Lost the Coast

I sprinted through Half Life 2 again (on Hard Mode... with God Mode on), to remind myself of the story, and not at all because there's a hint of HL3. (Really, not.) Because I actually want to move on to the other games in the series and wanted to remember what had gone before.

So, to start with, there's the missing level Lost Coast. Well, not really a level. More of a vignette. Although brief, it manages to encompass resource management in a gauntlet run (limited guns and ammo storming the castle), puzzles (didn't believe that would work... and yet!), and defense against an incoming attack. The basic elements of the game distilled into one brief sequence. This is why people line up to give money to Valve... (a pity you can't go visit the city, though.)

And it is the start of the Commentary nodes. The hunt to find them all, and then try to play them in order, or try to remember which ones you've listened to if you get them out of order. Just such a shame that HL2 doesn't have commentary in it, it's considered such a core of gaming development that would would be fantastic. (Has it been modded into happening? People mod that thing for everything.)

It doesn't look like Lost Coast is available separately. Pity, that'd be a great way to get people in to play their games.

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