Easter Eggs

M

ministryofmind

Guest
I am meticulously picking through the levels of HL2. I have so far found some interesting things in the playground part of the first chapter. Please don't continue reading if you don't want to know.

If you pick up the doll with the missing arm on the playground floor, it squeaks. You can throw it at a guard if you'd like.

There is a missing tic-tac-toe block on the playground tic-tac-toe spinner. You can find it in one of the rooms in the building that you get chased through. It's on a bookshelf. I have yet to try something like putting it back where it belongs, so I don't know if that amounts to anything.

I already know about the ten G-man sightings that are listed in the strategy guide. Beyond that, the guide gives no further clues.

Also, I've written a very embarrassing/funny love letter to Valve Software for my orgasmic contentment with their release. I figure they don't get a lot of female screaming fans filled with lust, so I was playing filler-bunny.

You can find the content of that letter in my blog entry here:
http://ministryofmind.blogspot.com
Scroll through the monotone daily drab to about mid-page and it'll start with Dear Valve etc.

If anyone has any easter egg hints, please respond!

- Bunny
 
Thank you graciously for your confession about being a semi-good looking woman who is seeking attention. What does that have to do with my post? Also, I've done you a favor and reported your shameful confession to high authorities so that the world may know. Do you feel better now? Your teen angst quote doesn't help your situation either, Ms./Mr. Attention Whore.

Now post something that's actually on topic.

- Bunny
 
It sure does look like it. But if Gordon (who is in the background) was on the research team and took the photo with G-man, how come the game doesn't mention G-man's background according to the research-team role? Was he one of the scientists? I originally thought he was just a mysterious guy not related to any party who ended up "hiring" Gordon.
 
G-man wasn't one of the scientists.

I took the missing tic-tac-toe block back, but I couldn't do anything with it. Strange.
 
In the picture of the people from Black Mesa, did nobody else notice the person with the scratched out face? Perhaps Breen? He's front and center... makes sense for the now-hated administrator of both City 17 (possibly other cities as well) and Black Mesa to have his face scratched out by an ex-employee (kleiner), no?
 
Also, I don't believe it to be the G-Man in bottom-right... it looks like one of two scientists from HL1 who was talking to you just before you went into the resonance cascade test chamber... could say that scientist is the g-man but aside from all obvious unlikelyness, his head is too round. G-man has a flat head. :cheese:
 
Also, from my other thread... this is kinda easter-eggish...

"More interesting stuff in the dome-topped building... screenshots...

http://www.ghostforce.net/hlb/

It's latin. If you read it as in the screenshots, it translates "No one contradicting, through struggle to the stars." Keeping in mind that the two sentences encircle the dome, one after the other. It could also be read "Through struggle to the stars, no one contradict." Cool stuff..."
 
MickeyAsh said:
Also, from my other thread... this is kinda easter-eggish...

"More interesting stuff in the dome-topped building... screenshots...

http://www.ghostforce.net/hlb/

It's latin. If you read it as in the screenshots, it translates "No one contradicting, through struggle to the stars." Keeping in mind that the two sentences encircle the dome, one after the other. It could also be read "Through struggle to the stars, no one contradict." Cool stuff..."
Click to expand...


Nice Find.

No pic, but Mossman's bracelet is inscribed with the word "Progress" on it. You have to really zoom in to see that, too. Cute clue, if youve played the game through.
 
Also brought back the missing playground tic-tac-toe block, desperately hoping for a "secret cow level" sort of thing =), sadly no luck yet. I believe this must be because there is no ready way to put the block back, am currently playing through the game again looking for some gaffa ;)
 
Wow. This stuff is gold. Thanks guys! Yeah, sadly the playground piece didn't yield much fruit. But it's another component that adds fluid tangibility to your entire environment.

Also, I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but back in Dr. Kleiner's lab, there's a cactus plant sitting on a model teleporter. If you push the button it gets teleported back and forth.

- Bunny
 
I found a neat one...

When Alyx is teaching you how to use the gravity gun and you have to climb up to the second level, look back towards where you pulled the barrels from and you will see two objects. Pull them over with the gravity gun and you'll find:

1. A supply box with bullets in it
2. The faceplace of the old HEV recharger! A cool little nostalgic throwback if I do say so myself!

