#first time playing hl2 actually

[gorbongweedman]

half life 2 ep 1: now youre thinking with balls

[abysswatchers420]

how many of my followers were around during my supernatural phase? you remember that shit, the gif sets of dean and sam standing around? i think back on it and god it was so corny lmao i went thru and purged everything from my blog idk how many years ago. and now i like, i see gifsets of tv shit today and my kneejerk reaction is 'superwholock' and i gotta shut it down, remove posts. we dont do that here anymore

[bembwashere]

Guess who actually played and finished Half-Life 2 for the first time! Oh my god it was so good. I was planning to get through HL1 first but I think I got softlocked, I didn't wanna start a new save or go back and I get motion sick because of the damn camera. Also since HL2 was for free, I decided to do that instead <3 I haven't played the episodes yet but man. It's so good you guys should play it. I've purposefully avoided watching play-throughs and its worth it. Anyways, hope you like this little MS paint doodle dump.

[narklos]

Half-Lore #3: 66 HL Facts!

Make your 'counting to three' jokes in the tags please. Back with another instalment, this is one I've been looking forward to! 66 random facts spanning the entire Half-Life franchise (bc I couldn't fit 100 in one post due to numbered list character limits...) If you have any suggestions for other instalments of Half-Lore, please let me know.

Have a peep under the cut, and enjoy!

Gordon can speak, as confirmed in a series of letters that were included in HL1's box. They mention that L.M and him had a telephone call prior to Gordon's arrival.

Speaking of L.M, he was the original administrator for Black Mesa. L.M was the G-Man, though his full name is never revealed.

Barney and Breen were both meant to appear in Half-Life: Alyx, but were cut due to a hard reset on the game's development.

Gordon is apparently very clumsy. Eli jokes about it in a series of cut voicelines.

Prior to his appointment at Black Mesa, Gordon was stationed at the University of Innsbruck in Austria.

Russell's complaint about being told to apply a year later after his interview at Black Mesa is a real-life hiring process that Valve uses.

Marc Laidlaw mentioned that the baby photo in Gordon's locker is probably a nephew, making Gordon an uncle!

Bullsquids have a 'hungry' mode. If they find a dead headcrab, and they're in hungry mode, they'll eat it. Otherwise, they'll play a sniffing animation and walk away.

In HL2, you can bonk NPCs on the head during a cutscene to make them teleport. This is because the game thinks that the character is trapped by a physics prop, and will teleport them to the next segment in the cutscene to free them.

On Kleiner's clipboard during his first cutscene, what he's saying about the HEV suit is actually written on the paper word-for-word.

Barney has a girlfriend called Lauren, and a picture of her in his locker. The woman in question was a real-life girlfriend of one of the devs.

In one of the OP4 skyboxes, a dev has written the note "Hack hack hack all day long. Hack hack hack while I sing this song."

The mysterious artefact Alyx brings back to Black Mesa East is the head of a Cremator, which was a cut enemy.

HL2 was originally meant to take place in New York.

Headcrabs don't turn Gordon into a zombie because he apparently never lets them get close to his face.

Colette gets a kick out of violence.

Gordon was employee of the month when the Resonance Cascade happened.

A special rebel outpost along Route Kanal will start playing ambient windchimes if you hang around long enough.

Breen was meant to wear a pair of glasses, but Marc Laidlaw went against it, citing that they made Breen look 'vaguely homosexual'.

Russell was originally meant to be Laszlo, the finest mind of his generation. His computer's password is actually 'Laszlo' too!

There are props clipping through Russell's ceiling intentionally- objects will phase through each other during portal storms, the likes of which ravage City 17.

The Citadel wasn't built on Earth, per se- it was teleported in chunk by chunk like the world's biggest IKEA assembly.

G-Man cannot understand the Vort's language, and the Vorts use by-words when discussing him and the Advisors to avoid detection.

Combine Advisors cannot breathe Earth's atmosphere, hence the breathing apparatus they wear.

There was meant to be a fourth day of HL2's plot, but it was shortened to three. Players would have fought through a museum.

Eli lost his leg to a bullsquid when he was helping Kleiner into City 17.

Kleiner and Barney were meant to die in a bus crash in HL2's opening sequence. Marc Laidlaw wrote a short story discussing their deaths in rather graphic detail.

In Decay, there was a cut sequence where players witnessed Gordon getting killed if they didn't scare away the soldiers in time.

Despite 20 years having passed in reality, only around two weeks have passed for Gordon due to being in stasis.

For HLA, developers scanned in a $10,000 Nordstrom suit to use for G-Man's textures.

Level designer David Casali, who has worked on every single mainline HL game, was too tall for a lot of the levels in HLA's Vault sequence. This lead to a lot of upside-down sections being cut for accessibility.

G-Man was meant to be an unwilling prisoner in the Vault, as revealed in a storyboard in The Final Hours.

The Nihilanth is inspired by Gabe Newell's fears of fatherhood, as he'd just had his son at the time.

Nothing is native to Xen. Every alien animal present on Xen is running away from The Combine's invasion of their homeworlds.

During Opposing Force, players can find a gear and a valve inside of a cardboard box- a very clear nod to Gearbox and Valve!

