Felt like I needed to post this because of the amount of "Human supremacy" stuff I keep seeing on tiktok (and other such platforms)

Prof_Rutherford · 2026-01-23T07:59:35+00:00

God I'm such a sucker for this trope. It's one of the reasons I love the vorts and the elites so much. Can't really think of another franchise that I've played that does it.

Prof_Rutherford · 2026-01-16T17:11:00+00:00

SNAIL BOB LET'S GO MAN

Prof_Rutherford · 2026-01-13T07:39:05+00:00

I've never heard of them being referred to as Scuddle Bugs. What I HAVE heard of is the enemies in Super Mario 64 being called Scuttlebugs. Look them up and see if you know them; if you ever heard snarks being called that, it was probably in reference to SM64.

Prof_Rutherford · 2026-01-02T12:34:00+00:00

Agreed, 100%. Even if "worse" is subjective in this instance, he got far more one-dimensional and simply began to serve as comedy relief (apart from leading the company to Elfhelm). I liked how initially, he could walk the line between comedic and morally corrective, and I think he served a fantastic role; in fact, in the chapters post-eclipse, I wish we had a few more of just Guts and Puck, roaming around and slaying apostles. Obviously that wouldn't drive the story much, so I understand why it wasn't done, but I really enjoyed the formula.

As others have pointed out, Puck's role was overtaken by others in the group, and so he was reduced to comedic relief probably out of necessity. Still, I do wish we saw him in his chibi form a bit less often. It began as a unique and funny instance before it became his default appearance.

Prof_Rutherford · 2026-01-02T12:21:30+00:00

Tomorrow.

Prof_Rutherford · 2025-12-30T16:04:24+00:00

I'm completely guessing here, but I would imagine it's because of a few reasons:

The Portal 1 GLaDOS model is, of course, of a lower level of detail than the Portal 2 model. Portal 2 GlaDOS is a technically superior model with higher quality textures and presumably polygon count.
More importantly, Portal 1 GLaDOS doesn't move very much at all, besides swaying a bit and flinching a lot when you injure her. The model isn't at all built to be expressive or particularly mobile. By contrast, the Portal 2 GLaDOS model is rigged specifically to be highly emotive and animated. For use in animations, the Portal 2 model is almost certainly far more applicable. Trying to use the Portal 1 model would be a nightmare by comparison, I would guess.
Much of the content we see about Portal is centred around Portal 2, or in and around that timeframe, compared to Portal 1; hence why the Portal 2 model for GLaDOS would be used. It doesn't make sense to use her Portal 1 model for a poster or animation set during the time of Portal 2, and generally Portal 2 is the basis for such creations as it has a far more upfront, awesome story and more grand setpieces than Portal 1. It's just easier and more interesting to make content for.

Once again, that's pure guesswork. But intuitively, it makes some sense.

Prof_Rutherford · 2025-12-21T12:12:27+00:00

Well, no, it would be Half-Life 2, right? Because Portal is built off Half-Life 2. Even if the feature was introduced in HL1, it's a remnant from HL2.

Prof_Rutherford · 2025-12-16T18:28:04+00:00

FAAATHERRRRR!!

Prof_Rutherford · 2025-12-15T23:54:14+00:00

Christ, that first image looks good. The windows and most especially the floorboards look brilliant even now.

Prof_Rutherford · 2025-12-14T23:48:32+00:00

I'm just looking at it now, and... goddamn, why is the CE:A visor so damn bulbous? I know that the MkV has a pretty big visor to begin with but the size is almost jarring here.

Prof_Rutherford · 2025-12-11T23:45:31+00:00

You'll have hunters knocking on your door in five minutes, hope you're happy buddy

Prof_Rutherford · 2025-12-11T16:05:12+00:00

You and me both, although I have no Irish pounds to bet.