HEVegg1.jpg


HEVegg2.jpg
 
About the mini teleporter, I tried putting different objects in it like books and it worked. The spinning thing in the playground is cool too... just hit E repeatedly to spin it.
 
pyroCow said:
About the mini teleporter, I tried putting different objects in it like books and it worked.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you can send anything through if it fits on the little platform. You can also send multiple items at the same time. I even cheated and sent a grenade through before it blew up! :LOL:
 
No pic. You'll have to see for yourself.

Just found something silly:

On the coast mission in the buggy, tere's trash on the roadside.

Theres a bag thats an altered McDonalds sort of bag with a soccer player on it. The soccer player has a combine mask on...
 
Did anyone notice the russian writing over the gate in the hover boat level?

port5.jpg



It says "Port 5" in russian which i found really odd, because this is america, still, isnt it or did the communist take over? (makes you think) :borg:
 
jbond03 said:
Did anyone notice the russian writing over the gate in the hover boat level?


It says "Port 5" in russian which i found really odd, because this is america, still, isnt it or did the communist take over? (makes you think) :borg:
Click to expand...

I beleive it's supposed to be in eastern europe... so russian would make sense:)
 
everything else is english that i read so far.. i have not found anything else russian (so far)
 
t says "Port 5" in russian which i found really odd, because this is america
Click to expand...

LOL why would you think its america? Does the architecture look like what you would find in an american city?
 
jbond03 said:
everything else is english that i read so far.. i have not found anything else russian (so far)
Click to expand...
Russian letters, european buildings, european road signs, swedish gas pumps, baltic café, russian looking signs (I don't know russian, just guessing)
It's only in english because it's an american game, and also most of it's public understand english better than russian/polish/checkish etc etc
Also, new little odessa, Nova Prospekt, hello?
 
Yes. Throughout various buildings in the game, if you take a look at the wallls, there are various propaganda posters, adverts in Russian and other languages.

You know, Hedy Lamarr is kind of cute--for a face hugger.

Question: In the chapter where you are leading NPCs into battle and you are "finding a way around" as Barney suggested, into some radioactive waste in the ruins of half of a building, did anyone notice all the vehicles under there had their headlights on? Presuming that the Combine wouldn't have let the human population drive or need transportation besides the trains that they provide, why would the headlights be on? Also, being a woman I have absolutely no idea how to identify the ages of the vehicles, but they look somewhat old to me. Any clues on placing an age on when people stopped driving/the Combine came?

- Bunny
 
MickeyAsh, that is probably one of the best finds posted in these forums yet! We need some kind of Latin wiz to help us with that phrase! That is obviously intentional, especially with the gaping hole in he building that allows you to look at the Citadel. I'll have to think on this.


Also, if there is a mix of languages and stuff, many people from many places flocked into cities for protection, so it makes sense there are languages that conflict with architecture. Look at pictures from Vienna, Austria, you'll find the architecture is extremely extremely similar to City17. The monuments that are long cylinders with horses on top...the buildings...
 
I think the Latin inscription reads, "The way to the stars is not easy without opposition" but I'm not sure that is grammatically correct. "No one contradicts that the way to the stars is difficult" makes more sense, but it's been a long time since I studied Latin.

Good find Mickey :thumbs:
 
AJ Rimmer said:
Russian letters, european buildings, european road signs, swedish gas pumps, baltic café, russian looking signs (I don't know russian, just guessing)
It's only in english because it's an american game, and also most of it's public understand english better than russian/polish/checkish etc etc
Click to expand...

I think (and this might be a far shot) that city 17 is mostly based on Eastern Europe in general but mainly based on Bulgaria. I am Bulgarian and when I played the game I was shocked to see how much it looks like my home country (same depressing apartment buildings!). Then, I was even more surprised to find out that Viktor Antonov (Art Director/Conceptual Designer) of Valve is BULGARIAN!!! "Viktor was born and spent his childhood in Sofia, Bulgaria after which he has been living in Paris France, Montreaux Switzerland, Los Angeles and Seattle" (Valve Software). There is no doubt that city 17 is based on all of eastern-europe in general but it has a lot of Bulgaria in it.
 
Ty ty... =)
About the location of the game... the amount of information given to us in the game doesn't even necessarily tell us that it's on Earth. Hear me out on this one:

Where was Black Mesa? I had always considered it to be somewhere in Arizona... perhaps Utah even, but always a Southwestern united state. (were we ever told where Black Mesa was in HL?)

Barney, Kleiner, Freeman and "The Eli Vance" were all in Black Mesa. Alyx tells us that Breen was our old Administrator in Black Mesa, as well... so he was there. Eli said Alyx and that picture were the only two things he could rescue from Black Mesa, so Alyx must've lived there with Eli and her mother.

