Half Life 2 Raising the Bar (Signed by Gabe Newell)

[Darkside55]

He bumped it because it's his ebay listing.

 

[dogboy73]

Yep. That's the reason. Sorry for the blatant plug :O

 

[hool10]

Yeah I got mine (no sig) on Christmas the year it came out. There are some very cool articles in there such as Episode 3 stuff and the pedo creatures in Half-Life:

According to the book Raising the Bar, Valve' s Ken Birdwell had a friend whose 12-year-old brother used to draw. Ken had always liked his work so he asked him, several years later, to do a couple of sketches of possible monsters. He presented sketches of several very sexual-oriented monsters to him and Gabe Newell, managing director, the kind of material Birdwell did not expect. Among them was this "Mr. Friendly", with something that looked like a penis. The creature was to literally "rape" the player, holding them with its tentacled arms until the point of fatal copulation. Birdwell was quite disturbed by the concept and wondered if Newell would like it; it turns out he did. They then chatted about possible psycho-sexual alien behaviors and their relation with disturbed teenager sexual fantasies. The sexual themes of some of the enemies were intended to appeal to the innate homophobia of 12 year old boys, the targeted audience for the game.

They also show how they made Gordons face along with the G-Man. I think the G-Man is 1 guy and Gordon is compiled of multiple people. I say they should use Charlie Sheen for Gordon though. They will sign almost anything including Pop-Tarts: http://www.hl2world.com/bbs/-vp593185.html *I also got the Counter-Strike guide: http://www.amazon.com/Half-Counter-Strike-Official-Strategy-Guide/dp/3980745341 It's in semi-poor condition as I used it A LOT. There was a section for commands you could put in to lower lag because back in 2001 when I was on a 56k modem, I needed it. But ya, that book was before Steam. :naughty:

 

[DEATH eVADER]

Who's down for an Ocean's Eleven-like scheme to snatch the gold crowbar from Valve's office?

Pull an Indiana Jones by replacing the gold crowbar with a replica; and prepare to run for your life away from the crushing boulder of teh death when the plan fails!!!

 

[Acepilotf14]

>125 pounds
>used
>not signed

Oh wow, you don't know what the word 'value' means do you.

 

[Barnz]

raising the bar sucks, if you're buying it for original half-life. most stuff you can see on the book can be found on the internet, legally.

 

[hool10]

raising the bar sucks, if you're buying it for original half-life. most stuff you can see on the book can be found on the internet, legally.

A lot can be found, but a lot cannot. There is concept art and ideas about stuff they wanted to put into HL and HL2 that isn't on the internet. It's really just a great read for any diehard Valve fan. There is a scene that is wrote in a script that you can only find in the book. Basically it describes a scene that was supposed to happen in HL2. It's a 2 page script that would make a kick-ass movie.

Your Gordon in an APC with the USA military driving through a frozen canyon. Overhead there are Bradley helicopters flying with soldiers. In the distance a portal storm has erupted from the Combine. All of a sudden gunships come in and blow away a glacier wall next to you. All chaos erupts as helicopters crash and APC's crash by falling ice. When you get back up after you fall, you see Eli rallying soldiers and giving orders. Your orders are to get to the weather station ASAP. Vance grabs you and tells you there is a transport ship coming to get you out to City 17. He doubts if it would get here in time before they hole up in the weather station. So all of a sudden a HUGE shadow goes over you and it's a mech carrier! It deploys a massive box and leaves it between you and the weather station. The box deploys as a robot similar to Dog. Soldiers get behind cover and start firing. The robot is slaughtering troops as you struggle to survive. Suddenly you spot Alyx as she throws a grenade at it's head but misses barely from behind. It grabs the robots attention as it starts to chase Alyx. Suddenly a large gun blows away the robot. There is a large anti-aircraft gun mounted on the weather station. You help Alyx get to her feet when she fell from the explosion with Vance. Alyx says "they are gonna need our help to fight the Combine" as the gun shoots Combine ships out of the sky.

That is it of the scene for a rough recap. There is a lot of stuff like that in the book. I'm not sure if they intend to put this in HL3 or Episode 3 or at all. Could be why the game is taking too long. Valve are really ambitious about their games though. :farmer:

*Oh shit wait, LOL: http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Weather_Control Isn't that illegal to do that though? Still it's a great book to read in bed. I guess you can find everything on the internet, hmmm.

 

[Barnz]

Original Half-Life section was so boring, you know why? It was everything I already know featured on a hugeass book. I mean, look at the images, it's the stuff they released along with Half-Life in 90s. I can tell you much more than that book here for free.

There's no mention of any Half-Life expansions, or ports? Come on. There's two sections reserved for Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat. They both suck. I agree about Laidlaw's short-stories. They were fun to read, but there's only two, three of them.

 

[dogboy73]

>125 pounds
>used
>not signed

Oh wow, you don't know what the word 'value' means do you.

Nope. I don't suppose to the half dozen people watching the item do either. It's just a question of how much it's worth to an individual. If soemone is willing to pay that for it then I'd be more than happy to except it :thumbs: Call me an e-bay shitehawk if you will. I don't care.

 

[FishBulb]

That's great, but we don't like advertising. Go scalp somewhere else.