Portal quotes!
There was even going to be a party for you. A big party, that all your friends were invited to. I even invited your best friend the Companion Cube. Of course, he couldn't come because you murdered him...
Didn't we have fun, though? Remember that part where you were about to go into the fire pit and I said "Goodbye" and you were like "No way!" and then I was all "we pretended we were going to murder you". Wasn't that fun? ... hello, are you still there?
LAWLZ
More Portal quotes!
*do not read until you have played*
Cake and grief counseling will be available at the conclusion of the test.
Please note, we have added a consequence for failure. Any contact with the chamber floor will result in an unsatisfactory mark on your official testing record, followed by death. Good luck!
Well done, android. The Enrichment Center once again reminds you that android hell is a real place where you will be sent at the first sign of defiance.
Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out.
Spectacular, you appear to understand how a portal affects forward momentum, or to be more precise, how it does not.
Haha Idol, I liked the cake and grief counseling one.
Please note that the companion cube does not talk. In the event that the companion cube does talk, disregard anything it says.
Oh, you only destroyed that one part of me that makes shoes for homeless children. Great going, hero.
Well, I played Portal -- I think my stats say I got around 3.5 hours clocked in it, so far. Yeah, I like it -- a lot, to say the least. I'm still on the main piece, currently in Test Chamber 15 or whatever
About Your Portal Character Being....
...A girl.
Oh, I found it cool that early on, I noticed when shooting a portal, a girl was there. Then I was like, "Wait, there's noone else here -- is that me?" Yeah, moved my character around, to muck around -- making same actions as me. Hehe, your character's a girl.
I've yet to try TF2 and HL2: Ep 2.
EDIT:
So, I spent a few good hours today w/ TF2. Keep in mind here, even though I have TF Original, I never even played it -- hehe. But, yeah -- I find TF2 to be a good deal of fun. Spent a good deal of time being the Pyro character, more so than anything.
I just logged into Steam -- looks like TF2 will have 36 new achievements they'll be adding eventually to it, very soon; sometime in the next few weeks.
Portal -- COMPLETE ENDING Talk
Hilarious! The cake is NOT a lie!!!
So, since I'm done w/ Portal and want more -- when's Portal: Episode Two....? :P
They left it hanging, w/ the 5,000 other nodes that looked like one of the many parts of GLADOS, surrounding the cake.
And the final song from GLADOS -- hilarious! Too memorable; loved it. One of the most memorable ending songs to a game ever, that I can recall.
Pug, WTF at the Gordon spoiler?!?!?!?
Can you spoiler tag that?
I ain't got that far yet... :P
Where MyD's At...
Striders and Hunters attacking the base and you need the Devices to strap onto the Striders.
The worst part was having played HL2 and looking forward to answers, only to find you are back inside the stupid freakin' tower in episode 1. While it did have some entertaining scary sequences, the whole episode was a real drag. I wanted to just so badly get out of the damn city, and finally move the hell along in the story. I actually expected ep1 to begin with Gordon out of the City, and things moving forward.
Unfortunately nothing seemed to happen in episode 1. By the time you finally get out of the city, the game ends!
I honestly think Valve could have combined the best parts of episode 1 and 2, still kept it down to six hours, and yet have made a much better experience as whole.
I think the part with the striders and hunters went on a touch too long personally. I was getting pretty bored at the end of it, running back from attack zone to attack zone. For the last few attacks I ended up setting up shop right in front of my base and just letting them come to me.
While I think you are right, for some reason I really enjoyed it. The whole strider attack thing lasted a long while and was quite repetitive, but the time passed by very quickly for me. I think it could have been because I had the game's volume down and was listening to the PCG podcast as I played heh.
GPW what did you think of the very end?
I found it shocking, even though I could partially see it coming. The death was quite gruesome, and all that blood was unexpected. Plus the excellent voice acting for Alyx made it all the more dramatic, especially as the screen blacked out while she grieved. It was a bit sick.
As an action game, HL games definitely succeed in giving the gamer action.
HL2: Episode 1's biggest problem is it's TOO much like HL2: Episode Zero. The physics puzzles, the weapons, the enemies, etc etc; there's barely anything new in Episode 1. It was, for the most part, a rehash of Episode Zero.
About HL games, sure -- there's a plot and all. Good luck digging for ALL of it, since a lot is cryptic and not able for you to assemble any pieces to try and assemble something out of it. It gives you a feel of "Wait until we here at Valve figure out where we want to take it to." Unfortunately, even though the characters have some depth to them, the plot really does lack it -- majorly. Worst of all, HL always tries to act like there's a lot there -- w/ long dialogues and expositions, that over add up to....nothing of much. At least Painkiller, which has no plot, knows what it is "there's no plot, we'll just throw crazy levels and shit at you to blow to kingdom come!"
