#maybe? i use his hl2 design here

[airyesart]

whoops more barney! i think the harmonic reflux is cool

[thebenriksai]

Welcome! Welcome to the official "The Benriks AU" page!

ABOUT AU:

Our AU - is a load of headcanons that adds new characters to original setting and a new background to the existing ones, connecting it all into one story.The story follows a plot parallel to the original with some timeline differences.

The main characters are members of the second science team: a determined girl Nicole - a former employee of Aperture, not yet fully self-aware barista Toby, who is just starting his hard way as an AI, and two sisters: Lee (younger, more active) and Alex (older, more passive), with whom… something is clearly wrong.

Our AU is mostly very similar to the original HLVRAI series in terms of cascade resonance times. We have times before the cascade resonance and after, in the HL2 timeline, which has additional characters. Our original characters are carefully written into the original HLVRAI series, for example, they are used to explain some off-screen and unexplained moments.

RULES, RIGHTS AND TERMS:

Likes: YEAAHH LET'S GO!!!

Reblogs: YES PLEASEEEE

Comments: Yeah, feel free! :)

Ask: Please! We are always here and we are happy to answer!

Using our art: You can use it, just mention us! Please, do not sell or use for commercial purposes. Do not use for AI content :)

Requests: Yeah, feel free to ask something!

Collabs: Maybe, depends on what you gonna offer.

Characters use:

Alex and Lee. Feel free to use 'em as you want. I understand that art can be really different and sometimes unstoppable, It's just useless to try to stop people, haha. I gotta mention that we have our canon ships, but you can headcanon them as you want. And please, remember that they are not humans at all, our rules just not working with them (age, mentality, body, organism in general).

For Nico and Toby:

You can do and draw anything you want with them (if you want ofc-), but within the SFW, please. If you have any questions about characters or themes - pm me freely!!

Memes, eye-straining colors, crossovers and challenges are cool and welcome, as well angst and some blood, too (you know emotional art with idea of moral choice, etc, ii love it).

Just don't turn them into minced meat, please

(You can a little bit, hehe)

PLEASE, NO NEGATIVE, AGGRESSION, BULLYING AND CRITICISM. WE ARE TRYING TO CREATE A COMFORTABLE PLACE FOR EVERYONE HERE!

ABOUT US (AUTHORS):

Heya. I'm Alex, my nickname is Blue Opal. She/Her. I am the original creator and author of this AU. Alex in our AU was named after me. I'm 19 y.o. student in university. My kinnies are Benrey, Tommy, Queen (Deltarune), Pearl (Steven Universe). Mostly Benrey hahah. I'm multifandom person, but now sitting in HLVRAI fandom. I don't have any experience with all that social media popularity, all my previous blogs and groups were just archives to myself. Now I'm working on this project with my friend, I put all my love and soul here. Thank you for all your interest, we appreciate it. :)

Ao3

Hello everynyan! Im Pigel0n. Second author. Currently studying at university, i draw a bit, design a bit, but mostly just thinking about art ideas and funny little stories to draw.

Pronouns are she/her if needed, but you can call me Pigel for short.

[gryphsdeadbones]

Did you prefer Half Life 1 or 2? I got into a debate about it with my sister the other day, I'm curious what you think. (also I love your art so much)

WAHHH THANK YOU ;;;;;;

oh man i can never decide- even tho they’re the same series they give off vastly different vibes-

i really like the retro feel of half life 1 games, being released in ‘98 and all- theres also like potential for some of the protags (namely gina and colette god DAMN im salty its not for pc or included in the steam bundle)

they got potential to maybe...make a return somewhere if/when they wrap up half life for good (adrian pls come home). like y’know tying some lose ends than just one-off if that makes sense? if not thats okay too, theres always fanon

despite the rescas happening in hl1 theres still like? a sense of normalcy and stability somewhere. civilization still exists. you get to see gordons dorm room in hl decay. you get to see some of the security guards kinda chill in blue shift and even help you out in opposing force. you can do dumb shit like explode the microwave casserole

also the cafeteria is fuckin hilarious to me like

BIG TONY’S PIZZA!!!

even though the levels are designed kinda funky its like- you can kinda like??? picture life pre-rescas. gordon, gina and colette were all doing their scientist things. barneys just around making the best of his situation after 2 years in college (mood)

maybe its like the nostalgia factor. but its nice! even if black mesa is very fucked up and has a lot of osha violations stacked up

despite the background stuff in hl1 its also...very very lonely. the npcs dont follow far enough for you to save them and xen feels like a fever paranoia dream with all the dead hev scientists strewn everywhere

gameplay-wise its also nice to freely move around in cutscenes. adhd mood of moving around while scientist npcs are talking

i found half life 1 games surprisingly hard?? the use key is also kinda broken for me and oh my god i struggled a lot with the maps and fights ksjfnsdkfj

half life 2 on the other hand...holy FUCK the graphics are obviously better etc. etc. etc.

