Half-Life Finally Got Meta
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 มิ.ย. 2024
- Patreon: / leadheadyt
Discord: / discord
Second Channel: / porkbrain
Twitter: / leadheadyt
Gordon Freeman has always acted as a bringer of gaming revolutions. Do we need Gordon to bring about those revolutions, or can Alyx fill those shoes?
Again, sorry for the various issues with the footage. Recording high quality VR footage can be a real hassle.
The music in this video is from the Half-Life 2 OST by Kelly Bailey - เกม
All I’m saying is gmans “employers” are totally Valve Software
oh. That's a good twist. The ultimate ARG.
imagine we see Portal 2 characters in HL: Borealis
They authorized him to... nudge the script? Hm? In a particular direction.
WOW
In Half Life 3 G-man introduces us to his employer... Gabe Newell
The hype for half life 3 is so high that valve literally doesn't need to advertise it at all.
At this point, Gabe could walk on any stage at any game event with no music or intro, hold up a piece of paper that says "half life 3, , release date Xmas 2021" and then walk off the stage and the entire crowd would go absolutely crazy and every gaming website would blow up.
No gameplay footage, no trailer, nothing. And the game world would lose their shit. That's power.
he wouldnt even have to say hl3 just "its finally coming at the end of 2021"
@@Harmoniou-s "november 2021"
Imagine this. Some dude is just in a coffee shop waiting for his order. GabeN comes up to him and whispers, "Half-Life 3, bitch. Holiday season"
Why 2021? Valve doesn't work in years they work in decades, a more realistic time frame would be 2033
No no, he just would need to show 3 fingers and that's it
They made an entire game, just to get rid of one event.
More works of fiction should pull off retcons like that.
at least now we can start the usual routine of waiting until valve makes another game
At least it wasn't some half-assed blink and you miss it retcon.
Now that could be a good inspiration for star wars
@@necrobynerton7384 It's funny because it's the same game we've already waited 13 years for.
"Release your franchise, Ms. Vance"
"Good. As a consequence of your actions, Epistle 3 is now over, and Half-Life 3... now lives."
Basically this
Half life alyx isnt episode 3
This entity will continue, and this entity will not.
@@oofingberg ya but it does change the story from the end of episode two leading to the draft script of the third game be coming noncanon. Thus letting valve have the creative freedom they need to conclude the story their own way.
@@nickolascrousillat4265 i mean that's right but i really don't like it when people say hl:a is hl:3 although it doesn't continue the story
Valve out here loading a previous save file IRL.
gordon: doesn't have a character
everyone: this man is the best character in all of gaming
The same goes for most silent protags. Link, Doomguy, ODST Rookie, Mobius 1 even Master chief to a degree.
@@49mozzer rip my man rookie :c
Its all in the movement. Movement can tell you a lot about someone without using any voices with it. Doom 2016's opening where doomguy shoves the monitor aside after being told all the death and destruction was somehow "worth it" to the uac is a perfect example. Link constantly does it in, say, wind waker for example.
Gordon is special, though. when moving him around and doing whatever, it becomes easy to forget that YOU'RE the one doing it. Get fully immersed and take the game seriously, and everything you do you'll attribute to gordon.
because he is you, he is me, he is all of us, he is everybody who has ever played half life
Because you become them
valve just went big brain mode
Valve always goes big brain mode.
Valve does something right for once, huh.
big brain time
@@cybr69lol if it where only once then why is valve so big ? lul they fucked up once thats it.
@@Kiwoeoe Ah yes, the anticheat is totally perfect, and all of the bugs in CS:GO are just coding mistakes, the lack of TF2 updates are just because they're totally busy, the R8 revolver incident happened because they made a mistake for the damage, AUG week also happened because it was totally a mistake after all,
Maybe the real freeman was the friends we made along the way
🥲
"We tell stories of Gordon Freeman as if he's some kind of mythic figure."
He runs at Doom Guy / Jedi speeds and takes down armies with no formal training. His crowbar is now as iconic as Doctor Who's sonic screwdriver, Macgyver's paper clip, or Snake's cardboard box. A seemingly innocuous everyday tool laced with limitless possibilities.
I wouldn't call a sonic screwdriver: " A seemingly innocuous everyday tool laced with limitless possibilities." but ok lmao
dude i dont even know those things his crowbar is more iconic
Everytime I see a crowbar I think of Half Life, and every time I see a character with glasses using a crowbar I think of gordon. It's insane.
Limitless possiblities = beat the shit out of people
Limitless... Potential.
"Good. As a consequence of your actions, this entity will continue, and this entity will not."
I like to see that as G-Man/Valve fully acknowledging that fans are already making games inspired by epistle three.
As a person who messed around in Source SDK while trying own hand in map making, it was on the mention of term "entity" when the meta-puzzle of the ending got solved in my head: in game development in general and in Source SDK documentation and devwiki in particular, "entities" are objects that are placed on the map geometry, and they cover wide variety of things - from light sources to models, _including_ NPCs...
@Wyatt Murphy You makes sense for him, he ain't small fry.
@@DrCranium Exactly, G-Man represent the Source (and GoldSrc, and Source 2) engine, so it's obvious who his employers are
@@Maxine07 Actually, "the Source" wouldn't be a bad name for their potential in-game appearance. A bit on the nose maybe, but I like it.
