Is HL:OP canon?

[Dopplah]

Title.

[Mλrtin2H]

It's canon until Valve says otherwise. It doesn't really effect the story of Half-Life 2 anyway so we can believe whatever we want.

[El Chino]

It's canonical

[Turambar]

Canon until VALVe say other thing.

[nekowaiidesu]

Honestly I don't even care. It's a fun game and imho none of the Half-Life games have very good story. I honestly believe the games are only worth playing for the gameplay, and the "story" if you can call it that is just a contrived reason to push you towards the next puzzle or combat arena. None of it makes makes much sense to me, but that's okay too. HL:OP in particular doesn't really mean much, the biggest question really is why is G-Man interested in Shepard before anything even happens at Black Mesa? Even this doesn't really matter coz G-Man is the most contrived character in the whole game who just appears to bump the story along in whatever arbitrary direction.

[Turambar]

Originally posted by nekowaiidesu:

Honestly I don't even care. It's a fun game and imho none of the Half-Life games have very good story. I honestly believe the games are only worth playing for the gameplay, and the "story" if you can call it that is just a contrived reason to push you towards the next puzzle or combat arena. None of it makes makes much sense to me, but that's okay too. HL:OP in particular doesn't really mean much, the biggest question really is why is G-Man interested in Shepard before anything even happens at Black Mesa? Even this doesn't really matter coz G-Man is the most contrived character in the whole game who just appears to bump the story along in whatever arbitrary direction.

While I agree in a 99,99% I can't with "bump the story along in whatever arbitrary direction".

While the story is like you said, too simple, there is nothing arbitary on it and all has sense, that is why I like Half-Life.

You made correct questions, but they were answered. You just need move your imagination a little to notice the answers.

[nekowaiidesu]

Originally posted by Turambar:

While I agree in a 99,99% I can't with "bump the story along in whatever arbitrary direction".

While the story is like you said, too simple, there is nothing arbitary on it and all has sense, that is why I like Half-Life.

You made correct questions, but they were answered. You just need move your imagination a little to notice the answers.

let's be honest though, gman is super mysterious.. a little too much for me. his actions and plans aren't really clear, though i guess you could say "he's testing you" [gordon / adrian] which is fine i guess.

It just feels like a bit of a cop-out for story telling in my opinion, to have this character that is almost god-like in power and mystery. Maybe I agree it's not always entirely arbitrary, but he certainly is used a lot as this 'deus ex machina' type device, always spontaneously appearing to either screw you over or help you out, depending what where the developer wants to go next with the story. You could argue that he is super powerful and can teleport and he's testing you for whatever agenda he has... but then this goes back to him being super mysterious. It's not terrible.. he's just not really what I would call a very meaningful or fleshed-out.

Then again it's a video game and not a movie, one that doesn't rely on cutscenes at that, and like I said the gameplay is still solid and awesome, which is what really matters in a video game to me.

[Charmyzard]

It most likely is, knowing how Shepard's job would have been done by the Black Ops' nuke anyway by the end of the game as shown; plus, Black Mesa's fate after the incident was left in the air (in the sense they never told us if they attempted repairs in case OF was not canon), but seeing that VALVe never did anything else with Shepard after this game, it COULD pass off as non-canon to some.
In regards to the exclusive Race-X aliens that appear in the game and why Freeman never bumped into them on his adventure, the answer is simple:
Shepard and his (late) squad arrived somewhat late into Freeman's journey, likely somewhere during Apprehension at the earliest, and whatever zones the aliens were teleporting in, Freeman had already traversed.

Left in the air, really. Sad VALVe will likely never answer such a question ;-;

[Vassago Rain]

Yes, and even if it weren't, a lot of HL2 was shaped by OP4 and blue shift. Barney wouldn't exist without blue shift, for instance. HL isn't a series that cares about canon.

[Turambar]

Originally posted by Vassago Rain:

"a lot of HL2 was shaped by OP4 and blue shift. Barney wouldn't exist without blue shift, for instance. HL isn't a series that cares about canon."

Lies and more lies.

