maybe I'll just think. - You mentioned that that fucking achievement is worth 30 points. - Geez. - Like the rate of the return on investment for that shit is just not high. - But you don't think so yet enough people do. - It's one of the highest worth achievements for the orange box because they have more achievements than any other game. - The orange box is such a pile of shit when it comes to achievements like that because there are so many games. It's just like, basically everything is like you're gonna expect to live arcade game. (laughing) - But the achievements are at least like more clever and stronger. - They are clever and it is, I do like that they're good achievements. - Getting the achievement should be that they're on your record rather than just upping your nerd score. - Well then you get trophies. - I mean, I'm just saying people can still go and look at it and even though it only added 30 points to your overall score, they can still go look at it and be like, "Oh shit, you got it." - Yeah. - I mean, the markers still there. - The achievements in the orange box are good and that they, almost all of them encourage you to play the game in a way that you would not otherwise. - Yeah, you would play it. - But you know why it doesn't look jolly after trying to do the gnome achievement? - Your face. (laughing) - Your face. - So you're on the road to White Forest. - Right, so you get on the road and there's, it's very, very quick before you make your way up into, well, a little outpost because you see a radio tower. - Well first you try to go into a tunnel and it's blocked. - I bet you now like this is like this shouldn't, we should have known this wouldn't be that easy. - Sure. - And then you head for the radio tower and to make, to, - To try to communicate with White Forest 'cause you haven't talked to them yet. - Right. - And the power's out. So you gotta go down into a different building in the basement to try to get the power going, which is a kind of fun puzzle where there's two different lengths of wire that you have to attach to the plugs. That one drove me nuts for a while. - And I like that they actually recorded, they recorded dialogue for Alex to acknowledge it because you like, you think that you have the first part of the puzzle right and then you go over and the court is too short. So you unplay it and just like, wait, the power went out again. - Didn't you do something Gordon? - Yeah, I forgot. Yeah, 'cause now when I do it, I know how to solve it. So I just walk over and do it correctly. But I remember it driving me nuts the first time. Like how long do you need to spend with the second end of the cable like dangling on one end where you're like in that region. - It's not going to reach. - It's really like, I can't make this reach. - It was weird, I kind of felt like a roadie in this little section like, I was trying to decide like, ugh, they need the cords shorter. (laughing) - I mean, the art is really good for when you have it plugged into the wrong spot, you see like the energy just like spilling out the end of the wire. - Yeah, it's just a really well designed with good visual cues puzzle. - Yeah, just a really nice puzzle. - And no physics required. - And then the elevator turns on once you get it right, you go back up and they have all the scenes where the hunter is framed perfectly in your vision, but you can't really fight it yet. And then the battle begins as it starts blasting through the door. - So there's an achievement in episode two. Yes, I know we're talking about achievements again, but it says that there's an achievement for cutting a hunter with its own budgets. How the fuck do you-- - Do you hold it? You stick it into a log or a physics object that you pick up with the gravity gun. - I try, yeah. - And then you throw it back at it right when it explodes and it can die, pucker. - The cat, can't you? I thought you could gravity gun the fleshets themselves. - I definitely took a lot of fletchets trying to do that. It did not work. - No, you have to let them hit some object and then throw the object. - You know how I was trying to do it? I was trying to hold, like I would grab a oil barrel and try to hold it as a shield, a radiator, and just like walk close to the hunter when the fleshets would explode. - And if someone had been able to see a picture of me, it would have just been me like with like this stripe of unaffected area and like fletchets sticking out of it, every other part of my pot. (laughing) - This battle reminds me, again, another hard one playing on hard, but it reminded me that I'm never, ever, ever, ever, ever, fighting a hunter using weapons unless it's the secondary fire on the assault rate, the AR2, which I love that scene later when we get to wait for us, we'll talk about that, but that secondary fire takes them out in one shot. But other than that, if you're not throwing heavy objects at them with the gravity gun or running over them with your car, you're wasting your time. - I fucking did this entire fight, and then I realized, you know what, it took me the entire game last time to realize that running these things over is the most effective way to kill them. - Or why did I do this to myself? - Even like you pick up a truck tire, you throw a truck tire at it twice, and it's dead. - It's great, yeah, tires destroyed. - And in that first battle with the radio tower when like you're trapped in that building, you go outside to that little kind of open area where the roof is blown off, and there's tires everywhere. They're like saying throw shit at these guys to kill them. - The Magnum is really good to use against them. - Really? I mean, I feel like I was just throwing ammo away 'cause a Magnum is one shot kill on any like, combine soldier. - Right, and again-- - Not when you hit him in a chest. - It's two shot kill. - It's two shot now. - It's not on hard. - Oh, it was, yeah, it was two shot on the, like when I was attacking the combine with the Magnum, it was a two shot kill, it was a hit. - It's one shot in the head. - Right, I'm saying the head. I'm saying you hit him in the chest and it's two shot. - Oh yeah, that's true. - Like all of them? - Because I was definitely like one shot. - All the ones in episode two for sure. - Yeah, but I mean, the, the short, the plain simple fact of the matter is that it's, at least on hard anyway, it's way more Magnum shots to kill a hunter. You know, you could empty a whole clip in them and it might not die. - Oh, I'm sure. - And at that point, it's like, I just threw away six kills on an enemy if I, you know, playing correctly. - My Magnum is to kill blackhead crabs. - Oh, I, I, I physics the shit out of those guys too 'cause I know they can't kill me. I just like primary fire them with the grab gun six times until they die. - Yeah, the, the, being able to fight those, the hunters right there for the first time. I remember the first time I fought them and going through all this ammo and like, and they, and they're not shy. They're not like the other combine. They don't kind of just hang around a quarter and try to attack you. They don't chill. They attack. - And they may lay you. - Yeah, they may lay you. - I mean, that was the most, the scariest thing. - Like, I thought I was safe. - And then they like come into that room where I was, where, you know, how you can kind of hide into that one back corner area. They fucking come right in there. - They'll come, there's that house kind of near the gate that opens when you drive out where there's like a little bathroom. Dude, they'll come all the way into the bathroom. There's no way or indoors where you can go and try to hide from them. They'll break right in there. - They're very effectively named enemy. - Yeah. - The coolest thing about like the first time you encounter the hunters is that you're thrown into a room where you can't get out of until they're flesh, that's literally blow the door open. - Yeah, that's right. - It's like, so remember, you see all this like debris and shit kicking in from the broken wood. - And Alex is psyching herself out and pumping herself up. Like, I'm not afraid. I'm gonna kick these guys' asses. - Yeah, kill her before. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Did anyone notice that they kind of look like the houndi? Like like that they've got like the single sort of eye thing on the front and they've got the tripod thing going on. They just remind me of the houndi from the first game. - It's a little bit. - They remind me of the Envid from Robotech. (both laughing) - You mean the cross? - All right, so you kill, so you kill, so you kill. - Moving right along. - So you kill the hunters. - And then you get back in your car. - And you drive in, is this the point where you reach like that little village? - It's essentially, yeah. - First you drive past the wreckage of one of the-- - The advisor. - The advisor cargo. - But he's not there. - He's not there. - Which means like, oh, I guess there's probably an advisor now. - Oh, right, and then you can go into the barn and you see where some people tried to break in, but the advisor like clearly took them out before they had a chance to turn off the tower. - Right. - And he comes out and he don't like that. - Yeah. - And that's basically where you see his, like the brains. - He's about to kill you. This is where you get to see the proboscis up close and he's got you in his grasp and he's about to take you down when, what happened? - There's just a, like-- - And danger often, there's a scene right there. - There are explosions like happening like, there are explosions before he grabs you and there's explosions again and like, nothing happens and right as he's about to do your brain. He, there's another explosion and he gets pissed off and throws you down. - Gotcha. - Yeah, he has to leave. - The Bruno scene where it's like up, up close and personal with Venus. - I think you're the only person in this room that has anyone else. I haven't seen-- - I haven't seen Bruno yet. Yes, it's very up and close with this. - Yeah. - That's where the proboscis was the word I used. - Is that what you were having? Were you having some momentary terror of wondering whether or not you liked the way it looked like? (laughing) - Well, actually, like when I picked up that Star Wars book and started like spotting bullshit, that's what I was thinking of this scene where it was like basically like a giant penis in your face moving around. Like I was thinking of this like inverted-- - It's very, it's very Kronenbergian. - Yeah. - So yes, then-- - But I mean, this is the first time you've seen an advisor in Half Life 2, like up close and personal, not just on some TV screen. You get to see it and it's like full on grub. - It looks like a maggot with a puppy sweater on. - Yeah, basically. And this one, I'm not sure, does it have, you later at the very end of the game, you see more of them up close and personal again. And they use these kind of like robotic arms-- - He doesn't use the Tyrannosaurus Rex arms. - No, he hadn't hatched yet. - Yeah, okay, so this one is