I really liked this video, but I think it's a bit harsh on what Epistle 3 really was, or what it represented. It's not that Epistle 3 kept the hanging story from concluding, but rather *Epistle 3 was released because the story couldn't be concluded.*
In a recent interview, Robin Walker recalled that by the time Episode 2 was at the focus of development, the team realized that the episodic plan wasn't gonna work. With each new episode the team wanted to add more content and new ideas, and with so many deep changes and engine work needed the plan to work on each episode concurrently didn't seem viable.
Eventually enough time had passed with enough projects canceled or abandoned that Valve was stuck in a tough spot. Too many years had passed to make a third episode in Half Life 2's style and engine, but the cliffhanger had left fans in huge suspense. Concluding this plot in a third Half Life game would go against the series' revolutionary goals - it would be underwhelming for Half Life 3 to just go back to an old story thread and setting. Imagine if Half Life Alyx ended as she brought down the vault, and then a decade later a new game explored the conclusion of entering and freeing the G-Man - many original fans would have already moved on, and new players wouldn't want to jump in at the end of a narrative arc.
This is why Laidlaw released his Epistle 3 outline - because that conclusion just couldn't be made. This story outline gave fans a look at how the Borealis mission could have likely played out, but never directly would. I really liked a lot of what his story had covered, from Alyx's darker behavior after the trauma of Eli's death, her selection by the G-Man over Gordon, the surreal nature of the Borealis in travel, and even the overwhelming scope of the Combine becoming clear. Much like HL:A, Epistle 3 had a meta angle to it as well, ending with Gordon pulled to a beach somewhere in time, unable to fight but no longer controlled by anyone, concluding with the entire story written almost literally as a letter to the fans. This gave the character and series closure in a time when it looked like there was no hope for continuation.
The ending of Alyx confirmed that this thread couldn't be continued, and in my opinion handled it in the best way possible. A different continuation of Episode 2's ending would have overwritten this story, and the countless mods, games, and art pieces that fans have been creating since. With the future changed, the darker path of Epistle 3 isn't invalidated, but instead an alternate future that's been avoided, and the series has room to continue in new and revolutionary ways.
Well said
Thank you fam didn't wanna have to chime in on a subject I only had cursory knowledge on, while still understanding the misconception of epistle 3. I remember when epistle 3 came out and how much it meant to the fans to finally have closure on a series they were positive was dead in the water.
"As a consequence of half life alyx, this timeline will continue and this timeline will not."
This comment just made my day.
So perfectly written.
Start a channel or write a book about HL :)
I agree, also epistle 3 was release after over a year of Half Life: Alyx development, which started in 2016
"I am in high... defini tion Mr. Freeman."
someone pay that one voice actor to do that
Idk about the og actor, but I bet Gianni would be up for it...
What about the guy who did G-man in hunt down the Freeman he killed his performance
@@bobmartin9918 Japanesebushbaby is very good at G-man
LeadHead: "Forget about Freeman"
People who know the soundtrack: Mu§ik
Isn't it also the title of one of the chapters in HL1?
@@saenskur2825 And line said by HECU officer in both HL1 and OP force.
^
explain please. spent a while looking thourhg hl:a ost titles and nothing hints to freeman. And all the "ost" is lame uninspired ambience.
@@cate01a I disagree. Considering it wasn’t Kelly Bailey, I thought it was pretty similar but with a new spin on it. I really enjoyed it and in my opinion Half-Life’s OST is mostly just ambience so even if you think HL:A is just ambience so was HL’s for me.
9:22 delightfully quiant lambda symbol there.
omg yes !
Also noticed that the Y in the HL:Alyx title font is an inverted lambda.
Jesus that is a very hard to notice reference...
I laughed out loud from excitement when i saw the crowbar and the lambda symbol when i played the game, such a nice touch!
This is Marvel level attention to detail.
“Only the occasional Prey, Resi 7, Death Stranding” honestly doing a disservice to the killer indie scene nowadays. so many classics have come out of no name studios in recent years
DUSK is honestly the only thing that comes to mind.
BirdsEyeView Okay, here we go. Undertale, Rain World, The Witness, Hat in Time, Return of the Obra Dinn, My Friend Pedro, SUPERHOT, Hollow Knight, Hypnospace Outlaw, Enter the Gungeon, and I could just keep listing amazing indies. This is a just a sliver of insanely good indies that came out in the last five years alone.
@@leadcreekmusic I'm actually playing a really good indie game named Celeste while watching this video, so I'll just toss that one into the ring.
@@Minimize501 night in the woods, don't forget that one
@@leadcreekmusic Monaco, Braid and Hotline Miami, while not released in the last 5 years, are also pinnacles of the of the Indie genre that lead the way for Indie games to become much bigger, for example.
Thank you for the spoiler warning.
I think the implication in this video that Epistle 3 was an obstacle to Episode 3's was a bit disingenuous. it had been a full decade since Episode 2, long enough that Laidlaw's NDA had expired. While we can't speculate as to the inner mechanisms of Valve Software, after 10 years it seems more likely that the Half Life property was simply considered too risky because of the unreasonable expectation the lengthy delay built (see Duke Nukem Forever, Daikatana, etc.). The publishing of Epistle 3 actually allowed Valve to wash their hands of the story arc, since it explicitly stated that that plot would never be explored in game. With expectations lowered, Valve had the breathing room to release the smaller-in-narrative-scope HL:A, setting the stage for the series to return.
TL;DR Epistle 3 was the opportunity for HL:A and the series to resurrect itself, not the roadblock that had to be overcome.
