The Terminal
| |
| The Terminal | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| Faction |
Terminal News & Media Syndicate |
| Type | |
| Language |
English |
| Game information | |
| Entity |
prop_physics |
The Terminal is a newspaper issued by the Terminal News & Media Syndicate as recent as the period following the Combine's invasion of Earth.
Contents
Overview[edit]
Half-Life 2[edit]
The Terminal appears in Half-Life 2 as a worn out newspaper model, among the many other junk models, named "garbage_newspaper001a.mdl". It is folded with another newspaper that has a title beginning with the word "Money". The front page shows a head shot of Wallace Breen and another indistinguishable photo. The back of the model shows the bottom of the front page, featuring the picture of a car (seemingly the car model car004a.mdl) on a road.
Half-Life: Alyx[edit]
The Terminal returns in Half-Life: Alyx in a similar fashion, the texture being much more defined and readable, and with the slogan "The Final Word in News" on its rack. It contains articles published just after the Seven Hour War, such as the Portal Storms still raging, Xen creatures continuing to inhabit the planet, the global stock market plunge, and a criticism piece on Wallace Breen for his involvement in the Black Mesa Incident as well as taking advantage of the current crisis for his rise to power as the "Interim Administrator" of Earth. Also, the car advertisement is more legibly depicted, now clarifying the vehicle as "RIGA SZ-912".
Known staff reporters include Finsbury Bowes, Greg Ip, Helene Thompson, Lillian Abadi and Sarah Monroe.
Behind the scenes[edit]
The name of the newspaper is likely a reference to the City 17 Trainstation, originally known as the "Terminal" featured in the E3 2002 demo of the same name.[source?] The name of the Terminal Hotel found on the Trainstation Plaza in the final game is also a leftover from that era of the game's development.
As they share the Source engine with Half-Life 2 and reuse several assets from it, several copies of The Terminal appear in Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2.
Valve developer Chris Remo, who wrote all the columns that appeared on the paper in Half-Life: Alyx, included a small tribute to one of his favorite podcasts. The name "Davide Ransomen", which appears in an article about coups, is a reference to the host of the podcast Talking Politics, David Runciman.[1]
Trivia[edit]
In Half-Life: Alyx, http://theterminal.online is the affiliated internet address listed on the front page of The Terminal newspaper located in the top right corner.
Gallery[edit]
Newspaper model, front (Half-Life 2).
Newspaper model, back (Half-Life 2).
Full newspaper texture in Half-Life: Alyx.
Alternate dirty version of the paper with a circulating placeholder text taken from The Times.
Newspaper rack.
List of appearances[edit]
- Half-Life 2 (First appearance)
- Half-Life: Alyx
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ↑
Tweet: "I snuck a tiny tribute to my favorite podcast, Talking Politics, into Half-Life: Alyx. The front page of The Terminal newspaper features an alter-ego of host David Runciman ("Davide Ransomen") talking about one of his favorite topics, coups." @chrisremo on Twitter (March 29, 2020)
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