Sui
Tank
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This entire post contains references to the end sequence, and other key moments, in Episode One and therefore should not be read if you have not yet completed the episode.
Aftermath, or Episode One, left a lot of unanswered questions when your train was caught in the inevitable blue blast of pure energy which decimated what little remained of City 17.
Episode Two has got a lot to live up to with its storytelling. Alyx, after all, has a copy of the signal which was sent out by the combine citadel – and it doesn’t look like they were simply calling for backup (or, as Lemonking proposed, a pizza). It’s entirely possible that that small data stick which Alyx has clipped to her belt will be the one thing driving Episode Two’s story. I mean, other than watching the ash settle and possibly taking advantage of the fact that he can get his dangler up again (hey, Alxy looked pretty keen!), Gordon won’t have much else to do now that the City’s been blown up. It seems likely that the data spike could be the ‘McGuffin’ of Episode Two, driving the story forward so to speak.
The finishing scene is probably one of the most shocking moments in the whole episode; in the entire Half-Life series there have only been two locations – Black Mesa and City 17, and now it seems like both have been flattened. So where will Episode Two be set? The countryside? Maybe we’ll be stranded in a forest, Blair-Witch style, with a whole host of zombies gnawing at out toes. We could be stuck in a small town not utterly dissimilar to Ravenholm. It could even take a dramatic twist for the unexpected, and we could awake in somewhere entirely foreign (like Tokyo!). The only clue we have is that Valve are extremely likely to reuse currently existing textures and props from HL2, so I wouldn’t expect a complete overhaul design-wise.
Other interesting questions proposed by this initial Episode include the motivations of the Vortigaunts… just what are they trying to pull? They obviously feel confident enough to take on the Gman (“We’ll see about that!”), so they have a lot to answer for, seeing as they were a relatively passive race throughout HL2. Then there’s that whole issue of ‘what to do next’… a load of citizens have made it out, as well as some combine troops (I’m presuming those ships were escape pods at the end) with nothing much to do.
So. Speculate. Do what you do best. Concoct crazy theories about the Gman being Gordon’s father and all that crap. Let’s bounce ideas off each other and see what we come up with!
Aftermath, or Episode One, left a lot of unanswered questions when your train was caught in the inevitable blue blast of pure energy which decimated what little remained of City 17.
Episode Two has got a lot to live up to with its storytelling. Alyx, after all, has a copy of the signal which was sent out by the combine citadel – and it doesn’t look like they were simply calling for backup (or, as Lemonking proposed, a pizza). It’s entirely possible that that small data stick which Alyx has clipped to her belt will be the one thing driving Episode Two’s story. I mean, other than watching the ash settle and possibly taking advantage of the fact that he can get his dangler up again (hey, Alxy looked pretty keen!), Gordon won’t have much else to do now that the City’s been blown up. It seems likely that the data spike could be the ‘McGuffin’ of Episode Two, driving the story forward so to speak.
The finishing scene is probably one of the most shocking moments in the whole episode; in the entire Half-Life series there have only been two locations – Black Mesa and City 17, and now it seems like both have been flattened. So where will Episode Two be set? The countryside? Maybe we’ll be stranded in a forest, Blair-Witch style, with a whole host of zombies gnawing at out toes. We could be stuck in a small town not utterly dissimilar to Ravenholm. It could even take a dramatic twist for the unexpected, and we could awake in somewhere entirely foreign (like Tokyo!). The only clue we have is that Valve are extremely likely to reuse currently existing textures and props from HL2, so I wouldn’t expect a complete overhaul design-wise.
Other interesting questions proposed by this initial Episode include the motivations of the Vortigaunts… just what are they trying to pull? They obviously feel confident enough to take on the Gman (“We’ll see about that!”), so they have a lot to answer for, seeing as they were a relatively passive race throughout HL2. Then there’s that whole issue of ‘what to do next’… a load of citizens have made it out, as well as some combine troops (I’m presuming those ships were escape pods at the end) with nothing much to do.
So. Speculate. Do what you do best. Concoct crazy theories about the Gman being Gordon’s father and all that crap. Let’s bounce ideas off each other and see what we come up with!