heres a random screenshot i took while in the metal coffin cuz why not

also this Death Orb of Oh Fuck

the use key is very fun too i hit many enemies with items and grav gun

gameplay-wise half life 2 is a lot more intuitive ?? and overall just better designed

theres of course an entire post about the characters- the cast is super super good 

and if i had to nitpick something, i dislike the fact that alyx and judith kinda conflict with each other for whatever petty reason (idk like those old ? ? cartoons or shows where the female charas hate each other for no reason?? judith could be like a cool aunt to alyx ok) idk maybe thats just me. anyway i love them and want them to be happy

eli and isaac ;__; i also care them... eli’s been through so goddamn much, lost so much in black mesa... please give him a nice vacation ok!! i also want to know more about azian vance... isaac kleiner is a very kind and sweet man and im always sad when magnusson yells at him :(

barney is there i guess. ok but hes good too even if he yells at me about those stupid grenades and snipers. give him a god damn hug bro its been 20 years

anyway MEGA upgrade of the cast from hl1 theyre no longer static, one-off characters (the core cast at least. i get so fuckin sad when the resistance members dont survive the fights T_T)

makes me a little sad theres no longer that old sense of stability in that world, everything’s fallen apart and gone and you always have to keep moving or die. as in like- there really is no telling what’s going to happen next since it feels all gloom and doom- animals being extinct, combine around the corner, old homes gone and dusted... pretty fucked up. your standard kind of apocalypse written in 2000s and what not

but there is still hope with the resistance. theyre your family and home now and its better than being alone

kind of inverse with half life 1 where like. yeah you’ve defeated the big bad nihilanth and survived the rescas but also gman stuffed you in the fridge while the seven hour war happens some time after

...uh holy shit this got long- MANY THOUGHTS....HEAD FULL....

TLDR THEYRE BOTH REALLY GOOD...half life 1 might seem like shit but it should also be appreciated more!! (Read: gina and colette half life decay pls and thank)

i wanna play all of hl1 AND hl2 again now thank u anon

[breadknight-likes-things]

Game Journal 03/28/2020: We Don’t Go To Ravenholm, But I Sure Did.

Ravenholm is probably the most often referenced part of Half Life 2, and for extremely good reason.  It’s rare a game takes such a hard shift in tone ,like this section of Half Life 2, and actually pulls it off.  So when you play one that works as unbelievably well as Ravenholm, it sticks with you forever.  Ravenholm itself is a lot like the other environments you play through in HL2.  It’s obviously Eastern European, it’s run down and it’s largely uninhabitable to human life.  The key twist here though, is the horde of bloodthirsty, horrifying headcrab zombies that dominate the entire town. You actually see The Combine “Shell” a few locations  early on in Half Life 2 but at that point it seems like a minor annoyance.  So they launched a big metal tube full of 2-3 head crabs at you? So what?  Those things barely do any damage and are easy to kill.  Ravenholm, however, is the extremely grim endgame of what initially seems like an ineffective plan.  Ravenholm, while maybe not thriving, was obviously a place people could live in peace, but as it is now the only things there are corpses, living corpses, the remains of the aforementioned “shells” and one unhinged preacher hunting down the zombies and laying his flock to rest.  It spells out the grim effectiveness of the Combine’s strategy when you see a place this decimated, and frankly haunted, by the same minor annoyances you shrugged off two hours ago.  Clearly this strategy works, and after all, if the Combine care little for the health of the actual world they’re now lording over?  What’s creating small pockets of zombie infested towns really going to harm in their long term plan?

Ravenholm also culminates in having to go down this hole, which, is the very definition of “Nah, I’ve heard this urban legend before!” It’s a jarring shift in tone, and for a solid hour to hour and a half, Half Life 2 turns into something more closely resembling a horror game.  Ravenholm is dark, claustrophobic and full of the scariest enemies in the game.  The only person on your side even seems unhinged himself (Though ultimately he does seem to mean well).  It also helps immensely that, right before this section of the game, you’re given the iconic “Gravity Gun” and Ravenholm is explicitly designed for it’s use.  It’s much easier to deal with enemies not firing guns at you with stuff like barrels, crates and even buzz saws pulled from the wall, and it’s always a lot of fun.  There’s even an achievement given to you if you play the whole section without using any other weapon, and while doing so gets difficult near the end, I honestly think you owe it to yourself to play through it that way.  Hell you just owe it to yourself play HL2 in general, please do!  Then someone buy me a VR headset so I can play Half Life Alyx, I’m starving over here!

Random Screenshot Of The Day:

I swear I used to do like twenty squats every morning before Ring Fit, I better get swole from this!

Stray Game Notes:

- Not game related, but uh, they redesigned Google Podcasts and it’s way harder to parse and navigate?  I know complaining about re-designs is cliche, but it’s annoying! - I’d say “Man, Ravneholm really stands out among the incredible sections of Half Life 2!” but that’s really selling the game short because pretty much every section of Half Life is on part with this one, including my favorite section I’ll cover tomorrow: Highway 17. - Turns out when you do 150 squats in the span of an hour, among all the other exercises, you’re legs feel like they’re going to explode an hour later.  Even when there’s a fun video game involved!