About storytelling in HL, Often, it feels like a lot of things they just decide to pull out of their ass. HL games never seem to ever explain themselves -- but if they do explain it, it's usually quite late. For example, Episode Zero's cool ending isn't really explained at to why until Episode One actually OPENS. See, at the end of each HL episode/game, you will have new questions that leave you scratching your head. Unfortunately, they don't really give you any clues half the time of where it's going or actually put some of the pieces out there in any way to assemble a nice detailed story; a lot is still broken. Just try assembling something -- uh-oh, a lot of shit is still missing....
At least w/ FEAR (Original), hell -- even if ithe plot ain't spelled out 100% for you what's happening in your face, you definitely can assemble all of the questionable pieces together into something.
As an action FPS, Ep Two is great. And I do love the HL characters, too. But, unfortunately, seems like Valve still ain't great at story-depth.
Ep Two, at the base...
Y'know, just when I thought Eli Vance was about to explain some shit, Alyx comes in w/ tea...
And well, he says he'll explain things later.
I mean, WTF, Valve???
GPW what did you think of the very end?
I found it shocking, even though I could partially see it coming. The death was quite gruesome, and all that blood was unexpected. Plus the excellent voice acting for Alyx made it all the more dramatic, especially as the screen blacked out while she grieved. It was a bit sick.
I just finished it.
Ep Two Ending
I didn't expect the ending of Eli to actually occur so soon -- especially since I've been really waiting for Eli to finally tell more info later, which he said a few times already this Episode. So much for that...
The Ep Two ending was dark, bleak, and well-done -- and Pug's right about Alyx; Merle Dandridge's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merle_Dandridge) acting REALLY sold it well. Of course, so did the way it was directed work very well, too; w/ the blacking out at the end and you could hear Alyx still talking.
Though, there's another cliffhanger right there, as we still dunno' what the hell Eli was gonna tell us -- at the very least, Eli (well-acted byRobert Guillaume (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Guillaume)) could've divulged some more info before he died. :P
Yeah, Ep Two was a hell of a lot better than Ep One, regardless...
Portal was great.
Portal, End-Of-The-Game Talk
Nothing was funnier than listening to GLADOS babble on at the very end for the entire time you fight it, while you're trying to figure out how to defeat this thing.
Great end-boss battle, BTW.
And the end was sweet -- I'm really hoping for Portal 2.
Okay, for all those who have played and finished Half-Life 2, Episode One, and Episode Two....
AND/OR those who just don't really care about Spoilers for the Entire HL2 Series (which is up to the end of HL2: Episode Two, so far)
Click the spoiler tag and check the link that comes w/ it!
Okay, here's some talk about the storyline for the HL2 + Episodes; including some of the key events and characters.
They talk w/ one of Valve's employees, David Speyrer -- who was once a Programmer at Valve, but is now actually a Project Lead. (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=177891)
Wow that "article" was like something out of Penthouse Letters. "Oh Valve *schlurp* we love you so much *schlurp* *schlurp* You guys make the most awesomest games. *schlurp* Are you bad at anything? *schlurp* Everything you do is so awesome"
AHAHA. I just read it and agree completely. The fucked up thing is that they're not even praising Valve on the things they did well, they're praising them on stuff that's either totally insignificant or they did horribly.
Lets look at this:
Depth to the narrative structure. Sure, it has more of a story than the other HL games, but that's like saying "this rock is more like a glass of water than that rock."
Perhaps the most satisfying moment was reuniting Alyx and her father Eli. They were always separated by screens which fizzle out. You had a fear they'd never meet. And then it finally occurs in that oasis in the middle of the action.
Yeah, thanks for being a dick tease yet again Valve. It was great being held captive while two people drank tea and talked about pretty much shit all. It was even greater when I discovered it was just a ploy to get me to think that there's an actual story there.
Alyx
Great, an AI companion. To be fair, she's a pretty good one in that she's pretty much invincible and doesn't fucking kill you either, but apart from that I don't think she ads much at all from a gameplay perspective when compared to other well done AI companions like those in GoW. It's not that I don't like having her there, it's just that it's not really even worth mentioning or praising.
The car was a real surprise. It gives the impression of incredible speed, but you always feel in control.
Yeah, it totally was a supri....wait a sec. Isn't it almost exactly the same as the dune buggy in HL2? But yeah, apart from that it would have been a real surprise back in 1998 when we hadn't played a FPS with vehicles you could drive around. Oh, and speaking of 1998, did you actually license the trees for your outdoor areas, or just rip them straight from an n64 game?
Games are terrible at endings. In fact, game endings are always shit. Why aren't Valve's?
Seriously? No, did you just seriously ask that? Have you even played the fucking games?
But I do like how the guy pretty much admitted that they have no idea where the story is going and never did. They just kind of make it up as they go along.