OuroborosChoked:

runtheplacered:

gmer412:

Rankao:
I agree I hope they give us some information about EP 3. Truthfully I am actually more excited about Black Mesa: Source Though.

Huh? What's that?

http://www.blackmesasource.com/

Half-life 1 remade with the source engine.

Although it's just Black Mesa, not Black Mesa: Source anymore.. Valve had a fit.

Isn't there already a Half Life: Source? Well, there has to be. I have it. It came with one of the bundles Valve had on Steam. What gives?

A bunch of people complained that it wasn't all it could've been. Not taking advantage of the Source Engine enough. Same story for CS: Source.

Well atleast Ep3 may be released before the apocalypse unlike Duke Nukem Forever.

runtheplacered:
Although it's just Black Mesa, not Black Mesa: Source anymore.. Valve had a fit.

I hardly think that allowing amateur mod-makers to completely remake one of your games and distribute it for free but asking them not to infringe on your trademark that you're currently using for your engine counts as "having a fit." I recall that EA crushed a Doom 3 mod that would have created a fan sequel to the System Shock series, despite having no plans whatsoever to create such a sequel of their own; the fact that Valve is letting them do an improved remake of the game that started it all for them and ship it out for free is amazing.

OuroborosChoked:
Isn't there already a Half Life: Source? Well, there has to be. I have it. It came with one of the bundles Valve had on Steam. What gives?

Half-Life Source just took all of the Half-Life assets and dumped them into the Source engine with the texture upgrade pack from Blue Shift. Black Mesa is completely remaking the assets to create a game that takes full advantage of the source engine, resulting in shots that actually look like a modern game. Check out these screenshots (the original environments are in the top corner):

http://www.blackmesasource.com/media/c1a4_release11_005.jpg
http://www.blackmesasource.com/media/mr3_officecomplex2.jpg

OuroborosChoked:

runtheplacered:

gmer412:

Rankao:
Truthfully I am actually more excited about Black Mesa: Source Though.

Huh? What's that?

http://www.blackmesasource.com/

Half-life 1 remade with the source engine.

Although it's just Black Mesa, not Black Mesa: Source anymore.. Valve had a fit.

Isn't there already a Half Life: Source? Well, there has to be. I have it. It came with one of the bundles Valve had on Steam. What gives?

Half-Life: Source was a straight-up prt of the original Half-life to the Source engine. It looked exactly the same (except for the water textures, I believe) and played exactly the same (except with enemies ragdoll-ing when they died), and was rightly pointed out as a cheap excuse for more money.

Black Mesa (nee Source) is a forthcoming fan-made remake of the original Half-Life, taking full use of the Source engine. It's looking very good, and you can find out more about it at the official site.

EDIT: Beaten to it. Didn't hear about the System Shock mod being shot down, that's a shame. Would have worked pretty well, too.

orannis62:

Vanguard1219:

Good morning blues:
If Adrian Shepard shows his face, I'll shit a brick in excitement.

You and me both, man. A while ago during a random thought I suddenly got the feeling that when Gordon makes it to the Borealis that Shepard will just be there. You just have to figure that the G-Man brought Shepard out of his little cage during this entire uprising to satisfy some other goal of his.

And Chelle from Portal will be there too!! Seriously, they made a point of telling us she's from the HL universe, so she has to make at least some appearance.

And then we'll have a conversation between three mutes!

Good morning blues:

I hardly think that allowing amateur mod-makers to completely remake one of your games and distribute it for free but asking them not to infringe on your trademark that you're currently using for your engine counts as "having a fit."

I believe it does count as having a fit. Whether the "crime" being committed is justified or not, can't one have a fit about it? I have no idea why you even put so much emphasis on that tiny little statement.

all i can say, is the story better have "epic" sweating out of its pores. price is not a big concern to me right now, and i thinking that the longer wait, ep3 will come out all polished, neat and bug-free. from seeing the graphics on left 4 dead, im impressed, they have come along way from half life 2, and with the grand physics of the source engine i belive valve have the recipe for a game of the year

Good morning blues:
If Adrian Shepard shows his face, I'll shit a brick in excitement.

