My nephew's take on some VALVe games

The Game Room
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My nephew has fallen in love with a few of my VALVe titles, the Portal series and Left 4 Dead on my 360 (he actually MST’s L4D2 while he’s playing it, and comes up with fun single player challenges for himself, like winning a chapter using only the frying pan, crowbar, or other melee weapon)

the gore doesn’t frighten him as he knows the game is a parody/homage to zombie movies and has a dark sense of humour, admittedly, the clowns in dark carnival scare him, as does the Witch, he typically has me get him past the witch, although, the last few games he started hunting the witch himself, sniper rifle from a distance

Team Fortress 2, his absolute fave, he loves because of the over the top cartoony violence (and Pyrovision)

Then he discovered the Half Life 2 demo, this is a kid that can play gibfest games like L4D and TF2 without flinching, who MST’s A&E’s version of The Walking Dead, who knows these are all fictional

…yet something about the Half Life demo (specifically the abandoned town in the demo) terrifies him, and it’s not the Headcrabs…

…it’s the Headcrab Zombies…

I think it’s the combination of the guttural growls and the barely audible screams for mercy/help from the headcrab’s victim as it helplessly lurches towards Gordon Freeman, begging for rescue, or at least release from it’s tortured existence…

They just freak him out…

So, I asked him…

So, Logan, what’s scarier to you, a Witch, or a Headcrab Zombie?
He thought for a moment…

“Headcrab Zombies, definitely, they just freak me out”

Okay, how about this idea then…
A Witch…with a Headcrab controlling her…

He visibly shuddered…
“Gaah!*”…don’t DO that!

I just have him an evil grin… Sorry, I had to do it, couldn’t resist…
*for some reason my iPhone did not recognize “Gaah”, and autocorrected it to Gaqh, it doesn’t recognize Gaah, but does recognize Gaqh?
No, I never typed either in before…

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IIRC, it is people begging for death… being played backwards.

What, you don’t know about Gaqh? You must try it sometime. Make sure to pair it with fresh Raqkht and some good Bloodwine.

Kaplah, Klingon warrior!

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See, for me it was the barnacles. I still can’t walk under a bridge without feeling uneasy.

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What is “MST’s”?

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*“That’s the old passage to Ravenholm. We don’t go there anymore.” *Yeah, that was one of the creepiest parts of any game I’ve played.

Phrases like “Help me…God help me…God help” played backwards.

I recall reading once that the game makers were surprised how much barnacles freaked people out. Them and poison headcrabs.

“Mystery Science Theater’s”, probably. As in, makes fun of it while watching like on* Mystery Science Theater 3000.*

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Yep, he heckles/makes his own running commentary as he plays, he Mystery Science Theatre’s it

…that is when he’s not bashing Louis with his melee weapon because the game AI always has Louis snagging the last health pak just when Logan needs it

He prefers Bill in the L4D campaigns, and Nick in the L4D2 campaigns, prefers the blunt force melee weapons like the cricket bat, baseball bat, frying pan, and guitar, and prefers the Mini-14 hunting rifle, as he prefers to snipe head shots from a distance

I prefer either Bill or Francis in L4D, and Ellis or Rochelle in L4D2, don’t particularly hate Louis, just wish his character model would lose the stupid necktie, as I hate the smegging things, and yes, I know that it was a Shaun of the Dead reference, I just hate ties is all, I prefer the axe or crowbar as a melee weapon, and either the H&K auto shotgun or the scoped SCAR rifle

So between the two of us in co-op, we do reasonably well, he’s actually better than me, even though he hasn’t played as much