I don't know how it matters and I worry that Half-Life is going to get too timey-wimey, but I appreciate how Half-Life: Alyx reframes our greater journey so far in some brain-breaking ways.Ĭhris: It is nice to once again see G-Man isn't all-powerful and can at least briefly be hindered by some Vort magic. Vortigaunts, the Vortessence, which has always alluded to experiencing time in the fourth dimension, all at once and simultaneously, seems to be a power in the same vein as what the G-Man is capable of. It's also their focus on healing Alyx in Episode 2 that lets the creep slip in for a quick word.
It's also the Vortigaunts that pull Gordon to safety at the end of HL2 and away from the G-Man. It's important to keep in mind that all this green electric energy, the stuff powering Alyx's force lightning and keeping the G-Man locked up, is from the Vortigaunts. James: Yeah, and the grenade hallway is a fun little romp, too. I think it was a lot more fun and surprising in HL2, but it's still cool in Alyx, basically Force-shocking the Combine. It's a heavy ode to the ending of Half-Life 2 where our gravity gun gets the power to pick up soldiers instead of just objects. We can pull these energy orbs out of wall sockets and basically Hadouken the Combine soldiers. After the space-time house we walk through some sort of Combine energy field that super-charges our gravity gloves. The stuff keeping the G-Man locked up is from the VortigauntsĬhris: It was a cool, exciting moment, like when you see him briefly in Opposing Force and Blue Shift. It's weird seeing that guy (us) in the HEV suit in VR, a big bearded dork, picking up his glasses from the void. And they do, but only in the G-Man sequence. James: Yeah, I suspected it wasn't Gordon at times, if only because I didn't think Valve would be willing to show us Gordon in the third-person. But it was still a thrill to confirm it, even though I'd been really excited at the prospect of rescuing Freeman, or just seeing him frozen in a cyber-fridge or whatever. I started thinking maybe the reason he wasn't periodically showing up to spy on me was that he was the one locked in the Vault. Part of the reason was I'd been looking out for those classic Half-Life G-Man sightings while I played, and I hadn't seen any. Excellent, chilling twist.Ĭhris: At some point before the end I suspected it wasn't Freeman in there. I knew it as soon as I saw his silhouette. I got the impression that this was the beginning of a split timeline, which is almost necessary for how much Alyx's ending confuses the events of the previous Half-Life games. Then it 'splits' and the house mirrors itself from above. We get that wild tour through the space-time house where some ghost man, who doesn't look like any character I recognize, is just hanging out. Dog comes bounding in with Freeman's crowbar, and Eli hands it to Gordon, asking if he's ready to go to work. We're Gordon Freeman! It's the end of Half-Life 2: Episode 2, but Eli is alive, and Alyx has vanished. The credits roll, and we get one final scene. Then G-Man places Alyx in stasis for future assignment.
G-Man gives Alyx the power to change that important moment in Half-Life history-and she does, killing the Advisor and saving Eli from death. G-Man takes Alyx into the future, showing her the events at the end of Half-Life 2: Episode 2, where Eli Vance is killed by a Combine Advisor. When Alyx crosses into the mirror world and reaches the prison at the center of The Vault, she opens it and discovers it's not Gordon Freeman in there after all. Alyx gets inside, where she travels through a spooky apartment building in the grips of some bizarre space-time properties: there's a weird, ghostly tenant who seems frozen in time, Alyx can walk on the ceiling, objects are floating, and at one point the building splits into a mirror image of itself. Russell's theory? Gordon Freeman is locked in The Vault.
The mysterious woman says it's a prison for someone who raised hell during the Black Mesa Incident and then disappeared. Along the way, Alyx overhears a mysterious woman (we never see her face) talking to a Combine Advisor about what's inside The Vault-and it's no mere weapon. Alyx is trying to reach a location known as The Vault, a huge structure hovering above City 17, where her pal Russell has discovered the Combine are hiding a 'superweapon'.