like straight up just proboscis and grub. - It's gross. - So now you feel it, wait, go ahead then. - Yeah, now you have to fight a bunch of combine on your way back out of the building. - After he gets crazy, like fucking poltergeist boards flying around him, shit, and zooms out of the roof. - Right, which was like, again, the first time I played this game, the way that that whole room explodes under his, you know, his mental blast as he's trying to get out and everything was really cool. - And Alex is like tremendously frightened, slammed against the wall with you. It's a really nice scene and it's a good foreshadowing towards what happens at the end. - So this is where I, the door explodes, which you haven't heard since Half-Life, episode one, and they break in, so I killed them, ran out to my car, and proceeded to run everyone down. - I just-- - I just hopped in my car again on hard, I just hopped in my car and got out there. - I mean, yeah, you don't even have to fight him, you can just run, and that's a pretty cool, actually, that's a fun extended chase sequence, it's supposed to the boat sequence in Half-Life 2, which I didn't really think was that. - It's pretty great because you've got the combine on you, but then you've also, as you're making your way, kind of, between train cars and stuff, there's zombies that hop onto the front of your vehicle, and you can, you know, kind of run into an object to smash them off and make them fly forward. - Where Alex is shooting in. - Yeah, and it encourages you to crash into things, 'cause if you crash into an item pickup, you pick it up. - Yeah, yeah. - And you kind of make your way through this chase for a good little while longer, before you get locked down into another little village, there's a place called the White Forest. - Well, it's nice because it makes the village look like it's completely abandoned, and so you're like, "Should I even bother stopping?" I actually forgot that it was gonna do that, so I was like, "Yeah, fuck it, I'm just gonna drive through." - And then suddenly you hit a first wheel, yep. - And your car's locked in that force field, like you can't take your car out. - And then you run in the house, and you have a young guns moment. - Yep. - Everyone's coming. - I had a young guns one. - Thus ensues my favorite battle. - Mm-hmm. - Maybe all of Half-Life 2. - It is pretty intense. - Epic. - I also like the sort of Normandy Beach part with the turrets and the headcrabs, obviously. - That's pretty good, too, but as far as combat goes. - As far as combat goes, this part is definitely my favorite, 'cause the way that the hunters come in, and they break in, and they open paths for the combine to come in, and the combine do come in, they don't just hang around outside. - It's all about range. - Yeah. - There's like snipers on the outside sniping you that's fun to snipe with the sniper rifle through the windows. You know, the house has three stories, and there's ammo all over it, so you're really encouraged to kind of move throughout the space. - You can't just hang out in the basement. - And not only that, the basement isn't even safe, 'cause the basement in the front door, or the right front door, get kind of blown open as it goes on, so the space is kind of getting bigger and wider as more enemies are starting to spill in, which gives you more options, you know, to take people down. - And I had one alt-fire energy ball on the combine rifle, which I used on one of the hunters, 'cause that's an instant kill on those guys too. - Yeah, I did not know that. - Yeah, that's a, so we're gonna save it to later, but there's a part when you finally make it to white forest. There's a, you make it into the bunker, and there's a scene where there's, it's just a really funny another one. I don't know why it feels like lost to me, but it's probably 'cause you're in this bunker that looks like lost, but there's this guy like, all right, so combat training. Has anyone here used an AR2 and some guys like, we don't have the AR2, we use an AR3 in the city. He's like, oh wait, there's no such thing as an AR3. He's like, yeah dude, we use it all the time. He's like, well, do you know what the secondary fire does on the AR2? He's like, I don't know, how do you take care of hunters? The secondary fire on the AR2 takes care of hunters in one shot. He's like, well, I wouldn't get up in close and personal with a hunter, I'm not a fighter, you know? And like, he's like, I'm not gonna get out of here until he-- - He does, like the guy said, he got, no, we, I took out hundreds of my bare hands, right? - He's back in the city 10, 20 a day. - And he's like, that's it, this lesson doesn't continue until you leave. I won't go until you get out of here and you can stand there and then he's like, I'm not going on until you leave. - I mean, that's a lot of leaving. - Really funny moments dialogue wise. Like as your, as it's you, Alex and the Vortigaunt on the elevator leaving the cave, like-- - The two guys that were there. - Adequate. - Adequate, what does that even mean? - It sounds like something, the Vortigaunt was-- (laughing) - So, okay, so yeah, so this combat sequence is totally nuts. Finally make your way out of the white forest and up the path, fighting more hunters and combine along the way. Again, lots of range combat that give you a bunch of chances to use the new crossbow you've just got and you've probably used your energy balls to take down some of the white dudes. - It's the most seat of your pants and fluid that combat ever gets and have life too. Like in Half Life II and in Half Life II episode one, combat feels meticulous a lot of the time. Like it's about setting up and sort of slowly making your way forward as, whereas this standing still is the way that you die. - Yeah, yeah, and the level is so brilliantly designed because there is no safe harbor. And every time you think there's a safe harbor, it goes away and that becomes a new entrance for the enemies and the enemies take advantage of every opportunity that they have to press themselves in on you. - The setup is really brilliant too because as you're coming down, you make your way all the way to the end of the village and let's say this is your first, I'm a meticulous player, so my first time through, anytime there's something sort of interesting in my periphery, I'm getting out of my car, looking around, kind of searching the space and then moving forward. So by the time I got to the force field, the first time I was playing it, not this time obviously, but the first time I knew the area, I knew what every building was, I knew where all the rooms were, except for the white forest in right at the end, which is obviously the main space they lock you down in, but when you start moving out of that area and moving forward, it's like, oh, I already walked through the gas station up here, I kind of know what I'm up against and so you can plan your combat, you feel really safe once you're making your way up to the top. - Well, and I like the way how when you're inside the end and the background and the way that the road goes up the hills and everything, it's all perfectly aligned with the windows so that you can always see more people outside and they can always see you, there's always more people shooting at you from the outside or hunters or whatever and it's just the feeling of chaos and barely being able to hold it together is like, that's at its prime right there. - So once you get to the last room, which is where you get to finally turn the force field off again. - Working your way back up the hill. - You walk into that room, you're like, just made it through this crazy battle and then all of a sudden you hear, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. 'Cause there's a turret set up that you totally weren't expecting and starts firing at you and luckily there's a box of grenades right there that you can pick up and like knock it down and go through a, I think what is a pretty fun little jumpy puzzle to finally make your way back into the room and the only part that I ever truly remember from this spot and think about is at the very end when you make your way into the room with the closed door and there's an energy ball in a container there and you shoot it out and it bounces around the room and it bounces right back in. You're like, what the fuck? And it's just like, wow, they got one more variation out of the stupid energy ball that they've been using since half-life too. Now I have to open the door to make sure it flies out of the room. - But not exploding. - Not the door can crush you too 'cause it comes down pretty fast after opening. - Exactly, it's like, wow, there you go. That's so valuable of them to get one more use out of this thing that they've been using for so so long. - Yep. - And then it's back on the road again. - And at this point, it's just a pretty short drive to White Forest, right? - No, it's a very short drive to the next place where you meet with some resistance guys. There's a fight against the helicopter and then they upgrade your car. - That's right. - And then after, while you're getting your car upgraded, you actually have to go shut off an auto turret which is a completely new thing and new setup that you haven't done. - This is the Normandy Beach moment, right? - Yeah. - And that part I think is really fun. It's like a lot of ducking. And there's a really great line of dialogue where the guy inside the resistance guy, he's like, yeah, if you wanna go try to shut this thing off while we fix the car, that's great. And you're like, you hop down a little hole and you're about to head outside and you're here in the background just very faintly. So, is he your boyfriend or? (laughing) - Although it's not Normandy Beach in the sense that there's like a ton of guys. I suppose Normandy Beach, it's actually more like World War I. It's like really hardcore fucked up trench warfare. - Yeah, 'cause if you poke your head out, you're just dead. - Dead, yeah. - Yeah, and then they break it up, like 'cause otherwise you're just like walking around, crouching, but they break it up really nicely by having to hop into the building where there's soldiers that are there. And you know, you can't just like weave your way through the car's kill if, whoa. - That was incredible. - Shake your pants. (laughing) - Well, I'm sorry. - Sorry. - Wow, that was so amazing. I forgot what I was saying. - I'll just tell you here's a blue is mine. - Our cat's been farting on, they smell awful, but your farts don't smell that bad at all. So, well done. - All sound in theory. - Yep. - Simplifying nothing. - All right, sorry. So, yeah, you go into the house and it breaks it up. - Yeah, you do some shit. - 'Cause you fight the few little guys. - You do some shit, I'm sorry. I don't remember what I said. - And then, I actually found that that part. - Well, you guys, how do you, see this is where I suck because I actually didn't finish episode two again. - Yeah, so you have to get, don't you have to get into the auto turret somehow? - Well, eventually, yeah, you come