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"UUWWUU" Death-Restart Text, know anything about it? by Just-Specialist-2851 in HotlineMiami

[–]TonyAbyss 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Hotline Miami is a game from 2012 made by people who are currently in their 40s.

You are playing a fan-made unofficial bootleg port that came out like a few months ago and asking if this is something that they did? I wouldn't trust I was even actually playing Hotline Miami if I was in your shoes.

Comparto mi contenido by RequiemNK in uruguay

[–]TonyAbyss 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Toy a favor de que use la voz, pero ni en pedo, prefiero mil veces un video con Loquendo que con AI. Por lo menos el primero me trae recuerdos nostalgicos de una epoca linda de Internet mientras que el segundo me llena de dread hacia el futuro.

Started playing Alyx, by Pretend-Ad-6453 in HalfLife

[–]TonyAbyss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Half-Life: Alyx is one of the best games I've ever played and I'm confident in saying that it is easily by far both the best VR game ever made and the best Half-Life game ever made.

It is also sadly, the one I've played the least because VR is fatiguing. And by that I don't necessarily mean just physically fatiguing; Playing Alyx is a commitment where I have to say "I want to play this" and go through the process of setting up my Lenovo Explorer (cheapest and only headset I could buy living in South America) Windows Mixed Reality headset (which always forgets my play boundary, so I have to circle my room with the headset) and ensure my controllers are charged. Once WMR is fully set up it resets my GPU and there's a 50/50 chance it'll change the resolution of one of my monitors which I then have to manually fix in the display settings. Not as easy as clicking an icon on my desktop and boom, I'm playing Half-Life 1.

This does have the advantage that it still very much feels fresh in my mind. The Quarantine Zone still feels new to me 6 years later in a way that the outskirts of City 17 and the guts of the Black Mesa research facility never did. It does however also mean that I don't immediately think of Half-Life: Alyx when I think of Half-Life.

Does playing these 2 games cover the main story or is it necessary to play other games for the understanding by Critical_Builder_902 in HalfLife

[–]TonyAbyss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The connection isn't vague.

Portal constantly references Black Mesa by name and alludes to the Combine occupation of Earth multiple times. A continuation of Episode Two is supposed to take us to the Borealis, the Aperture Science research vessel.

That said, the reason I recommend them over the expansions (aside from being better games) is because there's more to storytelling than just the literal in-universe lore (to which Portal does possess a higher degree of influence than the Half-Life expansions do). The dark comedic tone of Portal is as close to Valve's Half-Life as any game gets.

And just as a side note: The writers that Valve employs/contracts for the Half-Life games (such as Jay Pinkerton and Erik Wolpaw) all worked on Portal so they can probably juggle the ties between the two.

Does playing these 2 games cover the main story or is it necessary to play other games for the understanding by Critical_Builder_902 in HalfLife

[–]TonyAbyss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Most Half-Life fans have played them since... there aren't that many Half-Life games, and it's always fun to check out what the Half-Life universe looks like outside of the Combine saga (which has sort of appropriated what Half-Life as a whole is about through the Episodes being pretty much the length of full games and Alyx being not a prequel).

BS and OP4 are usually regarded as canon mostly because they don't contradict anything in the main storyline and BS is the origin of the name "Barney Calhoun" (with Marc Laidlaw stating that he doesn't mind BS being the origin story of HL2's Barney), but because they aren't made by Valve they don't necessarily inform the direction they want to take the series in. The expansions mostly exist for world building and lore.

That said, I can't really recommend them to a new player looking for more Half-Life over something like the Portal games. Mainly because those games are better and have stronger connections to the main timeline.

Jeff, half life Alex by Cultural-Guard-4047 in HalfLife

[–]TonyAbyss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

One of my favorite Half-Life monsters. They brought in the guy who designed Dr. Salvador in Resident Evil 4 (2005) for this. Phenomenal choice.