Well, you're a really well articulated walrus.
Hard to disagree with you sir
The real question is... ¿where is Adrian Shephard?
In half life ravenholm he was to return, so it's possible that they still have a plan for him.
True, it's interesting to remember that Shephard wasn't recruited as one of the G-Man's pawns, but rather detained because of the tampering he witnessed and ability to survive against all odds. With Eli swearing to take on the G-Man, and the Vorts' ability to interfere with his stasis, I wouldn't be surprised to see Shephard pulled out somehow for a spinoff.
GMan just needed him out of the game or his following actions would ruin GMan's GPlans
@@jamesklark6562 he's a real G-man
sitting in his G-land
making all his G-plans
for G-body
I would like to see him make a come back and him and Gordan have a Vageta - Goku like relationship with each other. Where Shephard hates Gordon at first but then they are forced to work together and end up becoming mostly friends. Then they fuse together and become Gordrian Shepman
Bold of them to assume that everyone read the final episode, I didn't even know it existed until right now
I agree. If they think it’s been spoiled and spoiled so badly so they can’t make it, that seems odd. I would guess the vast majority of people who buy pc games don’t know about it but when one is focused on it, it probably is that everyone around you knows so it seems like many do. Maybe there’s just a different reason it wasn’t made.
@@pfmcdermott1 they kept trying and failing to make it, and I think Epistle 3 was the nail in the coffin for Episode 3 ever happening. That made it so it would have to be Half Life 3, not HL2 ep 3. Not everyone knows of Epistle 3, but it's definitely enough that it would be a disappointment if they kept that story.
That Hunt Down the Freeman comment is GOLD.
it isn't due to epistle 3 that Valve had issues with continuing the Half life series. It is because the ending of Half Life 2 episode 2 did not afford a good continuation of the story. Valve had to fix the ending of Half Life 2 episode 2 before they could continue the story.
I have a hard time believing Half Life Alyx's story in its entirety was written between the time epistle 2 came out and the november it was announced
but then again valve's "writing" process is super unorthodox and accommodates for the kinds of changes that would brickwall other productions.
"DId not afford a good continuation of the story." ... That's interesting. I thought that Alyx's ending was much more of a dead end. It completely undoes the emotional climax of the series, and then redirects all of the momentum away from the Borealis to Alyx's current situation -- where is she, how do we get her back, and all the other unspoken questions about her own perception. To me, it changes trajectory -- but not to a better story, just to a different one while ignoring the problems that the first one STILL presents in this case.
@@erik7317 the way I see it Gordon Freeman had no real character development left at the end of E2. Alyx on the other hand had just lost her father. Epistle 3 is mainly about the development of Alyx, as a character, and is nowhere as strong a story since the main character is not important in it.
The ending of E2 also made little sense in regard to the Gman instructing Alyx to tell Eli to prepare for unforeseen consequences. What were these consequences? Elis death? the Borealis? In both cases it makes the ending cliff-hanger feel like it is solely justified by having emotional impact but not in furthering the story.
What HL Alyx does is flip the entire scenario so that it is actually about Alyx losing her father. We start the game being told that he dies (in E2) and being send on a mission to save him. At this point we know that he is not dying in this game and that we will be successful in freeing him from the combine. But then we end the game by actually saving him from the death we all thought we knew was coming. Alyx gets hired by the Man and disappears leaving Gordon to be highly motivated to get her back. The story is no longer about getting rid of the combine it is about saving Alyx (Which we as players are also motivated to do, because we have "been" her).
The Gmans speech about unforeseen consequences now makes sese as these consequences was that Alyx would disappear and Eli, being her father, naturally cares more about that than anything.
@@erik7317 The way I see it, as of episode 1, the Half-Life series became about the Vance family. Alyx and Eli became the actual real protagonists.
Besides, the way the "twist" of HLA actually slots really fucking well into the other games justifies it for me. Like, there's a bunch of throwaway lines and small moments all the way back to half-life 2 that all seem to lead right into this moment of G-man dropping gordon for Alyx. Hell, that was the original plan of the ending of ep3 according to Epistle 3.
I think you're missing the forest for the trees. It doen't quite undo the emotional climax, it replaces it with something I believe is just as intoxicating.
@@xalener I was about to argue with the "undoing the emotional climax" bit, but no, you're right.
A lot of people are looking at this all wrong; they see the game doesn't go forward in time much after Ep2, they say it adds "only 15 seconds to the story," they think it's a side game.
But no.
Just because it takes place chronologically between games and isn't about Gordon, it is not a side game. At the very least, if you skipped from Ep2 to whatever comes next, you would be SO confused about the Eli thing. And even besides that, Alyx adds so much to the world and, yeah, the story, even if it's not after Ep2.
HL: Alyx may not have a number, but it IS, in a sense, Half Life 3, it IS the next main game in the series, not a side game, and should be presented as such.
Like... no one says The Lord of The Rings is a little side-story to The Hobbit that doesn't matter much. Not even close! (In fact, a lot of people seem to think the opposite, which is also very false.)
The point is, Half Life Alyx is NOT a side game, and it SHOULD be played after Episode 2, despite seeming like a prequal.
(I had a friend play a handful of minutes of Alyx before I warned him to play it after the others, and the instant he saw Eli and heard his name, he said he seemed to remember Alyx saying he died or something. I tried to be vague in my response, but that had already been ruined a bit.)
