Beggining of HL2 theory, Spoilers (maybe)

[Lobster]

Hi , I know people have posted these kinda things a thousand times but I kinda like this idea.

We have heard alot about the start of HL2 lately so heres how i see it put together.

The end of Half-Life 1 , Gman says, "Wisely Done mr Freeman, I will see you up ahead".

10 years pass in a matter of seconds.

queue Psyche video!, then the gman starts a conversation with you much like the end of HL1, he explains some basic facts about you "being needed" to return now to instigate a push in a stand-off between 2 races on earth, (see recent doug lombardi interview)

Gman once again dissappears and you fade in on a train full of deppressed citizens, entering City 17, you leave the train and are hustled along gradully meeting the key charecters and leading off into the game...

Just my theory on how it all fits together

 

[Svv4T]

What would be nice is to see the HL1 end with the HL1 graphic again, then it slowly fades to HL2 with HL2 graphics. From the HL1 train to HL2 train =]
After the IGN preview, the beginning seems really intriguing.
And yes, your theory can be plausible. I think I read in that same IGN preview that the Gman briefs you just before getting to the train station.

 

[63]

I think your gonna wake up in a warehouse or something, wander around the city a bit until you are captured by a combine patrol, taken to a prison camp and then put on the train.

 

[Jackal hit]

since it's in the beginning, i'm curious about what was meant by the

(attention, i'm putting spoiler tags on this because some people don't want ANY info until they play the game, but i'm only mentioning what was stated at gamespy)

Spoiler

interrogation room, with the "uncomfortable chair" that the combine take you into... maybe THAT is where the g-man talks to you and not before the tram ride? eh i guess that's kinda grasping at air, but i'm really curious about this part :thumbs:

and agreed, the beginning being a tram ride is awesome i think. the ride in the first game was great to add some immersion, and made you feel like you belonged there as an actual black mesa scientist... not just some player who happens to be playing a game about some guy that is a scientist or something like that.

 

[Sulkdodds]

I have a feeling, judging by the Psyche vid, that you'll be suffereing from hallucinations at the start. Wouldn't you just love it if you see the G-Man talking to you, amidst strange visions, and then you suddenly slip into the HL train ride in wavy black+white hallucino-vision. Then you flash back, hear him talking, and suddenly you're in the test chamber. And so on. That would be cool.

But yeah, I think you could be right as for the train. Maybe when you get off you're captured by the Combine and taken to the prison.

 

[thomashiles]

Well, if the G-Man does brief you at the start of the game, it would contradict what Gabe Newell has been saying all along that at the beginning you will have no idea what is going on at all...

 

[Brian Damage]

For all we know, "brief" might merely mean "I'm sending you somewhere now, Gordon... It's up to you to what you do when you get there..."

Except with more slurring and sibilants, of course.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Well, if the G-Man does brief you at the start of the game, it would contradict what Gabe Newell has been saying all along that at the beginning you will have no idea what is going on at all...

No it doesn't. Think about what the G-man's idea of a briefing might be, the cryptic bastard.

 

[Darkside55]

I'd like to see Gordon waking up on the train after the psyche stuff, but have really quick rapid visions of Black Mesa flash while you're riding into City 17.

You know it's possible that you don't even see the G-Man for awhile...maybe a lot longer into the game than expected.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Spoiler

Does nobody know how to use these thigns properly?

 

[Element Alpha]

Like you wouldn't have read it ...

 

[Silent-]

I wonder what that chair is, i hope it's not a dentist *grabs his jaw*

 

[Nickzer_Teh_Pwn]

I have a feeling, judging by the Psyche vid, that you'll be suffereing from hallucinations at the start.

Yeh, thats true I think, cue the 'Docks' video as well where you 'wake up' and Alyx is going 'Gordon wake up, your scaring me'. What purpose this playable hallucinations have, I dont know I just hope they aren't as bad as The 'Dream Sequences' from that awful piece of trash Max Payne.

 

[Brian Damage]

Actually, isn't it "Gordon, snap out of it, you're staring at me again!"?

 

[Sulkdodds]

Yeah...I thought he was just being a perv.

 

[Brian Damage]

I dunno... My eyes just tend to focus on infinity whenever I'm deep in thought... Can be a real pain in the arse when they end up resting on certain areas of a nearby female's anatomy...

 

[Eejit]

My facial expression tends to change quite randomly when I'm pondering...
IMO it's your inner perv trying to get out

 

[Brian Damage]

Great, so you stand there gurning :E?

 

[Brian Damage]

Ahhh... how good it feels to see the deletion of a much ahted spoiler...

