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Well, you're also making the mistake of assuming that the success of an invasion implies the success of an occupation. If the last 50 years of warfare have taught us anything, it's that even with a significant technological advantage, resistance movements using guerrilla tactics that have the home field advantage can still pose a significant threat. Invasion is easy, on guard or off, simply because your enemy is that of the centralized state. This was especially true for the 7 Hour War, since most of humanity had already retreated into urban centers for defense after the Xenian aliens had infested most of the world. But the resistance is a fair deal more spread out (for better and worse), making occupation more difficult. Granted, they certainly don't have much of a long term chance at all (outside of the meddling of a certain physicist and his mysterious, morally dubious enigma of a seemingly hyper powerful employer) due to the Combine gradually making the Earth un-inhabitable. But then, I wouldn't completely discount them, either, what with that whole inventing local teleporting technology while under the scrutiny of a multi-dimensional police state. Really, I can agree with you in that it seems so far that the Combine probably doesn't put much stock in humanity, and thus have kinda left the resistance to do their thing since it didn't seem like they would pose a truly credible threat(with the possible implication of letting it stick around being part of a larger gambit to obtain the newly developed teleporting tech). But with this recent toppling of the Earthly administration, I could definitely see this having a much larger effect throughout the Combine empire. Afterall, the G-man had to be up to something by bringing back the right man in the wrong place and all... Really, I think the biggest lesson of all of this is that we really truly have no idea what's up with the Combine or the G-man, and how we fit into the grand scheme of things. It ends up being a great example of human existentialism as applied to mankind's place in the multi-verse, as the whole balance of power seems to be almost unfathomable to understand.

I'm sure Ross could pull off a falsetto. That, or maybe he could pull a Dr. Girlfriend and just hope that people stop thinking about it after a few episodes.

Would it? Or would it make them gaze more intently, to ensure against subversion of the war effort? The issue of security and freedom is one which is awfully easy to make many justifications with. After all, this spying which you decry has come about exactly because of the paranoia of war. Recall that it wasn't civil disturbances that created bills such as the Patriot Act, but instead it was fear of an outside enemy infiltrating our society. The exact same rational that created those internment camps. So no, I don't believe that a full scale war will distract the government. Instead, it will only give it far more seemingly good reasons to tighten their grip.

That's exactly my point. All the war did is give the government a super good reason to oppress people. And if none of the above are considered "violations of personal freedoms" than what the heck are? Also, I will agree with the "throwing money at a problem won't fix it" argument, but I don't see what that has to do with the validity of war time behaviors.

Tell that to the Japanese people who were interred in camps in WW2. The last thing a war does is increase personal freedom. At best it increases paranoia and radical thinking. If anything, at best, war helps us appreciate our freedoms, because it's one of the few times it is truly challenged.

Man, I'm kinda surprised how easily the Nihilinth went down. But then, I guess you have less to worry about when not dealing with losing health. Also, kinda a shame that the Gman doesn't give much time to talk between responses. Assuming that he's CIA is kinda a weird leap. Last I knew, the CIA didn't have the ability to teleport to some crazy border world... Oh well, still a ton of fun. I think I speak for most folks here to say that a long hiatus from the whole FM thing is more than warranted. Of course, I also think I speak for most when I certainly hope to see it come back one day. Also, should we be right to assume that the G-Mania ending is the cannon one?

Awesome, any particular sub-genre of interest? I tend to stick more to the symphonic prog, phsychadelic/space rock, and jazz-fusion prog. I hate to say it, but there just isn't much modern prog I like. Really, every time I try to get into some, either the music just isn't that interesting, or the music is pretty awesome but the vocals are super cringey so as to ruin it. Spock's Beard and The Flower Kings are a good example of that latter problem for me. That, and the rest of the stuff is way too metal for me. I just don't care for it.

Anticipation

Only the most progressive of rock! Well, okay, also classic rock in general. Really, pretty much most stuff from before the last two decades. Does that... make me a bad person?

Can we get subtitles here? Not all of us watch the Japanimes enough to be hip to the jive.

You know what, Ross should legit hire you. Not just for Freeman's Mind, for his videos in general. Seconded. Colour me impressed.

