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    StengahDoc Burford
    9/04/16 3:45pm

    You’re arguement is pretty good, except for one thing: you’re forgetting about the Vortigaunts. They’re why Gordon Freeman has the reputation he has in Half-Life 2. They were previously enslaved by the Nihilanth (who may have been a rebel against the Combine, but was the one leading the assault against Earth in Half-Life 1), but they were on Xen, so they knew that he had freed them, and they’re aware of the G-Man and his employer, so they knew he was not dead during his absence. When helping to found the Resistance, they shared this information with the human members, which is why everyone regards you as a hero and expected you to come back someday. The start of the rebellion upon your re-disappearance can be explained as the resistance mistakenly assuming you were doing what you did when you disappeared to Xen: That you went to fight the big bad leader(s) in their home dimension and this was their chance to fight back against the Combine forces that remained on Earth. I have a feeling that in the very unlikely case that an Episode 3 is ever made, a vortigaunt could easily be used to tell Gordon what Eli knew.

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      Doc BurfordStengah
      9/04/16 4:35pm

      This is some FINE lore-o-logical explanation you got here. Great post.

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      JediaKyrolStengah
      9/04/16 6:21pm

      haha! That’s what I get for not scrolling down! I just finished typing almost the exact same thing!

      Anyway...what are your thoughts of Barney also not seeming to age 20 years? I mean...he was there at the Black Mesa incident... ... ...and escaped somehow...and was undercover at the specific train station the G-Man dropped you off at...

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    russeatchoumDoc Burford
    9/04/16 5:04pm

    This article occults what we, as gamers, are praising about the game ; actual game mechanics.

    You’re saying that this game has a bad story, opinion I could agree on, but you’re not even remotely mentioning the game design, which is the real best part of the game.
    (This mark brown video tells a lot about the game design, but I must add that the game progression is also stellar)

    So, are you just writing with “bad faith” or do you really believe and base your opinion of HL² solely on its story ?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_faith

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      Doc Burfordrusseatchoum
      9/04/16 5:12pm

      I wanted to write an article about story. The article about design would take significantly longer to write, and if you haven’t noticed, I’ve published like 18 things on Kotaku since yesterday morning, and I’m prepping more to go soon.

      Normally, I write lengthy mechanical analyses like these: kotaku.com/tag/gbb (just scroll back to a month or so ago)

      So it’s neither bad faith nor basing my opinion solely on story, it’s me talking about one specific facet of the game.

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      Tizzysawrrusseatchoum
      9/04/16 5:28pm

      Even considering that HL2 is praised for its gameplay, plenty of people liked the story back in 2004, with many people telling me they play it all the time for it.

      But the question that needs to be raised, if HL is all about gameplay, is: Could a Half-Life 3 really find success in 2016 or later, where a storyline in FPS is not only common, but more often than not expected? Sure, the Half-Life franchise pioneered giving a first-person-shooter a storyline, but all stories from Valve games have been barebones. Some work, because the games themselves are barebones (Portal), and in other cases it’s, just as with HL2, all about gameplay (Left 4 Dead).

      But let’s be honest: Would a HL3, no matter how fun to play, be able to make it into a “best-of” list and live up to its hype in 2016 and later, now that we have FPS games with much deeper storylines than anything Valve has ever put out? Could a HL3, based on Valve’s track record and the minimal story the first two HL games had, stand up against Dishonored or Bioshock? Or perhaps is it better that HL3 remains unreleased rather than tainting the franchise with a game that likely can’t live up to expectations after more than a decade of advancement in a company that has mostly remained stagnant?

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    Nicolas RivasDoc Burford
    9/05/16 2:18am

    A guy that considers Quake to be the best FPS ever argues that Half-Life 2 is not good because the story makes no sense... this is just hilarious.

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      Doc BurfordNicolas Rivas
      9/05/16 3:18am

      Because it’s Quakespeare, one could say.

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      BentbobDoc Burford
      9/05/16 3:52am

      I would put forth an argument that Quake (with Quakeworld) could be the best FPS game, or at worst in the top 3 of all FPS games, due to less about the game more about what it did for gaming. I view Quake as the basis to the modern FPS game and that its DNA can be found in many later games.

      Quakeworld gaming was a big time in my gaming life. First DM and CTF servers then later subsequent mod servers like Team Fortress were my game for years.

      The net code in Quakeworld made multiplayer viable in the days of dial-up internet and high pings.

      I may be missing another game that was first with a heavy community of multiplayer mod variants (DOOM? I don’t have much experience with DOOM MP - never could get it work via a BBS) which possibly helped foster great communities in subsequent games like HL1.

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    StoutFilesDoc Burford
    9/04/16 3:18pm

    “Seriously, there were no witnesses”

    The G-man witnessed it all, and is in contact with the resistance. I thought this was common knowledge?

    “because Eli Vance is Princess Peach”

    Nah, he’s just one of the few characters worth caring about. Now Alyx is Peach. But whatever, the story of Half-Life is just enough to justify fun gameplay mechanics.

    “Valve doesn’t make AAA titles anymore”

    What is Portal 2 then?

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      SmaugTheUnpretentiousStoutFiles
      9/04/16 3:23pm

      I'm also not sure why Eli's death means the story can't pivot. That seems more like lack of imagination on the writer's part than anything.

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      CabamacadafStoutFiles
      9/04/16 3:26pm

      Portal 2 was five years ago.

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    Jupiter-is-AliveDoc Burford
    9/04/16 3:41pm

    I love Valve so much, but lets be real, Valve is not making Half Life 3 because Valve isn’t really a game developer anymore.