I find it interesting that kidnapping Alyx as a teen, didn't erase the subsequent events from the old timeline. Until the point at which she intervened. So Gordon's still met her as an adult. Eli's still been with her up to the point where they got captured. The only person who won't remember is Alyx.
Well, That one Theoretical Physicist killed a creature akkin to a god.
To quote another highly influential game from decades ago: "such a grand and intoxicating innocence."
Beginning of Gordon's career: "Okay everyone, here's your homework. Do algebra problems 1-21, just the odd ones since the answers are in the back of the book."
End of Gordon's career: "Okay Gordon, kill an alien god. Then overthrown another alien empire"
I still love how the ending was basically Valve saving their own asses, being able to do a proper ending to the games when they're ready.
Interesting thoughts, your original premise seems to suggest that you see Half-Life as a vehicle for change. By inference that would mean that Valve is a vehicle for change. By the end you've conclusion seems to disagree with that premise, your argument is that all it takes is any developer with sufficient drive. It's never been about Freeman, or Half-life, or even Valve. I agree with the latter thought more than the former, probably due to me not having emotional attachment to half-life in the first place.
Valve does have the advantage of limitless resources, which is something that no other developer can say, due to Steam. That gives them the freedom to take as long as they want to get it "right", so whatever new games they come up with should be whatever it is they want to show. But at the same time you can argue that any future Valve success will be just as liable to the games industry degrading into commercially safe mediocrity as it would be due to Valve's innovation.
The question isn't whether a new half-life will be successful, the name is enough to carry any game with it. Rather the question should be whether they can actually change the premise of what a modern game is. That'll be much more difficult.
Too long didn’t read
Valve are famously innovators, but I think even they realize that every game they put out can't be a giant leap in innovation. The question is likely less "How can they innovate to justify making a game" and more "How much can they generate interest within the dev staff to make a new game within a specific franchise". The problem is, ironically, how much freedom devs are given at Valve to work on what they want to. Working on another game is reportedly as simple as moving your desk to where that game is being worked on. This means if there's not a lot of interest to develop a game, it doesn't get made. Typically what motivates them to finish a game is a cool idea for a game mechanic they want to see realized, something like the Portal Gun or Gravity Gun. If a game doesn't feature anything like that, they are liable to lose interest and a game could go from slow progress to outright cancellation.
Valve likes to make things that are new, fun, engaging, and interesting. This makes new Valve games quite rare, but when they do come out they tend to be quality experiences.
@@SikerScrapyard There's a number of different ways "Gaming Revolution" could be interpreted. You could take it to mean technological innovations, or you could take it to mean doing new and interesting things with the gameplay. It could mean many other things as well. The vague nature of the statement is something I wouldn't be surprised if he did on purpose specifically so that it could apply to so many things as needed.
@@SikerScrapyard Honestly there's absolutely no way "solving major problems" is the only condition for releasing a Half-Life Game. Opposing Force, Blue Shift, Decay, 2 Episode 1, and 2 Episode 2 all break that mold, which is a majority of releases in the franchise.
@@Crow_Rising i guess it's because they're expansions to a title?
Glad you mentioned Prey 2006. It is a good game, and it predated Portal. It could have been great if it wasn't for the "death system" though
Explain?
Valve makes to many master pieces
@@Joshulties don't forget about Ricochet my friend
Honestly Valve has the best track record of any big game company. They don't make many games but the ones they make are masterpieces (except for that one we don't talk about).
@@Joshulties oh no...
The sole thinking that the "Epistle 3" is how Half-Life "was supposed" to end shows a clear ignorance of how Valve make Half-Life games.
I'm surprised at how many people interpreted it as the "script" of the Episode 3, or something similar. Specially when it was pretty obvious that it was more of a letter from Laidlaw about himself and the fate of Half-Life than something else.
gaslighting much
It was the main writer's origial idea for the ending, so it's a very valid thought.
Valve doesn't know how Valve makes half life games, and you pretending to know makes you sound like Tyl0r.
I love HLA, but I'm trying not to think too hard about how it "retcons" stuff because it may well be much less interesting than what Laidlaw had in mind in ep3, I hope it isn't, I hope it isn't just a time travel retcon shtick.
remember when valve just fuckin redid half life 2 because it got leaked
@@PolythenePam0451 They didn't...
@@Smile-wd6rz they did, half life 2 beta it's a completely different kettle of fish
Hey I saw my server on that list! Another great video, and it summarized my feelings perfectly. Valve covered the nearly impossible task of making a new half life game in a clever way. That ending gave me a lot to think about. Now we gotta see how valve picks all this up from here. Half life 3 confirmed?
Here from a youtube recommendation. That's not very common for videos with smaller view counts, but I'm glad the algorithm brought me here cause this is a cool channel.
I had no idea about any of this, even after watching an Alyx playthrough. The way Valve avoided being bound by Epistle 3 is kind of genius, and I'm glad you were able to explain that in such a compelling way.
They were pretty much bound by their own episodic model. Epistle 3 was merely closure.
If anything, epistle 3 was the reason why valve could start fresh on their own separate timeline
Imagine knowing that no common announcement for hl3 would be enough so they make a whole state of the art game just to announce it (i know it wasnt just to announce it, let me dream)
Imagine making the first in game gordon model and floating vr hands just to blow the players minds. that ending holy shit, was the best fan service i've ever seen. the mofos did it again.
Such a great video, I was honestly expecting it to have thousands of views, keep it up!
