Archive for January 10th, 2005
Once in the tunnel, we were hit with a heavy barrage of “manhacks”, which are these little flying buzzsaws that have bad aim. I had to point my squad into the opposite end of the tunnel, but they usually refused in order to take care of the manhacks. Once we were mostly clear of them, they complied and we went into a small building with more manhacks, and through the other side into the other part of the tunnel. This section had soldiers galore and 2 mounted guns. The bad part for them was that there was a lot of flammable barrels around for me to shoot. Many explosions later, the area was clear and we went to the other side, where was saw a small hole with a resistance soldier behind it. He told us to back away and he would blow a hold for us to get through, but of course, it would take a minute. No sooner did he end his sentence, and a bunch of manhacks and soldiers came at us from behind. This time, I had a mounted gun to play with, so it was pretty easy taking care of the waves of attack.
Once through the hole, we found a door that we could only open from the inside and I had to go through a big toxic waste area. I had to use my grav gun and move things around to jump on top of, while getting suprised every so often by a zombie or 5. Once I was through that, I opened the door and let my squad through. We proceeded out again into City 17, which was a FREAKING mess. The buildings are in shambles and you have to jump through holes in the floor sometimes to get around. But, there was a lot of people to help me out along the way and to join my squad in case I lost someone. This is where I’m at now, and I hope it’s over soon because the environment is really annoying. You can’t really tell where to go, but the game does an pretty good job of making you figure it out. You also don’t know if you are going to face a group of zombies or soldiers - or both. Currently, I’m in a dark hallway with only 1 person in my squad because we just went through pure hell in the city.
January 10th, 2005
I have been a Netflix subscriber for more than a year straight now and have been very pleased with the service, but was a little ticked when they raised the price on me last year. Now that they have some serious competition with Blockbuster, and soon Amazon, they dropped the price and increased the level and quality of service that they provide. Ever since, they have been constantly adding tiny to large enhancements to the web site. The 2 newest of which are a Friends list (which I’ve suggested to them before) and a way to create multiple profiles on one account.
The friends list is created by inviting friends that you know are probably Netflix members by an e-mail. They get the email with a link to accept the invitation and then they are added to your Friends tab, whic is at the top of every Netflix page. The friends page will show you the last 4 movies they rated and what the rating is. There is also much more to the Friends page, such as movies your friends liked that you haven’t seen, unique movies your friends like, movies that are your friends favorites, and movies your friends hated. Also, when you are looking at a particular movie, it will show you each of your friends rating, and it also gives you a chance to write a quick, one line review of the movie to share with your friends. The friend feature adds an entire new dimension to Netflix.
The other feature, the ability to have multiple profiles on one account, is a welcome feature to older movie-watching families. It gives everyone a chance to have their own login and queue, but also gives parents the ability to lock down movies based on the MPAA rating. There seems to be a good amount of control to it, but I’ll be interested to try it out for myself and my wife. I know she isn’t always happy with the choices of movies I get, so it would be nice to allow her to have a queue so she can get movies she wants as well.
I’m proud to say I’m a Netflix member and it is going to take a lot of convincing to make me swith, especially to a giant like Blockbuster, Amazon, or Wal-Mart. Netflix was on the scene first and now they are proving that they know what customers want and can deliver.
January 10th, 2005
A lot has happened since my last post for HL2. I finished the prison area by waiting yet again for Alex to get to me and fending for myself with wave after wave of Combine soldiers coming. After that was done, we proceeded to a room where Dr Mossman (bad lady) is . We find her and she denies everything, but Alex isn’t fooled and makes her bring her father out of his pod. She takes him out and then Alex makes Mossman enter the coordinates to some place I can’t remember. She enters coordinates for the teleporter, but at the last second, Mossman grabs Eli and they go somewhere other than what Alex told her. So, Alex decides to go back to get to our original starting location and get help from the scientists. But, as luck woud have it, we had to wait for the teleporter to “warm up” and more waves of soldiers came at us.
After finally getting in and teleporting, we greet Dr. Kleiner, who says that the teleporter is really slow and it took us a week to get there. Meanwhile, people have started to resist the Combine forces and a revolt is starting. They tell me I need to go somewhere (I always forget the details, don’t I?) and Alex’s robotic “dog” gets to escort me. I go outside into City 17, and backtrack some of the streets I started out on. Dog helps me out a LOT by throwing large cars and buses at Combine forces, but then I got to a point where he prys open a barrier and only I can get through, and I think he gets blown up or something.
After that, I went down another street and met up with 4 resistance forces pulling down one of the large screens that I saw the evil dude on early in the game. Then, they joined me as a squad! They worked very much like the antlions, and actually better, because all I had to do was put my crosshair on some location, hit “c” and they would go there. So, I proceeded through the maze of City 17 with my squad and made them lead the way most of the time. I got to an area with these “hoppers” that puzzled me at first. They were mines that stick in the ground and sense when you get near. If you get too close, they hop in the air and explode. But, if you use the grav gun to pull them out of the ground, you can replace them and they won’t hop when you get close.
Right now, I just got through a pretty tough checkpoint with a lot of buildings and a large barrier involved. I got through the barrier, into another building, down into the basement, and now I’m in some sort of tunnel area with my squad still in tact. Well, mostly. 
January 10th, 2005