Barney's model changes subtly from HL2 to Episode 1- he's shown more dishevelled, with his hair unkempt and a series of cuts on his cheeks.

G-Man's face is hidden in the Xenian crystal at Black Mesa East.

Alyx was found by the G-Man, sitting beside her dead mother and clutching her mother's wedding ring.

Child labour was meant to appear, with models and animations of the children working in Cremator factories made. This, understandably, were cut, and the lack of children explained away with the suppression field.

G-Man's crow friend is nicknamed 'Crowley'.

During the tactical map section of Surface Tension, you don't have to use the drone strike to destroy the doors leading to the next level- you can actually break it with a fully-charged Tau Cannon shot.

Typing 'haiku' in the game's console will generate a random haiku for you.

Imprisoning the G-Man in HLA was referred to as putting 'God in a Box' by developers.

HL2 on PC and HL2 on Xbox 360 sound wildly different! Due to advanced sound chips, developers were able to push the audio of HL2 to be more immersive and sound more realistic than on PC.

Grigori's shotgun is called Annabelle.

A model of Eli naked exists. This was meant to be used in the section we see him in the Combine pods.

An illustration of G-Man holding a gun to his head can be found on the back of a sign in HLA.

Similarly, in the Index HLA home environment, his eyes are used as part of an advertisement for 'vision enhancement'.

You can find a minifigure of the Scout in HLA.

The textures for some of HLA's cans actually use a recoloured metal effect from HL1's orange poster.

Grigori has cut crosses into the backs of his hands.

Inside G-Man's briefcase is pencils, ID, paper, and a gun.

The shadowy woman in HLA is called Hahn/The Contractor, and according to Erik Wolpaw, they 'have plans' for her.

A cut enemy called Mr. Friendly was meant to literally SA the player and knock Gordon's glasses off, blurring the screen. Apparently, the idea was to play on a gamer's subconscious (or conscious...) homophobia and make them freak out. This enemy was actually designed by a teenager, and was predictably scrapped.

Early advertisements for HL1 featured babies and children with lambdas replacing their eyes.

HL1 is intended to be an allegory for fighting your own inner hopelessness.

Valve's offices have a wall built to resemble the moving walls of the Citadel.

G-Man has had a total of 11 different models throughout HL's history.

Breaking the army crates in the Dreamcast port of HL1 will reveal copies of Sonic Adventure inside.

Gordon is from Seattle, Washington.

HL2 was delayed a lot during its development. At the time, many swore never to buy from Valve again due to their broken promises.

HL2's E3 demonstrations were staged.

Colette was employed by G-Man, but Gina died.

During a Reddit AMA, a dev responded that we shouldn't keep making Gordon feel bad about his outdated hairstyle choices, when asked about where his ponytail went.

A metrocop's hideaway can be found in the level after the zoo in HLA. Due to the amount of conspiracy theory paraphanelia, the room is theorised to be Barney's.

The act of covering your mouth to stop the fumes of Xenian flora from affecting you in HLA was implemented after playtesters instictively covered their mouths when sprayed.

Thanks for reading to the bottom! Here's some top notch BREENWAVE for you.

[turoce]

day 2 update

KULCS Day 2 Update Community: -has thoroughly deconstructed the map, including various prop pieces and brush chunks, but not very relevant -Cones identified as a potential key lead since they seem to have distinct positions, though not sure why -The various floating props seem to be interacting very specifically with the lighting, shadows and light seem to be displaying shapes of numbers/letters/symbols? -Lots of various ciphers/cryptographic methods tested on aspects of the map but nothing appears to bear much fruit. I’m also personally doubtful the engine would generate anything this complex but that’s just my opinion -People have tried moving the map/lighting around to generate new shadows, but nothing seems to have come from this. My End: -Been spending a lot of time looking around the map myself but still can’t really figure anything out myself In game nothing has really changed, except the figure occasionally seems to spawn in different places -Tried some suggestions but nothing worked. For example, HL2 cheat codes don’t work because I can’t jump, shoot, or use flashlight -In video attached, looking around but nothing is new or changed, still can't move or do anything Other Notes: -Personally I’m feeling that deconstructing the map isn’t going anywhere significant. I have also tried a lot of things on the vmf end but I’m convinced that there’s something about how it’s set up currently -People have been sending me lots of suggestions but there’s too much for me to get to. I won’t be able to try everything you guys suggest + it could take me weeks to really get to everything Maybe I’m going a bit crazy too, but I just realized this entire debacle is happening around the 2 year anniversary of INTERLOPER 3, which was the first time I had to lean on you guys for help. Again thanks everyone for your help, and keep me posted

the sillouette is back.