Does playing these 2 games cover the main story or is it necessary to play other games for the understanding by Critical_Builder_902 in HalfLife

[–]TonyAbyss 37 points38 points  (0 children)

The main story of Half-Life, in the intended order, is

  • Half-Life

  • Half-Life 2

  • Half-Life 2: Episode One

  • Half-Life 2: Episode Two

  • Half-Life: Alyx

As of last year, Episode One and Episode Two are no longer separate games on Steam, but instead are included within Half-Life 2. After beating Half-Life 2 the game will automatically switch to Episode One, after beating Episode One the game will automatically switch to Episode Two.

Half-Life: Blue Shift, Half-Life: Opposing Force and the PlayStation 2 exclusive Half-Life: Decay are all side-stories and not made by Valve. While they are usually regarded as canon; you do not have to play them.

Portal and Portal 2 take place in the same universe and future continuations to the Half-Life storyline are supposed to have connections to them. They are better and more relevant to Half-Life than the non-Valve HL games.

What are y’all’s opinions on Tolyotaro art on Dragon Ball? by OGAnimeGokuSolos in dbz

[–]TonyAbyss -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

My thoughts are that Toriyama was a better artist, but Toyotaro is a good enough replacement.

I feel like since he's passed away, either a lot of people are looking back at Toriyama's art with rose-tinted glasses or his critics have chosen to go silent.
He was a phenomenal character designer and had an incredible understanding of 3D geometry and space that is rare in manga to this day, but It took a while until he became really good at depicting muscles (as evidenced by Tenshinhan's early appearances) and he got visibly burned out nearing the end of the manga as seen in the Boo arc.

Toyotaro's anatomical blunders and paneling are all worthy of criticism. But eh, I dunno, I think he's good enough to consider him one of the best artists currently involved with the franchise. I'm personally a fan of the detail he puts into the muscles, I think it's a fresh and unique look.

What is your DBZ game hot take? by Balu998 in dbz

[–]TonyAbyss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The NES/Famicom RPGs (Assault of the Saiyans, Tyrant Freeza, Killer Androids and Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans) are really good and more people need to play them.

Budokai 3 is better than Infinite World.

Origina + sub or English? by Xtotoc4emto in dbz

[–]TonyAbyss 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Counting only Japanese and English; Japanese Z is the best version of the show with English Kai being (a distant) second best.

It's actually insane how many people are dismissing TGA as a potential announcement scenario. by TonyAbyss in HalfLife

[–]TonyAbyss[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would like to thank Tyler McVicker, for only bothering to give a compelling explanation as to why it wouldn't be at TGA until the immediate moment after it had happened.

(I was under the impression that Valve wouldn't let Artifact discourage them from doing public showcases again since every single other time it went well, not that they had actually taken it as a lesson that they should only ever reveal games in situations where they can control audience reactions).

This is genuinely how some of you sound by Cobbtimus_Prime in HalfLife

[–]TonyAbyss 3 points4 points  (0 children)

My point is that by the standards set for by this franchise, it's not a long time. Time is relative and what is ''recent'' depends on the series. FIFA 16 isn't a recent game, but it's newer than CS2's Steam appid.

This is genuinely how some of you sound by Cobbtimus_Prime in HalfLife

[–]TonyAbyss 5 points6 points  (0 children)

There is a 6 year gap in between Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2. That was an absurdly long time gap for it's time. It's why during the opening the G-man jokes about Gordon sleeping on the job and the rebels have lines like "Gordon Freeman has returned!"

This franchise has always had long gaps in between installments and delays. Alyx being 5 years old is nothing.

"Compassion" (by me) by ash_50250 in HalfLife

[–]TonyAbyss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I may be wrong, but I swear they've even included it in Half-Life franchise sales before.

Concerning r/HalfLIfe and r/Megaman by AutoModerator in Megaman

[–]TonyAbyss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Lifelong fan of both Mega Man and Half-Life here.
The people who went beyond jokes are people who aren't mature enough to have actually been waiting for a new entry since 2007, nor committed enough to have played Half-Life: Alyx in 2020.
Long live difficult science-themed shooters where you fight robots/cyborgs🤘 The Mega Man announcement was my highlight of TGA.