Imagine if we wait a year. Episode 2 gets updated and you see Eli alive
but you can't really argue, that adding Gordon freeman would make it a lot better and a lot more conclusive, than other characters as Alyx, Barney, or Adrian Shepherd.
That ending to Alyx gave me goosebumps. I waited over a decade to see where it goes. I can't wait for the next HL. ;D
Excellent video, great job with the points!
I'm glad Valve managed to lay the foundation for next Half-Life games this way. Reminds me of how Portal 1 was updated in its ending to make way for Portal 2. Here however, it was not an intrusive retcon that was just a direct change of an existing narrative. The change for Half-Life was implemented into the narrative, making it happen within its own world rather than having it be changed by the devs, breaking the 4th wall and the immersion. This change was put together in a way that made sense in-universe. So I say they did a clever thing, as you said - it was impossible to continue with Epistle 3 nor ignore it. This path they took doesn't ignore it but neither goes with it.
That said, this happened so not because of Epistle 3 if we were to blame something. Marc Laidlaw released Epistle 3 BECAUSE it was never going to be made. So its not like we would have Episode 3 in 2020 if Marc didn't release Epistle 3.
If Alyx is put into stasis at the end of Half Life: Alyx, how does Half Life 2 happen? Is that game now on another timeline without Alyx? or does Alyx wake up with limited memory of the GMan incident and continue as normal up to the Episode 2 end, where immediately after Gman takes her out of our dimension as Eli say "She's gone Gordon!"?
Probably the latter. I don't see how the entirety of HL2 could happen otherwise, and I don't think Valve wants to un-canonize all of that.
probably, G-man took episode 2 Alyx out and everything in HL:Alyx just "didn't happened"(replacing everyones memories or just changed everything) after Alyx make that choice, of course, if Gman have the power to manipulate multiple timelines under his/its "employees" agreement...
It's more like him taking Alyx didn't occur immediately. What likely ended up happening was that G-Man erased her memories of him shortly after saying that she was hired and left her presence. Yet making sure she was able to be influenced by him for certain scenarios, like say the first scene you encounter with her at the beginning of Half-Life 2. When we reach Episode 2, past Alyx's actions take place and as that event is occurring, during the likely chaos of the situation, G-Man quietly steals her away into stasis.
Gordon Freeman being in the vault is a metaphor as the next game will be about Gordon your freeing Gordon from the clutches of Epistle 3s story your freeing Gordon from half-life 3
Before we get to the gordon game, we NEED half life: Dr. Coomer
you know that character exists because of a locker , that locker exists because all the lockers were the names of the dev team of original half life (except for freeman ofcourse) one of the employees who's name is literally Greg Coomer who still works at Valve and also contributed in this last installment Half life Alyx...
i do sometimes wonder what he thinks about the Dr coomer fame
@Pye22 when did i state anything about gender? :o is mossman also a character based on a developer? because i doubt it the only reason the locker thing happened because it was a subtle nod.
nontheless i agree, for HL2VR but the AI is self aware we need one of the dudes to play mossman
though its going to be a bit harder to pull off as the npcs there atleast not the generic rebellion/citizen npcs all play a major role in putting the story forward in a scripted event
killing them off while an event is happening causes the interactions to stop and a path that should open doesnt open.
@Pye22 i did get it, would love to see it happen lol
Will that game involve ropes?
@@TranscendentLion That you can use for big pits?
if valve got rid of gordon freeman hl would never be the same
Except, it was when you play Half-Life: Alyx.
@@zenithquasar9623 hl alyx is a great game, but the best moment of the entire game is when you are handed the crowbar after credits, freeman is the main protagonist and the next game will have freeman in it
@@greenaidgelal6865 To me, that was definitely not the best moment. It was great. But I was more invested in moments before it.
yes. it'd be like the USA suddenly throwing away their flag and replacing it with something completely different
Half Life is Gordons Story. Replacing him with a female protagonist and stating she's more powerful that Gordon ever was is very 2020. Gotta have dem Whamen's be strong and brave!
You're gonna get big
Adrian Shepard as next half-life protagonist confirmed.
I never thought about it that way, with G-Man being Valve getting their hands back on Gordon for Episode 3, very good video!
I can't bring myself to buying a VR headset because of one game, but watching the walkthrough made me feel warm an fuzzy inside. You're absolutely right - the main ingredient to a great game is the love and passion of the devs. It runs like a thread through every sound, object, environment or piece of dialogue. And right from the start you can feel how much passion and attention had gone into ALYX. This rendition of City 17 is incredibly immersive and authentic. It's especially noticeable for me, since I'm actually from Eastern Europe. I recognize those old-timey metal food containers and the typical tacky soviet furniture. I can recall them from my childhood. Props are always overlooked in AAA games, but here they're done so well, you may as well stand still for 5 minutes holding one in your hands and looking at it from each angle. Valve's artists took the initial vision and went all out on it, without cutting any corners.
This is a game EA or Ubisoft would never bother to make. Valve itself is standing with one foot in the grave of soulless corporate complacency. Chances are there won't be another revolution this time, but at least it was nice to be reminded of what gaming used to be like in its heyday.
In this sad times for me at least, the fact that the youtube algorithm recommended the Bioshock video made by you I'm starting to have a weird vibe about my thinking choices, stuff around me start to make more and more sense.. alas I think I'm also going really Meta. Subscribed!