around and you climb up on top of a truck and then there's windows. And that's how you get down in there. - There's some little combine forces in the auto turret house bunker thing. You take them out and then-- - This is where I couldn't figure out how to kill the auto turret. - Me either. - It's like, what the hell am I supposed to do? I push a button? A panel comes down, I'm like, grid. That I can't do anything good. - I couldn't figure it out either. It's one of the few places where you don't have someone train you on how to use this thing. And like I said, that's why it stands out as kind of this new device they've never run into in Half-Life before 'cause they never trained you how to use it. - I finally figured it out because I'm like, they give me a box of grenades. Clearly, I need to use that for some reason. - Exactly, yeah. - But for me, it's weird because I think if you, again, I didn't run into this this time when I was playing but the first time, I think I remember trying to throw. - It's impossible. - Primary fire to throw them in and you can't, you have to roll it in with secondary fire. - I know, it's so nice that you told me that this time 'cause I used that I was like, right click. - Oh, when you're ducking and it rolls right in. - Yeah, it's a great move. But yeah, the auto turret explodes and that's the only one you ever seen in the game. - And it's nice 'cause that's another like such a good level design moment where it blowing up the hole it makes is your exit out of the building too. It's not even like you go out a door or something like that. - If you walk out there and you're like, oh, I can, it's just one of those great moments where it took you so long to weave your way through this fuckin' hop, skippin' jump right back. - Yeah, being hop right back to where you work is now you don't have to duck anymore and you got the resistance and Alex fighting headcrabs zombies back where you were coming from to make your quest back there easier. - Then you're back on the road again and I don't really think there's a hole. - Wait, right after that, when you get back in the car after the car is modified. - There's the radar caches. - Yep, the radar caches and right after that before you kind of drive through some of that murkiness and right around the corner there, if you get off your car, there's a place where you can go into a little sort of side room and there's two skeletons sitting on a couch with a bunch of drinks that they've been drinking and they had their last stand kind of right there in this really room. - It's the couch couple. That is the appearance of the couch couple in episode two. - How do you know, how do you know that's the couch couple 'cause there's another couch couple in, actually in the white and the white ones? - In the white ones they're alive and they're doing the same sort of like comforting. - The scavenger hunt thing like for all the episodes has always said that the couch couples like main appearance and that, or at least one couch couple appearances, the skeletons that are sitting together like that. That's what it's supposed to reference. - It seems, well maybe they, 'cause they have so few models for the resistance characters when I saw the couch couple and threw a window in the base at white forest, I'm like, that's the couch couple. - I didn't see anyone through the windows in white forest except two dudes that look like one guy who's kind of bald with black hair and one dude who's bald and they're sitting like a set of terminals. I was like, ah, that's Jack-in-lock. I'm sorry, I've been watching too much. (laughing) - No, but I know what you're saying, Matt, because I felt the exact same thing. - Which Ryan would you bring with you today? - Sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me today. - So yeah, you drive your car-- - So you drive your car until you see the polar bear. - Yeah. - And then you-- - And then you get off it. - Oh no, I mean you get off it at the smack. - At the smoke monster. - You're skipping the radar caches now, yeah. - No, we're not skipping it. - Yeah, the radar caches are like, that's a really nice, cool feature. I dug that a lot. - It's pretty straightforward though. It's all contained in this one little section of game. It's like the only time that you can go for the radar caches. And I guess the thing I don't like about it is they blow their wad really early. That's, there's the first one that's in like the kind of beat up car where you just grab some stuff. And there's one right after it around the corner where you get the rocket launcher and you do the cool grenade bounce puzzle. - Yeah, exactly. - And that one is so cool. It took me, you know, when you figure, it's one of those things where it makes you feel smart when you figure it out. I think where you're like, wait, I'm supposed to put a grenade in this thing and it's gonna pop. That's awesome. All right, let's give it a try. And you fuck it up like twice and then you finally get it to work. And it's like, that is actually a curricular. You don't have to do it. - Yep. - Although you probably, it's not like you need rocket launchers in the game. It's just a nice thing to have. And then there's a nice line of dialogue where Alex tells you rocket launcher. - Awesome. So that's for-- - I used the rocket launcher to kill hunters in the final battle. - They're also a good dispatcher of hunters. - There's even on hard rocket launchers. Rockets take like, it takes like three hits with a rocket to take down a hunter. And it only takes one hit with your car. - Yep, exactly. That's why I use my car during that. And not only that, but you can handle it. - The very end of the-- - The very end of the sun's bitches. - The very end of the fighting section though, I didn't get to use my car that much. - Really? - At the very, very end when they all get really close to the base. - Oh, I used it all the way. I had to, 'cause nothing I could do. No weapons that I had. - Well, you just did not add me so quickly. - Yeah, no weapons that I had would take them down fast enough. I was like, unless I had a salt rifle secondary fire, which like I say is a one hit kill every time, as long as you can hit them with it, it just wasn't as reliable as driving the car through them. So that's what I did. - So you get some caches and you finally make it to the fucking base. - Okay, are we gonna jump, let's see, is that really what happens? - No, we're skipping one really cool part then. - No. - This is the coolest part. - The helicopter chase. - No, we've not already heard that. - There is the helicopter chase. There's the part where you finally kill the helicopter by throwing its minds back at it. That's where, you know, the guys, the garage are, we kind of skipped over that part a little bit, but that was a cool battle. The really cool part we're missing is when you, just before you get to White Forest, and you kind of drive up to a gate, and you hear something coming, and you see a strider that's all dead and light, or a drop shit that's dead right there, and then all of a sudden the strider gets out of the remains of it, and that's where Dog comes back and kicks the shit out of him. - Well, before that, you see the, if you're paying attention before you go on the tunnel, you can see the drop ship carrying the strider, and like going down behind the mountain, and then you hear an explosion. - Nice. - So like, if you're looking up in the sky at the right time, you can actually see where it comes from, and then you go through the tunnel, and you come out into that area that you're talking about with the strider and Dog, and Alex even says something I think like, that must have been that explosion we heard. - Yep, and you don't get an achievement. Okay, so I really like the animation. You know, the animations of Dog doing cool stuff in the environment, I mean, that's something that since Half Life 2 has been one of the most fulfilling moments of the game, 'cause it's almost like a cut scene happening right before your eyes. I guess that's exactly what it is. - And it's fun, and it's fun because like you, you're like, the strider's rising up in front of you, and you're like, I have no fucking way to kill this. - Yeah, what am I gonna do? - And then there's Dog, and he saves you, and it's like, it goes from tension and fear to exhilaration and-- - But also in that same scene, like there seems like a little bit like, oh, is Dog gonna be able to do it? - Yeah, yeah, exactly. - Of course he is, 'cause he's a fucking dog. - The best part is Tyler, what is Dog backwards? - Yeah, the thing that I love the most about that though is that he rips out the thing's brain, and you can look at it on the ground. - He's not the brain. - What I was just gonna say is I've turned it into a game myself, if I'm playing episode two, and I don't catch it on his throw, I don't let it hit the ground. Like, he tosses it out, it does a little arc, and you're like, oh come on, come on, come on. And you can suck it in with the gravity gun, and it's like rotating right there in front of you. I think you get an achievement for that. - Right, I think you have a problem. - I caught the brain, it's a strider brain. I tried to shove it back in with my gravity gun. - But it's a great indicator of the combine's organic machinery, and that they actually, that's not a computer chip, it's a freaking brain in that thing. - And then right after that, another completely different gameplay sequence that you've never had in Half Life, you race against a dog up to the top of the white forest, which, is there anything besides an achievement? Is there an achievement for winning? - There's just an achievement for winning. - Okay, so it's just an achievement? I never let that fucker beat me. - Just an achievement? - Yes. - Just. - Just. - Yes, just an achievement. - And then they take dog off on patrol with them, and you go into the base. - Yes, where you finally, you see the sequence that I was talking about with the AR-2. You kind of walk forward and you meet up with Alex and Eli, there's a really good kind of sequence where he basically tells you to fuck the shit out of her. (laughing) - I don't remember that part so much. - Sorry. - Give her the helicopter. - Okay, so I know you guys have all seen Dr. Steve Broul from Tim and Eric, and doesn't, I mean, Tyler, we're talking about this, doesn't, when you first see Eli again, doesn't he sound a little bit like he's been drinking or something like that? He's like, "God, God, I'm so good to see you for your help." (laughing) - Okay, so I'm gonna point out right now that Robert Guillaume had a stroke. (laughing) And that's why his voice acting sounds a little bit slurred, so. - And now you look like an asshole. - That's also why they killed him. - That's why it does sound like the four year health guy. - So what, are you saying that that's why they, that's why they. - Is that really true? - Yes, Robert Guillaume had a stroke. - That's why he only had a stroke. - He only had a stroke. - He only had a stroke. Eli Vance, because I didn't know him. - No, no. I think