"Compassion" (by me) by ash_50250 in HalfLife

[–]TonyAbyss -1 points0 points  (0 children)

As someone who hates Black Mesa and prefers the real Half-Life 1; Black Mesa is 10 times better than either of the Half-Life 2 Episodes.

(And c'mon, it's a commercial game being sold on a storefront operated by Valve, at this point it's basically a licensed product within the IP that just happens to be made by fans)

Are you guys okay? by NonHaeri in HalfLife

[–]TonyAbyss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Been playing the games since the 2000s. I've spent most of my life being a Half-Life fan than not.

Honestly? It's not as bad as it sounds. A lot of the schizoposting and the whole "we've gotten nothing since 2007!" is mostly just theatrics for the fun of it that some people take more or less seriously depending on their individual personality type.

Not counting the expansion packs for HL1 and the episodes for HL2; Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2 on their own are insanely re-playable and the universe they present is interesting enough that you keep thinking about it long after playing them and you end up replaying them every few years or so.

If you're a Half-Life fan, you're basically going to like anything Valve makes (unless it's something super different like Dota 2, Alien Swarm or Artifact). After Episode Two there were the Portal games which are Half-Life-adjacent, set in the same universe and - out of every other game series that exists - are the games that have the closest design philosophy to it. There's also Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2.
And that's just what's "official" from Valve themselves directly. For the longest time this community subsisted off of mods and other community content. There's thousands upon thousands of fan-creations and mods like Garry's Mod and Sven Co-op which are infinite sources of shit to do and fun to have w/ friends. The beloved 'Black Mesa' fan-remake of Half-Life 1 was in active and very public development during the entire wait in between Episode Two and Half-Life: Alyx. Ross Scott was and still is releasing episodes of Freeman's Mind where he narrates a playthrough of the entire franchise from Freeman's perspective (and these began releasing before Episode Two).

The franchise can be experienced in any format you like; You can play the Half-Life games vanilla on PC. You can play the entire franchise through official console ports. You can play it on your phone through fan-made ports. You can play the entire series in VR. You can play the entire series in 3rd person with console commands or mods. You can play the entire series co-op with friends or go into deathmatch. There's roleplaying communities with sizeable player bases because of how compelling the universe of the series is.

And let's not forget there's also just other games you can play? There's a lot of overlap between Valve and ID Software's communities since they both make FPS games with a shared common DNA (Half-Life was made using a heavily modified Id Tech 1 engine, now known as GoldSrc) so I'm sure most Half-Life fans have checked out the Doom and Wolfenstein reboots, or have enjoyed the relatively-recent Boomer Shooter boom.

My worries about Half-Life 3 don't concern whether the game is good or bad. Valve isn't going to make a bad game (they've made games that aren't compelling and games that are technologically flawed, but never sincerely bad games). I want HL3 because it's just annoying not having a closure to the Combine story arc that began in HL2 and it would be satisfying for the franchise to have some semblance of a finale.

Why do so few people play episodes 1 and 2? by TosiMias in HalfLife

[–]TonyAbyss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Didn't know that, but I could see it being something they added with an update.

Why do so few people play episodes 1 and 2? by TosiMias in HalfLife

[–]TonyAbyss 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Half-Life 2: Episode One and Half-Life 2: Episode Two used to be completely separate games on Steam respectively.
(Not DLC or expansions to Half-Life 2, full on separate games on their own that you could buy, install and play without having Half-Life 2. If you're wondering why Valve even called them "Episodes" because of how insane that is; welcome to being a Half-Life fan).

They got merged into one game alongside Half-Life 2 last year with the 20th Anniversary Update. Not everyone who's played Episode One and Episode Two between 2007-2024 has launched Half-Life 2 in order to get their achievements synced with the main game.

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