Topic: Half-Life 2 Episode 3: Seriously?

[gpw11]

I don't know if I missed when you guys were talking about this or if it just wasn't posted.  Here's the story:

Valve's Gabe Newell has been moving his hands around in very fast, repetitive motions in a room full of people. By that, I of course mean that he's been practicing sign language, and is looking at how to implement it in videogames, most notably Half-Life 2: Episode 3. Why is Gabe doing this? First of all, it's a bid to develop and improve animation in videogames. Secondly, it fits in with Half-Life  heroine Alyx Vance's backstory. She knows sign language, and Valve wants her to pull it off convincingly.

"[Alyx] had a crush on someone who was hearing impaired, so she taught Dog how to sign so she could practice," explains Newell. "Something happened, maybe, the person is off fighting the Combine someplace else, but that's why she and Dog would start signing with each other when they wanted to communicate without making noise, or communicate without other people knowing ... It gave us the excuse to build the technology for signing."

This sounds like it'll be an incredibly ambitious undertaking for Valve's animators, especually given the nuances of sign language. It would be a very positive step forward for videogames, with potentially far-reaching implications, so I hope they pull it off. Check out a video of Gabe in action here. Video credit and image belongs to Samuel Sandoval.

There's a video linked in there that's actually kind of funny if you're a dick. But really, this is the stupidest idea and potentially biggest waste of resources I think I've seen.  The animation costs would be astronomical (I imagine), and it doesn't really provide any value to anything.  I mean, the percentage of the audience that is deaf is probably pretty small, but also, that's kind of what closed captioning and subtitles are for, right?  I mean, this isn't an advancement in the same kind of way that finding a way to let visually impaired people enjoy games would be an advancement, this is just using a less efficient method to convey the message to deaf people than the one that currently exists.

And the comments are all pretty much applauding it.  What the christ?

[Cobra951]

You won't find me applauding it.  Seems pretty stupid. 

[idolminds]

Its Valve fans. Everything Valve does is the GREATEST THING EVER to them. They share a lot in common with Apple fans.

[Xessive]

[Pugnate]

Wow... you guys weren't kidding. Those comments make me want to barf.

[MysterD]

Game Informer - "Searching For Half-Life 3."

This article is about someone who anonymously from Valve did an interview w/ Game Informer about why Half-Life 2: Episode 3 and/or Half-Life 3 has never gone anywhere; and talked about how Valve works internally (as a studio) b/c of its [lack of] structure.

[Pugnate]

I hope this isn't true... It is a bit surprising and saddening.

[Quemaqua]

Sounds about right from everything I've heard over the years about how Valve operates. It's no secret that I thought HL2 was pretty shitty, so I've never cared much that it didn't continue. To be honest, I've never really liked Valve's games much. I don't think they're bad, per se (well, okay, I think HL2 was pretty bad), there's just some quality I can't put my finger on that I really don't like. But they've always been a kind of weird company, and it seems like that's become more and more of a thing as they've gone.

[K-man]

Only Valve game I ever really liked was Counter-Strike.  And it wasn't even Valve's game when I was actively playing it.

Valve's probably smart at this point to not do it.  How would it ever live up to expectations?

[scottws]

I absolutely loved HL2, personally. I thought it was a big leap forward, technologically. Sure, each level sort of had its own thing which made it almost like a classic videogame akin to Zelda or [/i]Mega Man[/i], and that made it hard to see it as a real world story and event progression.  But I personally thought it was incredible from a technology and gameplay perspective.  I've played through it three times.