Half-Life 2 Spoiler Thread

[BigJKO]

Loved it. 'Nuff said.

Also, hidden Vortegon?

just after you destroy the chopper you speed through another gate and right in front of you there are two pipes - one of them is open. Drive under the pipe , jump on the hover craft and get in the pipe. Then leg it to the end where you'll come to a cave fulla goodies and a vortigaunt cooking headcrabs

and Vortegon speech transcript:

We remember the Freeman. We are coterminous. There is no space between us. No false veil of time or space may intervene. We see you still in Black Mesa. Clearly we see you in the Nihilanth's chamber. We bear witness to the bright eternity of the Nihilanth's demise. You leap, you fall, we see you flash beyond the barriers. For a brief time you joined with us. You are one. Between the worlds. Communion of the vortessence. And that other: a deeper mystery. No deeper than the void itself. We cannot forget those whose cords you cut. Forgiveness is not ours to bestow. Unity of purpose, the shattering of common shackles, a single road we tread. Your song we sing and shall sing for eternity. No matter the consequences of this struggle. You have brought us grief and jubilation beyond measure. We are there still, in observance of your final stroke. While our own lay scattered at your feet, you severed the vortal cord that bound the Nihilanth to life, and to us. That sharp spur of our hope has not dulled to this day. For once the lesser master lay defeated, we knew the greater must also fall in time. With you beside us, a talisman of victory, the day of freedom draws nigh. Your bright face obscures your darker mask. We call you sib, although your mind and meaning are a mystery to us. Far distant eyes look out through yours. Something secret steers us both. We shall not name it. We have endured these chafing bonds for eons, yet a single moment of further servitude seems intolerable! How often have we slipped our yoke, only to find it choking us again? Let this war end in either total victory or our extinction. No further compromise shall we allow. We take our stand beside you, here, upon this miserable rock. The way ahead is dark for the moment. What seems to you a sacrifice is merely, to us, an oscillation. We do not fear the interval of darkness. We are a tapestry woven of vortessence. It is the same for you if only you would see it. How many are there in you? Whose hopes and dreams do you encompass? Could you but see the eyes inside your own, the minds in your mind, you would see how much we share. We are you, Freeman. And you are us. We shall prevail. We have survived worse across the ages. Our cause seems hopeless. Our finest poem describes it this: Gallum galla gilla ma. We have lost all dear to us. Where to now? And to what end? This is more than anyone can bear, but we will persevere. Our life is worthless unless spent upon freedom.

Oh, and what does Breen mean when he says "Were you not aware that your services were available to the highest bidder?"

[MrChlorophyll]

Speaking of Dog, what ever happened to him? Either I missed/forgot it, but the last I recall seeing it was when he hopped on a drop ship and flew off, sparks flying.

[Jake]

At what's almost the end he and Barney show up, and Dog throws some very large somethingorother through a wall or something? Maybe he chucks it off into the distance. Anyway, fun but not mind blowing, and then you never see him again.

[ysbreker]

err...

Dog breaks the citaldel and makes sure you can sneak inside, by lifting part of the big moving wall.

[Marek]

Yeah why does everyone miss that somehow?

Speaking of Dog, his City 17 action scene is clearly one of the best moments of the game. I laughed too hard.

[Jake]

Oh yeah I remembered that too, I just couldn't remember what order things happened in. I couldn't remember if that was the citadel wall or just another one of those giant city-eating machines earlier in the game.

[Ryam BaCo]

can anbody explain THAT:

right after the first effort in freeing eli: why did alyx let this girl, who betrayed alyx, gordon and co enter the coordinates to dr. kleiner??? she could have done it by herself!

[Jake]

can anbody explain THAT:

right after the first effort in freeing eli: why did alyx let this girl, who betrayed alyx, gordon and co enter the coordinates to dr. kleiner??? she could have done it by herself!

This was really annoying. It seemed a lot more cheap than Half Life 1. These events... in Half Life 1 if you don't like what any character is doing, you can walk away, or just screw it and bash them in with the crowbar. Gross as that is, it did fit a lot more than the completely non-interactive cutscenes in disguise that were peppered throughout HL2. As much as I loved the HL2 cutscenes, it was ridiculous to me that you couldn't intervene at moments like that. That example above was one of the few times I felt that way since most of the other cutscenes I was restrained or in a non life-threatening situation, but occasionally one of those popped up and left me feeling pretty disappoinetd.

The game forced story on you without your ability to interact. The only time this really happened in HL1 was when Gordon was passed out on the military stretcher being dragged to the trash compactor. Otherwise you were free to do whatever you wanted whenever you wanted (well, within the scope of the rails the game had you on the whole time). The story of HL1 wasn't as interesting or broad, but the upside of that is they didn't have to keep slipping in any huge gaps in the gameplay to explain things.

