Half-Life: Alyx Retrospective

I think I get it Half-Life : a video game. Half-Life 2 : a more realistic video game. Half-Life Alyx : a even more realistic video game and its in vr so you feel like you are in it. Half-Life 3 : you are in it.

my wallet when i want to buy a vr: that would be a considerably large nudge

When an ex writer leaks ur third game so you create another timeline.

I love how, with the Strider, the player is literally made to think “aw, that’s a shame. fighting one of those would have been insane, but I guess they’re just going to tease us.” And then BAM

True gamer, first thing to do when entering a game is to check options.

Just so you know, HL: Alyx actually uses a game director like Left 4 Dead etc. The more you use a particular weapon, the more ammo drops for it. You comment that there is a lot of pistol ammo in the game - that's because you personally use the pistol a lot. If you never use the shotgun, you never find shotgun ammo. Start using the shotgun and you'll very shortly after find more shotgun ammo. I suspect if you played the game through only using the shotgun once you find it, that you'd pretty much stop finding pistol ammo entirely. Unfortunately this design decision by Valve has caught a lot of players out, including myself. I'm one of the people that conserve more powerful weapons until I find ammo for them. With the way the shotgun ammo works in this game it creates an unfortunate chicken-and-egg scenario, where I avoid using the shotgun because I never find ammo for it, thus I end up never using it - until I read about the director, at which point I busted out the shotgun a lot more often, but I was already 80% of the way through the game at that point.

Great video as always Liam.

Fun-Fact, that crowbar Gordon picks up in the post-credits scene is an asset from one of the many cancelled HL3 projects throughout the years. If you want to look at it symbolically, this could be a way of Valve saying they're picking up Half-Life 3 again. 11/27/2023: This comment didn't age well but such is being a Valve fan. New HL1 update kicks ass tho.

The HEV voice at the end gives me massive chills EVERY SINGLE TIME

"This video is dedicated to Rick May" holds back tears You were good son, real good; maybe even the best. May he rest in peace

My interpretation of the ending is this: Episode 1's intro happens, and when G-Man comes into where he left Gordon at the end of Half-Life 2 to say something, probably something to do with preparing him for his next assignment, the Vorts crash the party. Out of nowhere, they not only take G-Man's control over Gordon away from him, but they completely block him from Gordon entirely. This pisses him off. He comes to the conclusion that Gordon is unable or unwilling to perform the tasks laid before him by his employers. So, he tells his employers about this, and while they struggle to find a replacement just as good as him, G-Man thinks of one. The same entity he plucked from Black Mesa all those years ago. However, his employers ridiculed G-Man for rescuing a mere child that had no practical use to anyone. But, he kept his faith in her that she would somehow prove useful to him one day. But, to replace Gordon is gonna be hard. He was a man of "limitless potential" and had a fascinating ability of "adapting and surviving against all odds", and who else could fit that? (RIP Adrian) He believes Alyx could. In order to prove to his employers that she could be employed to replace Gordon, he comes up with an elaborate scheme. After the ending of Episode 2, Eli dies, and G-Man puts his plan into motion. Go back in time 5 years, get captured by the Combine on purpose, let Alyx think it's a superweapon (her thinking it was Gordon wasn't part of the plan but played in his favor), go through hell and back all the way to where he was imprisoned, and finally, free him. By doing all that, G-Man has now proven his point. Alyx is more than capable of being a suitable replacement. She just adapted and survived when all odds were pinned against her, and to top it all off she was able to free an interdimensional entity from captivity that even the Combine thought was pretty secure. (even though it wasn't) In exchange for coming all that way to free him, he gives her a chance to nudge the course of history in her favor. When she asks for the Combine to be removed from Earth, he simply says "That would be a considerably large nudge. Too large, given the interests of my employers." So, he's not necessarily saying that he and his employers can't take them out, it's just that it's not in their interests for whatever reason. I believe it's because Gordon's already handling that 5 years from now, and because if the Combine were taken out of the picture before Gordon is inserted into C17, then it would fuck up the timeline royal. So, instead, he offers something that she doesn't even know she wants yet. Save her father from death, 5 years in the future. The Vorts had told her that her father was or will be dead and that she alone could not prevent his inevitable fate. So, with all that already in her mind, accepting that offer would be a no brainer. She saves her father and kills the Advisor, but as a consequence of her action, she has now proven herself to be of extraordinary value, and because of that, she will now be hired and put into stasis. In order to prevent a MAJOR paradox in the timeline, she does not specifically hire and extract the 19-year-old Alyx, but rather just seals the deal. She is placed back outside the Vault, no memory of what happened INSIDE the Vault. Everything she experienced prior to entering the Vault stays with her though. Her life goes on, and 5 years later, history plays a little bit different than how it originally was. The Advisor holding Eli is suddenly shocked to death by green bolts of lightning, and the other Advisor seeing its buddy get fried to death shits its pants and flees the scene. With the Advisor's death and Eli's life continuing, the deal is fulfilled. When Eli gets up, Alyx is gone. Vanishing without a trace. It's here where Eli puts the pieces together. At first, he thought the warning was about the Borealis, but now he realizes what the unforeseen consequence he sent Alyx to warn him about. It was to prepare for the unforeseen consequence of Alyx's actions in the past. Although Eli doesn't know what happened inside the Vault, he still has memory that she came out of that Vault not remembering a damn thing of what happened in there. And he already found out that Gordon wasn't in there, his mutual friend was (I'm guessing he uncovered more of the data pod), so it's not hard for him to piece it together. Something happened in that Vault 5 years ago, and now he knows that whatever it was, it caused her to disappear.

