debaserr

^ That's why I just figured they were making HL3. I doubt they would make a new engine just for episode 3.

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Kevorkian Logic

They are not making a new engine; however they are tinkering with it quite a bit for Half-life 3. It is a 7 year old game engine and they are trying to do something revolutionary with it for Half-life 3.

It is not the gameplay or the story they are working on, it is how they can use this final installment to do something revolutionary. Look at it like this:

The original half-life: Started a revolutionary way of first-player story telling and no cut scenes.

Half-life 2: Refined first-player story telling and introduced the gravity gun (which introduced a whole new way of level manipulation and importance).

Portal: The portal gun. Showed gameplay could be more important than graphics/a hero's story (chell never speaks)/complex narrative plot. This step reversed a trend that was in the making (rising popularity of those god awful final fantasy games).

Portal 2: Created a world in which the environment told more of the back story than actual words did.


So Valve is sitting on a predicament, which is why you are probably going to be waiting awhile. They are looking for something groundbreaking that will (like their other games) shatter your notion about gameplay and design while keeping with their original engine (which is still a bit buggy).

Also, my friend who is a fairly good source for all this info says his theory is that valve is going to come out with a much bigger game than we expect. And it is going to be more of an Half-life 3 than a half life episode 3. But he also says who know? so take that as you will.

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Kevorkian Logic

Also if you are interested someone of the forum put together a list of everything that is known for sure about Half-life 3 and i'm just copying and pasting it in here:

Half-Life 2: Episode Three is the third and final instalment in a series of episodes following Half-Life 2. It is currently in development and Valve have said we may see something from it at the end of this year. The project has been labelled 'highly ambitious' by Doug Lombardi, and release is still a while off. We are most likely to see something from Valve at next years E3 conference.

What we know, and what to expect?
We know the episode is going to be set in the northern reaches of the world of Half-Life, these will be cold places filled with ice and snow, oh and a Borealis.

The Borealis is that great ship that disappeared during some experimentation by the same sort of scientists that caused the Resonance Cascade from the original Half-Life. From what we have seen from Portal and the previous Episodes the Borealis is a scientific ship that was involved in teleportation tests at the Aperture Science labs. Something went wrong which led to the ship disappearing completely from its original location. It is only during the events of Episode 2 that we find out that it has returned, this time in the coldest reaches of the world.

Speculation
The question that will be answered (we hope) in Episode 3 is what happened to the ship, did it appear instantly after the experiment in the north? If that is so then why haven’t we heard about it until now? Is it simply down to the fact that the resistance couldn’t detect it?

We also know the scientists on the Borealis performed their experiments and the ship got sent somewhere, maybe Xen? Or maybe it just disappeared out of the time loop? We know that during the course of Half-Life 2 Gordon takes seven days to travel from Nova Prospekt back to City 17, a 'slow teleport' according to Dr Kleiner.

The Borealis contains something that Eli wishes Gordon to destroy for fear of a repeat of the events at Black Mesa, Dr Kleiner feels it is destined to be a useful asset in the future. The differing views between these two eminent scientists is intriguing. Is caution the best bet, or should Gordon use whatever he can find on the ship to aid in the destruction of the Combine once and for all?

Flora, Fauna and Everything Else
Enough of this speculation, Episode 3 will be set in an area of snow and ice, this is going to pose some new gameplay challenges and maybe even some new aliens. Who knows whether Ant-lions can survive in the cold? Headcrabs and Zombies are a given, but many other creatures may be different.

How will the death of such a key character as Eli impact on the story, and more importantly for some, on the relationship between Gordon and Alyx. What role is the G-Man going to play, he seems to be getting a bit impatient with things not progressing as he wants them to. His message he gives to Alyx, the same message he gave to Eli back in Black Mesa may be a sign that he foresees grave peril in the future, or maybe he is just toying with Alyx.

How things are likely to develop...
When we find out about the Borealis in Episode 2 this is from the transmission Alyx intercepted from the Combine. Therefore we know the Combine have located the vessel. They were extremely aggressive and put a lot of resources into attempting to prevent this transmission getting back to the resistance and have hunted Alyx desperately since the interception. We can assume the combine want to use the Borealis and Aperture Science's possible developments in teleportation / portal technology to bring extra troops to Earth to recapture it or evacuate. The latter...seems unlikely!

We have already seen some early concept art for the game. The image from the ‘Into The Pixel’ exhibition shows Gordon challenging a Combine Advisor in a heavily industrialised environment and earlier concept art from PC Gamer US shows further Advisors around the Borealis. So expect a hugely exciting episode 3 with the same fantastic Half-life formula with a mighty cold twist.

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Dr.Seussicide

So, I'm a huge RPG fan, and I got this about 2 weeks ago and beat it out, now I'm doing post-game quests. Pretty awesome RPG for the DS and a lot of classic similarities to the older versions of the dragon quest franchise. If you've got a DS, and you like turn based RPG's, this one won't disappoint. 8/10

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djchameleon

yeah I need to pick that up soon and the latest Golden Sun

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Fame, fortune, power, titties. People say these are the most crucial things in life, but you can have a pocket full o' gold and it doesn't mean sh*t if you don't have someone to share that gold with. Seems simple. Yet it's an important lesson to learn. Even lone wolves run in packs sometimes.

debaserr

What are your top DS RPG's in general? I'm getting a few games. So far I have:

Mario & Luigi games
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
The World Ends With You

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Dr.Seussicide

I actually have all those 3, and they're all pretty good. The World Ends with You and Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story are both pretty awesome.

If you don't have these, you should get:

Chrono Trigger (One of my definite favourites)
Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy: Ring of Fates (Really good replay value, beat this about 3 times)

I'm more inclined to turn-based RPG's, not so much the strategy ones.

Yeah, definitely get this. I've already racked up 100+ hours on this thing, lol

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Howard the Duck

i have Dragonquest VIII on the PS2

it's great but i really hate the level-grinding

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Malaise is THE dominant human predilection.

Dr.Seussicide

Well, dude, the level grinding in this one is even more intense. Basically every character you have can change their "vocation" or job, if you will. And every time you change their vocation, they go to level 1. And there are 12 fucking vocations. But the thing is, you can change from vocation to vocation, and whatever you level up each one, well that level remains. Now hear this next bit, when the character reaches level 99, they can fucking re-vocate, which brings them BACK to level 1, so that you can get more "skill points".

Level grinding in this one is. A. Bitch.

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debaserr

Thanks for the tips, I haven't played a good rpg for a long time.

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