Robert Guillaume actually had a stroke. He had a stroke while he was still an actor on "Sports Night," which was way before "Half Life 2." - Oh, wow, which is a fucking amazing show. - I didn't know he actually had a stroke in real life. He has a stroke in the show. - Yeah. - And he actually had a stroke in real life. - That was a little slurred, so. - Now I feel nothing. - Well, because in the first two of you-- - That's okay, I feel like you're a big enough asshole for the both of us. - Nice. - I feel like a retard. (laughing) - I can easily be a massage. - I was worse at that, I was worse at that, I was worse at that. - For your health. - That's not fine. - For your health. - So yeah, he, this podcast is over. (laughing) - So Eli, everyone loves Eli. - He has some of that, huh? - Eli's a great character. - He tells you, he has a badass leg. - That's true. - He does have a badass leg. - He's like a future pirate. (laughing) - You meet up with him, you meet up with Kleiner, you finally meet Magnus in front of the rocket. - Mm-hmm. - And-- - He starts ciphering the code. - And I, the rocket, what a cool, like, looking part of the stage. I mean, but the detail down at the bottom when you get near the thrusters just looks like super high res and awesome, like, compared to most of the other stuff in the world. It looks like very realistic. - Whereas Tyler was much more interested in the top part of the rocket. The tip, if you will, with its gnome-sized hole. - Right, yep. (laughing) - Right when you get into that room, you can throw it in, right? - Yeah, so, actually, when we were talking earlier about being at the end, the white forest end, that's where I decided, fuck this. - Oh. - And realized later that it was like one save, like one load's going away. - Did you keep the save? - Yeah. - So then, after you made it to the rocket, you went back to the save. - I could have, but I did not. - Okay, I was just, what's up, fuck it. - Oh, Tyler. It's like someone who started-- - I gave up, like, so close to the end. - Yeah, that's pretty darn close. - Yeah, but if you have a save, you can totally just go do it, which is good. - I got tired of putting them back in my back window. - Yeah, I know. - If the back seats looked like they were, if they weren't-- - That's the one thing. Why did they put a trunk in the car? - For real. - For real. - You heard me say, fuck that achievement. I'm not, I'm just like, you were my hero, and you're just another guy. - I mean, the car eventually gets a magnificent device holder and put on the back, so why can't you have a, a note? - That's exactly what I thought when they put that shit in. - I was like, don't cars come standard with that now? It's like cup holder, no holder. - This is not necessarily another one. - It's fine. - I was just another drunk. - That shit would not be challenging if they did that. So, that is why. - I got you. - So anyway, so yeah, the-- If you don't have to exploit our broken physics, it's not the truth. - Okay, so you have to fight your magnificent missiles. - Magnus, hold on, let's build a little slower. Magnus in a, tells you you need to get to the, basically, first of all, Magnus in, what a dick, right? - Yeah, yeah. - Like, what a cool character telling you like, like, to, like, the second you get, like, you don't even remember this fucking guy. As a player of half-life, you're like, who the hell is this guy that's ordering me around? Who's ordering Eli and Kleiner around? Like, what gives him the fucking right? - Yeah, and another thing, you mentioned how Alex, you know, they would playtest and make sure Alex wasn't always telling you-- - What to do? - Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, whereas he is always telling you. Are you done yet? Why aren't you done? And also, Dr. Kleiner's a head crab, I don't know if you noticed, but he crawls in-- - Right at the beginning. - In the rocket. And then, like, I ran behind him and shut the doors. - Well, I'm, I'm actually pretty sure-- - I'm actually pretty sure. - I'm actually pretty sure that, that Lamar does go with the rocket. - He does. - Because that's the whole reason that they say, oh, there's like an eight pound anomaly that we can't explain. - He's like, well, that's well within tolerance. - Yeah, and it's because a little eight pound Lamar. - Oh, I totally didn't notice that. That's so funny. I didn't wanna watch shit. I just told Ryan something you didn't know, but half of it. - That's awesome. - I did watch Lamar go into the rocket, of course, but I didn't think about the eight pound mark. - Totally, that's Lamar. - That is hilarious. - He's the comic relief. - So, and I do like how Magnuson talks about like, you know that incident I'm talking about? - I love the microwave, you know? And it's like, 'cause I totally did that in Half Life One. Like you turn on a microwave and it shorts out and somebody's lunch. - But the thing is that Magnuson in Half Life One looks more like Dan Aykroyd than he does. Like Magnuson in Half Life Two. So, I don't know, the model doesn't really match up, but it still thinks he's a really cool character. - Well, neither does the Barney one. - That's true. - So, I also like it when you run into Uriah. - I was just gonna say, so we go downstairs to the bottom of the rocket, that's where you meet Uriah, which is, to me, a really interesting character. Number one, it's not like we've seen the Vortigaunts that work with humans before. We see them plenty of times, I mean, but this one-- - We even see the Vortigaunt with a push broom in this one again. - Exactly, but this one has a lab coat. - I like this one. - Has a lab coat and a security badge with his name on it. - He's security level nine. No, he's security level three, and Magnuson is security level eight. - Oh, and really, no, in mind, Magnuson is 11, and Uriah is nine. - That's wrong. - I would like a biscuit. - That's okay. Anyway, so the room where you first were Uriah lets you in, which is a really cool thing where you have to break the glass in the emergency entrance, and there's a sign that tells you not to, but anyway, he comes over and lets you in. In his room is the room where, if you look behind the cabinet that's just behind him, you can see the Dharma Initiative logo and the computer screen with the hatch that has the lost numbers on it. It's in Uriah's lab. So if you are looking for that, that's where it's at. - Uh-uh, I had no idea. - Yep, there's a Dharma Initiative logo. - So Lost is gonna end with Vortigaunts. (laughing) - That Vortigaunts are in charge of everything in Lost. That would be awesome. - Yeah, it's all a Vortigaunt dream. It's all Gordon Freeman's dream. - That foot on the statue, Vortigaunt foot. - Yep. (laughing) - All right, four toes. - So now you go through and you have to fight-- - Fight your way. - A shit ton of combine to close off the other rocket. - Mm-hmm. - Port basically. - You use secondary silo doors or something like that and you need to be closed. - That was a pretty cool battle. - Yeah, it's fun. - It's pretty standard fare combine though, battle. I don't know, it feels a lot like all the stuff you did in a Nova prospect or something. - Yeah, yeah, a little bit. I just, you know, it's a pretty cool space. - It is a cool space 'cause it's vertical and you're climbing up and like you have to fight them off 'cause they just keep coming down on ropes. - I just like the art direction in the space and this is why I was talking about Lost so much earlier. I mean, there's just all these cool looking consoles with blanky lights that look like they're from the late '70s or early '80s or something. Things that would be, you know, run on push cards and stuff rather than, you know, digital tape or-- - Yeah, you really do get this thing. - What technology is this today? - But that's the thing is they're doing it. They're launching a rocket. They're stopping the combine portal storm or they're closing the combine portal and they're doing it on this like old-ass technology. - Yeah, you got the sense that they had to just, you know-- - Strap together with the update. - Yeah, they had to just like pull together whatever technology they could find. - I mean, I'm hopping a little forward here, a lot forward actually, but when you finally do get a chance to launch the rocket, you get to press the red button that says launch, but there's on the thing where it says launch, there's a piece of tape covering up the A where it says launch instead of launch. It's like all these kind of little things that make it feel like it's kind of held together with duct tape. - It's ad hoc, yeah. - So yeah, you close the secondary silo, you meet up with Alex again. That's when you finally get to have the conversation with Eli where she mentions unforeseen consequences, which makes him go a little bit nuts. - Sort of. - Oh, not even in a trance. If you look at the computer screens in Eli's lab at that point, there's it's like kind of staticky, but there's a faint outline of a G-Man. There, there's more than one screen kind of aligned. It's like a grid of monitors. And he kind of like appears on all of them at once. So it's like almost a larger than life looking G-Man, looking down on you and Alex. - What? It's pretty cool in my mind. - Yeah, it's really awesome. Go back and look for the G-Man on that sequence. But yeah. - And so this is where you find out that Eli, Eli has been working with the G-Man in the past and that he actually received the sample that caused the whole cascade event from the G-Man. - From which is where, I mean, he tells him when he gives that to him to beware of unforeseen consequences. - And he still went ahead with it. - And then he also, and then Eli says like, I'm going to tell you everything just in a minute. - Yeah. - And you're like, oh, this isn't going to end right then. - Right then you know he's dead basically, you know, essentially. - See, maybe that's why Alex isn't his daughter because he doesn't want to say it in front of it. - What? (laughing) - The only thing that matters is that-- - I hate you guys for introducing that fucking crackpot theory now. (laughing) - Dude, it's going to be like some old boy shit where Alex Vance is actually Gordon Freeman's daughter. I'm like-- - But you don't find out until the first person's sex doctor boots. (laughing) - Oh man. - It's good to see that we're spoiling movies now. (laughing) - You can do that last week though. - Okay, I think we're at least just spoiling the same. - So you get to make it last time. - You get the Magnuson, you go with Magnuson. - Oh yeah, he shows you-- - You do the Magnuson training. - Magnuson device training part with the strider that's all like tied up on the, which is cool when you first see it, but is even cooler when the vortigaunt, when Uriah sends him back to a farther distance to let you take the harder shot and you realize that he's on these rollers and that the whole system looks like it's actually like functioning, mechanical and pulling him along. It's like, wow, they've put a lot of care into this little training sequence right here. There's