    NO, I’m not talking about Steam and the VR and the digital distribution. I’m talking about even before all that. Valve has *almost* always been a company who has bought other teams or projects and polished them. Counter-Strike was a mod. Team Fortress was a mod. DOTA was a mod. Portal was a mod. Left 4 Dead was a small game by Turtle Rock who was bought by Valve.

    I love Valve so much, but instead of everyone begging them to develop games, maybe we should start begging them to going back to buying and polishing high-potential mods and indie projects, since that has really been their greatest accomplishments as devs, and I say that with respect.

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      Doc BurfordJupiter-is-Alive
      9/04/16 4:04pm

      Valve is actively working on at least four video games right now. They’re a game developer. They have transitioned to software as a service, though.

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      Dixie RektJupiter-is-Alive
      9/04/16 4:08pm

      Portal was a mod?

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    NegafoxDoc Burford
    9/04/16 3:12pm

    “Half-Life, which is the second-greatest shooter of all time after Halo: Combat Evolved and Quake”

    That makes Half-Life third place.

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      Doc BurfordNegafox
      9/04/16 3:14pm

      They are tied for first.

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      socialdarwinistDoc Burford
      9/04/16 3:18pm

      Yeah, but on a leaderboard, where there’s a tie, the next ranking is displaced by however many were tied. Using a PGA leaderboard as an example:

      Illustration for article titled
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    1001001SOSDoc Burford
    9/04/16 3:38pm

    I don't think I've ever disagreed with an article so much. I think you should get some kind of award for this.

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      Doc Burford1001001SOS
      9/04/16 4:04pm

      Someone else suggested an academy award in an earlier comment.

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      genemachine20151001001SOS
      9/04/16 4:23pm

      I agree with you on this one. I felt like I was reading some kind of troll post. I’m just sitting here shaking my head....

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    FuegoTigreDoc Burford
    9/04/16 3:54pm

    Viktor Antonov, the art designer who made Half-Life 2 so distinct and went on to help create Dishonored, said that Valve stopped making AAA games.


    It seems to me that Valve has stopped making game all together, essentially. Or, if they do so, in their specifically Vavle-y paced method (which is to pretty much say, they don’t make games really, anymore, unless by accident).

    BUT, what is the definition of “AAA” games these days? It sounds appealing to me that Valve doesn’t make, or endeavor to make, games of this nature, to be honest.

    I played Half-Life. Half-Life 2 came at an inconvenient time of extensive schooling that spanned nigh a decade so, I never went back to play it, and to be honest, am only now lamenting the holes in my gaming edification.

    But with the synopsis provided, I’m feeling like a HF3 COULD emerge despite the “failings” of two. A story is there, and you’ve provided some idea fodder to make it happen.

    The real question is, does Valve have the volition and talent to do it?

    In playwritting, we use emptiness as a tool. You see it in Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard”. Rather, you don’t see it. The gaps are left there for the audience to fill in, as often their imagination is both more terrible and terrific universally than any one playwright could devise through wordsmithery.

    This is what I fear is the greatest obstacle, and almost certain guarantee that a HF3 could not emerge and succeed.

    The hype, the terrific expectation, is too great of a burden to realize.

    And Vavle may realize this.

    It’s been too long. People have had too much time to manufacture their HF3s, they couldn’t possibly fill that void with a game.

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      Doc BurfordFuegoTigre
      9/05/16 11:21am

      So, personally, I think when Anotonov said AAA games, he was referring to boxed retail games. Valve made just one more game after he left, Portal 2. Everything else has been Software as a Service titles.

      Personally, I think the people running Valve (and there are people running Valve) are more interested in Software As A Service.

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      rmric0.wedding.photographerDoc Burford
      9/07/16 9:31am

      AAA is a rather vague notion, but I don’t think it has anything to do with boxed-retail (since there’s a lot of shovel-ware that gets boxed retail). It’s mostly about the development and marketing muscle that gets put behind a project - akin to movie blockbusters.

      There’s another parallel there, in that both AAA and Blockbusters used to be a term applied after release, but they increasingly became genres unto themselves.

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    RustooviousDoc Burford
    9/04/16 3:17pm

    “Then, when Black Mesa East is attacked (no one in the Resistance assumes that you, the new guy, who everyone assumes to be Gordon Freeman)....”
    Assumes that you what? You did not finish this sentence.
    “you escore Eli’s daughter” Escort? This better be the last time Kotaku leaves their editorial duties to an amateur. I have never commented on here before, but felt compelled to. I am in disbelief lol.

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      Doc BurfordRustoovious
      9/04/16 3:21pm

      oh right, my b, sorry, I have to do like 25 of these in 3 days

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      crmusRustoovious
      9/04/16 3:27pm

      Maybe continue not?

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    artiofabDoc Burford
    9/04/16 3:09pm

    How can I nominate this for an Academy Award or something? This is good. Like, frightfully good.

    Just quickly off the top of my head I don’t know of any video game series that took itself to a logical ending better than Half-Life did. The ending of Episode Two (for whatever reason Valve used the full words for the Episode titles; they’re Episodes One and Two not 1 and 2) is a fantastically bleak ending to a bleak story after a really huge boss battle. I don’t know where else you can go with the series after this; the Combine Advisors are ridiculously more powerful than you are so they’re not a fair fight, but anything less than that is something you’ve already defeated, so that’s not interesting either. The only place for the story to go is to switch to another character narrative ... which ... is sort of what Portal exists to do.

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      Doc Burfordartiofab
      9/04/16 3:14pm

      If you want to mail me a box of Cheerios™ brand cold cereal, I will accept that in lieu of an Academy Award.

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      artiofabDoc Burford
      9/04/16 3:16pm

      You want the Honey Nut kind or just the Original Generation Cheerios?

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