Half Life blah

After nearly three months I've resumed my chew-through of the three Half Life 2 games that come with the Orange Box. Finished Episode One yesterday (which is really the second part of the story, after the eponymous main game) and am a good ways into Episode Two now. I definitely get the impression that these games would be more fun to play a year apart from each other, the speed at which they're published. Clearly, when I come to the current episode's Zombie Level or Antlion Level or Turret Defense Scene I am to think "Hooray! I have missed doing this!" and not "Enh, I did this yesterday."

My biggest complaint involves the Vortigaunts. These are the spindly, naked, psionic alien critters who are allied with the human resistance, and they have a more overt presence in Episode Two than in the earlier games. In the main game, they are all delightfully voiced by Louis Gossett Jr., but in Episode Two, they're portrayed by some guy who is trying to sound like Louis Gossett Jr. and ends up sounding more like the Cookie Monster. On top of this, the writing seems weaker than the previous games' scripts. The Vortigaunts' dialogue seems informed less by Kosh and more by Whorf, now. Oh well.

O the suffering. I still enjoy it quite a bit!

Bugging Apophis

Phil Plait on motions within the U.S. Congress towards a space mission that would get the dealie on asteroid Apophis' sinister plans by physically popping a radio beacon onto it, well before its scheduled holy-shit-that-was-close.

I really like the idea of this; it's a very satisfying mode of nerdly assertiveness. We are nervous about the big bruiser sauntering leisurely our way, but rather than wait and hope it doesn't wallop us when it gets here, we send a speedy little robot emissary directly to it. It will say "Howdy, neighbor!" and then slap a bug onto its back. That's excellent.