I think that this would be too difficult to impliment. Firstly we never see Adrian Shephard's face or hear his voice so if we came across a random grunt, say on the Borealis, then our instinct would be to kill him regardless of the location. Even if we had seen his face then the upgrade to the source engine would make him look different.

Lastly even if they 'introduced' him to us such as him being on the other side of bulletproof glass then would he really greet Gordon Freeman? GF being one of the people who he was sent to kill, and was responsible for the deaths of many of his friends? I know that this *could* be swung by the G-Man telling him that GF is good but to be honest I would find it tacky if Shephard showed up because it would feel forced upon us. In addition would GF and supporting characters greet him, them knowing what attrocities the grunts caused back in Black Mesa?

It could always be as a cutscene. Say, Mossman talking to him over the radio when you find her or something. But I digress.

Out of curiosity, could someone tell me if Episode 3 has actually been officially announced? 'cause something tells me it hasn't yet. We all know it's coming, but the official word is the final one.

Adrian Shepard better make a return, i enjoyed oipposing force just as much a the first game.

"2. The Aperture and Combine turrets sound and act exactly the same, the Combine just took the cute out of them"

Turrets have been a staple of every half life game to date, i dont think you need to draw conclusions from that.

Lukeje:

orannis62:

Vanguard1219:

Good morning blues:
If Adrian Shepard shows his face, I'll shit a brick in excitement.

You and me both, man. A while ago during a random thought I suddenly got the feeling that when Gordon makes it to the Borealis that Shepard will just be there. You just have to figure that the G-Man brought Shepard out of his little cage during this entire uprising to satisfy some other goal of his.

And Chelle from Portal will be there too!! Seriously, they made a point of telling us she's from the HL universe, so she has to make at least some appearance.

And then we'll have a conversation between three mutes!

Well, I hope the three of them understand sign language, or at the very least someone brought a pen and a piece of paper to write stuff down on :/

Ha, you have obviously haven't followed Valve closely enough. HL2e3 is going to have to be bigger and better than every game previously made by Valve (and it probably will be). Even when they get the coding done and the game is made it will go through months upon months of game testing to get it perfect. If they say it's going to be in 2010 expect 2011. And considering that the TF2 crowed is getting restless, they will probably focus more attention to more updates in Q1 of 2009, pushing the project back even further.

/Personal note to Valve: PUT NEW WEAPONS IN HALF LIFE 2 EPISODE 3!!!

I really hoped I'd never say this, but I really just couldn't care about the next episode. To me, they made a major screw up with Half Life 2 with a story that was completely retarded, but the game play and graphics were pretty good, so I didn't care as much. But now, with the episodes, the game play is almost identical to HL2, and the story has just gone FUBAR with Episode 2. Unless they do something to really, really spice up the third episode, I don't feel the need to even pay any attention to it.

orannis62:
I'm expecting more Grav Gun/crowbar action. I'm really hoping for another achievement like in Episode 1 where you don't use any bullets, that was fun.

My theory as far as story goes is

Spoiler: Click to View

I find that theory to be quite attractive. I currently have none of my own so yeah your's sounds good.

spazzattack:
Ha, you have obviously haven't followed Valve closely enough. HL2e3 is going to have to be bigger and better than every game previously made by Valve (and it probably will be). Even when they get the coding done and the game is made it will go through months upon months of game testing to get it perfect. If they say it's going to be in 2010 expect 2011. And considering that the TF2 crowed is getting restless, they will probably focus more attention to more updates in Q1 of 2009, pushing the project back even further.

/Personal note to Valve: PUT NEW WEAPONS IN HALF LIFE 2 EPISODE 3!!!

