Marek

Half Life 2 First Impressions

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In answer to fuzzy's spoiler question

The headcrabs are Xen wildlife, and seem to attack anything that moves, including other Xen creatures. The Combine use them in their bombshells, but they are probably considered a nuisance if they get out of control.

I don't know if the Combine are from Xen, but they at least have a presence there. I think the combine tech and their blue-black metal are supposed to be an Earth-based adaptation of the factories in Xen.

More discussions like this in the spoiler thread.

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Are the Combine some sort of crazily evolved Xen/Human hybrid? I figured at this point that they were a sort of lesser-tier perfection of the crazy hybrid zombie/soldier guys that appeared in the later part of HL1. You know, wussier footsoldier versions. There's some graffiti somewhere that indicated this...

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God this is annoying. You guys should label these with "only read if you're up to <Chapter X>" or something.

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One day idle thumbs will be redesigned, and the forum sidebar will receive a sizeable functionality overhaul.

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Just from a quick glance, a lot of these posts look like they belong in the spoiler thread...

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No problems with the authetification. The occasional sound lag and the loading times are negligible on my machine, and I am running it on highest texture quality with most of the relevant bells and whistles. Alas, my monitor is dying so I can't see the game in its full glory -- but ladies and gentlemen! -- the little glory I've seen! I played with my mouth ajar...

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You know, when they say the grav gun picks up everything they mean it. I just tried to snach a live nade out of the sky, and it worked. I was impressed. (I hadn't thought of it before. For some reason it didn't occur to me.) And using it to grab those flying buzz saws is great. I was hoping i could make them turn on the enemy troops though.

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Bummer you can't use the grav gun to pick up bodies like in that tech demo...

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Bummer you can't use the grav gun to pick up bodies like in that tech demo...

That was actually hugely disappointing to me. I really wanted to launch them all over the cliffs and out to sea (to Grandmothers house we go) at ultra high speeds during the segment where you're driving down the coast stopping at the little shitty Combine-infested settlements.

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i started playing hl2 around a week ago and enjoyed it a lot (till now --> now i'm driving around at...uhm...chapter 7...i think). everything is awesome...great game...etc...

but these ravenholm-levels were crap. i hated them! so...so...boring :innocent:

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Yeah Ravenholm was

disappointing to me too... aside from the first couple times I used the sawblade, and the bit at the end when you and the father guy are fighting alongside in the cemetary.

I would have liked if they'd injected more mini-stories in that segment. Why was there no Combine there? I mean, even dead combine? Aside from the zombies, why didnt Alyx and the scientists go that way anymore? It didn't seem that threatening. Alyx acted like it was super tragic, but it wasn't that much worse off than any other part of the game except for all the crazy defensive electric traps. I liked how so many other parts of the game told little mini stories by way of the things you find that have been left behind... Ravenholm didn't have that :(

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Yeah, I agree with the complaints both about Ravenholm and not being able to pick up bodies. Ravenholm really felt tacked-on to me, and that was also one of the biggest points my idiot retarded console-playing friend made when he wasn't too much farther than that in the game. I hope that the priest guy will show up later in the game to provide at least some kind of connection with the rest of the game, but I sort of suspect if he does it'll be a lip service "Ah, here's that wacky Gregorio killing a zombie or maybe getting killed to elicit some quick emotion". If you've beat the game, don't spoil it though. :shifty:

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this insane priest-guy was - beside the monotony in the ravenholm-levels - in my point of view the most disturbing thing in hl2. i mean he is standing around and shooting at zombies. all day long. great! and...but...why? wtf? - but at the cemetery the game started being really enjoyable. i loved the following scenes.

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What I'm wondering is why there are so many zombies there. Apparently only one guy lives there, so where are the zombies coming from? Don't the headcrabs have to leech onto a living person? Surely the situation has been like this for a while since everyone knows that nobody goes to Ravenholm, so it would seem to me that there wouldn't be anyone left to zombify anymore.

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The whole point is that everyone except the priest has turned into zombies, and he's set a goal for himself to kill everyone. The story behing Ravenholm is that there was so much resistance there that the Combine just blasted lots of those headcrab containers into it let the rest be history. The only part I felt was tacked on was the mines. I felt it's like they decided there should be some mine levels between Ravenholm and the next resistance base, but no one was available to make them, so they just threw together something quickly.

But that's just me, Mr. Jesus.

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Bummer you can't use the grav gun to pick up bodies like in that tech demo...
Slight spoiler...

Keep playing.

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I'm playing the game on easy and I'm glad that I'm doing so - I don't want to die every three seconds. Man, I'm terrible at First Person Shooters.

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Slight spoiler...

Keep playing.

Grav gun seems to affect the antlions, but that is pretty much that...

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OK, I've been playing for a while now, and the question I have is... what is really going on? It's not all that clear to me. Some stuff is, but... well, I guess I'll find out. Eventually.

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