cant really see that my self, there just making a game. its not like there going to include the guide for "easy nuke" subliminaly. Eric or Gabe said that the characters are based off 1 or more real people. Alyx's father is more like just a link from HL1
Dont worry about it ive got a 9800 and its in a little shuttle XPC with a 200W psu and it runs slient and at a lower temp than my old 4600 plus its also a 3rd smaller
http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?action=info&AvdID=1&CatID=13&p=32063&view=detailed
hdd dont inprove fps they inprove the load times of levels. but they do make a big difference if you have under 512 ram as you will pause in levels to load the page file that windows uses to make the extra 256mb or how much it needs. no one needs more than 512 (768 at the most) unless you use...