FREEMAN'S MIND: EPISODE 62

[Crawfish]

Why is it that everyone always has to connect everything in Half-Life to those tentacles? It's weird, people have an obsession with it. Those Xen trees? Young tentacles. Those giant pillars? Old tentacles. The Gene Worm? Obviously connected to those tentacles. A completely unrelated giant tentacle monster in another game? Just a variant of the Xen Tentacles!

When the Essence of Metroid Prime is allowed to mature further it burrows into the ground and becomes the Xen Tentacles.

[Blightmare]

I was honestly hoping to see some sort of reaction to him stepping into the healing pool but I guess not. Maybe in a later episode? I know you encounter those a bit in Xen but he has tended to overlook some things for the sake of story flow.

[Mr Nutt]

he might do Half-Life 2 if the interest is still there.

If?

IF?!

There is no f-ing if about it.

To be fair, I did put the enthesis on might, not if. While it's pretty damn obvious there's still plenty of interest in Freeman's Mind, as a guy who doesn't know Ross personally, I can't say I know if he'll want to continue. Mind you, if he does, there will very likely be a break before he starts Half-Life 2.

[BTGBullseye]

Break, yes. Continuation, yes.

[Wasted_Hero]

Going back through all the old episodes now before the series ends. My GOD there are some good one liners in some of these episodes. I'm going to reaffirm my commitment to call all grenades "Ambassador Pineapple" from now on.

 

I know you get this a lot, but you're awesome Ross. Thanks for making these.

 

 

...now I must return to junking out on Freeman's Mind.

[Monocle]

HAHAHA Xen does kind of look Giger inspired now that you mention it.

[RandomGuy]

I always thought that the Xen levels had the best art design of any levels in any Valve game. Xen is quite beautiful and eerie. It's a shame that most people don't like the last few chapters.

[Xanthien]

It's not just that Xen is really well done (although it is), part of it is due to the fact that it's nearly a complete reversal of most of what you've seen in the game before. It's a very dramatic tone shift, and the sudden change adds to how surreal it seems in a big way. That may also be why some people don't like it though. Hopefully Black Mesa Source does a good job with it.

[phollox]

I totally overlooked that H.R. Giger reference. I recently saw Jodorowsky's Dune. Pretty good documentary. And it talks about how Giger started working in films thanks to the pre-production stage of Dune. And when the film was cancelled, most artist took their Dune's work and used somewhere else. The resemblance of Giger concept art with the one later used in Alien and Prometeus is quite cool. It really puts Jodorowsky's Dune as the most influential film never made.

Also, the documentary shows snippets of some other Jodorowsky sick movies, which now I want to see. The Holy Mountain for example

[Alyxx Thorne]

To me the Giger influence in Half-Life is pretty obvious. Just look at the sexual overtones of the headcrabs aka headhumpers.

[Rocket Propelled Gordon]

How do those headcrabs even mate? They have no ding dongs. Or walla wallas.

Or hoo has. Or..fucking hell, you get what I'm trying to say.

[RandomGuy]

How do those headcrabs even mate? They have no ding dongs. Or walla wallas.

Or hoo has. Or..fucking hell, you get what I'm trying to say.

 

A giant testicle on a big armored spider monster spawns them.

[danielsangeo]

I think of headcrabs like ants or bees. You have the queen (Gonarch) which is, essentially both male and female, fertilizing its own eggs, growing the larval headcrabs in its body until it's time to release them. The resultant headcrabs are like worker ants or worker bees and are sterile themselves. If a Gonarch dies, a headcrab is born to replace the dead Gonarch as queen headcrab. The headcrab grows into another Gonarch.

 

That's how it works, at least in my mind.

[RandomGuy]

It's possible that the headcrabs are an artificial species to begin with. Them infecting humans and only humans seems rather suspect.

[lavaheart]

It's possible that the headcrabs are an artificial species to begin with. Them infecting humans and only humans seems rather suspect.

They could be another form of tentacles.

 

But seriously I lean more towards wasp/bee-like where there is a queen but the workers are largely independent or were at least before they were used as weapons of war. There has likely been some strict breeding control on the queen.

which may be why gonarch's floating on a small island in the void... she seems like a pretty large animal for such a small space... freeman literally was teleported to a headcrab breeding pen that was only the most efficient amount of space to give her.

---

 

But ya valve were thing EXTREMELY sexually when they designed the aliens in half life. Mr. Friendly which is one of the cut aliens was supposed to literally rape freeman and defiantly looks like uhhh some things.... XD

 

on Mr. Friendly's article on the halflife wiki it says that "The sexual themes of some of the enemies were intended to appeal to the innate homophobia of 12 year old boys, the targeted audience for the game."

 

:l halflife could of been a REALLY weird game if they had included more of the enemies they cut.