Yeah that whole TF2 thing is true, we want more updates, especially the fans that only have it for the 360 who have gotten none. They are focusing on L4D so no new TF2 updates this year.

I also found orannis62 theory quite good, and I'd love to see Portal 2 be Chelle side of HL2:3, but like he also said that is a pipe dream.

the_tramp:
I think that this would be too difficult to impliment. Firstly we never see Adrian Shephard's face or hear his voice so if we came across a random grunt, say on the Borealis, then our instinct would be to kill him regardless of the location. Even if we had seen his face then the upgrade to the source engine would make him look different.

Lastly even if they 'introduced' him to us such as him being on the other side of bulletproof glass then would he really greet Gordon Freeman? GF being one of the people who he was sent to kill, and was responsible for the deaths of many of his friends? I know that this *could* be swung by the G-Man telling him that GF is good but to be honest I would find it tacky if Shephard showed up because it would feel forced upon us. In addition would GF and supporting characters greet him, them knowing what attrocities the grunts caused back in Black Mesa?

The only part of this that would be difficult is giving Shepard a voice, but they could pretty easily have references to Shepard doing things at the same time that Freeman is; they did the same thing in the opposite way in Opposing Force. See the results of Shepard's work, hear about his activities from time to time, and maybe see him for a split second a couple of times. Shepard doesn't need to become the new Eli Vance.

Darth Marsden:
It could always be as a cutscene. Say, Mossman talking to him over the radio when you find her or something. But I digress.

Out of curiosity, could someone tell me if Episode 3 has actually been officially announced? 'cause something tells me it hasn't yet. We all know it's coming, but the official word is the final one.

They announced that they were going to do three episodes as soon as they announced that the continuation of the series would be episodic. You can find heaps of interviews with people like Doug Lombardi and Gabe Newell where they discuss when they're going to be releasing information about Episode 3. Episodes 4-6 are the rumor; I don't think anyone's confirmed whether or not they'll be coming out, but there is a rumor that they will be developed by other companies after Episode 3 ships, like Opposing Force and Blue Shift were.

Does anyone think I should change the title to just Half Life 2: The Un-Official Thread, so it's more broad and more can be discussed, or do we want it strictly Episode 3?

ZeroMachine:

3. The Combine overwatch (the AI that speaks to the soldiers) is voiced by Ellen Mclain, the voice of GLaDOS.

That can't all be Valve being lazy to come up with newer things.

Please notice that the City Overwatch speaks differently from the Outland Overwatch, giving notification that Overwatch has multiple voices. In my thinking, GLaDOS and Overwatch at some point in the undetermined past became one and the same augmenting one into the other, before Portal begins.

I frankly think that giving Gordon the portal gun would be a very bad idea, as would the Sniper Rifle.
But it would be very cool to see a new Combine unit, one that we've never seen in real application before. Like the Assassin, or maybe an Overwatch Elite Zombine. One that can shoot you.

Anarchemitis:

But it would be very cool to see a new Combine unit, one that we've never seen in real application before. Like the Assassin, or maybe an Overwatch Elite Zombine. One that can shoot you.

Excellent idea, good sir...

After making us wait this long, Episode 3 better be a damn good game. I hope it wraps up the story, I would not survive having to wait for Valve to make Half Life 3.

I'm content to wait for Episode 3. Sure, Valve delays a fair bit, but all of their game releases that I know of have been of the highest caliber.

If I had to take a stab in the dark at the story:

I really doubt that either Shepard or Chell will make an appearance. Shepard's original goal was to kill Freeman, it'd be a little awkward and reek of fanservice to have him show up and start fighting back to back with Gordon. Also, it's been about 20 years since we saw anything of him.

Last we saw of Chell, she was lying outside in a temperate climate amongst the wreckage of the Enrichment center. How the hell is she going to end up near the Borealis? It probably wouldn't be anyone's first move: okay, I've escaped. Now to live somewhere really, really cold.