like a whiteboard with drawings on it that say, "Don't you race that you're not able to use?" Show you how to use the Magnuson devices. It's all really-- - Are you stinking away? - You know, there's a lot of attention to detail and it's really nice and that's around the time where you get to look into the window and see two guys sitting at the computer that look like walking Jack. (laughing) Sorry. - And so now with the Magnuson device, you know, you're trained. - You got the piece on the back of your car so you can strap one on and go-- - And this is when the shit hits the fan. - To the coolest combat sequence in the game. - Yeah, they tell you to roll out to the sawmill to go listen to the battle plan. - Yep, yep, and the battle plan gets interrupted by the battle. - Right, right. And it's kind of like-- - 'Cause within the first second, I mean, they pretty much destroy the sawmill right off the bat. - And there actually isn't achievement for-- - Isn't there any secondary sites? - Yeah, for not leaning to destroy any building. - Oh, I actually thought that. - And how is that even fucking possible? - I actually thought-- - You basically was under the impression that the other ones-- - This is the first time I've scripted. - Ever gotten up. - No. - This is the first time I've ever saved one. I didn't even know that was possible. - Like usually it comes down to the fucking wire, like they destroy everything, and they're almost there. - I was playing this time, and I saw, I saved one of them, I must have saved it, and it like popped up a little like achievement tracker telling me that I was doing your right. I was like, oh my God, I didn't know I could save these. - This time, the only one that got destroyed was the sawmill, and it's because I forgot that when that first rider comes in, he's right there, so you have to be ready with your magnificent device while that strider is coming, while the guys are like trying to tell you about the battle plan in order to save the sawmill. But I didn't save it, and so I was like, fuck that achievement, but I did save all the other buildings. - I was gonna say-- - Oh, sorry, good. - I was just gonna say, the reason why this time, the reason why this playthrough, this wasn't my favorite combat sequence, is because I've got this shit so down, Pat, that like, I'm like, okay, here comes the strider with his 200s. - Oh, run over the two hunters. - It's extremely canned, and run over the two hunters, take out the strider. Run over the other two hunters, take out a strider. It was like, really, really easy for me. So, you know, but then again, I was playing on normal, it wasn't playing on normal. - I was playing on normal while, and for me, the reason it was easy was, instead of stopping to take out the striders, I would just run around, take out the hunters, and let them reach a certain point, then take them out, since they didn't have the support of the hunters, so I would just use my car the whole time to run around, kill guys, go back, and then just wait for all the striders to come up at once, because with hunters, they're basically-- - I mean, once you realize that the car is the ultimate hunter murder weapon, like, it pretty much just breaks that combat sequence. - I mean, I guess, for me, it was like-- - Unless you're fighting against the car, because I feel like I couldn't take out, I don't know if it's a hard thing, but it's not like I can just run them over, I had to run them over, usually with turbo running. - You have to be pretty fast, yeah. - And they dodge, so-- - And you're running into striders' legs, and occasionally a strider will just toss your car in. And it's not flat there, there's a lot of verticality, the geometry and rocks and trees around and stuff, so I found that I would be hitting turbo to run over one strider, and end up going way too far, or running into a tree and tipping my car over, and-- - I'm gonna get out and have it back over. - And then at that point, the strider's aware of my presence there, and he starts firing at me, and on hard, as soon as, basically, if you don't have shield, if you don't have have suit energy, it's over. - But every time you go into those buildings, they've been resupplied. Every time you leave and come back in, there's a full supply of health and shields. You just pick up right away. - It gets awful when you start losing the buildings. - Yeah. - As you lose the Magnuson devices from those buildings, you're like, "Oh fuck, I can't do this all the way back." - And you lose the ability to get health and supplies, because that's a huge thing, especially on hard, I'd imagine. - There. - This is also probably the most open-ended battle, and level in all of Half-Life 2. - And biggest. - Yeah, that's what I mean. - It's just a giant, giant air. - And it's a totally different scene than you've ever gotten in Half-Life before. - I mean, everything in Episode 2 really is, is like, they've never taken Half-Life 2 into a natural environment, or any Half-Life game into a natural environment, unless you count, like, Zen. - Right. - As a natural environment. - Well, before, I think they always just, they just figured they couldn't do it. - I mean, it had Valve ever done a game. Like, it took place outside of, like, a city or an industrial complex. - I mean, in Half-Life 1, you go into canyons and stuff, 'cause Black Mesa's supposed to be located in, like-- - In a Mesa. - And in Half-Life, and, you know, in Half-Life 2, you know, there are sections where you're going along the beach and you're in, like, sunken harbors. I mean, they're still buildings. - Still at the coast. - You still got the coast. - You still got the coast. - Like, sort of civilization, and that's something that, like, the journey to White Forest feels much, much less. - Right. - Like that. - Right, 'cause even when you're on the coast, you're just on a road on the edge of a cliff, you know? It's not like you're in the, kind of, this wide open forest meadow terrain area. - And it's still, like, especially on this playthrough, which, you know, games are just getting more and more crazy as time goes on, and it does feel like not that wide open to me. I mean, I'm like, okay, I'm just driving up this windy path that appears wide open, but it's really just a pretty much a straightforward path to get to the next village, to get to the next village, the next village, and so. But this last scene in particular is one where it does feel like, okay, well, I could attack this in a number of different ways. And as Arthur was saying earlier, you know, like many of the other combat sequences in the game, it ramps up, kind of, appropriately, until it's, like, completely insane by the end, and every, you know, striders are coming from every which way, and you really can decide, like, am I gonna take out the one by the crane first? - It's just sort of like this elaborate domino setup, where, like, it starts with one column that sort of splits into three or four thousand. - Right. - But yeah, it's, I don't know, it's an ultimately really kind of fulfilling final combat sequence for a Half-Life game. - Yeah. - Although, it doesn't feel like it is the final sequence, and it is satisfying, but you don't expect it to be the final sequence, because you expect that there's gonna be more, because Eli says, I'm gonna tell you about this stuff. - See, I never, well, I still thought the game was gonna end, because once they were like, "Oh, there's this helicopter." I was like, "Oh, okay, clearly the helicopter "in the boat that is going to be the next day." - Not only that, I mean, they've done a really good job since Half-Life 2 of saying, like, you know, at the beginning of Half-Life 2, it's like, you're very clearly heading to the Citadel. Well, you know, they've been, Alex is talking about White Forest from the very beginning of this game. - And the launch. - Once you make the White Forest, that's kind of gotta be it, 'cause they're telling you where the end is. It's, I don't know how I thought of it. And it's like, it's just a really pretty set. Like, the entire White Forest bunker has so much detail and love and care put into it that I feel like once you get there, it's like visual kind of eye candy. - Like Bob Denver meets a fellow at 13. - Yeah. - So, what? - Yeah, and then they, and so like, after you kill the Striders, you come back, they do the rocket launch, and suddenly, it's a nice beautiful sunset out for you to watch this rocket launch from. And that whole sequence was a lot of fun, too. Like, to countdown it. - Oh, one last thing. This is kind of dumb and I'm going a little back, but in the room where Eli tells you the story about the G-Man and, you know, when you're having your heart to heart, that's the one other place that I've noticed besides the Gravity Gun area, we get the Gravity Gun in Half-Life 2, where there's kind of a chained-off fence, and there's a bunch of boxes in there. If you kind of pull the boxes out and start moving around, you can find that old-school HEV faceplate cover that I was talking about from Half-Life 1, and you probably get the achievement, the flashback or whatever achievement for it. But yeah, it's in that room as well, if you want to find it there. It's a second place. - Horrors, take note. - One. - And so, like, after you launch the rocket and everybody's all happy, and Magnus basically has his orgasm, like, on-screen. - As like, Hartman. - Yeah. - Yes. (laughing) And after that-- He's like having a really hard time thanking you for helping him and talking about how you did an okay job, but really, it was the Magnuson devices that means it. The Striders basically kill themselves once, you know, when you got a Magnuson device around, so. But yeah, I guess, Gordon, you didn't okay. - To be fair, it's true. I mean, it's true. We used to shit out of firing six fucking rockets. - That's true. - I just love, and I love that they're sticky bombs, but they can't be called sticky bombs, 'cause that's cheapening, that they're Magnuson devices, that was set up just really hilarious. - And the, oh, back when the preview, 'cause I said I went to go see this game in a preview build, they hadn't developed the model for Magnuson devices yet, so they were using pumpkins as placeholders originally, and it was really fun to throw pumpkins at Striders and have them explode. (laughing) - That was the barn where you first see the overwatcher magnet, there's pumpkins right there. - Yep. There's another one. - There's another one. - Yep. (laughing) - Yeah, the pumpkin is a new object that wasn't in episode. - I was actually gonna ask if anyone tried firing a pumpkin at a hunter, because-- - I tried firing a pumpkin at a combine, and it didn't do anything. - Yeah, they just, they just break into pieces. - Yeah, they're basically like the paint cans, they're useless. - So you kill all the Striders, you've launched the rocket. Everything's looking good. - Your head is where the helicopter-- - The portal does close. - Yeah. - Which is awesome. - Where the helicopter in Eli tells you like you have to destroy the Morales. - Yeah, the