[BigJKO]

and my favourite, digs at other upcoming games:

"They're never gonna make a Stalker out of me!"

That's of course, not a cross-game reference, as it just refers to a combine-enslaved human.

[Erkki]

That's of course, not a cross-game reference, as it just refers to a combine-enslaved human.

Why would they call 'em stalkers?

[BigJKO]

I have no idea why, but according to the Half Life Saga site the human slaves are called Stalkers.

What kind of Combine beside the Overwatch exist? The Overwatch soldiers are modified humans with cranial and biological Combine implants. Other captured humans (that are not fit for combat) are converted into Stalkers (or simply Human Slave), who work for the Combine.

[SiN]

i know this is an ancient topic im bring up from the dead, but i JUST finished HL2 last night so i had to make some sort of comment ...

GREATEST. GAME. EVER. there! it simply had to be said. i havent quite decided whether this knocks Grim Fandango from my #1 spot, but at worst it'll stay comfortably at #2.

the ending IMO, was simply amazing. i beat the game at around 3:30am, headphones, no lights, so i was totally immersed into the thing ... my jaw was wide open during the ending bit. just as everything was going down i wondered "how the fuck are we gonna get out of this one?" and damn, valve handled it with bloody style!

My money is on Dog being the player in the next add-on pack. The way he hangs on to that ship and is flown away makes him perfect for the job. you have a whole plot about him being in some Combine base, perhaps even meeting Alyx on the way ...

i was a tad bit disappointed with the lack of story, but i didnt mind it too much ... i kinda like the whole "i have no bloody clue" feeling. i think that HL2 was simply laying out the story for HL3. you have to keep in mind that HL was never meant to have a sequel, it was never meant to be as big a hit as it was. so when HL2 came around, i think Laidlaw decided to use it as the basis of a new story line of sorts.

which is why im putting my money of HL3 being ridiculously epic & having a strong storyline. the framework has been set. and i get the feeling its gonna be similar to the HL1->HL2 transition ... due to your actions at the citadel, a bunch of shit happend, your not quite sure what did happen when u first start the game, but it'll come together slowly.

whatever it is though, i cant friggin wait for HL3!

SiN

[peb]

I just finished it too. I don't know if this is sacrilege but I actually liked it more than the original. I just felt more compelled to finish this one maybe because there seems to be more of a noble purpose to this one whereas the first was really just survival. I think a corrupt government makes a better enemy than misunderstood space aliens (I mean the Vortigaunts turned out to be slaves in the first one so now I feel bad for killing so many of them there).

Although HL2 was kind of oblique, I still think I got a lot more out of this one than the first where half the time I wondered what the purpose of all of it was. Between the resistance's comments to you and Breen's speeches, you pretty much got the idea. But damn, if HL3 is the last one, they better explain a hell of a lot more (especially the G-Man) or people are going to be pissed. Well, at least I will.

[Trithemius]

Loved it. 'Nuff said.

Oh, and what does Breen mean when he says "Were you not aware that your services were available to the highest bidder?"

I wonder if G-Man might not be a 'handler' for some kind of cosmic "deniable assets" organisation with mercenary inclinations. Breen mentions in one of his propaganda broadcasts to the Overwatch forces that Freeman is a theoretical physicist, and doesn't have any military training, and also that he has been somewhere where he would not have been able to get any.

IIRC Breen also says something about "Getting you first, next time"? Admittedly, I was a bit spaced out while playing the Citadel levels though...

[baconian]

yeah, this guy brings that up.

I'm wondering what they're going to do with the story now, given that most people (not me) appear to have hated the zen levels. It seems likely that HL3 will feature alien locations. Maybe some 2061-type space station yokemyjigger?

[Trithemius]

yeah, this guy brings that up.

I'm wondering what they're going to do with the story now, given that most people (not me) appear to have hated the zen levels. It seems likely that HL3 will feature alien locations. Maybe some 2061-type space station yokemyjigger?

Perhaps a parade of alien landscapes, each stranger than the next all tied together with the common flavour of the intrusive Combine aesthetic?

It'd be neat to creep around weird alien urban environments I reckon; toss alien vending machines around, take cover behind alien playground equipment - that kind of thing.

[jokemaster]

It's something you find behind some tanks on Highway 17. I don't know exactly what it's about, but I'm thinking it's some kind of evolution, like the Combine has some ideas for what the next "step" is or something.

Has anyone read childhood's end?

IMO I think the combine was ammassing every species it conquered and used it to conquer the next world.