[Turambar]

Originally posted by CharmyTheCharizard:

It most likely is, knowing how Shepard's job would have been done by the Black Ops' nuke anyway by the end of the game as shown; plus, Black Mesa's fate after the incident was left in the air (in the sense they never told us if they attempted repairs in case OF was not canon), but seeing that VALVe never did anything else with Shepard after this game, it COULD pass off as non-canon to some.
In regards to the exclusive Race-X aliens that appear in the game and why Freeman never bumped into them on his adventure, the answer is simple:
Shepard and his (late) squad arrived somewhat late into Freeman's journey, likely somewhere during Apprehension at the earliest, and whatever zones the aliens were teleporting in, Freeman had already traversed.

Left in the air, really. Sad VALVe will likely never answer such a question ;-;

The nuke could have not killed that creature, maybe just the portal in the best case, but the portal could have been regenerated later. So Shephard's mission was indeed necessary despite the Nuke.

Marc Laidlaw said to Gearbox to destroy black mesa personaly.

So no doubts about how this dlc is canon.

Spoil alert about episode 2

With all, the unique reason I see about how episode Two said that rocket was intended to conect with old black mesa systems, is imaging that nuke was not able to destroy deepest instalations. After all Black Mesa is an old reformed complex with silos, so it is ready against nuke attacks.

[Vassago Rain]

Originally posted by Turambar:

Originally posted by Vassago Rain:

"a lot of HL2 was shaped by OP4 and blue shift. Barney wouldn't exist without blue shift, for instance. HL isn't a series that cares about canon."

Lies and more lies.

No. Barney wasn't a character until blue shift. The HECU were 'grunts.' The gman was the administrator. There were no scientists with names, or any kind of story, until Rosenberg in blue shift.

[Turambar]

Originally posted by Vassago Rain:

Originally posted by Turambar:

Lies and more lies.

No. Barney wasn't a character until blue shift. The HECU were 'grunts.' The gman was the administrator. There were no scientists with names, or any kind of story, until Rosenberg in blue shift.

Well from that point of view you're right, however Barney name was there since the begeanning all security guards are barney, and was VALVe who wanted a character named Barney. In fact VAlVE didn't like what Gearbox did with Barney, they wanted feel another personality for Barney through the game, but Gearbox did the correct thing if you ask me. I think Barney can be quite serious if the situation requries it. I don't think Barney was able to survive all those years for nothing.

And there is an scientist that you can find at Xen that was intended to have his own story through a VALVe expansion. But it never reached nothing, but the scientist is still there... however, he was removed, now I have doubts, at PS2 version or at Source version... I think PS2 version.

[Yzal]

Barney Calhoun, that the name of the Blue shift protagonist. What's Barney full name in HL2?Barney Calhoun. Check the credits.

[Doc Tear Popper]

Originally posted by Turambar:

Originally posted by CharmyTheCharizard:

It most likely is, knowing how Shepard's job would have been done by the Black Ops' nuke anyway by the end of the game as shown; plus, Black Mesa's fate after the incident was left in the air (in the sense they never told us if they attempted repairs in case OF was not canon), but seeing that VALVe never did anything else with Shepard after this game, it COULD pass off as non-canon to some.
In regards to the exclusive Race-X aliens that appear in the game and why Freeman never bumped into them on his adventure, the answer is simple:
Shepard and his (late) squad arrived somewhat late into Freeman's journey, likely somewhere during Apprehension at the earliest, and whatever zones the aliens were teleporting in, Freeman had already traversed.

Left in the air, really. Sad VALVe will likely never answer such a question ;-;

The nuke could have not killed that creature, maybe just the portal in the best case, but the portal could have been regenerated later. So Shephard's mission was indeed necessary despite the Nuke.

Marc Laidlaw said to Gearbox to destroy black mesa personaly.

So no doubts about how this dlc is canon.

OpFor is an expansion pack, not a DLC. DLC didn't even exist back in the 90s and early 2000s.

[Turambar]

Originally posted by Duc P:

Originally posted by Turambar:

The nuke could have not killed that creature, maybe just the portal in the best case, but the portal could have been regenerated later. So Shephard's mission was indeed necessary despite the Nuke.

Marc Laidlaw said to Gearbox to destroy black mesa personaly.

So no doubts about how this dlc is canon.

OpFor is an expansion pack, not a DLC. DLC didn't even exist back in the 90s and early 2000s.

It is DLC because you needed Half-Life to run it expansion pack was blue shift that had all files needed.

The term didn't exist then tha'ts true, but it exists now so... OF was a DLC.