Additionally, there was a conversation that took place in another person's tf2 server that hosted the Kulcs map:

This is a transcript of TF2 chat messages between Anomi and Autumn-, when Anomi joined Autumn's server hosted on kulcs. Video of encounter -- START -- Anomi has joined the game Autumn- : WHAT Anomi joined team BLU Autumn- : ANOMI?1 Anomi : find anything? Autumn- : uh no? Autumn- : How are you here? Autumn- : This is like a local server? Anomi : u have the checkbox turned on Anomi : its a new tf2 feature Autumn- : which one? Anomi : in create server Autumn- : huh Autumn- : interesting Anomi : theres a checkbox that lets steam host your listen server Autumn- : never thought the creator of the mystery would join Autumn- : also the most interesting thing by far I've connected is Autumn- : is that the images in the out of bounds are Autumn- : somehow connected to the games yo uare able to play this map? Autumn- : It works in half-life 2 Anomi : idk Autumn- : and portal Autumn- : I tested it Anomi : it does? Autumn- : yep Autumn- : if you put it in the og portal's map folde Autumn- : *folder Autumn- : and do the 'map kulcs' command Autumn- : it'll send you here also Autumn- : the xbox version is obvious cuz y'know Autumn- : Interloper d? Autumn- : oh wait Autumn- : well I am only saying it cuz Autumn- : the images also have the half-life 2 xbox cover Anomi : like the 360? Anomi : yeah Autumn- : yep Autumn- : the weirdest thing is Autumn- : when I researched this map Anomi : actually you know Autumn- : ? Anomi : on the xbox 360 version this map was the first map that loaded whenever you launched the game Autumn- : oh? Anomi : orange box Anomi : yeah Autumn- : that's interesting Anomi : I played a LOT of orange box Autumn- : Never got to play it, was too youn for it lol Anomi : me too but I borrowed it Autumn- : ah ok Autumn- : anyway uh Autumn- : everybody keeps thinking cuz of the vrad thing Autumn- : that the shadows have secrets Autumn- : like it's somehow a code Anomi : I kind of agree I think Autumn- : idk how it works Anomi : like this Autumn- : well no Anomi : I'm kind of looking at this thing Autumn- : some shadows connect to look like symbols Autumn- : what do you see? Anomi : it is just me or does this look like a letter e? Autumn- : i mean.. kinda? Autumn- : the top thing makes it look like so Autumn- : but there have been shadows that make them look like letters Autumn- : idk where Anomi : OH i see it Anomi : stand here Autumn- : I could find a youtube video with them Anomi : look this way Autumn- : oh yeah Anomi : you know I should open this in vr and see if I can find more of these Autumn- : hm.. Autumn- : oh yeah Autumn- : wait I am curious really Autumn- : since kulcs is hungarian for key Autumn- : and the key you showed in INTERLOPER D Autumn- : could they be connected? Anomi : i thought so but I have no idea Anomi : thats been the thing for the last weeks Autumn- : huh.. Anomi : but like serial keys arent literal keys so Autumn- : yeah but since it's source Anomi : it's a little too silly 90's Autumn- : some things could be literal Autumn- : idk Autumn- : seems usual for entities within the engine Anomi : I'm gonna look around some more, let me know if you see or find anything cool Autumn- : ah ok Anomi left the game (Client Disconnect) -- END --

[angels-heap]

#replaying hl2 like 'wow barney is a one-note plot device and tutorial agent. these people are just making shit up'#I expect it every time and yet I'm still taken aback by how little characterization he has

Yeah, I recently replayed "A Red Letter Day" just as a refresher because it's been ages since I last touched the source material, and it amused me how much of a goober Barney is compared to his characterization in fanfic.

Don't get me wrong, I love me some Barney angst, but the reality is he seems to treat his Metrocop job as little more than another 9-5.

His snarkier lines also reminded me that he's kind of a jackass. Suddenly I remembered why I didn't like him when I first played HL2, dkjnfkjdsn.

To a lesser extent, I think Alyx suffers a bit of the same problem, despite having the richest emotional range of the cast besides maybe Eli. The game portrays her as an optimist and emotionally well-adjusted - strange, given the circumstances - and we tend to take the ball and run with it.

Yes to all of this. "He's just acting like that because he's worn down by circumstance and he's suppressing all the Trauma!!™️" is a logical and interesting interpretation but it's so painfully clear that Valve did not put that much thought into Barney's characterization. Also love me some Barney angst but anyone who claims these themes are in the text is either confused, illiterate, or lying.

You raise an interesting point about Alyx, too. I go back and forth on whether I think she's actually that well-adjusted or just good at suppressing her emotions for the sake of survival. It's probably a bit of both? Since she was so young when the Resonance Cascade happened, she'd have a very different relationship to the Before Times than her peers in that her longing for the past is more abstract and maybe less painful or ever-present. She's also maintained long-term relationships with friends and family longer than most other people in Combine-occupied Earth. But then again, she still spent her formative years surrounded by death and fascism, so...?

I don't know. I think it's reasonable to believe she's made the best of her current situation. Perhaps she's adjusted so well to those circumstances that she'll fall apart post-canon, after the Combine are gone, when everyone else starts to rebuild a society she's never known. Much to consider.

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 2

Propaganda Under Cut

Alyx Vance

She genuinely gets so much hate from fans who like to ship Gordon and Barney because she's Gordon's canon love interest and it's tragic because she's such an interesting character.