 

[Eejit]

Great, so you stand there gurning :E?

Hehe, no, thank god. From frowning -> smiling -> confused expressions. That type of thing :|

 

[Esquire]

I wonder what that chair is, i hope it's not a dentist *grabs his jaw*

Spoiler

It's a chair covered in blood that some combine soldiers take you to once you get off the train at the start of the game. It's shown in a big 655MB version of the E32004demo.

As for the start of the game, i'll take a confident stand to say that we WILL be starting the game on a train. No friendly chit chat before the train.

Think about it, HL1, started on a train thing, it's likely they'll keep with this theme. Also we ended HL1 on a train.

We're starting the game on a train, simple and plain.

Does anyone know if there is a HL2 character listing thread in this forum?

 

[Reaperman]

ok, heres the deal, i think you start on some kind of chat, maybe a flashback, who knows...

but in the end of halflife 1, you jump into darkness, and presumably fall asleep untill HL2, now, wouldnt it make sence to have him wake up in darkness? the G-man saying "rise and shine mr.freeman" comes to mind... and then in the video he goes on to explain that gordon has been sleeping and he is needed again, or something..

make any sence?

 

[Esquire]

It sure does make sense. it's all very strange this HL.

 

[Max35]

Well, remembering g-man's words at the start of the e3 2004 demo "Rise and Shine, Mr. Freeman", it would seem likely that he is perhaps knocked out in the interrogation chair, and is woken up by the g-man. Maybe not, though.

 

[dassbaba]

"something like that" is all i can say about it -_-

 

[disruptioN_]

I just hope the train ride to City 17 isn't as short as it is in the video.

 

[NeLi]

You'll probably get a view of the city. They had a train ride in the middle of the city in that strider video. Maybe you'll get to see the oppression first hand before "entering "the game.

 

[Esquire]

Might be spoilers in this for some people. I got some of my info off the E3 vids...

I watched the 700MB E3 video (again) just then, and at the start Gman is blabbing away to gordon. i noticed that the area surrounding Gman was the same as the area outside the train at the end of HL1. What i'm talking about is those white lights zooming past at the end of HL1 when you are on the train with Gman. They are present in this E3 video when Gman is saying 'rise and shine'.

So am thinking now that at the start of HL2, we are on a train en route to City17, doped up to the eyeballs. Maybe because of the portal we jumped into at the end of HL1. Anyway, screen goes black, and we awaken again, maybe to see Gman walking away or getting off the train before us so that he's just out of reach (like how he was in HL1). Or maybe we just wake up and he's not there at all.

At any rate, we get off the train and make our way through immigration type place. We end up getting stopped at a checkpoint because a camera has a problem with Gordon. I'm guessing the problem is that Gordon is new to the City and is not expected, (probably because he's not existed in this new world until now. Until he has been brought to it by Gman and his pals). So the alarm goes and the Combine security guards take you to an interrogation room in which is a dentist type chair which is quite bloody. You get asked what your purpose in City 17 is, you don't know. So they drug you up and ask you questions etc. And then maybe this is where the Gman enters the game instead. He essentially gives you a get out of jail card at this point.

That's my take on the start of the game so far.

 

[Brian Damage]

Yeah, I noticed the lights too. Suggests to me that Gordon's been stored in that "star-tunnel" place since the end of HL...

 

[Sulkdodds]

Probably just hallucination. He did leave the tunnel when he accepted the job in any case.

 

[Brian Damage]

I wonder if he went straight to city 17, though? Sounds to me like the G-Man took him somewhere else for 10 years...

 

[Eejit]

Doesn't he take Shepherd through a similar place in the helicopter, with lights flashing past?
Could be some kind of mode of transport for the G-Man... like a teleportation wormhole really slowed down

 

[Brian Damage]

Hyperspace? Remember when the resonance cascade occurs, and Gordon gets temporarily sent to Xen? There's that black, empty place in between...

 

[Brian Damage]

Ummmmmmm... Don't read this.

Spoiler

That's a spoiler that's been posted five times already. I'll grant you that some people may have arrived at that conclusion by their own devices, but some who posted it openly admitted to getting it from the beta...

 

[Eejit]

Yeah, that's what I meant... couldn't remember the word...
I wonder if the globes that lead Shepard around the place in OpFor and eventually get sucked into the teleporters have any relation to the lights you see when you're with the G-Man?

 

[Brian Damage]

I'm not sure. I think that the lights that guide you in OP4 were intelligent, or at least intelligently controlled. The ones in the background in the vids and at the end of Half Life just seem to be a (Dare I say it?) somewhat generic hyperspace background effect.