Weekend Wrap-up: When Gordon Met Chell Edition

Posted By: Dave Bast In: Console News, Gaming News, PC On: 14 Oct

This wrap-up features an example of what happens when creative fans, tired of waiting for Half Life 3, decide to make their own version of a Half Life/Portal crossover. Valve has hinted in the past of a connection between the in-game worlds of both HL and Portal, so it’s not surprising that someone is having a little fun with the idea. It is a sign though that it has been a really long time since any real information about Half Life 3 or its connection to Portal has been released by Valve. I mean come on; fans have waited so long they’ve just decided to do it themselves. The video below is just one example, but it’s a great one. It combines my two of my favorite things from the world of gaming; fan fiction and Gordon Freeman’s beard.

Sporting a non-existent budget, YouTube user Timtimfed has put together a really impressive rendition of what might happen between a meeting of the silent protagonists from Half Life and Portal. I’m pretty sure that Gordon Freeman didn’t mime his way through Black Mesa, but it’s pretty funny to watch him try and express himself without speaking a word. Using sounds from both games, clever DIY costumes, and some excellent camera work, this short film creates an alternate yet believable world in which Gordon and Chell join forces to fight the Combine. It may be short on time, but it’s long on humor. Have there ever been two protagonists gamers have wanted to see working together more than these two?

Source: Reddit

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According to an infographic by Riot, League of Legends is the biggest game of all time. Sure they may be biased, but some of these facts are pretty hard to deny; 12 million daily active users, 1 Billion (yes with a B) hours played each month, and 6.5 million Teemo deaths per day to mention a few. I had known that Lol was a large game by anyone’s standards, but I didn’t know just how big. At this point it isn’t a fringe game or even a popular game; it has become a worldwide phenomenon. Who knew a free-to-play game could be in the same category as games like World of Warcraft, CoD, and Halo? Despite having some problems with their season 2 finals, it looks like things are still looking up for the little MOBA that could.

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Minecraft has scheduled what they’re calling a “pretty scary” update for their block building sandbox-game. It should be released in a few weeks just in time for Halloween, and it’s no surprise when you read what the patch is all about. Witches will now inhabit swamps in “creepy” shacks, throwing potions at anyone who comes near them. Zombies are capable of infecting neutral civilians which means the potential for an outbreak if you’re squatting in one of their villages. They’ve also added a new boss called the Wither. These new bosses will drop Nether Stars which help in the creation of light beacons to help players navigate the world. I don’t know if this stuff is being added because Halloween is around the corner or if Minecraft is just become more of a spooky game. Either way some of these updates looks great, I say keep them coming.

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If you’re having trouble in X-Com: Enemy Unknown and you really don’t care about whether or not you get any achievements there are a few hidden hero units that can give your team the boost it needs. As PC Gamer points out, re-naming some of your squad members to industry big-wigs like Sid Meier, Ken Levine, and a few others will create a super unit probably capable of dealing with the aliens single handedly. The first game tended to give characters named Maria a boost, but this will turn normally boring soldiers into straight-up killing machines. Of course it’s cheating, but at least it’s more interesting than usual.

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Here’s another one about X-Com. If you’ve played it then you know just how important sound is to the game, not just for the tone but tactically as well. Well Kotaku ran a piece this week showing just how they made some of the sounds for the game’s many alien types. Of course some of them are animal sounds, but they’ve utilized their technical know-how to transform these earth-based animal sounds into something other worldly. I don’t know what’s worse, hearing a pissed off gorilla that turns out to be a gorilla, or hearing a pissed off gorilla that turns out to be a Muton.

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Finally, Notch has released even more footage of his 0×10^c space game, this time with a bit more art than the original tech-demo footage he released a few days ago. PC Gamer has a pretty detailed write up of the game that’s still in its infancy, explaining just how ambitious the project really is. So far it doesn’t look like a traditional fly here fly there space game. The goal is to make it feel like Firefly, where the ship is constantly falling apart and the player is forced to maintain it. The game is also designed around having multiplayer in mind, so who knows what will happen once that gets working. Either way it’s most likely going to be an interesting ride.