This brings me to the one note of disappointment I must echo

>>386396114
What a pretentious poofter.

Also Freeman is dead and the Combine won. Thanks Gaben.

The burden of proof is on you, as is the consequence of failure. I'll just leave it a that.

Did they have a general or any kind of command structure? It's not explored in game and I don't believe it was explored in raising the bar either. He sort of implies that's the case though.

Considering the Episodes trilogy was never finished because Valve abandoned the episodic model itself, is it fair to scrap the entire Episodes story, treating it as a single unfinished game, and thus treat Half-Life 2 as the end of the series thus far?

Here's the ending of the series: As the Citadel explodes, Gordon Freeman gets kidnapped by the G-Man again, just as he was at the end of the original game. That's it. Still disappointed? Get over it. This is how every finished, canonical, full Half-Life game ends. The writers run out of material so the G-Man steps in to conveniently end the game.

>>386396114
For a minute I thought this was a quote, but I don't remember hearing it.

Does anyone have that chart with a bunch a villain pictures and quotes? It's pretty fun to read.

>>386398697
It is a quote, he says it in Nova Prospekt

Reminder that Doctor Breen did nothing wrong.
>But he handed control to the Combine!
It was to save whatever he could of humanity
>He didn't let anyone reproduce
So no one else would have to be enslaved. He just wanted the remaining humans to live out whatever lives they could without forcing new ones into the situation
>Everyone lives in slums!
That's just Eastern Europe, it's normal
>The police are too vicious!
Talk to the Civil Protection chief, not Breen.

>>386398697
That is a quote, go to 6:12 here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGZHYut1gik

>>386398697
its a quote from the game when you go through nova prospekt, d2_prison_04

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>>386398697

Why was the writting so good? like honestly, i am shocked that no game ever attempted to sell a plot and character in such detailed maner ... have videogame screenwriters given up? what other game has memorable quotes like this?

Why did they change the Vortigaunt's voices in the episodes? They sounded a whole lot better in HL2

>>386402995
even their new lines sound like it had a completely different writer, they sounded more snarky and less sage like

Wow, /v/ is positive about a game for once?

as soon as this is over I'm gonna mate

Highway 17 was so comfy

It has come to my attention that some have lately called me a collaborator, as if such a term were shameful. I ask you, what greater endeavor exists than that of collaboration? In our current unparalleled enterprise, refusal to collaborate is simply a refusal to grow--an insistence on suicide, if you will.

Did the lungfish refuse to breathe air? It did not. It crept forth boldly while its brethren remained in the blackest ocean abyss, with lidless eyes forever staring at the dark, ignorant and doomed despite their eternal vigilance. Would we model ourselves on the trilobite? Are all the accomplishments of humanity fated to be nothing more than a layer of broken plastic shards thinly strewn across a fossil bed, sandwiched between the Burgess shale and an eon's worth of mud?

In order to be true to our nature, and our destiny, we must aspire to greater things. We have outgrown our cradle. It is futile to cry for mother's milk, when our true sustenance awaits us among the stars. And only the universal union that small minds call 'The Combine' can carry us there.

Therefore I say, yes, I am a collaborator. We must all collaborate, willingly, eagerly, if we expect to reap the benefits of unification. And reap we shall.

>>386396114
I love the speech he gives during Anti-Citizen or whatever was the name of the chapter, in which he talks about something like humanity's future being among the stars, but he's looking off-screen to something he obviously wrote down.

I was disappointed to know that wasn't intentional, but rather a glitch.

>>386403367
>Lamarckian evolution

"Tell me Dr.Freeman you have destroyed so much, can you name even one thing you have created? I thought not"

He was right though

>>386401135
if you look at any of the HL2 betas you'll see that the dialog was very much like dialog in most games nowadays, which are just tryhard drawn out boring conversations that go on for too long, with the final game being the same scenes, but heavily cut down and polished, they undoubtedly put a lot of effort into the writing of these games, added to Mark Laidlaw's fantastic talent to writing he obviously has since he also wrote the TF2 shorts and Portal.

>>386403178
That's because this thread isn't comparing HL2 to HL1, because then suddenly HL2 is an unbearable mess and HL1 is a timeless masterpiece.

>>386396114
>I'll never get closure on whether or not my theory about Breens intelligence being transferred into the Ep 2 advisor is true

Why are we still here? Just to suffer?

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>We're actually unironically getting Freeman's Mind 2 before Episode 3

>>386400080
Griffith is shit tier and this is a bait image.
The only god tier villain I can think of is ozymandias

>>386396114
Started my yearly Half-Life series marathon yesterday. Feels great. Did OpFor last week and thought why the hell not, I forgot how short it was. Fucking great though, I wish some of the weapons could've made it in to the later games, but a parasitic eel what eats exploding green pus balls doesn't exactly gel with the rest of HL2.

>>386404384
I H A V E T O M A K E T H E M O V I E

>>386403891
Either that or people just say they hate all of the Half-Life games because they enjoy being special snowflakes

>>386403912
I thought this was pretty explicit, at least as far as implications go. A voice clip plays of Breen saying the line "A host body? You must be joking! Alright, fine, he's right behind me" right as the Advisor pod loads up to be launched in Ep1, and I think the intro to Ep2 replays this specific scene with that specific voice clip.

