Yout thoughts on how ep3 would go..

[anamnesis]

I really liked LordPomposity's ideas. They seem very in character with the little twists Valve tends toward, and I agree you also earn 20 awesome points for the idea of AR3 Guy being chased by a Hunter. That's Valve humor right there.

I just wanted to add that I think it would be cool to add some kind of timed challenge to the game, similar to EP2's defense of the missile silo, where you are working against a clock. In that case, the faster you worked, the easier it was, but I think a fixed time challenge that isn't a function of speed or skill would also be cool and could be worked into the Borealis destruction plot. Perhaps we could rig up some kind of self-destruct on the ship to destroy it, and have to escape before the explosion. The Citadel destruction was very long and drawn out for narrative purposes, but imagine how cool it might have been if we had to perform an escape within a certain amount of time like in any number of movies where the heroes have to escape by the skins of their teeth from some inevitable explosion. Return of the Jedi's Death Star tunnel run, Nostromo's self-destruct in Alien, LV-426's atmosphere converter explosion in Aliens, the escape at the end of Metroid, etc. You're on board the Borealis as it's falling apart around you, perhaps you become separated from Alex, and the countdown timer keeps ticking away over the ship's speaker system. Of course, by the time we get clear, the ship might explode, and then again it might not; perhaps a potential spot for a G-Man chat?

Maybe the countdown escape is cliche, but I think it would be an awesome addition to EP3, as well as some kind of epic Alamo shootout on the Borealis that builds on the techniques used in EP2's silo defense.

 

[PimpinPenguin]

I really hope they don't add any countdown sequences if there's one thing i hate in games it's being forced to rush i really like exploring in Half life taking time to look around not something you can do with a clock ticking.

 

[cyk]

I doubt Valve would do a real countdown, but they're ridiculously good at making a fake countdown (Citadel explosion-style). I could see you trying to escape, reaching a door, and finding it won't budge. Then, an explosion sequence goes off, and then G-Man.

 

[anamnesis]

I doubt Valve would do a real countdown, but they're ridiculously good at making a fake countdown (Citadel explosion-style). I could see you trying to escape, reaching a door, and finding it won't budge. Then, an explosion sequence goes off, and then G-Man.

That was essentially what I was implying.

I really hope they don't add any countdown sequences if there's one thing i hate in games it's being forced to rush i really like exploring in Half life taking time to look around not something you can do with a clock ticking.

I understand that, and I agree, but you wouldn't be covering any new ground. You'd be on the Borealis, basically backtracking and escaping through the same route you took to get in, similar to the way it worked in Minerva Metastasis. The environment would be familiar territory with the exception that it is falling apart around you as you escape. Perhaps separate explosions are going off individually to blow up different parts of it and make it sink, and you need to get to certain checkpoints or bulkheads in time before they go off. If this were an actual circumstance, you wouldn't be standing around to smell the flowers, so the exploration of the ship about to be destroyed is a moot point. Any exploration of the Borealis would be done prior to its destruction anyway, and you'd have all the time you wanted to explore every part of it before destroying it, so that criticism is a bit irrelevant. You don't get much time to explore the Dark Energy Reactor at the top of the Citadel before it explodes either, so how's that any different?