whole ship. I mean, I don't know, I guess the whole ship is like, there was their test ground? - I think that sounds like it. - Just the ship, it was like the whole testing facility. - 'Cause they say that the ship and part of the dry dock all disappeared together. - That's so interesting. - Which is a reference to like, isn't it like the Not the Manhattan Project, with their-- - The Philadelphia experience. - Yeah, Philadelphia experiment, yeah. So, I mean, it really, and so clearly, Eli thinks that, you know, this can't be used, that, you know, if the combine finds out about this, it's gonna be terrible. Which makes the next scene all that more worse, because you realize that now the combine does know everything, but it's great because it actually gives a reason for them to be there when you and Alex get there in the next episode. - It's so frustrating. The one part that's so frustrating and contrived, you, I mean, you know what's gonna happen, 'cause you know that Eli's gonna die as soon as like, as soon as Alex has seen consequences, it's like his entire tone changes. - It's like he knows he's gonna die. - Exactly, he knows it's over. And he's got like, this last little bit of time to spit out this little bit of information. - So you know you're not gonna get it. - So the whole thing is, I mean, it's not like it's a surprising and it's contrived, but I really hate it when Dog runs off to go here, 'cause he hears something, and Alex is like, where are you going, Dog? Oh, he's so crazy. - Yeah, oh yeah, I know. - It's like, where the fuck did he go if he didn't take down some of these advisors? And the fact that he jumps in just at the last moment, right after Eli-- - Too late to save Eli, but it was the time to save. - It's just like, okay. - It's time to save Alex, yeah. - It would've been, and he could've had a really cool battle, there could've been a really cool advisor battle where Eli just got, you know, I don't know. - Oh, because the strider battle wasn't good enough for you. - Yes. - You wanted it? - Oh, I want it to be more. - I want giant maggot wrestling. - I want some chocolate, so I mean, like-- (laughing) - So yeah, I agree the setup is contrived, but the ending scene-- - It's a great scene. - It is so powerful. - Not gonna lie, I got a little teary. - Yeah, I know, it's like-- - I was watching, he got teary. I just got goosebumps with F of-- - Yeah, you feel it, man, and it's like-- - Goosebumps. - And when this, and the graphics were good enough when this game first came out that I was physically disturbed by it, he was like, oh God, that thing just-- - Not only that-- - He doesn't like-- - But he doesn't like-- - But he doesn't like crunchy sound right there. - Even after God comes in and saves everyone, the crying that the voice actor does, goes on for like a minute after the screen goes black. - Yeah. - But he keeps going. He's like, no, why, don't leave it. - Yeah, like, fuck. - And then it blends into like really sad music as the credit rolls do. It's like, totally the Empire Strikes Back. - Yeah. - You know, it came on this ad note moment. - Yup, yup, yup. And so, and then after that comes some of my favorite things about Half Life 2, which is conjecturing what's gonna happen next. - I mean, so-- - Oh my God. - Because like, I love it. - I love it. - From the associations that portal-- - With Aperture Science and Portal. - Because like, it's clearly that the Aperture Science Portal technology is something that they don't want to fall into the covenant hands. - Although, it's weird because when you played Portal, it's like, how did that gun end up? Like, 'cause Portal makes it seem like Aperture Science has been dead for a while when Portal occurs. - But that's the thing is it doesn't, Portal doesn't really-- - Portal timeline that kind of places it within the Half Life universe. - I mean, and that could usually be the computer like using these current subjects to send test subjects to this course over and over and over. - Right, I was just wondering if these-- - Some of the, if I'm remembering right in Portal, some of Gladys' dialogue states about like everything going to shit outside. - Yeah, that's what I was saying. It seemed to me that it was, it's after the Seven Day War, but before Gordon returns probably or something like that. - Or maybe even concurrent because like, the ship could be totally separate from the portal. - I assume that's-- - The ships, please separate. - Yeah, that's what I mean. It's like, it's fairly clear at the, in the final shot once you've made your way outside of Portal. - She's not at the Borealis, you know what I mean? She's somewhere else. And so, I don't know, yeah, it'll be interesting to see. My hope, I don't know why I'm crazy 'cause I really love the Portal Gun, but my hope is that it's not the Portal Gun, that's just-- - Maybe it's-- - That's some other-- - Maybe it's the Yodoro technology. - Maybe it is something good. - Do you think so? - I think we got a Portal Gun with limited ammo. - Maybe it'll be something like, maybe it's just something like the fact that Gladys is this extremely advanced computer and it's just like Gladys is running the Borealis. Something you can't let that technology fall in their hands, just saying. - I mean, that would be crazy-- - Yeah, but they talk about it being technology that can't fall into the combine hands, which implies, because it's always been about them trying to keep them out of our dimension, you know? So, it seems to me like the, if they can find the Borealis and they don't have to build these citadels to create these super portals or anything like that. All they need is what these humans already came up with and like, bam, they can just hop interdimensionally willy-nilly. - That's the thing is like there's so much work and time and effort, like everything you do in this game is to close this one portal. What if all you had to do is press a trigger? - Yeah. - Yeah, maybe it'll be even something that's even worse than a Portal Gun with limited ammo. Maybe it'll just be a Portal Gun with no ammo. You never get to use it, but they can't obtain it either. Because if they did, they can-- - So it's just a mulligan, it's not a mulligan kind. - It's just something you have to protect, but it doesn't do anything. - Yeah, it's a mulligan. It's just a do-over. (laughing) I'm a fucking idiot. - Yeah, I mean, it would be interesting if the AI was something that you encountered in the game and that was something that you and the Combine were both fighting against. - And Gladys is like fucking you up all the way through setting off traps. - It's basically like Half-Life Lemmings. (laughing) - I mean, there's just a lot of ground that they could cover. And I'd be curious to see if the G-Man has a more active role this time than he did before. - Well, the one thing he's had a more active role and well, at least in this game versus the other one. - Well, no, the one thing that I'm really curious about is that I wonder if Half-Life II is, I wonder if the Half-Life universe is almost at the point where I feel like a lot of TV shows get to that go on for too long and that where I feel sometimes like lost is at where there's just too much fucking mystery. There's no way they can wrap it up cleanly or nicely. So they're gonna answer some questions. The rest is just gonna be left open, you just have to deal with it. - I mean, yeah, I'm okay with there being questions they don't answer. - Right, but I mean, I just feel like there's some, there's sometimes where it's like, you keep introducing mystery because you enjoy the introduction of mystery and maybe there isn't a coherent ending to be had out of it all. And it's not like I want everything solved for me, but like in these kinds of situations, I find that in regard to the media that I absorb anyway, that the endings are rarely even close to satisfying. - The resolution that episode three needs is that the combine are kicked out of Earth and Justice Gordon is about to celebrate with everyone else who's plucked out. (laughs) Because Gordon can't, can't get, isn't allowed to enjoy that triumph. Gordon gets pulled out as an agent and is deployed somewhere else and that will be Half-Life III or whatever. - Yeah, I hope not. - I'd rather than just end Gordon's story. And I'd also, and for me, it's kind of like just personal like lore curiosity. Like I love delving into the lore, like to my fictional universes. And I want to know what the G-Man is and what his role in all this is. I don't want to just be like the mysterious stranger who comes and goes and nobody ever knows. You know, I want to know more about that. - I think that'll explain him. - I don't know, I feel like Valve probably feels like it's in their best interest not to explain what the G-Man is. - I just, I feel like there's, I mean, maybe I'm crazy, but there's a lot of things that Valve has done that have stuck with Half-Life over the years. Like keeping Gordon silent and, you know, making him be a walking turret with no sort of, you know, none of this sort of first person hand motion-y sort of stuff that it seems like they're not planning on changing that, that that's gonna be the way it is. - Well, at least as long as Gordon is the main character of the game. - I mean, theoretically they could do a Half-Life game without Gordon. - Yeah. - Because the G-Man does have another agent in his, in his repertoire, which would be the guy from "Posing Force". - Adrian Chippard. - Yeah. And actually what I was gonna say is that the G-Man actually played a much more direct role in what he was doing because he definitely used, in that game, you see the G-Man trap you. Like he will, at times directly physically help you out of situations in other ways, prevent you from leaving the scene. So, I mean, that could be Valve's new thing or they give it to somebody else and say make a game and this time he can talk. - I started talking about it last week, but I mean, we stopped, but there's a video that came out on the internet that showed Gabe Newell kind of giving a demonstration and asking questions to a bunch of deaf people who are sitting in a room with him. And he basically had kind of gathered this group of people to ask them questions. And primarily because I guess one of the ideas that they were throwing around was that maybe Alex had had a boyfriend previous to Gordon, someone from Black Mesa who was deaf. And so she had taught, she had programmed dog to learn sign language so that she could practice learning sign language with dog and then learn to communicate with this other character. And that at some point in episode three, they might or-- - Take your hearing away. - I don't know, well, it's not like you can talk anyway, but no, introduce some sort of characters that know sign language and have Alex doing some sign language as well. - I mean, maybe that's Chell. Maybe Chell will be in a certain period. - I mean, also like that, yeah, I watched the same videos. And another thing I got from it was also just sort of the, like a focus testing way of helping communicate game ideas