[RandomGuy]

It's possible that the headcrabs are an artificial species to begin with. Them infecting humans and only humans seems rather suspect.

They could be another form of tentacles.

 

But seriously I lean more towards wasp/bee-like where there is a queen but the workers are largely independent or were at least before they were used as weapons of war. There has likely been some strict breeding control on the queen.

which may be why gonarch's floating on a small island in the void... she seems like a pretty large animal for such a small space... freeman literally was teleported to a headcrab breeding pen that was only the most efficient amount of space to give her.

---

 

But ya valve were thing EXTREMELY sexually when they designed the aliens in half life. Mr. Friendly which is one of the cut aliens was supposed to literally rape freeman and defiantly looks like uhhh some things.... XD

 

on Mr. Friendly's article on the halflife wiki it says that "The sexual themes of some of the enemies were intended to appeal to the innate homophobia of 12 year old boys, the targeted audience for the game."

 

:l halflife could of been a REALLY weird game if they had included more of the enemies they cut.

 

Ridiculous. We all know that the Xen Tentacles are the True Combine/G-Man's employers/the Nihilanth's slavers/the G-Man's employers/Gordon Freeman from the future/Adrian's true family.

 

They were pretty sexual, weren't they? Headcrabs are face-huggers. The Gonarch is a testicle. Barnacles are based on... well, barnacles, meaning those tentacles they use to eat are probably inspired by the real-world barnacle's extremely long penis. The Alien Grunts are dressed like strippers. The Nihilanth is a giant fetus. The Alien Slaves were completely naked except for their collars. The Controllers are mini-Nihilanths who wear only loincloths. Creepy.

 

Anyway. I hate to be 'that guy', I really do, but I'm curious. Episode 62 came out a week ago; it was released four days after 61.5. The voice work and footage for episode 63 have apparently been done for a while, to the point that (by Ross's estimate) he finished the voice work for episode 64 several days ago. Otto isn't dead, Ross finished moving, and he apparently has another sound editing guy for back-up. But there's no sign of episode 63. Did the series run into another problem during production? Is Scott just focusing non-stop on recording and filming, so he can release them all in a short amount of time at a later date? Something else?

[Bugthing]

Is Scott just focusing non-stop on recording and filming, so he can release them all in a short amount of time at a later date? Something else?

 

Tentacles!

[Bindal]

While the canon premise is that Xen is a different dimension so who gives a damn, I like the think that the Xen islands are orbiting a massive black hole which has high enough gravity to maintain a breathable atmosphere (Both the Xen aliens and Freeman lack any kind of breathing apparatus, and are both seen breathing both in Xen and on Earth). This black hole, though, is an extraordinarily large distance away from the Xen islands though and that, coupled with the gasses seen in the environment, mask its presence.

I knew there was something else bugging me about this explanation. Okay, fine, let's say the Xen islands are orbiting a black hole. That still does nothing to explain the gravity. Because look at it, satellites and space junk orbit the Earth, the moon orbits the Earth, the Earth orbits the sun. The moon and Earth only have GRAVITY because of their density. All the space junk has no measurable gravity because it's not dense enough. That's the situation the Xen island cloud is in. The islands are so comparatively small, they would have no measurable gravity.

The platforms don't have any gravity on their own - you're still falling downwards if you miss one. Meaning they don't have gravity, they just refuse to follow it themselves while orbiting something else we can't just see due the distance. If they would have their own gravity, the we could run around them like there is nothing to it. But we obviously can't.

Not to mention, we are ending up in a lot bigger places later in Xen and during the short visit in Blue Shift, we're on what is basically one giant (several maps large) rock - which STILL doesn't have it's own gravitational force.

 

So, yeah, gravity is not related to the platforms in any sort of way and needs explaination in with something we simply haven't had a chance of seeing yet.

[BTGBullseye]

So, yeah, gravity is not related to the platforms in any sort of way and needs explaination in with something we simply haven't had a chance of seeing yet.

Explanation: The platforms have some form of anti-gravity caused by the Xen Crystals. (hence the need for an anti-mass spectrometer at the beginning of the game) Those crystals allow the platforms to 'hover' above some form of gravity well. (normal planet, gas giant, brown dwarf, black hole, etc.) The air is atmospheric around the gravity well.

 

That covers all aspects of those floating platforms.

[GordonFreeman]

 

Anyway. I hate to be 'that guy', I really do, but I'm curious. Episode 62 came out a week ago; it was released four days after 61.5. The voice work and footage for episode 63 have apparently been done for a while, to the point that (by Ross's estimate) he finished the voice work for episode 64 several days ago. Otto isn't dead, Ross finished moving, and he apparently has another sound editing guy for back-up. But there's no sign of episode 63. Did the series run into another problem during production? Is Scott just focusing non-stop on recording and filming, so he can release them all in a short amount of time at a later date? Something else?

 

Fuck off or pay the master, biatch!