About the Alyx voice... from the beginning I was thinking, wow Merle did a really great job of capturing the younger self of Alyx. Then I got to the credits... mind blown!

This was my interpretation of the ending in response to Max Derrat's story explanation: "To me, it feels like the events of episode 2 and HL: A were a set up by the G-man in order to make her an offer she wouldn't refuse. Without her father dying horrifically, G-man has no leverage against Alyx and any deal he tries to make with her would more than likely be rejected, leading to his "investment" being wasted. I personally theorize that the events of HL: A do not actually take place in the original timeline. In fact, I think the G-man went back in time to change the past, and considering the G-man's abilities, I don't think it's too far fetched for him to go back in time and ALLOW himself to be captured. The whole reason Eli gets captured in the first place is because he and Russell saw the schematics for the Vault when stealing the Combine mini-reactor at the beginning of the game. However, the events of Half-Life 2 and its episodes cannot happen in the way that they do with Alyx being put in stasis, nor can they happen with even the mere existence of the Vault in the first place. A vault that does NOT EXIST without the G-man being "captured." Essentially, the G-man must make sure that Alyx sees her father's death in the future to capture her in the past. By going back to a time period BEFORE he unleashed Gordon, he sets in motion the events that will lead to Alyx "saving" him, him offering her the chance to save her father, and showing the value of Alyx to his employers. Given that G-man seems to exist out of time, I believe that he pulled Alyx out of all time as well (he refer's to beings as "entities," seeming to imply he sees them more than just physical creatures, and what we know about the Vortessence seems to back that up), meaning that the Alyx he has in stasis has no memories of Nova Prospekt, or the Citadel, or White Forest. This Alyx does not know what lies ahead in her future, only that her father will be killed if she doesn't do what the G-man asks of her. He needs an Alyx that doesn't know the truth to be his tool, which means that he needs the younger Alyx, not the one that we destroyed the Citadel with. By showing Eli's death out of context, he has complete control over her. This also explains why he made it imperative that Gordon get her to White Forest. He didn't need Gordon to get her there for Gordon's sake, or humanity's sake; the G-man needed her there for his sake." So when you say, Liam, that the G-man chooses Alyx over Gordon because Gordon failed to keep Eli alive, I disagree. I believe, with the retcon that HL: A has introduced, that the "unforeseen consequence" was him taking Alyx, not Eli dying. I've been thinking about why he would want Eli to stay alive, and after considering it for a while, I think I might know why: Eli, prior to his death, wanted the Borealis to be destroyed. But, the Borealis contains very valuable technology, something that could be very useful for the Combine, or a number of other interdimensional bidders. And, considering the G-man's actions have now set Eli on the warpath, what would be powerful enough to fight, capture, or destroy an entity that exists outside of time and space? All signs point to the Borealis. Instead of destroying it like he originally wanted, Eli may be spurred to use it against the G-man, and inadvertently deliver it to him in doing so. The only unknown variable here then is Gordon; will he be able to either stop Eli, or successfully use the Borealis to somehow nullify the G-man's hold over their fates once and for all? TL;DR G-man set up everyone and things are gonna get fucked, bro

The ending sequence of Alyx was a true piece of art that gave me literal goosebumps. It's the type of thing you spend a lot of time thinking about afterwards. The way I see it, the gravity defying apartment is Valve saying "After being stuck with the story for so long, we turned the story on its side, then turned it upside down. We split the timeline, and threw out the old stuff." As the room went on its side, then upside down, after which it split in two (which looked so damn cool btw!!), and then with all the old furniture flying out the upside down door, the one you can't acces anymore, the old time line. I also kind of feel like the G-Man represents Valve. Or rather, his employers are them. They can use him to nudge the story in whatever direction they please, but 'combine of earth', would be too large a nudge indeed, as it would not really allow for future games.

When you talk about how much you like a voice actor, PLEASE PLEASE give us a sample of their work in context!

"we'll talk about it later" never talks about it later.

wait is gman in the platform in the ending at 50:51? Eli Vance : Comon gordon we need to find gman. Gordon being mute, trying to despretly point: Mmhhhfff!!!

Fun fact about Larry. Larry will complement you if you have a construction helmet on. This occurs when he is talking about the Xen spore plumes, when he moves off screen.

I just want to say (spoiler alert): If fighting Jeff taught me anything, it’s that Valve truly knows how to use your environment to keep this game exhilarating and keep you on your toes. I shifted a power supply and it activated a speaker which sent Jeff running towards me. And even more intriguing is that I locked Jeff in that fridge only to realize that I have to go back in the fridge and LET HIM OUT to continue onward. OUTSTANDING.

It's just a shame that here we are in 2023 and HL Alyx is still one of the very few AAA VR games, and to my knowlege far and away the best showcase for the technology. Playing through it reminded me of when as a kid used to Sega Genesis and SNES games played Mario 64 for the first time at a mall kiosk. I knew it was the future, it felt like real life. And within a few years everyone was on board and refining what you could do with 3D platformers. VR has been much slower to catch on to that level, and I hope eventually we get there. I can only imagine how refined games in a VR space could be with hundreds of games coming out pushing and refining the mechanics. To be one of the first and to be this good already, HL Alyx is an incredible feat. Here's hoping Sony's new VR set gets it more into the mainstream for gaming. I said the same thing about the first Oculus, Gear VR, and PSVR, and then the Quest 2, but maybe today's the day haha.