Well, to be fair, I think that's all somewhat intentional, since we all (and Ross, of course) already know all that stuff. Let's call it foreshadowing (hopefully).

Wow, the "I wanted a cheeseburger!" line was from the Barney's Mind guy? I just thought it was some weird un-used in-game sound clip. Man, he sounded just like the real Barney! (The security guard, not the dinosaur)

There's a huge difference between a Muslim nation on the other side of the planet, and a christian nation right next door... You mean like the fact that a counter attack or even invasion into American soil is far more likely? Or that the cartels are probably far more dangerous a threat to actually fight than the terrorists ever were? Don't get me wrong, I do think that something is going to have to be done sooner or later. I just think you are getting way too gung ho about what is going to be an incredibly messy, costly, and damaging conflict. It's gunna end up far more like Vietnam than it will WWII, if that's what you're hoping for.

By the way, which Christmas do you have in there - December 25th or January 7th?It's important bit of info to know for proper speculations... It's December 25th and 26th but the most important day for celebration is Christmas Eve, 24th. That's the evening when we have Christmas supper and open presents. One day before you! Haha! MuHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA! Santa arrives sooner to Poland! My family follows the German version, so we open presents on Christmas Eve too. Although I guess you still have the whole time zone thing over us...

To be fair, he hasn't had that many moments to stop and think in which he wasn't busy actively doing something else. So far, he's mostly exploring and fighting off the native wildlife. It seems like scientific thinking would be something he would want to put off at least until he can ensure that he won't die within a short timespan. I mean, he's been in Xen for like what, a half hour? Given just how insane it all is, he probably doesn't even know where to start regarding actually pinning down how everything works. That said, I'm always up for more technobabble. Especially semi-legit sounding technobabble.

Really, the fall of the Roman empire is a terrible point of comparison, since the political situation of the world was very different back then. Honestly, if anything, I see it happening more like the decline of the British empire. Just kinda fading into a somewhat less powerful role, but still fairly relevant. Plus, I'm not sure if the U.S. will really "decline" so much as just being caught up with by other power players. It might sound kinda conceited, but I'm pretty sure that if the U.S. falls (especially if it falls quickly), it will more than anything take most everyone else with it. Like it or not, it's a pretty major player in this whole global economy thing.

Honestly, I still haven't even noticed it. Really long drawn out garbling can be pretty easy to miss when you are stuck in an alien universe and are continually freaking out.

Yeah, I was expecting a new mode or something centered around this whole train business.

He already realizes that the Scientists sent him to an alien planet? I mean, he did mention the scientists sending him back, the scientists falling and so-on and so-forth. Well, I mean, he seems to know he is somewhere, but he doesn't seem sure where. Thus the theorizing on "Did they blow up the universe?" or talking about the weird gas cloud and floating platforms. He hasn't made any comment about this being where the aliens actually come from. At most, he complains when they teleport to where he is, which might make him think he's still in our universe and out in some weird part of space or something. Like I said, I'd expect the realization to hit that he is in the alien homeworld when he gets to the factory, where the aliens are kinda doing their own thing.

That actually would fit very well. What sort of style of prog would they have, though? As for the new sounds, I will also say that honestly, I didn't even notice the difference until you guys pointed it out. Which I guess is as good a review as you can get, for this sort of situation. That is to say, they gelled nicely with the rest of the episodes/atmosphere. It's just not my style as much. I have a threshold where I don't really want to make sex jokes unless the content is going way WAY over the top. Normally, I don't appreciate the raunchier humour, unless done very well. But I dunno, I think here it would have been fairly appropriate. I mean, it literally is a giant walking testicle. That shoots.... stuff... at you. Sure, I wouldn't want Freeman to go into a bunch of detail on it, while possibly dismissing it as "Ugh, I don't want to think about it." after the initial realization, but even a minor mention of it seemed at least a little warranted. But then again, no real harm done. I think the theological discussing more than make up for it. Also, I'm guessing that by the time he gets to the "factory" level, he will begin to realize that he IS on the alien planet, since he still seems a bit shell shocked and confused at this point'

I don't see an episode by episode commentary really making much sense. Especially since it would require about as much work as what went into making the episodes. That said, once it's done, it'd be kinda cool if he just made a "making-of" style video where he talks about how he makes an FM episode from start to finish.

