Archive for June 2018

Things I never noticed in Half-Life

A little while ago, I started a new project on the site called Reference Galleries. I plan to put images I see from GoldSource maps and mods that will inspire me and can be used for reference.

Obviously, Half-Life will contain a lot of things that both inspire and can be used for reference. Unlike many readers, I’ve only played half-life a couple of times and the last time was part of what I called The Replay Experience Experiment AKA TREE and that was a few years ago, so I have decided to replay it, as well as the other games, over the next few months.

I started 10 minutes ago and when I got to the doorway where a Barney says that he can’t let me through and I looked up. I believe it was the first time I had done that and this post suddenly appeared in my head.

There are sure to be things I haven’t noticed and I thought I would document them here. Don’t expect any “Never-before-seen” things, they are just things that I have never noticed or forgotten I have.

The images and thoughts will be posted on the RTSL Twitter account and then embedded as comments on this post. The hashtag is #thinnihl.

By the way, if you are looking for a chapter-by-chapter review of each of the games, then visit the Games section of the site.

Anyway, I’ll hope you’ll follow along with me and add you own observations.

16th June 2018 3 Comments

Half-Life Posters – A RTSL Fan Art Event

The Posters have been added to the bottom of the post.

A while ago, Maki suggested running an art challenge. He said it because, as you may know, I try to post a Half-Life art image every day on the RTSL Twitter account.

So, here is the first of hopefully many Fan Art Events.

Now, let me clarify. Just like the Fan Fiction Events, they are not exactly challenges. Certainly not in the same way that the mapping challenges are challenges. There are no winners. There are just favourites. I give random Steam games to my favourite and to the readers’ favourite. The games tend to be quite old and not very expensive. I want people to enter the events for the fun and experience, not because they think they will win a AAA modern game.

Right, so with all that said, let’s talk about the event itself.

Theme

As the name suggests, I would like you to create a poster. The poster can be about one of the Half-Life games, one of the characters, weapons, locations, events or even a mod.
The style is up to you. It could look like a movie poster, an art-form (water-colour, oil, abstract etc), photoshop screenshot – the choice is yours.
The style can be serious or joking.
Text should be kept to a minimum unless the style demands it. If text is used, it should be in English (sorry).

A quick look on Deviant Art shows some possibilities.

Entry Deadline

Please send your entry, via email, either as a jpg or png attachment, to [email protected], no later than 11:59pm UTC Sunday 8th July 2018

14th June 2018 11 Comments

Quiet Rehabilitation 2

for Half-Life 2: Episode Two

“Localized on the other side of the Coast, the Combine used to run one among other abandoned sections of the block cells as an area to detain citizens who were determined to be a threat to the Combine action. Later on, these cell blocks were left behind, including countless prisoners and citizens who tried to escape by their own through vents, old offices, maintenance facilities and sewers.

After a successful escape from the cell blocks in sector A5, you’ll find yourself still wandering in the sewers on another side at Nova Prospekt looking for an exit. Continuing your journey as a leftover prisoner attempting to stay alive at all cost. Keep low and dark. The Combine is still in alert of your escape.”

Be sure to check out Quiet Rehabilitation too.

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Total Downloads: 1,89810th June 2018
25 Comments and 16 recommendations, 6 say "Play It Now!"

June 2018 – General Chat

Right, sit down, I’ve got something amazing to tell you…..I actually played some Wolfenstein: The New Order this week. SHOCK!! HORROR!!

I have been saying I would play for months and finally did. I WILL finish it this month. Maybe even this weekend. I struggled for the first 15 minutes while I tried to get used to the new (standard for you) keybindings and also trying to remember how to do the crouching slide, but eventually had a bit of fun.

So, the new Collections feature is online and working. Looks like we need to address multiple lines in the description but the rest seems to work. I hope you take a moment to have a look.

This weekend, I will be posting the PDF of the fan fiction event called Untold Stories and at the time of writing this, it looks like we have 9 or 10 submissions.

I plan to keep working on my mapping and probably stream a bit too.

What about you? What do you have planned?

BTW, can you guess the name of the mod that the featured image is taken from?

1st June 2018 13 Comments