Dmitry

I would love to see this particular ending spin off into an essentially entirely different Machinima series: how Freeman drives to some village, interacts with the locals, figures out what to do next etc. because the fun just never ends for a character unless things get back to normal, and in this state obviously they do not do that any time soon. I think I would even prefer it to continuing into a Half-Life 2 series because in my opinion this format is getting old for a variety of reasons, but this is probably not what most fans want so never mind.

I really liked the remark about the conservation of momentum, this reminds me of the difference between the Aperture Science portal technology (where momentum is conserved) versus the Black Mesa teleportation technology. I think it would be hilarious to see what happens if the Freeman somehow ends up in Chell's body and meets the evil supercomputer, comments on the experiments...

The weather must be great, so I think any delays are quite understandable

I think it is the best interview of Ross ever done so far, and it explained so much (at least to me, in terms of why exactly do I find Ross's work so appealing) while also serving as an incredible source of inspiration.

Um, Happy Birthday, Ross! Personally I find that the best ways to spend one's birthday are the ones that don't remind us of how 'time just flies, period, and we all end up older', and I can easily see how doing the work that matters counts toward it Ross's Game Dungeon seems to be off to a good start, I think it sums up into an interesting overview of what was the 'golden age' of videogames when possibilities seemed endless for many reasons, and how it relates to the present day. I might be overinterpreting the concept, but politics necessarily gets involved in such an exposition one way or another because of the inherent conflict present in demonstrating the virtues and shortcomings of old and obscure games as games to be played as opposed to merely nostalgic artifacts of yonder like many among the older generation of gamers relate to old games, or as ridiculous oddities like many people reviewing old games portray them to be. Basically, one can get an uncomfortable idea that it used to be (in the industry on the whole) that innovation was highly sought after and rampant, and game designers could get away with at least as much as, say, writers, or TV producers, but then the industry leaders gradually figured out what they thought the target demographics actually wanted from games and proceeded to crank it out as cheaply as possible in a race to the bottom. This paragraph is getting too long. Anyway, when I heard of the giant burgers at the end of the previous episode, I thought it would be something like McDonald's Treasure Island but more obscure and with more giant burgers (it also seemed a good fit because of the clown thing, but that particular game already got reviewed many times, for example ).

Oh wow, I may have made a major breakthrough in my research and another episode of FM came out (and with a round number too), all in a single day. I wish both of these events happened more often. I found it a bit strange that in the furnace room Freeman carefully walked it around but gave no comment on the absence of doors. I half expected him to say something clever about how the architects probably decided that having just a window and two pipes would give plenty of access for those that need it. Well, maybe the ghosts distracted him.

Another great episode, and the next one will make a total of 50 great episodes. I was a little disappointed though that Freeman just walked past the buttons in the car repair room; I really enjoy his button fetish. As for the reason to like episodes, I think there are mainly two: assorted hilarious moments (dumb actions from NPCs, various glitches, unexpected Freeman behavior, hiccups etc.) and various strong emotional reactions from Freeman (yelling, expression of depression, despair, delight etc.); maybe clever general remarks as well. I think that bodycount has little to do with it and seeing Freeman being annoyed by getting shot at and having to kill everybody is just as enjoyable as seeing him being annoyed by having to go in circles and negotiating tricky obstacles.

To me it was an outstanding episode. This location and the ones that follow are strongly reminiscent of the Half Life 2 series with some emphasis on street fights, wild terrain and open spaces, which contrasts with the endless catacombs HL1 mostly is, and I expect a lot of good lines and unexpected actions from Freeman in this part of the series. Also, the title sequence at the beginning (not sure whom the credit for it should go to) was unusually nice, soldiers bombing each other. I don't remember seeing it before.

Well, I'm not an expert in this field, but it seems to me that the new mic processes the dynamic range in a different way, making everything sound quite a bit softer than it really is. I guess it was designed for singing rather than speech, so it hardly does any compression. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression ) Compression can easily be applied at the sound editing stage, of course. I even played with it a little in Audacity with the audio from this episode and even made a few samples how it sounds, but this forum doesn't allow me to post them. There is another issue that unexpectedly blew my immersion at the point when the microphone got replaced: the sound quality is a bit too good for the rest of the audio. The voice suddenly stands out unrealistically, it doesn't seem blend too well into the audio environment of the game, at least for my ear that was conditioned by obsessive watching of the previous 42 episodes. That, too, can probably be fixed with some downsampling and distortion, but maybe it would be better to find an exact replacement for the busted mic since it has worked so well?