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Watermelons in Halflife2

Rabarberofficer — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:47:05 -0800

What's the significance of the watermelons? In the game Half-Life 2 there's an abundance of watermelons in some of the levels. How come? Playing through Half-Life 2 a second time made me thing about this again. In some of the east-Berlin-inspired levels (as I like to call the ghetto-parts of the game) there's watermelons in the kitchens. I haven't counted them, but they're quite many. They're destroyable, but it does'nt seem to happen anything when you do.

What's the deal? I can't remember seeing any other food-items in the game.

Why watermelons? It it some inside joke? Easter-egg?

WHY PUT A SIGHT ON THE GUN IF I CAN'T FRIGGIN' USE IT?

2bucksplus — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 10:29:27 -0800

In Half Life 2:Orange Box for the Xbox 360 how the hell do you aim down the sight of your stupid, stupid submachine gun? I really hate to have to ask this, but I recently picked the game up and I can't seem to use the sight on the gun and have to shoot from the hip whenever I encounter an enemy. I am aware of the "zoom" view that is brought up by pressing inward on the joystick, but this does not allow me to fire the weapons. The submachine gun has a beautiful red laser sight begging to be used!

For further reference: Call of Duty 4 has a dedicated button to bring up aiming for any weapon (the left hand trigger), probably because they realized people like to use the scope from time to time.

Life on the moon!

terpsichoria — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 05:18:28 -0800

Why do videogames with physics simulation always have things fall too slowly? Looking at games like Half-Life 2, Oblivion, F.E.A.R. and so on - games with physics systems to dictate the way objects behave under gravity - I always notice that things seem to move far more slowly than they should.

In HL2 i can pick up a crate and fling it into the air, and compared to me picking up a pack of loo roll and dropping it at home (scientific tests, these!), the on-screen object falls unnaturally slowly. Considering that you can drop a metal crate, wooden box or whatever and measure its weight and how long it takes to fall in real life, surely all it would take to have things fall at closer to the right speed in a game is to plug the real numbers for objects' approximate weights and a rough figure for acceleration under gravity (minus air resistance) into the physics engine? Am I missing something, is it a conscious artistic decision (to let the player see the effects of their mayhem-causing ways better) or what?

Is a somewhat practical rebar crossbow possible?

cellphone — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 23:10:37 -0800

A crossbow that fires rebar. AND: Superheating the rebar. First:

In Half-Life 2, my favorite weapon happens to be what looks like a homemade crossbow that fires rebars heated by a lantern battery. Obviously this is pretty farfetched, but would a crossbow that fires the smallest rebar (Imperial #3 at .376) be all that farfetched?
Bolts weighing 10.5 grains per inch are mentioned on this page. This comes out to .0015 pounds per inch, with the rebar being .031333... pounds per inch.

The rebars in the game are longer than six inches by far, but for the purposes of this question assume that the crossbow would be firing six inch rebar.

Secondly:

I'm guessing a lantern battery isn't enough power to heat up rebar enough that it glows (as it does in the game). My knowledge of electricity is somewhat limited, so I must ask: How much Wattage/Amperage/Voltage would it take to heat up some rebar to that point? Assume six inches again.

Has anyone found a definitive fix for the Half-life 2 "memory could not be read" error?

damnthesehumanhands — Wed, 15 Dec 2004 13:51:11 -0800

Has anyone found a definitive fix for the Half-life 2 "memory could not be read" error?