Experience Points: Please Stop Trolling, Valve

You know a lot of gamers have finished Half-Life 2 Episode 2 and were amazed at the direction, storytelling expertise and general greatness that Valve had created from the first Half-Life. Valve has made Half-Life, Portal and Left 4 Dead and their sequels. All of which have received critical acclaim. The same can also be said of the other big studio Blizzard. But let’s be honest when it comes to trolling Valve are experts, and Blizzard are more so typically concerned with delaying the release of Diablo III, with staff changes and such. There is no immediate sense of trolling emanating from Blizzard. But Half-Life 2 Episode 3 (or as some may be predicting Half-Life 3) has not been mentioned at all over the past few years at E3, Gamescom or any other major videogames expo.

Even the developers themselves seem oblivious to the plight of diehard Valve fans who late last year put together a Steam group in declaration of gaining Valve’s attention, and getting due notice about the next Half-Life instalment. Were they successful? No. Why you ask? Because simply put, Valve enjoy the thrill of the troll. They love to poke us through the internet with smirks of Gabe Newell brandishing knives and possibly shopped screenshots of Gabe viewing a Half-Life 3 desktop on his PC. I wonder whom that Valve employee is who took those pictures. He’s probably now trolling Valve forums and making fake Half-Life 3 websites. Generally, bringing Valve fans to tears like an emo kid who just found out that their favourite band broke up. You know what I mean.

I sometimes think that the folks at Valve are like a bunch of orthodontists just waiting for their next unsuspecting victim to brace up. After metal mouthing us poor sods (gamers) to the point of resembling an iron maiden we can barely eat (game) because we’re in constant pain. But this is only for a few days and eventually you get used to the metal wires straining your teeth together in a tight gridlock. That’s until, your next appointment with Valve orthodontists when they again tighten up the bothersome braces once more.

Now you’re in pain all over again like an incessant ingrown hair lodged in the backside of your proverbial being. You yearn to not be in pain, but it dulls after awhile. It’s like fricking crop circles in the middle of an M. Night Shyamalan’s film like Signs. After sitting through the whole film you find out that it was all a lie, a simple demeaning troll of note and that in turn the weakness of the fricking aliens is water (the rest of Signs was cool. The ending was utter bullocks). Your left pondering ‘what the fuck’ just happened. Just like in The Last Airbender (which unwittingly was thought to be a comedy in the UK) and you realise a good amount of time was wasted. The same can be applied to the drawn out tirade that is Half-Life 3 or Half-Life 2 Episode 3.

In reference to the people who consider Episode 3 as still being in development; I honestly think that episodic gaming is dead. We’ve become so accustomed to waiting that when some douche Valve employee wears a Half-Life 3 t-shirt we all get giddy like a bunch of school kids fawning over Die Antwoord because they are the legit truth (insert sarcastic remark). In the end, you spend a good three days awaiting news of a game that is not coming out any time soon, and if it’s announced it’ll probably be a troll. Yes, there was that one website touting a Half-Life 3 logo and with a plausibly Valve-related IP, and domain. But it was too much of an obvious troll to be the truth. Gabe has probably already decided that another Portal is in the works, and since DOTA 2 is coming out soon. I feel that our hopes are quite dim in these dark times.

At least, if the game gets a confirmed release date then we know that Gabe and Valve can count to three, and that 2012 is not the end of the world. If I don’t get any news of Half-Life 3 before Portal 3 I’m seriously going to have a nervous breakdown, and I assume that Gabe will be blamed for heart attacks worldwide. I don’t care that some stupid Portal mod came out for Skyrim, and that DOTA 2 is releasing. I want my crowbar-wielding silent hero to return emblazoned on a giant headcrab fighting off the Combine. The only people unaffected by Valve’s antics are the Koreans who’ll be purely content with Starcraft 2 Zerg Rush-O Gampai Edition for eons to come.

All we’ll have is our lost dreams of the final chapter of Gordon Freeman’s epic journey. We’ve waited long enough. It’s 2012 and we want Freeman back. By the way Valve, please tell him to kick those Aztec bastards’ asses to hell a gone. As both the Aztecs and Valve have some numeracy issues, mainly counting to three, that weren’t sorted out in their formative years of schooling. Ultimately, all I want to see is Gordon Freeman get the booty call he deserves at the end of it all. That man has put his MIT education to good use. He deserves some kind of reward at the end of it all. Just like how we deserve Half-Life 3. However, for the time being we are forever alone. Have a Happy Valentines Day Gabe. I sure won’t be having one anytime soon.