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The Valve Software Company The Software Company The Half Life Series {Plot Synopsis, Game Play} Counter Strike: Source {Game Play, Why Its Impossible} Portal {Plot Synopsis, Why its Revolutionary} The Half Life Series Plot Synopsis • The original Half Life was released in 1999. You played the role of Gordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist working at the Black Mesa Research Facility. During a test, an inter-dimensional portal opens up. You fight your way through Black Mesa, and are employed by the G-Man at the end of the game. Half Life 2 continues about 10 years after the original Black Mesa, playing as Gordon Freeman again, you are tasked by the G-Man to overthrow the evil alien Combine rule that has taken over the earth, and plans to enslave humanity. After destroying the Citadel in City 17, time is stopped by the G-man, and you are put back in a stasis. At the beginning of Episode 1, you are at the base of the exploding Citadel, after being saved from the G-Man’s employment by Vortiguants. In Episode 1, you must stop the Citadel’s reactor from exploding, so you can get out of the city. Episode 1 leaves off with a cliff hanger as the explosion of the Citadel catching up with your train as you escape the City. Episode 2, the most recent in the series, has you travel to White Forest, where Dr. Kliner and Eli Vance are building a rocket in an abandoned Missile Silo. The rocket, when launched will close up the Combine’s last-ditch attempt to keep the Citadel’s portal open. The game ends with a fairly major character dying, and sets it up nicely for Episode 3, which has yet to be released Home Game play The Half Life Series Game Play • When the original Half Life was released in 1999, it was the most graphics intensive, involving game of its day. Damage ratios are high, posing a challenge even on “easy”, which is made worse by the fact that there is no auto save feature. • Half Life 2, released in 2004, featured an entirely new game engine, ground breaking physics, and lighting effects and reflections never seen before. The most noticeable change was the addition of the incredible Havok physics engine. The environment became incredibly immersive, as an entirely new element had been added to the game • Half Life 2: Episode 1, released in 2006 Focused on game play that used a reliance on the AI of a NPC to successfully make it through. It used the same game and physics engine as Half Life 2, little change was made elsewhere. • Half Life 2: Episode 2, released on October 10th 2007 is the latest in the series. It was the most graphics intensive yet, and focused largely on “Cinematic Physics”, which included bridges falling over, and buildings getting destroyed with great flair and much explosions. Home Plot Synopsis The Counter Strike: Source Game Play • Counter Strike was originally made as a free download which would mod the original Half Life. Valve saw business potential, and purchased the game. They re- made the mod under Half Life 2’s Source engine, put it on a CD, and slapped a $20 price tag on it. Counter Strike is a multiplayer only, First Person Shooter between the Counter Terrorist team and the Terrorists. There are two types of maps, hostage rescue and bomb defuse. In the hostage maps, the CT’s must rescue all the living hostages before time is up, and in the defuse map, CT’s must defuse the terrorist planted bomb before it detonates. In both maps, the round can be won by eradicating every member of the opposite team. Home Why it’s impossible The Counter Strike: Source Why its impossible Despite being awesome in most regards, Counter Strike: Source is unbelievably difficult to excel at. Players only take a few hits before dying, and often times, completely random shots will penetrate a door, or corner of a wall, and strike a players head. Also, while under fire, the players movement, such as running, will be slowed down, making the slower target easier to hit. After jumping, the players movement is slowed down momentarily, but speeds back up to normal. Kevlar can be purchased from the in-game buy menu for protection, but does little, if anything to actually protect the player. The natural kick of the automatic weapons make prolonged shooting incredibly inaccurate, and oftentimes they always miss when its most necessary. However, the player is most accurate while crouching, and with certain automatic rifles (AK-47, M4A1) it is possible to hit another players head from practically across the map. In the map, CS: Assault, which takes place in a warehouse used for money smuggling by the terrorists, the bullets will actually go clean through the walls and roofs of the warehouse, which makes it easy for campers to shoot at a corner of the building with their fingers crossed. Many times, players will use the AWP, a one hit-one kill sniper rifle. The AWP is dead on accurate, and many “skilled” players can take out an entire team by camping with an AWP. Despite being frustrating at times, Counter Strike: Source is addictively fun. Home Game Play Plot Synopsis • In the game of Portal, you awake in a monochromatically white “test chamber”. You are guided, starting at this point, the entire way through the game, by the robotic voice of GLaDOS. Soon after starting out, you acquire the “Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device”. Which does exactly as it implies. Shooting it at a wall/floor/ceiling will create one end of a portal, shooting it again creates an exit for the same portal, but neither portal is specifically an entrance or an exit, they can both be used regardless of the order they were placed in. Also, the kinetic energy and angular kinetic energy of the player, or any object passing through the portals is conserved. Players use the tactic known as “flinging” to get up to high platforms, and to solve puzzles. Using these portals, you navigate around the 19 different “test chambers” to the hilarious deadpan humor of GLaDOS. You escape from your attempted murder, and proceed through maintenance corridors to the room where the GLaDOS is housed. The game ends with the player destroying GLaDOS. The ending credits are particularly funny as well. Home Why It’s Revolutionary The Revolutionality of it all • The portals, which are placed by the player create a visual and physical connection between the two ends. When the player exits a portal upside down or sideways, they are re-aligned with gravity (i.e. feet pointing down). The there is often only one way to pass the level, but how the player goes about that can vary from person to person. The voice that guides you through the game is indeed very comical, and when referring to the conservation of kinetic energy between portals, says, “Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out.” The player cannot die by falling, but can be killed by turret guns, “energy balls”, toxic waste which covers the floor and by objects falling on her head. The game also relies heavily on the deadpan humor of GLaDOS to guide the player through the levels. GLaDOS often contradicts herself, first promising cake and grief counseling at the end of the test, then hinting that the player will be killed. Besides GLaDOS, the only other character is the “Weighted Companion Cube”, which is simply a large, probably 3’x3’ cube decorated with a pink heart in the center of each face. However, at the end of the test, your companion cube “Unfortunately must be euthanized”. Made with the Source engine, and the Havok physics engine, portal was the most groundbreaking first person puzzle solver to be released. Home Plot Synopsis.
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