I LOVE HER SM but she's so often mistreated and shoved under the rug by not only ppl mischaracterizing her due to being a woman of color but also to shove her to the side for freehoun (gordon freeman/barney calhoun) bc she "gets in the way" of freehoun by being canonically into gordon ........ i need her to stay safe in my arms

Literally gordon freemans canon love interest, and she loves gordon so much. I love her and i love their relationship even if gordon is a bit of a blank slate character. Anyway Freemance (Alyx/Gordon) is way less popular than Freehoun (Gordon/Barney). Barney is some guy who appeared in half life 1 but didnt even have a name. He appears at like the beginning and end of hl2. He is a side character. And yet for some fucking reason people always push alyx out of the way to ship gordon with this random white guy (Should mention at this point that alyx is a black woman). Alyx and her relationship with Gordon have WAY more development than anything about Barney (did BARNEY get a whole game dedicated to him?). And yet. I literally saw a freehoun shipper try to say that freemance is pedophilia and freehoun should be alyx's "dads." The reasoning for this being that hl2 takes place 20 years after hl1, and gordon, at 27, was put into stasis for those 20 years. When he comes out Alyx is 24 and Barney is in his 40s. The argument is that gordon actually did age those 20 years even though he was fucking suspended in time. They even claimed that "gordon probably babysitted alyx at some point" which there is absolutely no evidence for - meeting Alyx in hl2 is pretty heavily implied to be Gordon's first time meeting her. But like functionally Gordon is 3 years older than Alyx and 20 years younger than barney!!! He did not have any fucking life experience while he was in time prison!!! It's an absolutely insane reach to try and justify why you are sidelining a black woman!!!!!! Basically I love alyx I love freemance and I do not trust freehoun shippers because there is some kind of racism and misogyny happening there to make them sideline Alyx for a random white guy

Suzi Q

This article is incomplete; you can help by expanding it

All she's literally ever done is have a few cute exchanges with Joseph and be a sweetheart in the short time we get to see her following her minor introduction, clearly cementing some sort of playful attraction between the two and without fail she's consistently bombarded with extreme mischaracterization to make her seem vapid and cruel (and occasionally homophobic but like in a Completely Oblivious Dumb Blonde way), that she's nothing more than a gold digger who wanted to marry rich, that Joseph only married her because "he lost his actual soulmate and had to settle for her", and that it was HER fault that Joseph cheated on her decades into their marriage. Frankly, everyone who makes jokes at Suzi Q's expense regarding the cheating scandal aren't as funny as they think they are!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Literally all she’s ever done is be adorable and marry the hero and people either dismiss her completely or demonize her. She’s often ignored or made to play wing woman for the hero/sidekick ship OR she’s a horrible gold digger who only wants the hero for his money and/or she was only ever just a consolation prize for him when he couldn’t be with his sidekick. She also gets blamed for her husband having an affair. People like to say that she wasn’t good enough for him and could never replace his sidekick and that clearly he never REALLY loved her and it’s her fault for never measuring up. Her husband’s infidelity aside, she stayed married to that man for at least 60 years and canonically says she always believes in him and trusts him to save the day and yet people wanna say she doesn’t care about him. Or call her stupid for never imagining that her husband would cheat on her. The victim blaming gets really gross.

[cosmoknightchaos]

Actually wait hang on. Spoilers for the finale.

Three friends. Benry (or possibly Gman, though I'm leaning towards the former), Gnome, and the girl. The girl who we will meet soon, presumably in whatever the new series is. Who I think is the shadow we see in the hallway before the theatre.

The hollows and the echoes. Not really sure what the hollows is referring to, but Peppa and the girl can hear the echoes. They're beautiful. "Don't tell me you can't hear it" as opposed to asking Gordon if he can hear it, it's like she expects him to be able to. "The song they sing at the edges of the mind"--Maybe something to do with the AIs? The characters being on the edge of their minds, the edge of their understanding. She expects Gordon to hear it because he's the only real one there, he more than anyone should be able to understand these AIs becoming sentient. He should be able to hear the songs.

But perhaps it's better he doesn't. Perhaps it's better that he doesn't understand the horror of realizing everything you've ever known is fake, of waking up and being faced with a world controlled by someone else for their amusement and you are but a mindless pawn in this little game.

"Lest you end up like her." Her, the third friend. Who, I'm inclined to think, is--or, was--a player, like Gordon. Who got too involved and got fucked over by Peppa or the gnome, now reduced to nothing but a shadow in the game. It's a shame, really.

"The white woods call for you" The white woods is probably a reference to the White Forest, a late-game area in Hl2 Ep2. Coincidentally, it's also the location the player has to take Gnome Chompski to get the gnome run achievement in Hl2 Ep2. This forest is specifically made of pine trees (according to images of it on the wiki), a mix of dead and alive. The forest we see after the monologue matches this.

Dulcet tones almost directly means Sweet Voice. Backs up that Benry is the first friend. Furthermore, could also mean that the echoes in the hollows is the Sweet Voice, and whatever befell the third friend had something to do with Benry. It's better that Gordon can't hear it because of the events of Hlvrai, and Gordon would really like for Benry to not be back. The tones are specifically calling out Gordon's name--If it is the sweet voice, maybe it's Benry trying to get Gordon's attention.

IT IS TIME FOR US FOUR. FOUR OF THEM. Gordon, the gnome, and Peppa are all obvious, but that's only three. The fourth is the audience. It's shown again and again that the chat has a presence in Hlage, through the gnome calling out chat members and banning folks when he takes over the stream. The gnome knows, Peppa knows. The audience is watching.