People keep saying shit like this, and it always strikes me as a relative underestimate of Half-Life's storytelling quality and an overestimate of Half-Life 2's. Well, the key to what I said was "present story". As in, the characters and events actually lay a lot of it out for you. HL1's story is one that is much more something that you piece together after the fact, like some crazy conspiracy theory in a movie. It's all really deep and convoluted, but only looking back at it. This is something that became even more apparent after HL2 came out, since you could then look at how HL fit into a larger narrative, making a lot of the subtleties a little more obvious. But that said, for a very "in-Freeman's-perspective" sort of format seen in FM, most of the details are pretty easily lost, with most of your motivation being "go to the only place you can next". Even though you do get told that you have to go to the Lambda Labs reasonably early on, you aren't really given much explanation as to why, other than "because you have to". That, and you never really are told what it is, or how to get there since you are never able to get an appreciation for where anything is in Black Mesa. HL2 does suffer from this as well, but it does much better at giving you better reasons for your actions along the way, as well as giving you ideas of where to go and why. This is largely helped by the game being above ground, as well as by the assortment of maps you are given in the more travely parts, such as Water Hazard and Highway 17. On top of that, the Citadel acts very well to help give you a relatively consistent landmark to work off of. In Black Mesa, it's just meandering around a giant labyrinth, and while I love that feeling of an incredibly complex facility, it doesn't really contribute to the actual plot as well once you get past the "escape the facility phase. Throughout the game, your actual motivation still remains "keep going forward to get more game" rather than "man, gotta figure out how to get to the Lambda Labs". When your objective early on is to just leave, it's fairly straightforward how to do that. Go up. But once it gets to the "get to a specific part of the facility" section, it just becomes total wandering, since you never get any sort of clue how to accomplish that, except for endless meandering forwards. I feel like a lot of that could have been much more alleviated if the lambda complex had some obvious landmark seen from the surface, so that during the rare times you were above ground, you could get an idea of how far away you are. Also, if there was better signage indicating how your wondering actually ended up leading to the Lambda complex. Stuff like high level tram maps and better indicated waypoints would go a long way towards that. The scientists along the way do at least try to accomplish that, but I don't feel like it was all that appreciable at the end of the day. Blargh, I got on a huge tangent there, sorry about that. Basically, what I'm getting at is, HL1's story was told much more passively than HL2's. HL1 revealed the larger plot through very subtle details that simply wouldn't be obvious in the FM playthrough, especially since they require extensive contemplation and hindsight. HL2's story, by comparison, is very actively told, with more concrete characters and events. That's more what I was getting at in my comment than anything.

I think the interest is there, a lot of people would want it. But there's some folks who are saying that because of the different structure that is hl2 (specially the dialogs and how everything is better explained than in hl1) doing a FM2 wouldnt be as funny :/ Anyways, if Ross would like to shoot a couple of episodes and show them to some "beta watchers" I think we woudnt mind *wink wink* See, I always like FM more as a character study of Freeman stuck in an insane circumstance than necessarily as a pure comedy. While HL2 has less crazy Black Mesa BS, it still offers so much more for how Freeman interacts with other human beings (who aren't just carbon copies of each other spouting the same line repeatedly). Plus, since it does better to actually present some story, it gives Freeman more food for thought. Really, the only big problem I see is how much the tone will have to switch gears so as to be coherent. That said, I think it could still be pretty great, if not even better.

Man, that's such a shame about the last game. I would love a super comprehensive tactical scavenging exploration based base building city simulator civilization building game. If only it weren't backed by awful BS paywall garbage. Also, the zoomed out isometric thing is a bit of a turn off for me (which is also why I can't for the life of my get into Fallouts 1 and 2), but aside from that, all the ideas are there. Oh, BTW, a bit of a follow up on last year's game dungeon in regards to games with haunted carnivals. TF2 can now be (temporarily) added to your list. This year's Scream Fortress event is all about a haunted carnival, and even includes a spooky bumper cars mini-game between matches. On that note, they made a pretty funny comic about the back-stories for haunted carnivals. http://www.teamfortress.com/bloodmoney/