to deaf gamers also. But yeah, yeah, yeah mentioning the story. - That's 100% yeah, they're definitely, I mean, he was doing it for game design reasons. Like how can we make gaming better for deaf people? - I mean, what was definitely a narrative sort of half life specific sort of thing that they were toying, right? - One minor thing that they did in this to make it more friendly to people that are hard of hearing is that the captions are now color coded to the person speaking. - Yep, it's a great, that great move. - You could say deaf, hard of hearing. - Deaf with a capital D, like, I just wasn't sure if you weren't saying deaf. I was like, it's not the same as-- - I mean, hard of hearing, like doesn't necessarily mean deaf, but our word.org. - Like for people, for people who don't hear so good. The captions are color coded, so now you can tell who's talking by the color of the text. - Exactly. - On a more concrete note, do we think we will fly the helicopter in episode three? - Nope, but I'm pretty certain that it's gonna start. I mean, I'm pretty sure it'll start with it crashed. (laughing) Or maybe in it, who knows. That's what I couldn't help but think this time is, oh man, the beginning of the next game, because the games always pick up directly where they left off for the most part, or after a blackout, a brief blackout, right? So, in the next game, it's gonna start, it's gonna be hard, Alex is gonna be, you know, really, really, really sad at the beginning of the game, and it's gonna be interesting to see how long it takes her to go from being completely crushed at the loss of her father to gung ho about making sure that this journey gets completed, because that scene seems like it would be a hard one to do if your character could talk, your character, so that she could have a conversation, but she has to go through that entire mood swing alone, essentially, unless they have dog come along for the ride, which would at least give her someone to a moat with. But alone, that could be a really tricky scene to pull off. - Yeah, definitely. So what have, so now that we've gone through like all of this, we've gone through the entire Half-Life 2 experience? - Once again, kind of bummed we didn't play Half-Life 1. I mean, it's not that big deal. And it's gonna make me wanna go do it. In fact, someone on Twitter was asking me, should you play Half-Life 1 normal, or Half-Life 1 source? My guess is you probably should play the original one, just to, you know, so you can see the water textures, the way that they are meant to be seen, and all their low res, crappy glory. - Or once you finish that weight as impatiently as we all are for Black Mesa source to be finished. - Exactly. - And then really, you know, then you'll get to see. - And for those who don't know, Black Mesa source is a fan-made remake of Half-Life 1 using the source engine, and completely new, and updated models, and textures, and all that. - Yeah, as far as I know, it's not like they're helping or anything, but with Valve's total blessing, I mean, they really want them to get into that. - Well, yeah, it's something that Valve doesn't have to do themselves next time. - I mean, I would miss if Valve doesn't have the bandwidth, I guess. - I wouldn't be surprised if it's not included with, however they decide to release episode three. - I can believe that. That would be really great. - I could totally see that happening. That wouldn't require it being done first, and I, for one, don't think it'll ever be done. Oh, Black Mesa source, yeah. - I mean, they're extremely close to being finished there, and alpha, as opposed to just development now. - But if they, like, portal it and brought them on with the team and everything? - Yeah, I'm sure that's why it's not done at this point, would be, I guess, they want to be brought on. That would, so-- - They're like, we'll finish it. - I don't know, I mean, Half-Life 4 was a pretty enormous game. - But aren't they, I mean, this is slightly on a tangent, but it isn't source being set up now, and it's like kind of a, not source. Steam is being set up to allow mods to be purchased and sold, where Valve takes a cut of it, and I mean, I've heard people sort of complaining and arguing about whether or not this is a good thing. - I mean, it's not just Valve doing that, though. I mean, obviously Blizzard is working on that as well. - True, I guess what I mean. It's like, for a really long time, I thought Black Mesa source is something that I would maybe eventually get to play and that it would be free, but now I'm thinking how maybe you get to play it, and I'll pay for it. And honestly, it wouldn't bother me if I had to pay for it, if it's really, really well done and gives me what I want, which is a little bit of new with a lot of old, but retouched and looking amazing. I mean, it might be worth it to pay for it. So anyway, I really hope those guys do finally buckle down and finish that thing, no matter how they, what it takes to get it out. It's something that a lot of fans would really like to see. - Really quick, does anybody have any favorite Half Life 2 mods? - No. Actually, I haven't played, like Half Life 1 mods, I played a bunch of those, but Half Life 2, I just really haven't played them. - The one that I thought that. - I know that, is it even a mod anymore, but like natural selection? I know natural selection 2 is out now, but that's not actually a Half Life 2 mod, is it? - No, I think it's a good version of it. - It's totally a custom thing in it. - The one that I'm interested in looking into, eventually, just not anytime soon, is called Synergy, which allows co-op play. - Yeah, a lot of people were complaining that we weren't playing the game this way. - But I mean, fuck man, this is about experiencing the developers' vision, not about experiencing the mod. Like, people were also linking the like. - The cinematic mod. - Yeah, the cinematic mod, and honestly, that shit just looks so bad. - It looks awful, what's the cinematic mod that replaces all the models and stuff from the game that makes it look more high res, but they, I mean, they really are taking liberties here. Like, Alex has her shirt ripped off, she looks totally different, has big lips and lips thick on, and totally different hair. It's like-- - I saw that, yeah, I totally saw that, because he thought that Alex wasn't good looking or something. - It's just like, wow, you have a view of good looking that equals what most people think of porn star looks like. - And also, I mean, they change the environments because they feel like the environments don't look realistic enough, and it just makes them all look weird. - Either way, that's not where we're playing, yeah. So, my, after going through all this again, it really did remind me that Half-Life 2 to date is still one of the best FPS experiences I've ever had. Like, the whole, the series of these three games, you know? It's more thought provoking, meaningful, and got me thinking about game design in new ways that I wasn't until I played these games. And I really think that Half-Life 2 has shaped my critical approach to games since having played it. - I mean, I didn't use, until listening to commentaries and things like "Lost Coast" in episode one, and I'm not even sure I've listened to the commentary in episode two yet, which is, now that I've finished it, just recently, I'm definitely planning to go back through it, but-- - But not anytime soon, 'cause this is the worst time of fucking year to try to do that. - That's true, but it only takes like two hours, three hours to make it through this, that game when you know what you're doing, especially, if I go through on commentary, I'll play it on easy, but-- - Yeah. - Anyway, you know, I didn't use words to describe combat, you know, the word arena to describe a locked off combat scenario in a game before I listened to that commentary. I didn't think about training scenarios in games to help you solve puzzles or beat enemies until I started listening to the way that they talked about games. And, you know, they've done just such a good job of making me as a, I mean, I can't talk about everyone, but me aware of game design in very like concrete terms. - All right. Are we-- - Got your professionally? - Yeah. - Yeah. - I have to poop. - We haven't decided on the next Game Club game. - Well, I mean, I'm still pushing for the thing. I have three copies of it. - By pushing, he means he's been acquiring copies wherever he can find them. - That's nice. - So, I'd still like to do the thing. - He's not excited. - I would do that. - It's not on Steam. - There is a PC option, though. - Yeah, there's a PC option, and I have two PS2 copies in an Xbox copy. - Is it backwards compatible? - It is. - Everyone's gonna want that Xbox copy. - So, I mean, we can discuss that. We can post whether we're in another potential options, or we just go with the thing. - I don't know. I've just been acquiring the thing for when we inevitably do. - I do do the thing. - I am vetoing not to the Republic before people start posting, begging for it again, because that game is still broken. - It's too long, too. - I could talk about Knights of the Old Republic right now. Let's do it. - Yeah, I played that game. I don't know if I could do it without working. - Yeah, but I mean, the PC version is still-- - Yeah, I know. - That sucks too, 'cause you can't-- - You can try to hack it to play in widescreen, but it barely works, and it's not fun. - Yeah. - It's too bad. - All right, well, we'll let you know what game we're gonna end up doing, so-- - Shenmue do. - Yeah, we'll probably end up just doing Shenmue do. (laughing) Thank you for listening, and along with listening and subscribing to our podcast and Rebel FM, you should also listen to our other Hammer Suit Partners podcasts, the mobcast at bitmob.com, and the Geekbox at-- - Geekbox.net. - Geekbox.net, as well as check out co-op at area5. - Work at Brian's Got it. - .tv, yeah, dude, I don't care. - You're a version. - A5.tv, and-- - Revision3.com/coop. - Yeah, 'cause not coop. - I need to go take a coop. - Yeah. - All right, thank you, so you, everyone, for listening. Please, you know, dig the podcast or something. - Thank you. - Thanks. - Thank you. - I love you. (dramatic music) (dramatic music) (dramatic music) (dramatic music) (dramatic music) (dramatic music) (dramatic music) (dramatic music) - It's embarrassing that that's the book on our coffee table. - He had prepared for this moment. The words glistened in his mind as he reached for his rectum. Quickly, he pulled it out. How could you pull your rectum out? - I want to invert it like a penis so you could fuck it. I didn't know you could do that. It tastes just like butthole. Yes. - That's the point. - What are you reading? - Using their terminology and it's almost, it feels like game design school or in a box, you know? They're given along with this free copy or it's for free along with this game and you just played that's awesome. - Well, in every industry has a vocabulary that goes along with it that people who are involved in that