Never forget. The repeating theme of the episode.

The woods, the seeds, the girl, the key. Once again, the White Forest. I don't know what's up with the seeds. Maybe metaphorically, like the seeds of imagination. Don't forget the creations you've made. The girl is the third friend who we'll meet eventually, and the key. I have absolutely no clue what the key is.

"How will you fare, Gordon, when the sea of mud comes for us all?" Also a bit clueless on this one. My first thought is like a mudslide, dirt and destruction. But it sounded familiar.

"[Where we'd play] in the mud? We were playing in the mud, all the time." Benry MENTIONS playing in the mud with Gordon during the opening part of Xen. And what will Peppa do when the sea of mud comes? Splish, splash, splosh. She will play in the mud.

And then slam cut into the movie disappearing and showing a forest full of pine trees. The White Forest.

[askseriousrainbow]

Alrighty, here we go! It's been a while, but I finally got it done. It's gonna be similar to last time, except I'm not doing a read more this time. Yeah, changed my mind. There's a read more now.

100. Shadow Warrior (1997) New Entry (Available on: Steam, GOG) Alright, disclaimer: this game is definitely a product of its time, spoofing bad kung fu movies, so it has some cringeworthy stereotyping, especially with Lo Wang, but Shadow Warrior brought some new ideas, such as secondary fire modes with weapons and controllable vehicles. I won't blame you for not playing this one, though.

99. Sid Meier's Covert Action New Entry (Available on: Steam, GOG) A thrilling tale of espionage, you control Max Remington (who can be either male or female) in a mix of genres. While it did coin the “Covert Action rule” for Sid Meier (“It's better to make one good game than two great games.”) it's still a fun time.

98. POSTAL 4: No Regerts Previous Rank: 91 (Available on: Steam, GOG) I know it's weird, but POSTAL 4 is a good game to me. It's not perfect, of course, it's a POSTAL game, there's gonna be some jank and some jokes that miss, but you have to remember: POSTAL knows it's a video game and acts appropriately. It's not for everyone, but I like it.

97. Half-Life 2 Previous Rank: 96 (Available on: Steam) Okay, so I didn't get raked over the coals for ranking HL2 low in my previous Top 100. It's a little lower than last time, but that's because there's so much new stuff in the list, and I still don't like Ravenholm.

96. You Don't Know Jack Volume 1 XL Previous Rank: 98 (Available on: Steam, Jackbox) While I love the original YDKJ for the host and the questions and the music, it's missing later additions like DisOrDats and other question types. It only has Gibberish Questions and Jack Attacks aside from the regular multiple-choice questions. It's still a good game.

95. Leisure Suit Larry 1: In The Land of the Lounge Lizards Previous Rank: 85 (Available on: GOG) The first LSL is short, but an enjoyable time where you have to help Larry; Larry Laffer find true love. Like last time, I'm lumping all three versions in one position because they're all basically the same game, just with slight puzzle adjustments across all three.

94. Serious Sam 2 Previous Rank: 89 (Available on: Steam) Serious Sam 2 is the wacky one, and it's still a good time. It's just as difficult, even though 2K tried to get Croteam to “kidify” it, for some reason. I'm glad Devolver took over publishing.

93. Populous II: Trials of the Olympian Gods Previous Rank: 40 (Available on: Steam, GOG, EA) Ah, Peter Molyneux before he was the butt of every Guru Larry joke. Believe it or not, he actually made some fun games, Populous II being one of them. It's an intuitive god game where you have to defeat your opponent by being more, well, populous.

92. Webfishing New Entry (Available on: Steam) Webfishing is a nice chill game where you fish with your friends on the web. Hence the name. I really like this one, it's a good time with friends.

91. The Sims 3 Previous Rank: 92 (Available on: Steam, EA) The Sims 3 brings an open world to the life simulator, and it's just a great game. It's not as detailed as The Sims 2, but it still brings a smile to my face. And Create-A-Style needs to come back, Sims 4 is lame.

Next part tomorrow!

Link to part 2. Link to part 3. Link to part 4. Link to part 5. Link to part 6. Link to part 7. Link to part 8. Link to part 9. Link to part 10.

[eeveekitti]

pspspsp. can you pitch the basic plot of entropy: zero to me in the way you would if you were trying to convince someone to play it

anon do you know what youve done /silly

[here's just the game descriptions for those who don't want to see 200+ words about a half life mod]

do YOU like half-life 2?? and optionally the HL1 expansion opposing force?? have YOU ever wondered what it's like to play as the combine?? well that's the entire pitch of this free-to-play HL2 [EP2 apparently, didn't know that] mod!

in entropy : zero, you play a combine metrocop, stranded in the unheard of city 10 almost a year before the events of HL2. your job? surviving the harsh cold, and taking down an entire rebel base!

fighting your way through the rebel outposts and working your way into becoming more and more of a threat is the fun of the first installment in the entropy series.

entropy : zero 2 is a much more character-driven game, and what attracts most people to the series, following a much more talkative and very interesting iteration of our protagonist.

this time, you pick up the story after the events of HL2, hunting down well-known resistance member judith mossman in the north. there's actually so little i can say on entropy 2, so much of it is character-focused, but i promise you it's super super good!!!

and a personal funfact: ez2 is my favorite game ever as of current [even above rain world!! and i'm a rain world blog!!] and has my favorite character ever in it!

so i highly encourage everyone who owns hl2 play these mods please please please [<- desperate for a tumblr fandom to exist] and if it sweetens the deal for you-- i'm like 90% sure they're making a third installment!!

