Who remembers when Episodes were called Expansion Packs?

[Laivasse]

Agreed, HL1 was not a cliffhanger.

Edit: And actually, depending on the way Valve spun it, HL2's ending could have worked in such a way that it wasn't a cliffhanger in the classic sense of the word either. Before expansions/episodes were even rumoured, it wouldn't have been unreasonable to assume that you'd seen the last of the citadel. Had the next game in the HL series started in the same way as HL2 - ie. a completely unfamiliar environment, chronological leap, a de-emphasis of past plot factors - then you could say that HL2's ending had never been meant as a cliffhanger. Rather, you could well have deduced that Gordon was out of the way of the explosion and that was meant to be the end of that.

However, Valve seem to care for their NPC's a tad more than I'm happy with... :hmph:

 

[Operational]

Quoting from Wikipedia does not make what you're saying fact.

Wikipedia disagrees.

People are interested in facts because of their relation to truth. Quoting from Wikipedia automatically makes that quote a fact, Samon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fact&oldid=162026835

 

[Asknoone]

Wow. Owned.

 

[alehm]

Wiki does not exist

Look I quoted myself so its now a fact. If you go to wiki the website will no longer be there.

 

[Cheomesh]

Because all other plot threads were explained.

Oh. Makes sense.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

I will laugh when some dude comes along and goes..."who the hell is samon?"

 

[dogboy73]

Episodic content is not the same as expansion packs. Quoting from Wikipedia does not make what you're saying fact.

It's a pretty good description though, ey? Wiki aside, here's my thought on this;

Episodic content is just another name for something that's been around for quite some time in gaming. Since the days of Doom infact. It's all about marketing. By suddently calling this type of content 'Episodic' it implies something new. It's really just new marketing terminology that we've not come across in gaming before. It's not as if Valve invented the idea of episodes.

 

[Cheomesh]

I like the episodes. Makes the game itself last longer without actually "lasting longer".

Not to mention the tech upgrades it allows for.

Most games have a single rising action, a climax, a denumont, and a conclusion. If you put HL2 and all of it's episodes together, you have an epic, with many rising actions, climaxes, and denumonts.

 

[PvtRyan]

It's really simple: an episode is part of a greater whole while an expansion pack isn't. An expansion pack can stand on its own, Episode 2 does not make sense without Episode 1. Episode 2 is a part in a continuous story, moving the story forward and Episode 3 will pick up right where Episode 2 ended.

This is like saying "Remember when tv-show episodes were called short films?".

 

[McGooTheWise]

It's really simple: an episode is part of a greater whole while an expansion pack isn't. An expansion pack can stand on its own, Episode 2 does not make sense without Episode 1. Episode 2 is a part in a continuous story, moving the story forward and Episode 3 will pick up right where Episode 2 ended.

This is like saying "Remember when tv-show episodes were called short films?".

And that my friends restates what valve has been saying this whole time, which is?! "THE EPISODES ARE HALF-LIFE 3!"

Sense most of you complaining seem too dim-witted to grasp this simple concept, the episodes were originally going to be half-life 3, but half-life 3 would have taken them 4 more years to do, so they decided, "hey, let's release them in small packs... episodes! This will kill 2 birds with one stone. The customers will be happy because they have more games to play, and we can have more time to think of good story ideas and challenging puzzles! Not to mention new graphical upgrades! "

Is that simple enough now? -.-

 

[314URBLOC0017]

Yeah, well, some thing just don't go together: teqilla and root beer, zombies and haiku

I was a rebel
Until a headcrab got me--
Now I want brains.

:E