Gaming Half-Life 2: Episode Two

im still playing Portal. how long after the

Spoiler

19th level, where you had to escape

is it?

 

Just finished Episode Two, bloody excellent! Now Valve, when's Episode Three out??

 

its very very good but still too short it only took me 4hrs on medium dificulty.

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The plot twist with one leg dude revealing he too has had contact with the GMAN almost made me fall off my chair. I was not expecting that and it was so well done

 

To some of the people with spoiler tags above me do you seriously not know the names of the things you are talking about or are you just trying to make it less clear for people that haven't played it, but still read your post?

I also don't understand why you don't just put the difficulty up to hard before you play it through when you already know that it’s going to be pretty short. I like doing this with most games, because the game is always more fun the first time you play it through and often playing it through later on hard doesn't seem much harder because you already know where the hidden stuff is.

 

I honestly do not know the names, the bloke with 1 leg is Alyx's dad etc but basically I know Gordon Freeman, Alyx and Dog rofl

 

Eli Vance.

 

You make me so angry and sad. A team of hundreds of people work on a game like HL2 for years, crafting story and plot and manipulating and tweaking gameplay mechanic and you can't even remember the name of the main characters from a series which is in it's third/fourth installment depending how you count it?

 

You grumpy old git.

Have a cup of lol.

 

Grrrr

 

Years to write the story? More like a week or two

 

To actually come up with a concept? Yeah, probably a week or two. To write all the dialogue and work with the art and sound and design departments to carry that idea through from a single concept through into a fluidly told story with great gameplay but very stringent design rules (no speaking, taking control of character, 3rd part cutscenes)? Takes a lot longer.

Honest.

 

That last level is a lot of fun.

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...but I hear there's an achievement that has something to do with a gnome, so I gotta play through it at least one more time.

 

ST: yep, I found the 'item' you are talking about and laughed when I saw it...didn't think of doing anything with it though. Maybe I'll try myself.

Also, regarding little story quirks:

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...am I the only one who figured out Lamarr went for a rocket ride? ;-D

 

its ok, after a couple of pints i can probably recite the entire half life story word for word

 

Nope lol

 

Nope. Wonder if it messes things up or not...

 

phew, thank god someone else cares!

 

I thought that, too.

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Especially when I pressed the launch button and the countdown started, I was all set for, '5..4..3..2...... parp'. Oh dear, Gordon, looks like something's gone wrong, be a good chap and have a look will you, because everyone elses hands appear to have dropped off.

 

Fluidly told? They make it up as they go along

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tieing in portal with it all

Hell the chars don't even react when you shoot stuff at them with the gravity gun, I shot that little plant pot right in the face of the guy with one leg, it didn't even interrupt what he was saying, no Gordon you "four letter word" or him throwing it back at me, it feels stupid

 

I refer you to:

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?p=1582298&posted=1#post1582298 - discussion on the topic
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&ct...QNzflI6_tNKbTOejQ&sig2=SxZ5rPQqQXeHoNLPmKTpgg - the half-life timeline

It's not made up as they go along (mostly, I think some is). As for the rest of it, it's called gameplay. It's deliberate to stop the game either breaking or ending if you did that.

Sure, they could make a game which adapted to every single scenario, but you whinge when you have to wait for a year. You really going to wait decades?