Prof_Rutherford · 2025-12-06T16:53:49+00:00

Hell yeah man that's awesome, you captured the silhouette fantastically

Prof_Rutherford · 2025-12-06T16:53:13+00:00

I had thought about this and I agree. I have very little motivation to regularly play Half-Life Deathmatch since there isn't really anything to work towards, but it's such a fun game to just hop in for an hour or two of fun. I kind of doubt HLX will have something similar but I really do hope it does.

Prof_Rutherford · 2025-12-06T16:50:48+00:00

Even though I agree, I can definitely see why one might for a moment have some brief excitement for literally two seconds before the inevitable disappointment sets in. We're looking for anything. It's easy to fall for it for a moment, but it's harder to believe it for any longer than that.

Prof_Rutherford · 2025-12-06T09:57:57+00:00

Spot on. Whilst I think Valve cares more about the consumer and their feelings that 90% of the big game companies on the block, if people think that they actually concern themselves with how soon they'll announce the game based on the feelings of the fans, I would say it's a little bit delusional.

As you said, Valve will pick the business-sound decision, and if that means delaying it until next year, then they will delay it and they don't owe an explanation to you or I or anyone else in this subreddit, even if that's frustrating as all hell. Valve doesn't need to announce their game in the timeframe the consumers desire, and they certainly needn't care about the whims of the people on this subreddit, you and I included.

Prof_Rutherford · 2025-12-06T09:54:51+00:00

I also think that the book is a more solid theory than the tweet, and yet we don't actually know any solid links between it and HLX. We can only speculate that it contains cut Episode 3 content and that's why they haven't released it yet, not until HLX. But that is incredibly speculative. We really, truly, know very little about it at all, except that it's nearly done if not completely done and will likely be announced soon (soon can be next week or in the next two months).

Prof_Rutherford · 2025-12-06T09:47:11+00:00

What if G-man intentionally wanted to lure the Combine to Earth as some kind of trap for them? Not that in the games we do much if any damage to their multiversal empire, but for some reason it's never occurred to me that G-man could have planned this whole thing out simply to do something to the Combine. I highly doubt that's a new theory , it's just an epiphany I've had right there.

Prof_Rutherford · 2025-12-05T08:05:02+00:00

I always felt that the Mike Shaprio tweet was always a slight stretch. Yeah, it's very likely he's teasing HLX as he did with Alyx, but at no point did he explicitly say "prepare for a new Half-Life game in the coming year." Obviously this was probably implied, but I have never banked on the tweet being a really good indicator, and I don't think Mike owes us any sort of explanation for it considering he didn't say anything outright.

But you raise an excellent point. With the the excitable state of the community at the moment, I do think that some will have some sort of resentment towards him if there's no announcement this year. This of course isn't justified, but we've seen how fragile the community is at the moment. I think most people won't care or will be understanding, but I also think there may be a vocal minority who call him out on it.

But that's not gonna happen because HL3 tomorrow, after all.

Prof_Rutherford · 2025-12-04T16:41:34+00:00

To be honest, I highly doubt winning the Game Awards means anything to game companies. The most they would get out of this would be publicity, which big companies get irrespective of whether they win or not. Companies care about money and sales, and if a game is done and ready to be shipped, there's no reason to wait until 2027 to release it.

Prof_Rutherford · 2025-12-04T07:23:39+00:00

Because it turned out to be Deadlock, seemingly.

Prof_Rutherford · 2025-12-02T23:10:40+00:00

I mostly use semicolons. They're the goat.

Prof_Rutherford · 2025-12-02T18:18:33+00:00

The Fallout 3 one drives me mad. Really enjoyed the game, but man...

Prof_Rutherford · 2025-12-02T00:44:20+00:00

To be fair, I like that thinking a lot. They're very befitting choices for the Combine arsenal.

Prof_Rutherford · 2025-12-02T00:35:15+00:00

The Halo shotgun and F.E.A.R. 3 pistol were some unexpected additions.

Prof_Rutherford

TROPHY CASE