Games

...Think it's too late to get a refund?

Ye gods, 18 years, 4 months for mine. You'd hope that they'd just automatically stop asking if I'm old enough to view store pages, right?

My steam account just turned 20. Fugggggg

edit: just double checked... 21 years of service.

Originally played on orange box on the 360, I’m surprised I didn’t already have it on steam. Glad I stumbled on this post

“Best I can do I more cliffhangers”

-valve probably

from Episode One and Episode Two, along with ideas and experiments for the third episode that never came to be.

Emphasis mine. They mean HL2 Ep 3 was planned and canceled. Not HL3.

They've admitted to cancelling ideas before, getting to various stages of production before going back to the drawing board, but always (and appear to still) insist that it is in development on some level. That's why Newell's responses to questions about hl3 are usually some form of "we have nothing new to share." Valve doesn't like sharing until they're in the final stages of development, and hl3 has never made it that far.

They have mentioned before that they gave up on episodic development, which tacitly ditches Episode 3. The episodes ended up not being that much easier or faster to make and in a time when PC games in retail was still kind of relevant, it was a pain to make, distribute, and get shelf space for.

Only those ideas and experiments never came to be. There's still hope

Finally Alf-Life 2. I was going we’d get a sequel for our cat eating alien roommate.

In terms of storyline, it doesn’t really matter too much.

I still think you should play through the first one. If you need something that feels less 1998, Black Mesa is a remake of the original Half Life and it is very fun.

Imo the best enjoyment to time ratio is:

1. Black Mesa (the Xen level at the end was redone and extended compared to in HL1 and it's cool but if it starts to drag just move on)

2. HL2 (main game)

3. HL2: EP1 start it but maybe skip and watch a playthrough if you get bored

4. HL2: EP2

5. HL Alyx, if you can play it on a decent headset. DO NOT MOD IT TO PLAY IT WITH MOUSE/KB it will be extremely boring since it's designed for VR

Have fun, there's simply nothing else like Half-Life games

If you start with the second one you won't know what's going on and feel like you've missed a bunch of important story.

This is how it felt after playing the first one as well. Half Life 2 is almost an unrelated game. The plots of the two barely line up.

Hl1 and hl2 are not really connected plotwise and can be enjoyed separately. There's some small references and a couple characters you wouldn't necessarily know even if you played HL1, because HL1 didn't have much of a focus on that kind of story-telling.

The series is certainly a must play because of how much it influenced the industry. Going back to it now may not seem like it's all that great; but you gotta keep in mind, it was one of the very first FPS games designed this way. Before Half-Life, FPS games were all just basically Doom clones.

They each stand completely on their own. Start with 1 if you want the whole lore and like 90s PC games. Start with 2 if you want a slightly more modern experience.

If you're gonna start with 1, I recommend playing Black Mesa as the updated graphics and qol stuff make it easier to tolerate in modern times.

But that's just me. There is probably some crucial reason why Black Mesa is not the definitive version, and I'm about to hear why

Start with 1

is real good. and stands up too. still as good today as it was 20 years ago.

except the bridge level.

Fuck the bridge level.

It says they're at full price to me; it's the HL2 anniversary, after all. The Orange Box as a whole is 90% off though.

It's a better deal to just get the Orange Box bundle because it is 90% off.