Firearms Expert Reacts To Half-Life Franchise Guns

Gordon doesn't need to hear all this he's a highly trained professional.

"I must be missing something" You're not, the MP7 in Half life 2 does indeed launch grenades from a pocket dimension of null-space...

when they showed the hivehand for no discernible reason I was half expecting him to pull out a fleshy mass like "ah yes, this is clearly based on the H&K Glormulon Biomass Launcher, but you can see the differences-"

According to the developer commentary for Alyx, the break action loading of the shotgun was chosen because playtesting found it to be objectively badass

In Black Mesa, they actually did a hilarious special animation for when you first pick up the Hivehand, where Gordon hesitates before shoving his hand up it. Shame we didn't see Jonathan's reaction to that!

You have to remember Gordo's wearing the HEV suit, which does have a proper assistive exoskeleton. It's plausible that when he yanks the crossbow back it could be a force of hundreds of pounds of draw force.

Funny thing, in Black Mesa you can actually hear the shotgun firing twice in really quick succession instead of being two shots at the same time.

The Combine assault rifle is a "pulse rifle". From what I understand, the motorized mechanism is loading a pulse cartridge similar to a battery and the "firing pin" is discharging pulses from the battery in a controlled manner. Easily my favorite gun in the series

Jonathan doesn't need to hear all this, he's a highly trained professional! We have assured the administrator that *nothing will go wrong*.

The reason why the MP7 looks so weird in HL2 is because it's modeled after a prototype version that looks quite different than the one we have now.

I would imagine Jonathan thinking that there's no way someone strapped a grenade launcher onto an MP5 and then coming to work, checking with inventory only to find an MP5 with a grenade launcher underbarrel stored somewhere.

The fun thing about the Pulse Rifle / AR2 is that it was previously the “Incendiary Rifle”, so it would fire a single shot and then pull another one of those “pellets” using that same animation. A magazine of 5 rounds, and then a proper reload animation. Which explains its weird reload animation now, because it was previously the re-chambering animation.

When Jonathan brought up the mp5 with the grenade launcher, it was like a dream becoming reality

I get the feeling we go through the games that have MP5s first so Jonathan can show us his favourite gun over and over again. I am all for it, btw.

17:50 The answer to your question regarding the H&K MP7's inexplicable grenade launcher is actually: Cut content. The beta version of Half-Life 2 featured the XM29 OICW, which has a 20mm grenade launcher as the other firing mode. In addition to that weapon, it featured the H&K MP5k, which only had one firing mode. Both of those guns ended up being cut, and the MP7 replaced them. Valve simply combined the function of those weapons in the game design. The alien assault rifle of the Combine forces used to be an incendiary flare launcher, which is why its current form is so strange. The secondary "dark energy orb" launcher was a function of another Combine weapon that was left on the cutting room floor. So, the primary fire of the XM29 and the energy orb were combined into the visual model of the incendiary launcher. So, it's a complete Frankenstein's monster of videogame gun design.

4:53 "standard __ for a non-standard __" oooh, very subtle half-life reference!

As he's self-confessed MP5 obsessed, I'm surprised Jonathan didn't mention how the MP5s used by NPCs and dropped on the ground are MP5A3s, but when the player picks them up they turn into MP5SD view models.

The fact that he mentions the real-life weapon mechanics WHILE rambling about his good ol' days makes this so wholesome to watch. I love it, when Jonathan reviews game weapons from games he actually played. This man is a national treasure!

I love that when Jonathan talks about the Half-Life: Alyx shotgun he does acknowledge that there are real gameplay reasons it was made into this weird one-handed shotgun pistol amalgam. And while the player having one hand always free to interact with the world is a correct reason they made this choice, it was also because they wanted the game to be accessible to all VR headsets, some of which have tracking systems that cannot track properly when you put one controller (or hand) in front of the other. Overall great video!!!

15:55 "Short story. Long story short, or not very long story, shorter." I love you Jonathan