Leadhead, you beautiful bastard. I watched your HL1, HL2, and portal vids, saw you had an Alyx one, and went and watched the gameplay all the way through just to watch this one, even though I was saving myself from spoilers until I actually played through it in VR. The story was incredible, and gave me hope for the first time since 2007 that this tale could have an ending. 15 years, waiting for a glimmer of hope. It's here. And your breakdown was excellent. Thanks.
I've found your channel yesterday and have been watching alot of your Videos and I have to say, you are very, very underrated.
Keep it up my guy!
Those ass posters have quite a lot of Scene Economy
This man... Every single other sentence.... Said Half-Life quotes from around every game. God damn you are a WONDERFUL MAN!!
just binge watched 4 of your vids about portal and half life (theyre my favorite games lol) and your rants are clearly well thought out and amazing. Subbed!
imagen if they release shepard in ep3 ...
Id love it since Ive always wanted a continuation of opposing force
"Games were being made with such love and passion. It was the polar opposite of today"
Ok, so I've been seeing this pop up from time to time for years now. Ironically enough I remember it being /especially/ common in the late 2000s era you're referencing as The Good Old Days. So here's the thing. You ever think that maybe this isn't a gaming problem? Maybe the things that interest you have changed. Maybe you don't always have the time or focus to invest the same way. Maybe the negatives feel more obvious because nostalgia tends to bury the complaints of the past, or the direction conversation on the internet has moved emphasizes the negatives more and more. Maybe it's just gotten easier to be cynical.
But let's really examine what we're saying here, because it's basically the lynchpin of the whole argument being presented. Right now, I can investigate cursed household objects in an invisible non-euclidean office building that intersects parallel dimensions. I can go be a psychic traumatized PI in a depression-era city slowly being consumed by cosmic horrors. Lead a band of survivors across the ruins of their country in the vague but earnest hope of maybe finding a better home somewhere in the wild. Be a rebellious hacker trying to expose and bring down an oppressive system, or a post-post-apocalyptic quasi-stone-age hunter-gatherer in a world of robot dinosaurs, have a darkly sarcastic grudge match with the retro-futurist corporate overlords of a distant human settlement, go on a wacky and occasionally world saving epic fantasy road trip, explore planets literally no human has ever seen before, work together with someone to escape prison in the 70s, railgrind on power lines while shooting old vinyl at cartoon zombies, or yes, deliver mail and sneak around ghosts in Death Stranding. All this just out of this gen alone.
Hitman doubled down on open ended systemic clockwork. From Soft quietly and then not so quietly defined an entire new subgenre of action RPG. Fallen Order gave us some of the best lightsaber combat ever and Insomniac gave us one of my new personal favorite iterations of Spider-Man. Shadow of Mordor showed us a new way of approaching enemy behavior. Ninja Theory blurred the lines between AAA production and indie freedom. Isolation made the Alien scary again. Elite: Dangerous gave us a Euro Truck Sim like meticulous and meditative look at the lived-in mundanities of space commerce and exploration. Wolfenstein of all things emphasized dramatic context and worldbuilding while Doom redefined it's combat in a very specifically layered, intricate way I've seen few FPSs go after. There's a turn based tactical shooter where you play as /Mario/. And we're on the verge of getting everything from a Feudal Era samurai epic to remarkably detailed cyberpunk streetcrime to funk-punk-grindhouse-Groundhog-Day-Dishonored to I can't think of a snappy way to describe Kena: Bridge of Spirits but it looks rad as all hell.
I'm listing everything like this because sweeping generalizations are easy and attention grabbing, but the truth is almost always more complicated and almost always lost as a result. The gaming landscape isn't "space marines and mercenaries." It's God of War and LEGO Star Wars and Pokemon and a bunch of tournament fighters I suck at and a bunch of anime games based on things I've never heard of and cowboys and Titanfall and Cooking Mama and platformers and MMOs that finally learned to stop trying to copy Warcraft and Yakuza suddenly deciding to be a turnbased RPG and yes, whatever the hell Death Stranding was.
We've done a lot since Bioshock, Prey and Timeshift, even if we're only talking AAA spaces. And you can absolutely love, like, criticize, be apathetic to, or even outright hate any or every last bit of it. Everyone has preferences and no one likes everything. But by the same token, no one's experiences are universal. Everything you don't like /will/ be enjoyed by someone else, and in this case very probably a lot of someones. Dismissing that accomplishes nothing, and implying that your experiences are the fault of some mass, generalized lack of passion and vision that somehow swept across the entirety of a diverse and complex global creative field containing thousands of people in the handful of years it took for you to noticed you'd stopped enjoying yourself the same way is.. well, pretty statistically unlikely if nothing else. But more accurately, it's more than a little unfair.
Half Life can and almost certainly still will be a force for refinement, inspiration and revolution. The mark Alyx will leave on the VR space if nothing else is pretty much guaranteed to be undeniable. But maybe the point here was really less about what Half Life has meant for gaming, and a bit more about what it's meant for you. Which is cool. But the real emphasis there is your passion, not devs or fans who happen to be invested in things you might not be.
That Hunt Down the Freeman joke was absolute top tier though. Now /there's/ a gift that will never stop giving.
Hot damn
Not reading your novel
@@MrLordofgames Good for you?
I think as far as the "with more passion" thing goes, he was talking about the publishers than anything. EA for example, doesnt give two shits if the game is good, it just wants more, more, more money, at the expense of everyone developers included
Valve has shown that, yes, you can still make money off of passionate projects, and single player games, things which AAA publishers would make you believe are all total garbage. Just look at konami and how they axed Silent hill PT. A game that by all rights was good looking and promising that got ruined for no reason.
