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Let's see how well I know this. I may have some things wrong, just as a disclaimer. Well, to be exact, he tries to teleport you an unlimited number of times, but it's possible to avoid it each time. However, there are only three places you can go, and always the same three in the same order. After that, you keep going to the third place, but with an extra, big hazard (I'm not sure if the enemies are reset or not). To my knowledge, Nihilanth has just one true weak spot, which is only revealed after you do enough damage, and you have to hit it to finish him off. I'm not sure why you say such a thing is necessary during "two phases". Maybe the other thing is the crystals you have to destroy to stop him regenerating health? I wouldn't count that as hurting him, though. Yeah, but as we all should know, Freeman's Mind is playing the game on easier than Easy, because Ross believes it to be more realistic.

Hmm. I wonder if Freeman will fall for the final boss's trick (those who know the game know to what I refer). That tends to extend the battle. Or at least, delay its completion. What, even during the m*******a.com days? Well, it's not as if he has to sustain it. Just a final push, and then it'll be over. ... Freeman's Mind will be over. We're going to miss it. Aren't we?

Oh, they will. You see, they don't work very well in the first place. Often when you're inside one and it activates, you don't go anywhere because the valve is not fully open or you're not standing in just the right spot. Meanwhile, it does a bit of damage to you about once every half second. You might end up dropping into single-digit health by the time you actually make it into the air. And then, of course, they each shoot you up with different forces, so you have to find the right one. And even when you do, you still have to have had the luck to get the right timing, and you have to maneuver in the right way while flying through the air to land on a platform that is close enough to the peak of your jump, or you'll go splat. I'll take the underground, thank you very much. Or maybe jump onto one of the Mantas when first entering the area, as someone else suggested.

I've seen a few people play Half-Life for the first time, and only one of them ever found the underground passage. (Ironically, it was the guy whom I told about it, but who only got the message a moment after he'd stumbled on it. Go figure.) It definitely feels as if it's the "canonical" way, if you know what I mean. But the mere presence of those pits that are undeniably designed to provide a shortcut up implies in my mind that both ways are intended. More evidence of just how obscure that passage is, despite being literally around the corner. Not that I was any better at finding it when I played initially, but why is it so hard to notice?

Well, there is the concept of editing proxies. For anyone who doesn't know, these are low-quality encodes of clips that are used as stand-ins for the originals during the editing process. I don't know how Adobe Premiere CS5 handles them, but in the one I use, they're mostly automatic. If they aren't in yours, then the procedure is: Create proxies for all the clips for which they're needed. Import the proxies into the project instead of the originals. When done editing, change all references in the project to the proxies to point to the originals instead. Render. How you do step 3 is something I can't help with, but there's information out there somewhere. Using the lossless originals during editing does put a heavy burden on the CPU, which can impact usability in a big way, but proxies are lightweight. On the other hand, depending on the quality level and how you handle the editing process, they might not be desirable. Obviously, if a proxy is scaled down or heavily compressed, you'll have trouble seeing some details. So you'll have to figure out whether you want to do this or not, and what quality settings are reasonable for you. Anyway, that's an idea for you. Hope it helps.

Maybe he's too busy worrying about the giant alien monster to notice anything else, even if that monster is what's shooting the bees. Well, it makes sense to me, anyway.

Nice to see another one up as always. By this do you mean things you can "use" or things you can act like you're doing things with even though they aren't interactive by the game's rules? (Incidentally, I have played the game myself, quite a few times. You know, in case you couldn't have guessed by my avatar.) I wonder why they're so inconsistent. Should be a fairly automated process for them to get it onto YT, given the volume of video they handle. Actually, now that I think about it again, is it Machinima's fault or YT's? Hmm. Do you think you could give us a downloadable version of 38 while you're at it? Or are you saving that for MKV as well? Oh, and maybe think about updating the movies page? In your copious free time, of course.

If it does the job just fine, then yes. An "inferior" product might simply lack unneeded features. I'm not saying that applies or doesn't apply here; that's just something I believe in general. That said, I'd be interested to hear an explanation of how MKV is genuinely inferior to MP4. Such a thing is always better than a mere "It sucks!"

Well, for container, I would say either MP4 or MKV. One nice thing about both of these formats is they allow for multiple tracks (i.e. alternative video, audio, and subtitle streams). For your videos, this means you could stuff all available subtitles into the container so people don't have to go download them, and the size cost is negligible. Now, obviously you don't have any subtitles available when you first publish an episode, but there's always the possibility of reuploading occasionally with additional subtitle tracks. No re-encoding is necessary; you just remux and add the new tracks. For video format, unquestionably H.264. Best compression for given quality. For audio format... well, Vorbis is probably the best lossy format available in a technical sense (and has no known patent encumberment, which is nice). But it's not universally supported, so I guess AAC.

Hey Ross. Do those crushers really work that way normally in HL:Source? 'Cause I know in the original (HL1), they only shut down for about 5 or 6 seconds, and if you mess up the timing you have to wait for the switch to reset. Other things I've noticed that work differently: the giant fan in "Blast Pit" starts up right away in HL1, whereas in Source it looks like there's a delay of several seconds. And the vat with the rotating stir things in "Residue Processing", the layout is very different (rectangular in HL1, sort of a two-lobe shape in Source; and the ladder is placed differently), and the stirrers here turn much faster. I'm sure there are other differences I missed or forgot about.

I pointed this out myself. See the second post on this page: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=1010&start=20 The other Lovecraft references I was referring to are, e.g. the road tunnel being named Miskatonic, as well as the overall atmosphere.

But then, I guess if you're in Poland, you would be that early. Oh, wait...

Hmm. Even if Craig is speaking any Hungarian, I don't believe all of it is. For one thing, some of it does seem like nonsense. But also, at least one phrase sounds like the chant of the Cult of Cthulhu. Listen at 25:24, right after Mike says, "I can't even see! They're all over my head!" Does it sound like "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu"? I'm not entirely sure, but "Cthulhu" is unmistakable, even if the pronunciation is unusual. And anyway, it accords with the other Lovecraft references and atmosphere. (Disclaimer: I've never actually read any Lovecraft, but I can still get some of the references.)

Wow, that was great. Nice little scares (the car, the dead body, the journal author at the end). And nice Lovecraft references (e.g. Miskatonic Tunnel, Dave's gibbering at the end, and probably a lot of others I have no idea about). It may not be the greatest work of cinema in history (paraphrasing Ross's earlier post), but I think it's one of the best (if not THE best) episodes of CP yet. Now take a break, Ross; you've earned it.

Woohoo! At last! … Well, I can’t really think of anything interesting to say, other than that I’m looking forward to seeing it and am happy for you that you’ve finally finished it. How does it feel, Ross? (Also, didn't Ross say commenting would redirect to the forums? I just posted a comment and it's definitely not showing up here. Maybe that'll happen later?)