[cannibalisticdespair]

Hey, how's it going? If you don't mind answering, how's the system constructed? Who's in there? If you do mind answering, what's your favourite colour?

It’s myself (Krys, she/her), Junko (Junko fictive, she/her), Zaedel (my twin since we formed at the same time for bad prolonged trauma reasons, he/him), Cherry (he/she and don’t consistently use one, bigender little who takes after the original host in some ways but is a more idealized version, mentally 8-10), and Val (she/her, oldest one here, grew up with the original host but Zaedel and I only became aware of her much later on because historically she existed for “we need to be a vicious feral beast to match the energy of the family screaming matches and whatnot” reasons, but has been rehabilitating you could say).

Headspace-wise, I just look how I look with maximum effort. Zaedel meanwhile has our dad’s olive skin tone (lifelong outdoor loving and working Sicilian man), stubble to a short beard, long black hair, and black molting angel wings. And usually a leather jacket. Junko’s mostly canon, just the clothing tends to be more early 2010s emo girl. Fishnet tops and a bra or shirt where the sleeves and neck are cut out and the back is sliced up, ripped skinny jeans, docs or converse, a black/red/danganronpa blood pink color scheme.

Cherry is an androgynous, pale, heavily freckled boygirl with long brown hair and brown eyes, usually a black tanktop, shorts, and flip flops. And Val looks like a cross between the HL2 rotting corpse with the real corpse face and Samara from The Ring if she was actually depicted as a waterlogged corpse that’s been sitting there for a week or two (we had unrestricted internet access starting in the 2000s, we have quite the frame of reference).

Zaedel and I formed in tandem with the death of the original host. Originally, he held all the trauma memories from before we formed and I had near-total amnesia. He also spent a few years trying to get me to kill ourselves because he couldn’t take control of the body over it. LSD changed us and our dynamic, and also caused a slowly rising amount of access to the memories for me.

Val we didn’t really realize was a headmate until more recently because of her purely utilitarian fronting and lack of communication, but once we started talking it became clear she was the first one to form. The original host was extremely timid and shy and nervous, which didn’t really work for the environment we grew up in. So Val was the fighter.

Cherry and Junko both broke off of me. Cherry started out as my littlespace, but more and more life stress and stuff eventually snapped him off entirely and made her his own thing.

Junko meanwhile is a mix of causal factors. One, writing hundreds of thousands of words of fic in the 2010s with my method. Which is “I just place these semi-independent thoughtforms of characters in a situation with a little bit of scripting and prose-journal what happens”. Two, strengthening that with constant listening to a playlist build around her for years. Three, more LSD, which led to our first direct conversation enabled by a poster of her (the Egirl Junko art by JunkoEXE). Four, yet more psychological trauma. What finally led to her permanently emerging was me accidentally getting triggered and restoring my earliest CSA trauma memories, which broke me pretty bad. Like… I thought it began way later than that. She took on pieces that broke off of me when that happened and it finished her.

Name-wise, I stole mine from an emo girl I knew in high school. Zaedel thought up his after a few years with a mix of “it needs to have the right mouthfeel and also needs to end in -el”. Cherry got hers from a friend of ours. Junko is Junko, that’s just her name. And Val is short for Valerie and is a nerdy joke about her being our “evil side”. It’s a feminine name play on “Valeyard”.

And also, my favorite color is purple. Junko’s is anything in the red/magenta/pink spectrum. Zaedel is black. Cherry really likes green and blue. Val is the sorts of purples you get from bruising and discoloration on a corpse.

[officialtokyosan]

my 2024 highlights

february: hamtaro apocalypse!!! started playing ham-ham heartbreak. i'm still making progress on it

april: got a new laptop and got to draw a sliver of my armored core ideas

june: played tf2 for the first time and finally actually started to enjoy fps games

september: drew some kickass art

october: i finally finished reading higurashi, a years long process. i slowly got into half-life. i took my aptitude test for the apprenticeship i want and passed! still waiting for an interview date.

november: got hl2 free and hl1 for less than a dollar. played the shit out of them

december: played the portal games for the first time. earned all achievements in hl2

AND I CAN ONLY ACHIEVE MORE!!!