Now, to stop raining on the collective parade:

-A 'sister' to GLaDOS could be worked in pretty neatly. It wouldn't be a huge leap of imagination to believe that Aperture Science would mount an expensive artificial intelligence in a giant project like that.

-Some of the 'cute' turrets somewhere, or even a storage cube or two wouldn't be that improbable. I really doubt a Companion Cube would make an appearance: that was mostly to mess with test subjects.

Well, that's my slightly over two cents.

51gunner:
I'm content to wait for Episode 3. Sure, Valve delays a fair bit, but all of their game releases that I know of have been of the highest caliber.

If I had to take a stab in the dark at the story:

Spoiler: Click to View

I really doubt that either Shepard or Chell will make an appearance. Shepard's original goal was to kill Freeman, it'd be a little awkward and reek of fanservice to have him show up and start fighting back to back with Gordon. Also, it's been about 20 years since we saw anything of him.

Last we saw of Chell, she was lying outside in a temperate climate amongst the wreckage of the Enrichment center. How the hell is she going to end up near the Borealis? It probably wouldn't be anyone's first move: okay, I've escaped. Now to live somewhere really, really cold.

Now, to stop raining on the collective parade:

-A 'sister' to GLaDOS could be worked in pretty neatly. It wouldn't be a huge leap of imagination to believe that Aperture Science would mount an expensive artificial intelligence in a giant project like that.

-Some of the 'cute' turrets somewhere, or even a storage cube or two wouldn't be that improbable. I really doubt a Companion Cube would make an appearance: that was mostly to mess with test subjects.

Well, that's my slightly over two cents.

This sounds like what they'd do. I'm not sure about ending the story arc by having a "and they sailed off into the sunset ending", but who knows? I Think it'll end with something done by the G-Man again. Think about it. The first two games ended with him doing something, and the episodes together could be considered a full game.

gmer412:

This sounds like what they'd do. I'm not sure about ending the story arc by having a "and they sailed off into the sunset ending", but who knows? I Think it'll end with something done by the G-Man again. Think about it. The first two games ended with him doing something, and the episodes together could be considered a full game.

Nah, I figure the sailing off bit will leave you facing a monster cliffhanger: probably either Xen, or the Combine homeworld.

Something that could be taken from Halo 3 is the real-time conversion into zombies. Just imagine the rebel next to you struggling to remove the headcrab... his screams fill the air. Suddenly he drops to the ground and his stomach bloats and expands before tearing in the middle and his entrails pool out onto the ground. Blood flows freely from his engulfed head as his screams slowly turn into moans. His bones stretch and burst from his skin, becoming long, clawed fingers.

Then he staggers to his feet and you hit him with a crowbar.

implodingMan:
Something that could be taken from Halo 3 is the real-time conversion into zombies. Just imagine the rebel next to you struggling to remove the headcrab... his screams fill the air. Suddenly he drops to the ground and his stomach bloats and expands before tearing in the middle and his entrails pool out onto the ground. Blood flows freely from his engulfed head as his screams slowly turn into moans. His bones stretch and burst from his skin, becoming long, clawed fingers.

Then he staggers to his feet and you hit him with a crowbar.

I gotta say, that would be pretty epic. Although the description was a bit too gory. Why would the stomach need to explode?

gmer412:

implodingMan:
Something that could be taken from Halo 3 is the real-time conversion into zombies. Just imagine the rebel next to you struggling to remove the headcrab... his screams fill the air. Suddenly he drops to the ground and his stomach bloats and expands before tearing in the middle and his entrails pool out onto the ground. Blood flows freely from his engulfed head as his screams slowly turn into moans. His bones stretch and burst from his skin, becoming long, clawed fingers.

Then he staggers to his feet and you hit him with a crowbar.

I gotta say, that would be pretty epic. Although the description was a bit too gory. Why would the stomach need to explode?

