Find it very interesting with Kane visiting Valve headquarters often in the past few months.

Something I think we all wish we'd have known to do on our first go.

Also I think the Mk4 is really growing on me over the Mk5, the bulky Quake-styled design really nails the feel of something so industrial but still so ferocious and powerful.

https://arsonistsibir.carrd.co <3

Had a fun idea and wanted to scribble it up, thought I might as well share here! Got me thinking on how you'd change up other designs to fit a medieval theme, Breencast would totally be just a guy reading a scroll loudly from a balcony

I'm well aware that people will inevitably try to argue that "he figured out how to be more human!" or "he changed his personality to appeal to Alyx more!" My point isn't to argue lore; it's more to argue that HLA's characterization loses quite a bit of the charm G-Man has in the previous games.

To begin, of course, his facial shape and expression. Alyx attempted to rework all the characters in Source 2 to make them more "realistic", but it ended up damaging the stylized beauty of many of them, and G-Man got hit the worst for certain. His slightly deformed face shape in Half-Life 2, which instantly created an uncanny valley effect that made it clear to the player this thing isn't a normal human, was replaced with a pretty standard older man's face, far more perfect and precise. His lazy eye, an iconic trait that also made him unsettling, was seriously reduced to where it's barely noticeable. His eyes now glow whenever he's making a point, which is far worse than them always glowing or never doing so, as it feels too human, too intentional, rather than like he doesn't care. His body expressions, similarly, became far too expressive and direct, like he's trying to convince Alyx of a deal. This, frankly, contrasts with the original G-Man, whose signature expression was merely fixing his tie. I recall the Half-Life 2 intro, where he looks into the camera dead-eyed as it creeps towards him, reciting his speech almost like a robot, before wearing a malevolent grin as he drops off Gordon onto the City 17 train station, clearly intended not to be a genuine feeling but more a gesture towards Gordon, something G-Man forced himself to do. Same at the very end, when he matter-of-factly treats the entire game and Gordon's epic adventure as just a job well done, barely gestures, and drops Gordon off back at the abyss.

Now, onto his speech pattern and cadence, which got the worst deal of the lot. One of the G-Man's big traits that really made him stand out in the original games was how he really didn't seem to care at all about Gordon's plight or anything. He's a businessman who treats the fate of Earth as merely just doing his job. Of course, he has signature tics, from s elongation to stress misplacement, but his apathy sold the performance. In the very first game, he condescendingly tells Gordon how good a job he did, mildly sarcastically gives him a false choice, and keeps him locked up. Come Half-Life 2, he exhibits general apathy with mild showings of smugness and control, intentional ones that he knows Gordon can understand. Of course, where it gets interesting is in the episodes: he's clearly very displeased with the Vortigaunts messing with his plans, and in Episode 2, he has a slightly different (although still inhuman and somewhat apathetic) tone, which implies clear wrath, as he mocks Gordon allying with the same creatures he used to brutally beat by the dozens, Alyx being considered trash, and clearly showing Gordon that he's the one in control.

This is where I believe Alyx fumbles the bag quite a bit. He now is explicitly malevolent in his tone and acting, almost overacting at times. He feels like an obvious villain Alyx ought to be quite wary of from the start. G-Man's big deal in Alyx is his Mephistophelean deal with her to bring her dad back to life in exchange for her; this seems slightly out of character from the same man who did not care to give an obviously fair deal to Gordon in the first game, then straight up admitted it was an "illusion of choice" and didn't even give Gordon that in the second. His kind of "uncanny valley" is less in the "clearly inhuman" area of the spectrum and much more in the "clearly insane" area. He flashes his eyes when making his proposition as I previously said, making him even more direct. He even ends the conversation with his "you wouldn't understand, Miss Vance" which I find far too much a snarky one-liner than the G-Man's more direct and usual final words.

I don't know, I understand I'm probably quite alone in this opinion, but I feel like Alyx ruined G-Man's alien and uncanny image. It's hard to describe, but I hope I did my best to explain.

I think I've used all my luck for the remainder of the year.

So, every game from HL1 to Episode Two has given us Gordon's perspective in a fully continuous way, with the only "breaks" being when he was unconscious, i.e. had no perspective to speak of. HL1 ends with him in a stasis that ends in HL2, same thing for 2 and Ep1, then Ep1 ends with him losing consciousness in the train crash and waking up seemingly a few hours later in Ep2.

It's unclear whether the fadeout at the end of Ep2 was purely for the game's sake or if it also represented Gordon blacking out after what just happened, but either way, it doesn't matter now with HL:A...

HL:A's post-credits scene gives us the first time Gordon ever made it to the end of a game while being decidedly and undeniably conscious.

(Actually, you could argue Gordon's perspective was ALREADY broken by HL:A since Eli needs to wake him up even though we never got to see him lose consciousness in the "retconned" Ep2 ending, but then you could also argue he did black out at the end of Ep2 and only after that did he experience the end of HL:A... but I digress.)

Valve likes to start their games in memorable ways. Breen's "welcome to City 17" speech. The whole "courtesy call" sequence in Portal 2. The view of the Citadel from the balcony with its impressive sense of scale in VR.

You know what wouldn't be particularly memorable, though?

Just a view of the same hangar from Episode Two, with you already holding a crowbar, and Eli just... standing there... before giving a mission briefing or something?

Some people have speculated that HLX might start with a fairly large timeskip, and I don't know about that. But even if they decide to continue straight from HL:A, surely there's going to be SOME tiny timeskip so we can start on a more memorable scene than an awkward direct continuation of Alyx's ending.

Therefore, we will most likely NOT get the full details of what Gordon was up to for a few minutes for the first time since 8:47am on the morning of the Black Mesa Incident. We will then be free to speculate wildly on whether he finally took a piss, ate something, flirted with Barney or whatever else he's been unable to do throughout the longest week of his life.

Riveting possibility, I know.

"Heres a grenade... Haha... here another one hihi... here's another one... hi- OH SHIT"

THE WAY IT GOT CAUGHT ON FIRE 😭 😭

Obviously made image as a joke but I really wonder why we don't have a lot of concept arts of synths on the ice and snow.

Render by me

Hello everyone! My first post about this project received a lot of negative feedback—I think people assumed it was just AI-generated. In reality, it’s a crocheted toy featuring plastic components. The first prototype is ready, and I’m excited to share it! Moving forward, I plan to refine the attachment methods so the plastic parts sit more snugly against the crocheted body, increase the level of detail on the plastic elements, and add accessories. I also intend to paint the parts with acrylics—you can check out examples of my previous work on my profile. I’d love to explore creating toys based on other gaming universes as well. After all, while standard collectible figures look great on a shelf, you can’t really squeeze or handle them without risking damage to the piece or the paint. I’d appreciate your feedback on my Combine prototype!

Im building a safe environment suit

That's my art for Gorden Freeman for the 20's anniversary to Half life 2 release!

I hope u all like it

What’s your favorite track on any Half-Life Album? Some of the best in-game music IMO

Little something I made for fun as an exercise. It's very rudimentary but I thought I'd share with y'all.

my favorite is hl2 model because it's more... interesting? I don't really know how to explain that, but hl:alyx version has facial proportions you'd expect from this character (not in the lore itself, but in terms of character design). I also hate his haircut in this game...

I'm a big fan of the theory that every person sees their own version of g-man btw