@@fusrosandvich3738 Honestly even that isn't really an accurate comparison. Valve isn't a publisher, they're an independent developer with a near infinite money printer in their shed. Of course they can take the time to only do things they're passionate about and polish them until they're perfect. Very few people are lucky enough to be where they are and if there were more, of course we wouldn't be having this conversation.
But sure, let's put that aside for a second. AAA publishing absolutely has it's problems. I'm first in line to admit that. It's got things that no one should ever have signed-off on, things that should have been fixed years ago, creatively, economically, culturally, whatever. But even saying that, I don't buy that everything is as dire as some people make it out to be. Most of the examples I listed came out of AAA publishing and there were a lot of things I genuinely enjoy I didn't even mention. Even EA did A Way Out and Fallen Order, single player passion projects with no additional monetization, and by all accounts Squadrons is following the same lead and that's not even full price.
It's one thing to say we have a long way left to go and quite another to say we aren't even moving, and that was my whole point. Valve is doing amazing things but they aren't alone in that and we don't need them to prove anything being supposedly proved here. It's already been proved.
Time travel plots: Allowing scifi to be postmodern without breaking the fourth wall since 1895.
Love this as a video essay, doesn't overstay it's welcome and gets its point across convincingly and succinctly.
Resurrecting Eli is a horrendous decision. His death in Episode 2 was so impactful and resounding, but to undo that with a silly time travel subplot just seems like a hail mary. This is what happens when you don't have Marc Laidlaw writing your story.
Great video man, as always!
I totally agree. I played World of Warcraft long enough to see the difference in a game where the developers love their work and when that love is not there, therefore the quality of game play on WoW has diminished since Cataclysm (or some would say before)
The love Valve has for Half- Life is why I still love the Half Life more than any other game.
I haven't got around to playing this yet but I'm not worried about spoilers, but hoo boy.
6:26
The prison, the suspended walkway leading up to it and the observation area you started in?
That's all laid out EXACTLY the same as GLaDOS's chamber from both Portal gamers.
Thanks for the great video. This made me indefinitely more excited for the next half life story
I'm just saying, I called what was in the vault like halfway through the game
I saw the trailer when it came out, remembered how they've put Lenin in a sealed train to Russia in 1917, and knew "weapon" means bad guy and that it's the Gman in there. When they started saying that Gordon is in there, I knew it's deceiving again. But still enjoyed every minute of it, the ending was still surprising.
@@IonutBilica Definitely. I knew Gman was in there, but didn't expect... THAT
I knew there was a gman scene in this game so the second I learned there was a person in the vault, I knew it would be him.
For some reason i still believed it would be gordon even though i did say to myself "imagine it turns out to be gman, that would be one turn of events"
I figured early on that they were retconning stuff so my dumb ass actually thought it was Gordon
Oh hey I just saw you go from 4.99k to 5k! haha
I feel like Valve's dedication to Gordon Freeman undercuts the revolutions they're trying to spark. From Half-Life 2 to Half-Life: Alyx, we've heard endless discussion in-game about how cool and how strong and powerful Gordon Freeman is, and in a way it's like Valve is saying "we're the heroes, you can count on us" when the reality both in-game and IRL is that both Gordon and Valve are just the spark for change, that all the big changes are a result of many different individuals coming together to make a difference. In half-life 1, Gordon didn't have real backing behind his exploits, he had to scrounge for resources off the backs of his dead allies. If it wasn't for the many scientists who died in Xen before him, he would've never survived. If the people hadn't rallied behind him in half-life 2, he wouldn't have gotten nearly as far as he did.
But an amorphous crowd of individuals isn't good for brand recognition.
This also allows the episode 3 fan games (Boreal Alyph and Project Borealis) to continue, because I don't really believe the ending of Episode 2 is not cannon anymore, it still is, these two timelines are the same with one twist: Gman's intervention. So I think Valve have deliberatly done this for 2 possible reasons: not upset the fan base for retconing a beloved cliffhangar, and to see the pontential of the teams behind said fan games. Valve has allways taken interest in these modders.
We need a Gordon Freeman, now more than ever
I wasn’t around for the old era...
But I’ll hopefully be here to see the next
Dude I’m obsessed with your content. Keep up the great work 🤟
I just subscribed. Your channel is gonna boom eventually cause of this.
Still hoping I can play for Gordon Freeman. This character means a lot for me. Because I was him all this playthrougth
Alyx's supercharged gravity gloves is Vortigaunt lightning. I've only heard one other YTer state this connection outright, and as awesome as it is, it's still not as OP as the gravity gun, or even the unlimited gluon gun in Black Mesa.
I like to think that the resonance casade didnt just affect the game world, it went beyond the page so to speak. Gaming changed forever when that chamber exploded :)
thats a really cool way of thinking about it
notch moment
omg when they showed hl2rp on gmod my heart melted.
Gordon Freeman, A man.
A voiceless stand in, a blank slate, an idea waiting to be put into action.
Gordon Freeman, In my opinion, Is simply put, the human spirit of revolution to overcome impossible odds.
That or I'm just talking outta my backside, it's five in the morning and I'm exhausted
Holy shit dude, this was such a great analysis, but you forgot to mention that the one Gman called ”unwilling or unable” must’ve been Marc Laidlaw.