industry, whether it's fans or whether it's producers, are able to communicate with one another on that level 'cause they understand that vocabulary. But that vocabulary eventually reaches beyond that industry and it's something that you can apply outside of it. And valve through their development commentaries has provided us with this vocabulary that now we can use to talk to one another, that any gamer can use to talk to one another. And it's the same kind of thing that, and I'm grateful for that. It's the same kind of thing that I'm grateful for Ian Bogost for the vocabulary in his books that have given me, that have helped shape my thought. Things where beforehand I had to describe things in very round about ways. Now I have direct words and phrases that have layers of meaning that I can use to interrelate to one another. - An academia of half-life. - Yeah. (laughs) - At least they're trying, you know? Like in some cases that... - It's the same thing you get from directors commentaries on DVDs. - Exactly, it's like they're doing... They're learning from other industries and doing the best that they can and trying new things. I mean, just the fact that it's like, it's these nodes in the environment. It's interactive commentary, you know? Just makes it a little bit more exciting to go through and fun to enjoy. - As long as they don't do hidden bits of commentary, that's pushing it a little too far. - Has that happened yet? - I don't know. - I don't even know why you do that, I'm gonna waste a time. - It's your dick. (laughs) But I also feel like now going through all these games the second time, I'm far better able, and because we've done it in this setting, I'm far better able to recognize the situations in Half-Life 2 that ultimately aren't as successful in terms of the game's longevity. Like, some of the physics puzzles were really amazing in novel at the time, but they totally don't hold up. I'm like, I don't need this in games now. And it's like, yes, they were great for the time. And if I put my mindset in that time, great. But it's not like an endlessly lasting addition to the game. You know, it's not the thing that I'm gonna go back and say this is my favorite part about Half-Life 2. - To better game design. Like, it's just, it's like, it's sort of an explanation of how Valve got where they got or how they figured out where they're going. - Right, and it feels more like temporary pop art sections of the Half-Life 2 game design, as opposed to like the Mona Lisa. - But the physics themselves, I mean, at the time, well, really before Half-Life 2 came out, when it was announced, you know, that E3 in 2000, whatever, five. - Three. - Three. - Fuck. - Yeah. - I'm old. - Come on, man, they showed the trailer for this and the trailer for Halo 2 at the same E3. - Yeah, I know. Halo 2 trailer, single player, was like the coolest thing ever for one day. And then the Half-Life 2 movies came out. - Yeah. - Anyway, the-- - It was a competition to see who could cut the most out of the game. - Out of their game? (laughing) I'll tell you what, the bunch of Halo 1, 'cause none of that stuff was in the game. - Definitely. - I feel like finally with ODST, I get to play that demo. - Yes. (laughing) - Parts like specifically designed, so. - Anyway, the physics, you know, physics at that time seemed, when I saw that video originally, I was like, man, I've just never seen anything like this is the next crazy step forward. - Wow. - Matrices that float, wood that breaks. - It just was blowing my mind. - Mm-hmm. - It makes me really hope that Valve has another one of those kind of giant advancements in them. I mean, the Portal Gone in Portal was almost like that. It was mostly, but I think the more important thing was like a puzzle game that feels, that's played from first person perspective, and then the narrative told by the narrator that's omnipresent, all that stuff was just really interesting and fun and different, but it didn't make me go, wow, in the same way that those original physics demos of Half-Life 2 did, and finally getting to play through Half-Life 2 when it came out. So I wonder if they'll ever, if they've got something cooking- - I feel like that really opened the flood gauge to the concept of using physics in gameplay, and for that, I think Valve deserves all the accolades for contributing to that legacy. - Now when you play- - I'm just talking about some of the physics puzzles that are in the game themselves. - Oh, I know, like teeter-totters and stuff. No, I wasn't arguing with you there, I totally agree, but I guess it's just like, now when I play, I don't wanna throw the gauntlet down here or anything, but I play like a Japanese game, right, where they still are using those same kind of like non-physics, no physics in the world, like I was playing Ninja Gaiden Sigma II the other day before popping in Uncharted 2, just 'cause that's what I was playing next, and- - This podcast brought to you by Sony. - Exactly. (laughs) Hey, I play lots of, I just talked about ODST, man. No, it's the Uncharted 2 thing that keeps popping up. - Well, during our Half-Life game code. - The Game of Life. - Yeah, it's hard for me to not talk about it, actually, 'cause it really reminds me of Half-Life and time. You know, there aren't that many games that have AI characters that walk around with you. Well, Uncharted's another one that does it really well. It feels like it's very inspired by the work that Half-Life did with Alex, you know? Maybe I'm crazy, but anyway, Ninja Gaiden Sigma II, I was playing it and granted this is a remake of an old game, but not that old, and God, the environments are so non-interactive. Everything is nailed down, you know? There's very, it's nailed down in every once in a while when a crate does break and some fruits roll around on the floor, you're like, well, why did that thing break in this chair and table setup right over here that I just ran through just to be fair, but in Ninja Gaiden 2, like proper on 360, like you were interacting with a ton of severed body parts, like when you would fucking kick heads around and stuff like that, that's all gone. - True, true, I agree. And you know, you get that with enemies in a lot of games. - Yeah, I guess I'm talking specifically about the environment. - It's not as believable. - Right, and that's what I think Half-Life 2, the Half-Life 2 series has done for me is build the first kind of really believable spaces in games that are rendered to be somewhat realistic. You know, they look very realistic in terms of their shaders and the lighting, all the sort of things. - And they each tell a story and they feel like a place. - It's not that it's not stylized. I mean, in cartoony in some respects it is, but I mean, the lighting in general looks more realistic than it does in most games. And they pulled it off in a way that I just haven't seen elsewhere. - Yeah, everything has like a flat finish instead of like a polished sort of glossy finish. - Like Shawna Lee would say that it doesn't look like everything was shot out by the Vaseline monster. - Yeah, exactly. I mean, they definitely, there are parts that feel like they were shot out by the Vaseline monster. - But that's because they pretty much worked out. - We're shot out. (laughing) - You know what, sometimes I wonder if episode three might utilize some of the AI director from Left For Dead, not in the way that it would swam that you, but just in the way that it changed where the combine or whoever you fight. - You know, it's funny. I was thinking about that the other day too, because it was like, you know, the AI in Half-Life was, we were saying Half-Life 2 has bad AI. Well, the valve thing to do is to hire someone that does good AI to like solve that part of their process. - Or to subsume a smaller number of people. - Which is exactly what they did. I mean, they basically hired Michael Booth and Turtle Rock, which is, when I was there doing my original Left For Dead playthrough, Michael was there showing off the game. This was about a year and a half before Left For Dead came out and Doug Lombardi flat out told me then, he's like, man, we would have hired this guy two years ago if we could, but he's married and with kids and he lives in Orange County and he can't move his family out. So we just haven't been able to hire him. So they did the next best thing and bought his company and turned it into Valve South, basically. And I would love to see like combat that really used smart AI direction where they took some of the best parts from Left For Dead and used it, which is what they're, you know, they're hopefully using the best parts from Portal as well and bringing that into the Half-Life universe, you know, we might eventually get a much more complete version of Half-Life experience. - Well, yeah, and I feel like Half-Life 3 is going to have to be the same kind of project that Half-Life 2 was where they're intending to make the best FPS shooter of all time. - And even after the first one comes, they're gonna iterate and iterate. - Yeah, sort of. - One thing I wanna throw out here that is something that no one probably has much experience with it all is that I think I mentioned it earlier, when I played Half-Life 1 back in the day, Half-Life 1 multiplayer was really important to me. Aside from Quake, I wasn't very much into Unreal, but Quake and Quake 3 were my thing, but I played a lot of Half-Life 1 multiplayer straight up Deathmatch and used all of the great weapons and items which have been mostly simplified and we've lost a lot for Half-Life 2. Like, you know, there's no more laser trip mines. You know, you can't turn off the secondary fire, it was mistaken on the rocket, you can't use the secondary fire on the pistols. There was a lot of variation options, alien weapons like that cool B gun that you shoot. - So what you're saying is you want proper Half-Life 2 multiplayer in episode three? - No, well, Half-Life 2 multiplayer was released a couple months after Half-Life 2 came out and I thought it was great. There were two stages, it was pretty quickly thrown together. I mean, I've talked to some of the dudes at Valve about it and they basically said, yeah, we kind of threw it together, we thought it was pretty fun and we released it. Half-Life 2 was never intended to have multiplayer, but we just decided to make it. And I had so much fun in those stages throwing around syncs and toilets and explosive canisters. I was like, this really is genuinely new, no one's doing physics deathmatch. And here it is, being able to primary fire, shoot cars into like three dudes that are running your way and block their grenades as they're throwing at you. I mean, it's just a different type of multiplayer and it was really fun. So I'd like to see in the future, not maybe not in episode three, but maybe in the next Half-Life, whatever it is, I hope 17 years. - Yeah, I hope that eventually 20 years from now, before I'm dead, there's at least one more Half-Life multiplayer mode where I'm actually using the half-life weapons in a multiplayer context because it really is quite fun.