[w8ing42moro]

The Half-Life games tend to go on sale for like 99 cents (US) whenever there’s a steam sale. If you’re into fps games with rich environmental storytelling I’d totally recommend it. Hell even if you’re not I’d still recommend it. I wasn’t before I played the first game but it’s incredible. If you’re interested I’ll let you know the order that I’d recommend playing the games since the naming conventions can be confusing

Half-Life

Half-Life: Blue Shift or Opposing Force (they take place at the same time as HL1 and aren’t entirely necessary to the story but they’re short and introduce a lot of new elements. Blue Shift is the shorter one but you play as a character that gets more fleshed out in HL2 so is more important story wise, while in Opposing Force you play as a character that doesn’t come back but it introduces a LOT of new enemies and weapons which makes it feel more fresh than Blue Shift)

Half-Life 2

Half-Life 2: Episode 1 (yes it’s different from Half-Life 2 it continues that games story from where it leaves off, sorta like a pseudo sequel)

Half-Life 2: Episode 2 (same thing as episode 1)

Half-Life: Alyx (takes place in between 1 and 2 but needs the context of Half-Life 2 and a flash forward sequence at the end continues the story of Episode 2, it is VR only as well and the lost expensive game in the series so I’d recommend just watching a let’s play of it, but if you can actually play it in VR I’d recommend that seeing as it is objectively one of if not the greatest VR games of all time)

Now is honestly a great time to be getting into Half-Life because it’s been getting more attention from Valve than it has in a LONG time and Half-Life 3 seems to be just around the corner

Sorry for infodumping btw I really like these games :p

-⚡️

maybe I'll look up a play through. I don't feel secure buying a game I possibly won't like. but I know it's one of those old games, so I'll probably be able to find gameplay

[roxyz-silly-box]

dream log 1.

felt like recording this weird ass fucking series of dreams i lad last night. (one long continuous dream? a series of separate dreams? no ficki g clue) i dont fully remember everything. as with dreams its all very fuzzy but i will recount to the best of my memory. first "segment": jupiter was for some fuckin reason just hanging out next to the earth. like, replaced the moon. but the only thing this dis.. was make earth warmer only during the daytime. it made the day hotter. so im like "damn i dont wanna go school today... there is risk for heag stroke!" and i was told "well its 30 right now and will go up to 180 later in the day" and im like shucks. i guess i can survive that but ill be quite uncimfortable.HUH????????? second segment: we return to the premise of jupiter being mext to the earth. this time though its real funky. atmospheres touching. jupiter spinning and transferring its crazy weather and wind to earth. it somehow speeds up tectonic plate movement and we get fucking pangaea again. this is the current topic of my earth sci class so im not surprised. i distinctly remember me being outside and feeling like wt anymoment i was gonna get picked up and shot across the fucking planet at mach 12. didnt nappen because it then suddenly cut to analog horror type footage? so in the dream ther was an lien invasion and it was heavily implied that they fucking put jupiter there to cause all the chaos on earth. in this footage, this dude is just driving and suddenly there are these horrifying creepy ass sirens. think of the lobotomy sound effect mixed with eateot hellsirens and a nuclear siren. and shit started going bazoinkers. earrthquakes. traffic insane (yk, spooky siren and then everything shaking has people mildly worried) and poor PoV guy having to do epic gaming maneuvers to not get goinked by the onslaught of panicked drivers. theres this... other scene spliced in? its someone driving on a road in this really serene grass field. the driver is looking at something in the distance tho and something is just. wrong. its way too quiet. footage cuts back to the chaos and the guy is hiding in a hole, trying to avoid the invaders (nowhere in the dream did i see any of the actual creatures. only the tanks n ships n mechs n shit.) and barely escapes being grisped by one of them. it then cuts to this... tv episode thing? talking abt fascism and dictatorship. quite apt for the alien takeover thing. then we go back to the takeover. its a lot more like HL2 now, a dystopian city. its all just squares. literally just like, a few buildings p a c k e d into a small box. and 2tanks circling every single one. i was trying to see if i could move around the city without being detected but i gave up real fast. in this dream i was living in this really shitty apartment w my irl family. i turned around to go back in but itwas replaced by an even more run down vuilding; i completely didnt notice. i entered and this whole arc of the dream is the most dumb shit ever i swear. so the building is like 3 floors, each being an installation of a really shit fnaf-adjacent fic? it defo seemed satirical in nature it was like "omg look at these dead robot guys. are u offended. disturbed." and there was this fucking narrator guy playing thru the magically functional PA system. yappin abt philosophic topics and the fic. at some point it was talking sbout two characters and how they deserved a better friendship or something and the lack of it is why the fic was created, leading to the building hsppening??? idk. i got to the roof snd the dream kinda dissolves from there. now, the 2nd most bullshit part of my dream.i THINK this had something to do with the dystopia arc but i really dont know.

it was fucking minecraft. this mc server and it was like. weird. permanently night, and if you did anything other than breakimg blocks or moving, (specifically if you hit any mobs in this dream) this weird white rectangle guy with some weird name i cant remember would tp to you and ask you what your foordinates were. a multiple choice thing would be sent in chat and, in xyz, you wiuld havr to pick each one individually and send it in chat, in the right order. you also had 10 seconds to do so. if you failed, you got fucking /kill-ed. i was talking to someone on discord who was also investigating this server and for some reason i needed a gazillion torches. at some point i got those torches but the Coordinate Asker Guy came and goinked me. i was real pissed n stuff but for some reason the CAG decided i was suddenly worthy of fufilling the task or something and gave me my stuff back. dream ended with me asking the discord guy if i should screenshare me beating the game. beating the game, on this server, was really really significant for some reason.

so i was positive tested for bovid and im pretty sure that is where this fucking loony ass dream sequence came from.