Man, that ending made me cry. It's probably one of the best endings in any video game I saw. The way it builds up, the way it looks, the way it sounds (jesus fuck Alyx has the best sound engine and sound design I EVER HEARD). I couldn't see the jackshit in headset though, cause tears, you know.
Also... Gordon is one of the most iconic characters ever created because he's character is told by the world he occupies, you project yourself into his story, and the world reacts to you properly, and all of a sudden - BOOM - his is one of the most developed character ever created. It's memorable, because it's truly your character the way any character editor would possibly do. It's the game that creates his character by player's actions, not the character created for the game.
You might want to change the thumbnail for this video. The timestamp covers part of it and it looks like it says "an indisposed mess"
Good video though.
Passion beats everything. Amazing video!
That line about Gordon’s crowbar makes me want to beat half-life 1 with just a crowbar
Notch shared your video, hello from Twitter!
HL Alyx basically takes place after half life 2 episode 2 since the G-Man was only doing what he was doing at the end because of the vortigan thing that happened in episode 2. Just a thought.
no it does not it litteraly play before hl2 lul
The Portal and Half-Life games are my favorites games, plain and simple, and that's entirely because they are amazing games. It never had anything to do with Gordon or Chell, and I thank you for articulating this point so well.
I don't care what anyone says or how many Gmod parodies I watch - the Gman is the creepiest villain in gaming history.
yes totaly agree
Are you saying "A Pistol 3" or "Episode 3"?
Epistle
@@woopi8003 why
@@navuek
A. It's written in the form of a letter, which is what epistle means.
B. It sounds somewhat like Episode 3.
Thanks man, I was really hoping to hear this somewhere else from someone else and not just my own head. Gordon isn't necessary, by disposing him off and bidding his legend Valve's Half Life will step into a new era. By doing so they will also give off a great message, "defying from blind faith and hoping for a saviour". People in the Half Life universe have equated him to some kind of god, I mean its not bad to have hopes up, but living beings can always bring about their own salvation if they believe in just themselves. It would be great if Gordon's legacy would end with him about to make a big mistake and Alyx differing from his opinion for once, believing in herself and takes another path. In the end Freeman would be left in the ashes and Alyx would now continue the series for time being. It will just break so many stereotypes, like "you always need someone to save you", "someone else will perform the miracles for us". Anyways, in the end Gordon was just a lazy non punctual employee who just happened to be lucky many times, making people revere him to as some kind of God. Lets see
If this is valve replacing one of the most ICONIC male protagonist in all of gaming with a female side character from HL2 i'm out.
@@alcovitch tbh Alyx is a pretty good character at least a lot better than some of the female characters being shown in gaming right now
But yeah i agree with you it would suck a lot if they replaced Gordon Freeman with someone else
@Guy Mcface oh you just took the wrong tangent. I was entertaining the fact that followers of this series don't take Freeman's departure as a disaster if and when it will follow. Their(Freeman and Alyx) worth and abilities is another topic, I was talking of their role and representation of series.
Valve is the only company that would make a whole entire full length game, just to undo a leak.
I kind of hate the ending to Alyx. All it really did was shuffle the deck a little, it's still a cliffhanger that seems like will never be resolved
Hello, Gordon!
Lol
I really like your analysis of Alyx. I think it's a great way to interpret both Valve's intention with the story and why it resonated so deeply with me. However, I really don't think they were that concerned with the blog post "Epistle 3". I feel as though too much has been made of it. Epistle 3 is not a story draft for Episode 3. It's just a short story by Marc Laidlaw involving characters with suspiciously familiar names. I interpret Epistle 3 as a parable for Marc's experience of leaving Valve - the themes of being left behind, of others carrying on your legacy, of heroes falling by the wayside - it's about Marc moving on from Half-Life. It's not literally what happened to Gordon and Alyx - their story is constrained within the medium of gaming. An actual Episode 3 story would have to not only be a well written story, but also a fun game to play. So even if it could have existed, it would have many considerations made that would alter the story from what was presented in Epistle 3 anyway.
dude your work is so good its insane HAHAAAAA
You deserve way more Subs than you have right now, I mean a lot more.
You can shittalk Valve how much you want. They're still my favourite games developer.
Same. At this point, they're the only AAA game company that I really have faith in.
@@randomcatdude Rockstar? (Excluding GTA online)
@@auberginemanproductions1608 eh. their games aren't really my cup of tea, so I can't say much about them
@@randomcatdude Fair enough. How about ID software?
@@auberginemanproductions1608 id software's fairly dope.
I played the original Doom games, they're pretty good. Both modern Doom games have pretty bopping soundtracks, I'll probably pick them up at some point.
I think everybody’s missing the point though that there’s no way we were going to get the story presented in Epistle 3 verbatim. In what universe would Valve come up with a script first and follow it to the letter? Laidlaw’s script was essentially fanfic with extra insight.
5:35 I think thats just due to player's limitation to fight in VR - in VR its a trouble to kill 1 enemy, while in traditional FPS you can mow down 6 at a time
I didn't expect to see Gabe Newell's name in the credits with the rest of the dev team but it really gave me some hope for the future. There's actually a good chunk of devs from Valve credited on the original Half Life that are also credited at the end of Alyx.
not epic
Those energy spheres in the vault are likely the souls of the vortigaunt referenced being held captive.
"finish the fight" I've heard that one before lmao
“You don’t need Freeman for Half Life” has got to be one of the most cursed takes I’ve ever heard in gaming
"Forget About Freeman" i caught that hl1 chapter 13 reference