It's likely the same one you meet crashlanded in Ep2. Which is probably either one of the two that eat's Eli's brain. That last bit is mostly speculah but any sane writer worth their pencil would make it the same one instead of some previously unknown random.

>>386403665
hope for mankind

Why exactly was Breen so special that he was the one that was able to initiate the Earth's surrender? Why not the President, or someone like that?

>>386403697
for HL2 i have a feeling that they recorded MANY versions of the various dialogues you hear in the game and decided at the very last minute to use the ones we hear in the game

>>386405708
Probably some uber-smart scientist, considering he was the Administrator og Black Mesa. He was probably able to discuss the human condition and all that

https://twitter.com/breengrub is probably my favorite bit of story from the entire HL universe

>>386406331
>account belongs to marc laidlaw
>almost seems ARG-like
>it's actually non-canon
what the fuck valve

>Reminder: 100 sterilize credits qualifies non-mechanical reproduction simulation.

What did she mean by this?

>>386406808
if you sterilize 100 of something you can have sex

>>386405905
That's because they did, except they cut out as much unnecessary backstory as possible and decided to only focus on the characters, with how they react when they listen/speak about something that happened previously being the exposition, when Dr. Mossman goes ''oh geez...Black Mesa....'' it's way more interesting than if she talked about she escaped Black Mesa, how she got past all the aliens and marines running around because then that would take 30 minutes of expository dialog

>>386406808
u get 120 lbs of pussy

>>386406331
Well that was fucking cool, thanks for sharing.

>>386407641
you're welcome anon
I hope you read it backwards but even if you didn't it's a pretty neat bit of lore

its funny cuz the only reason gordon gets as far as he does is because he can savescum

no one can no death run a half life game because they're filled with trial and error instadeath bullshit

would you integrate into combine ,/v/?

>>386405708
He was the only one who knew who the Combine were, were they came from and what they wanted

>>386396114
what the FUCK happened to writing in videogames?

Let me read a letter I recently received. 'Dear Dr. Breen. Why has the Combine seen fit to suppress our reproductive cycle? Sincerely, A Concerned Citizen.' Thank you for writing, Concerned. Of course your question touches on one of the basic biological impulses, with all its associated hopes and fears for the future of the species. I also detect some unspoken questions. Do our benefactors really know what's best for us? What gives them the right to make this kind of decision for mankind? Will they ever deactivate the suppression field and let us breed again? Allow me to address the anxieties underlying your concerns, rather than try to answer every possible question you might have left unvoiced. First, let us consider the fact that for the first time ever, as a species, immortality is in our reach. This simple fact has far-reaching implications. It requires radical rethinking and revision of our genetic imperatives. It also requires planning and forethought that run in direct opposition to our neural pre-sets. I find it helpful at times like these to remind myself that our true enemy is Instinct. Instinct was our mother when we were an infant species. Instinct cuddled us and kept us safe in those hardscrabble years when we hardened our sticks and cooked our first meals above a meager fire and started at the shadows that leapt upon the cavern's walls.

>>386409620
But inseparable from Instinct is its dark twin, Superstition. Instinct is inextricably bound to unreasoning impulses, and today we clearly see its true nature. Instinct has just become aware of its irrelevance, and like a cornered beast, it will not go down without a bloody fight. Instinct would inflict a fatal injury on our species. Instinct creates its own oppressors, and bids us rise up against them. Instinct tells us that the unknown is a threat, rather than an opportunity. Instinct slyly and covertly compels us away from change and progress. Instinct, therefore, must be expunged. It must be fought tooth and nail, beginning with the basest of human urges: The urge to reproduce. We should thank our benefactors for giving us respite from this overpowering force. They have thrown a switch and exorcised our demons in a single stroke. They have given us the strength we never could have summoned to overcome this compulsion. They have given us purpose. They have turned our eyes toward the stars.

Let me assure you that the suppressing field will be shut off on the day that we have mastered ourselves... the day we can prove we no longer need it. And that day of transformation, I have it on good authority, is close at hand.

>>386406808
They let you sodomize a man or one of those sterile hormone freaks.

I just love the way Breen speaks what a well learned man.

>>386398827
Except it's heavily implied Breen had a hand in the resonance cascade, which allowed the Combine to invade Earth in the first place.
The role he plays as the "tough decision maker who saved humanity" is a complete load of horseshit. You know that if he wasn't already in contact with the Combine, he'd have never been able to broker peace with them.
No, he worked alongside G-Man and planned the Black Mesa Incident and its consequences from the very beginning. He sold out all of humanity so he could rule over the dying remnants and eventually ascend to being an Adviser.

>>386409620
>>386409718
>When in ep1 the suppression field goes down and Kleiner practically tells everyone to start impregnating each other
Just imagine all the simultaneous sex going on World wide.

>>386412331
He was behind the Resonace Cascade? How did he make contact with them? How is that possible?

>>386398448
Besides, the writer for Half Life that left Valve recently stated in an interview that the HL2 plotline was always going to end with GMan taking Gordon away again.

>>386412806
I would guess it's G-Man magic

>>386412806
Don't play dumb, Breen.
We know about all the people you sent to their deaths on Xen to get the sample needed to kick off the resonance cascade.

I wish he'd been a disembodied head like they'd originally planned. Maybe they were worried it would be stealing from fallout 2

Heh, what's this? Oh put it over there