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Half-Life is back you bastards

Started by popcorn, November 18, 2019, 11:22:13 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Famous Mortimer

It's been so long. Guns n Roses are like "damn, Valve took a long time with this one". Etc.

If I gave a tenth of a shit about VR, I'd be very excited about this.

Thursday


popcorn

I anticipate something relatively small-scale, 3/4 hours or so. Half-Life: Gaiden.

Playing as Alyx is not appealing, on paper. Presumably she'll be mute like Valve protagonists should be, which would be weird when she has speaking roles otherwise.

However it will be 5/5.

popcorn

This and Shenmue 3 in the same week. Bananas.

Thursday

But what if it's going to be an Alyx Vance dating simulator. It'll fit in with the rest of the Steam storefront.

popcorn

Quote from: Thursday on November 18, 2019, 11:49:32 PM
But what if it's going to be an Alyx Vance dating simulator.

That was Half-Life 2: Episode One.

Elderly Sumo Prophecy

Oh great a VR game. Just what the fans were clamouring for all these years.

popcorn

Quote from: Elderly Sumo Prophecy on November 19, 2019, 10:27:02 AM
Oh great a VR game. Just what the fans were clamouring for all these years.

I think this is the test. This has to be the revelatory VR game we've been waiting for all these years, the game that makes us shit ourselves and experience the future like we did with Mario 64. If it doesn't then they've fucked it.

New folder

And so, the cynical milking of the franchise has begun. Inevitable, in a way, yet I still feel empty and disappointed. One of the greatest games ever made, reduced to a mere vehicle for plugging VR (now almost entirely the domain of hentai and porn addicts), in order to prevent a Holy Trinity of Valve Hardware Failures, after the Steam Machine and Steam Controller.

Many key members of the crew that worked on the HL series left Valve years ago (including Chet Faliszek, Erik Wolpaw, Josh Weier and Marc Laidlaw, THE writer of Half-Life), with some stating that the company was becoming creatively bankrupt and unfulfilling to work for. Perhaps they have brought in fresh new talent to replace them, but judging by the people they hired to systematically ruin the brilliant TF2, it doesn't seem likely.

In case anybody hasn't seen it, here is the actual plot of Episode 3, with all names obscured for legal reasons. A few years ago, Marc Laidlaw became so frustrated with Valve that he decided to publish the canonical ending to the Half Life series, so that people could have closure and Valve wouldn't get the chance to ruin it themselves. So, as far as I am concerned, Half-Life is concluded and I'm happy with that.

Blue Jam


popcorn

Quote from: New folder on November 19, 2019, 11:53:32 AM
And so, the cynical milking of the franchise has begun.

Lots of weird assumptions in this post. I enjoy speculating and reading between the lines as much as anyone else, but your representation of these events isn't really fair.

Quote from: New folder on November 19, 2019, 11:53:32 AM
One of the greatest games ever made, reduced to a mere vehicle for plugging VR (now almost entirely the domain of hentai and porn addicts), in order to prevent a Holy Trinity of Valve Hardware Failures, after the Steam Machine and Steam Controller.

The jury is definitely still out on VR, but if any company is going to make a great VR game, it's going to be Valve. I don't think it's safe to assume this won't have the same level of polish and ingenuity as the previous HL and Portal games.

Quote
Many key members of the crew that worked on the HL series left Valve years ago (including Chet Faliszek, Erik Wolpaw, Josh Weier and Marc Laidlaw, THE writer of Half-Life),

Some also went back - like Wolpaw and Jay Pinkerton (who co-wrote Episode 1 and 2 with Laidlaw).

Quote
with some stating that the company was becoming creatively bankrupt.

Did they? When? Who said that?

QuoteA few years ago, Marc Laidlaw became so frustrated with Valve

As far as I can find, the only thing Laidlaw ever said about why he left is:

"There are many reasons, most of them personal. An outwardly obvious reason is that I'm old, or anyway oldish. My nickname when I first started at Valve in 1997 was 'Old Man Laidlaw.' The little baby level designer who gave me that nickname is older now than I was then. Imagine how much older I am! I had the unbelievable luck to fall in with the kids at Valve when they could have just dismissed me as an old fogey who didn't know shit about videogames. The only Zelda I'd ever heard of was F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife. They taught me everything. I had a good run but lately I have been feeling a need for a break from the collaborative chaos of game production, and a return to more self-directed writing projects."

Quotethat he decided to publish the canonical ending to the Half Life series, so that people could have closure and Valve wouldn't get the chance to ruin it themselves.

Did he really do this to sabotage any future HL games? Where did he say that?

I think it's a bit much to suggest that this is the start of a cynical milking of the franchise when Half-Life 2 was essentially a trojan horse to get Steam installed on everyone's PC, with Episode 3 effectively surplus to requirements once they'd reached their desired level of ubiquity.

popcorn

Surely the franchise was most cynically milked with the bizarre Japanese Half-Life 2 arcade game?



Norton Canes


HL was always a game with an infrastructure intent. Same again here. If anyone can nail VR, it's these cunts. Their record is so ruthlessly successful that they won't gamble the Valve name on this if it's a cunner.

MojoJojo

My main concern about this is that VR isn't a very good fit for first person shooters.

Elderly Sumo Prophecy

Barf Life

(Cos of the potential VR motion sickness, see?  Do try and keep up).


Jerzy Bondov

Remember Half-Life? It's back, in Pog form

greenman

Quote from: Elderly Sumo Prophecy on November 20, 2019, 10:52:32 AM
Barf Life

(Cos of the potential VR motion sickness, see?  Do try and keep up).

Motion Sickness is a preference for the habitual voyeur of what is known as.


Famous Mortimer

I would quite like to see one of the bonkers bunny-hopping speedruns done in VR.

Zetetic

Quote from: The Boston Crab on November 19, 2019, 08:18:58 PM
Their record is so ruthlessly successful that they won't gamble the Valve name on this if it's a cunner.
I can't even remember what their card game is called but that.

popcorn

Quote from: Zetetic on November 20, 2019, 06:35:14 PM
I can't even remember what their card game is called but that.

I assume Boston Crab was referring to their flagship single-player things like HL and Portal. The "classic" sort of Valve product.

But yeah they've had some flops. Like the card game, and Ricochet, dunno what else. I think their hardware hasn't worked out either has it? I'm not sure exactly what their expectations were for the Steam box or whatever, but I've never even seen one in my life. Or the controller.

I have not given a single shit about any game they've released since Portal 2. Fuck off games where you click on little men! Fuck off! I also found both Left 4 Dead games soulless and boring, but I think everyone else likes those.

Why did the card game flop exactly? I have no idea what the story is.

Zetetic

Why do any "digital collectable card" "games" not flop?

I DESPISE pedantry when the general point is so obviously correct. It's not a pub quiz you TOTAL CUNNY MONSTER.

Zetetic

If that situation arises, feel free to point it out.

Zetetic

QuoteI think their hardware hasn't worked out either has it?
No, such that has become a go-to-talking point. (Including about this game, in this thread.)

I don't think that Valve can't produce good things, it's just that it doesn't really seem to encourage it these days beyond a certain kind of polish. (Which Steam could do with a lot more of, really.)

popcorn

Quote from: The Boston Crab on November 20, 2019, 06:40:54 PM
I DESPISE pedantry when the general point is so obviously correct. It's not a pub quiz you TOTAL CUNNY MONSTER.

It's OK I am here to explain for you.