Because they all have exploded stomachs. They are pretty damn gory when you actually look at them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Headcrab_ZombieComparison.jpg

implodingMan:

gmer412:

implodingMan:
Something that could be taken from Halo 3 is the real-time conversion into zombies. Just imagine the rebel next to you struggling to remove the headcrab... his screams fill the air. Suddenly he drops to the ground and his stomach bloats and expands before tearing in the middle and his entrails pool out onto the ground. Blood flows freely from his engulfed head as his screams slowly turn into moans. His bones stretch and burst from his skin, becoming long, clawed fingers.

Then he staggers to his feet and you hit him with a crowbar.

I gotta say, that would be pretty epic. Although the description was a bit too gory. Why would the stomach need to explode?

Because they all have exploded stomachs. They are pretty damn gory when you actually look at them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Headcrab_ZombieComparison.jpg

Damn. You're right. I always thought that they had shirts on over that, but I guess you're right.

Some new weapons with some imagination behind them
No introducing a new character who just tells us that we're scum
No goddamn vehicles sections. Or at least, none without weapons
No crowbar, or at least, no periods wherein we must get by with only the crowbar and/or the pistol. Gordon can just smack the crates with his goddamn rifle butt
No letting Alyx volunteer us for missions. I'll do it if theres no other way, but if its just to make things easier, fuck that.

I second the motion. where did the crowbar part happen, though? Besides the beginning of HL2, I don't remember ever only having the crowbar or pistol.

gmer412:

implodingMan:

gmer412:

implodingMan:
Something that could be taken from Halo 3 is the real-time conversion into zombies. Just imagine the rebel next to you struggling to remove the headcrab... his screams fill the air. Suddenly he drops to the ground and his stomach bloats and expands before tearing in the middle and his entrails pool out onto the ground. Blood flows freely from his engulfed head as his screams slowly turn into moans. His bones stretch and burst from his skin, becoming long, clawed fingers.

Then he staggers to his feet and you hit him with a crowbar.

I gotta say, that would be pretty epic. Although the description was a bit too gory. Why would the stomach need to explode?

Because they all have exploded stomachs. They are pretty damn gory when you actually look at them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Headcrab_ZombieComparison.jpg

Damn. You're right. I always thought that they had shirts on over that, but I guess you're right.

Some new weapons with some imagination behind them
No introducing a new character who just tells us that we're scum
No goddamn vehicles sections. Or at least, none without weapons
No crowbar, or at least, no periods wherein we must get by with only the crowbar and/or the pistol. Gordon can just smack the crates with his goddamn rifle butt
No letting Alyx volunteer us for missions. I'll do it if theres no other way, but if its just to make things easier, fuck that.

I second the motion. where did the crowbar part happen, though? Besides the beginning of HL2, I don't remember ever only having the crowbar or pistol.

I thinks its because of the horror story that is the begining of HL-2. Also no grav gun right at the start and thats it. cause thats annoying too.

Has anyone heard any updates on the game? I haven't seen or heard anything on it for quite a while.

http://www.halflife2.net/half-life-2-episode-3 Looks like some new info to me.

Has anyone heard that Valve is studying sign language for HL2:E3? or what that would be about?

L4D2 = epic pile of money

HL2:3 = pleasing the fans + lesser pile of money

guess what ?

We lost. They will probably release a DLC for L4D2 before HL2:3 .

We need to accept that we are never going to see Ep 3 guys, we'll all be happier then.

I gave up wishing for it a few months ago and the relief is nice, I feel a weight off.

I don't understand why people act like Half Life is so dramatically above average.
I have this theory that the gaming community is acting like Half life is a masterpiece so that they can dump pigs blood on Gabe Newell at GDC.

I'm not really sure i'd like to see the end on the half life series but that just hopping to see the end of a good game series, as for HL2 ep3 its gonna have to be long to tie up all the lose ends in the game right now. I could see valve making a 4th epsoide just to make up for all the questions they raised in ep2.