Now, the best assumption I've made is indeed that City 17 is indeed SOMEWHERE in Europe. Judging by the Architecture, sewer systems (large ones like that seem to be typically european), various writing on buildings in Latin and Russian. The spelling of Nova Prospekt (with a K) is interesting and suggests a Russian influence. Interestingly a Google for "Prospekt" brings up that a main road in St. Petersburg, Russia is called "Nevsky Prospekt." Overwhelmingly we're pointed to Russia. Curious that people from other continents (the US) were exported to Russia, no? Also interesting to cover is that nobody in City 17 has any foreign accent that I can recall, outside domestic US. I'd have expected a "In Soviet Russa... Gravity Gun uses YOU!!" Have a look at some of the pictures at http://www.nevsky-prospekt.com/. Looks quite very familiar, no?

We know the Earth was attacked by an alien force (in-game newspapers illustrate that beyond doubt), and Earth surrendered. But if we just surrendered, why not lock everyone up in individual numbered cities nearby our original location? Specifically, why not lock up the Black Mesa employees in Arizona, or wherever we were? Were continents dessimated or rendered unihabitable? Was enough of the Earth's population murdered that everyone remaining on the planet could be contained in a few small cities in Russia?

At the point where we start discussing this comes the possibility that we're not even on Earth anymore in the game...

1) We're on Earth
2) We're not on Earth, or
3) None of this is real (unlikely I think, but a possibility)

I'm still wondering why the Vortigaunts refer to Eli as "The Eli Vance"... is it just a quirk they have or is it something more? We're "The Freeman/Free Man" maybe there's some significance in Eli that we don't know about. Curious that we're the only two names the Vortigaunts use (aside from Nihilanth)...
 
nick_t said:
I think (and this might be a far shot) that city 17 is mostly based on Eastern Europe in general but mainly based on Bulgaria. I am Bulgarian and when I played the game I was shocked to see how much it looks like my home country (same depressing apartment buildings!). Then, I was even more surprised to find out that Viktor Antonov (Art Director/Conceptual Designer) of Valve is BULGARIAN!!! "Viktor was born and spent his childhood in Sofia, Bulgaria after which he has been living in Paris France, Montreaux Switzerland, Los Angeles and Seattle" (Valve Software). There is no doubt that city 17 is based on all of eastern-europe in general but it has a lot of Bulgaria in it.
Click to expand...
I'm sure all europan countries has those depressing apartments though :thumbs:
But you could be right, I know one texture artist or sumthin is Swedish and that's why there are swedish gas pumps and I think road signs.
 
yea I'm sure all the designers put in a little of their culture to make the game so unique and diverse. City 17 cannot be pin-pointed to a specific location in the real world but I definitely think Viktor played a role in making the city's theme eastern-european.
 
____The only decent Easter Egg I've Seen____You can see the G-man in the train section right after the mine. When you come to the end there are 3 train cars that make a Y shape. If you crouch at the upper left end, you can see the G-man walking away.
 
I think that the vortigaunts say "The Eli Vance" and "The Freeman" because its just the way they talk. They are aliens, so the way they talk in english (or any other language that comes from a different planet) will be a little different.
 
This is harldy worth saying but I used a translation website and translated "Nova Prospekt." I figured it was German. From German to English, Nova Prospekt equals New Facts Folder. I don't know if that would give you anything but it doesn't seem like anything at all.


Edit: I tried a Russian translation site. And we know Nova Propekt is German because I tried the Russian and it came out to just stay as Nova Prospekt. Could be in Berlin like someone suggested earlier.
 
Those translation sites are horrible, Once I wrote a paper for german and i didnt know any german so i wrote it in english and used one of those to translate it.....I got a bad grade. but my teacher thought it was funny so i talked him into a C
 
cleepa said:
____The only decent Easter Egg I've Seen____You can see the G-man in the train section right after the mine. When you come to the end there are 3 train cars that make a Y shape. If you crouch at the upper left end, you can see the G-man walking away.
Click to expand...

Oh wow, so glad you found the only decent easter egg. Aren't you special... :|

Anyway, everyone knows about Gman sightings. It's a staple of HL games, not really an easter egg.
 
since i AM a german, i can tell you that nova or prospekt aren't german words.
well ok, "prospekt" is a german word, but it doesn't mean "folder". A "prospekt" is more like an advertisement paper. but that doesn't make any sense.
 
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