[quaddmgd]

the older i get the more unsettling half-life 2 becomes to actually play. and i don't mean the obvious totalitarian/surveillance state/overwhelming alien force stuff

it's about the vibes, the architecture, the ominous OST and creepy sounds used throughout the game. or the lighting, especially during late afternoons, and the textures that go along with it.

tbh i will always prefer hl1 to its sequel and although i can talk about the lore added in hl2 with great fascination, at times it's just... unpleasant to experience to a point of not being enjoyable. i'm sure it was partially intended, but there's just something inside the game that makes me feel like an unreasonably freaked out cat. dunno if that makes any sense.

we beat it with my s/o today and it was their first time playing it. after a few hours into the game they said it looks and feels very russian and it stuck with me lol. i can think of a few russian/ukrainian mid-2000s fpp games with similar lighting, very detailed textures and models while retaining quite simple level geometry - almost like trying to be too realistic for their technology.

i do realize that i'm starting to babble, but i had to try and form my thoughts into a cohesive post. i guess what i meant is...

the older i get the harder it gets to enjoy half-life 2... and the easier it gets to appreciate it

at least that's how i feel now

[the-friendliest-freak]

Okay. This is a topic I’m extremely normal about (lying).

Loneliness is a theme in all of the TSP games, but it actually evolves throughout each of them.

The first game, the Half-Life 2 mod, is by far the loneliest of them all. There’s just Stanley, The Narrator, Mariella and The Curator. The halls are cramped, narrow, and dimly lit.

The HL2 Mod is a house that’s no longer a home, musty and claustrophobic. It’s more isolation than loneliness.

The second, the TSP demo, is less so. There’s evidence that people were here - papers on the floor, a spilled mug, etc. . But the loneliness is less suffocating because The Narrator is constantly trying to show you these cool new gameplay mechanics (in my mind he’s trying to distract himself from the fact that everyone has gone missing) and is taking you through so many different locations and giving you so many things to do.

The Demo is when you were a kid on a school trip to a museum or expo, and you got separated from the group.

The 2013 HD Remaster is a soft, looming loneliness - the documents left strewn about, the mugs left on desks, computers left open; people were here not too long ago. You get a couple phone calls from your wife, too. In this game, we have Stanley, The Narrator, Mariella, The Curator, Stanley’s Wife, the second Stanley and the Line™️ - there’s also evidence that 432 is still up and about, as a box labelled for them disappears after you leave the phone room in the Not Stanley Ending. Far more populated, yes, but only limited to certain endings and paths you can take.

(Also, to answer your question, it’s confirmed in a Reddit AMA: that’s another Stanley, but he considers you to be the “other Stanley”.)

The 2013 HD Remaster is arriving at an event several hours too late.

TSPUD, when I first played it, blew me away, and continues to do so, because unlike the previous games…it’s so alive.

You walk into the Memory Zone for the first time, and there’s birds. Fucking birds! Real animals! Do you have any idea how much that shocked me? In the Elevator Ending, there’s a rat on one of the chairs.

The reviews in the Skip Button Ending, Settings Person greeting you every time you boot up the game, the Bucket Tape Ending, the man that follows you, the second Stanley, the notes you get from your loved ones in the elevator ending (from Stanley’s wife, from his coworkers, you even get a drawing made by Stanley’s child!), the voice that promotes TSPUD in the New Content Ending, the child variant of the previous one, the voice that sings the Good Job, You Made It To The Bottom Of The Mind Control Facility, Well Done song, the chanting behind the mural in the Bucket Museum Ending, the cars zooming by in the release trailer…

It’s full of life!

It’s just beyond a wall, or a door. But it’s there. And whoever’s just beyond that wall loves you.

TSPUD is when you fall asleep at a party as a child, and you’re carried to your bedroom, and you can hear the muffled sounds of the party continuing on downstairs. It’s still there.

It’s just beyond that door.

thing about the stanley parable

the game is determined not to show you another living creature. you never see the narrator’s face. he laughs at you when you see that your wife is a lifeless mannequin. the crowds in the 3 ending are faceless. ‘mariella’ is an unmoving character model in an ending that you can’t interact with. all your friends are inanimate objects that the narrator is determined to personify.

it creates an amazing feeling of loneliness. my goal, when playing this game, became not to find the ‘true’ ending or break the game, but to find someone living, someone real, someone that isnt a bucket that the narrator speaks for to make this world less lonely.

the only time you do see someone else, a moving person, then, is the rare occasion in which you can see someone walking past one of the office windows. and it’s just stanley’s character model, and you don’t get to interact with them. you get to watch them disappear.

this did not quell my loneliness. it gave me UTTER FEAR. what does this mean? are timelines converging? does this represent the endless cycle, the ‘we’ve been here before’ of it all? does the narrator have another stanley? or, more likely, is it something that he, or the game’s creators, threw in to taunt us? you want someone to talk to, here’s a glimpse, and it’ll only give you more questions. there is no comfort, there is no closure. only a glimpse of something. it is unattainable and it is terrifying. stanley is alone. stanley is alone.