 Good evening. Half-Life has a long history of sexual themes and imagery. From the pre-release builds to the retail products, the series popularly lauded as a distinguished and matured hallmark in the FPS genre has catered to its prime demographic of developing teenagers more than I think a lot of players realize. In order to illustrate what I'm talking about, let's start from the beginning. The Half-Life 1 Alpha. By now, I'm sure a lot of fans are familiar with Mr. Friendly, a canned monster that was intended to not just brutalize Gordon with claws or sonic waves, but to pull Gordon towards itself for what was described as fatal copulation. According to its designer, Ted Backman, the monster was designed to elicit a homophobic response from the game's audience, who Backman pinned as mostly 14-year-old boys. But this information, which is primarily sourced from the book Half-Life 2 Raising the Bar, has become popular trivia in the Half-Life community. What I think deserves a greater spotlight is the unnamed female scientist character, who was also axed in the game's Alpha Stages. Have a quick look at her character model. As you can see, while the other scientists wore modest lab coats and glasses, this female scientist was set to put her ample bosom on display for the world to see. Her role was to betray the player as part of a cut chapter called the Communication Center, and although that arc was entirely scrapped, it did make way for the later Half-Life 2 character, Judith Mossman. Early concept art for an enemy dubbed the Female CIA Soldier showed an assailant with pigtails, exposed abs, and protruding nipples. This design would later turn into the female assassin enemy, which we'll talk about in just a second. Now let's have a look at the actual game. Moving on to Half-Life 1 as it launched, we can tell the game's story and setting was ironed out to be more grounded. But the game was not entirely scrubbed of its sex appeal. One of the many enemies Gordon faces throughout his journey are the aforementioned female assassins, highly trained Black Ops members who leap around the map while picking at Gordon from a distance. These enemies are clearly designed to be somewhat sexually appealing, with breast bouncing even built into their animations. They also wear black jumpsuits with straps over their chest, so it's not hard to see how they might appeal to someone with a thing for rubber or latex. As part of a promotional campaign for Half-Life, Valve and Sierra put out an image showing off a live-action depiction of the Black Ops assassin with the tagline, she's smart, has a great personality, and knows that the way to a man's heart is through his sternum. While the well-endowed female scientist from earlier is missing from the final game, Half-Life does feature one other female scientist named Gina Cross, who has shown sporting an HEV suit that would put even the most depressive waste trainers to shame. I can't imagine lunging through the hazard course in that thing. To give Valve, or rather, Gearbox, credit, Gina later starred alongside her colleague Collette Green in the co-op expansion Half-Life Decay, which toned down her design to be more reasonable. In that game, there's also voice lines of security guards trying to flirt with the two, which is pretty funny. Now let's have a look at pre-release Half-Life 2. Following up on Half-Life 1, Valve wanted to make something different, but recognizable. They drastically changed the setting from an American government facility to an Eastern European dystopia, but kept the arsenal and the enemy selection largely the same. A great example of Valve's attempts at calling back to Half-Life 1 is the scrapped Combine Assassin. This enemy was meant to be a direct successor to the Black Ops assassin from the original game, behaving almost identically. And while this design wasn't nearly as provocative as the Black Ops assassins are, they wore heels and had visible breasts, so of course people still found them hard. Remember how I mentioned them toning down Gina's design to make it more sensible? Well throughout the development of Half-Life 2 they did the same to Alex. The E3 2002 demo show her in some kind of skin tight one-piece jumpsuit and tall boots, which were both canned by the time the next demonstration rolled around in 2003. Now let's move on to Half-Life 2 as it shipped. I think it's important to talk about the role that the female characters play. The Black Mesa East segment sticks out in particular. Mossman and Alex both spend the majority of this chapter competing for Gordon's attention. These are two girls who can't find common ground on anything except a mutual fascination and obsession with him. I think it's pretty obvious that this scene entertains the popular fantasy of a young lonely male gamer, being desired by multiple women at once. And while we're on the topic of Black Mesa East, I'm sure you know about the sex toy that was put in that segment of the game's fan made remaster, the fake factory cinematic mod, as well as the big breasted versions of Alex it comes with. But did you know that Valve's original depiction of Alex isn't totally prudish either? In the base package of Half-Life 2, it's possible to see Alex's purple underwear, which sticks out from a pants if you look at the rear of her model. Shame on you. To take things back to Alex's role as a character, it's undeniable that the game attempts to influence the player to see her as a romantic and sexual interest, especially in the episodes. Episode 1 opens with Alex giving Gordon a big embrace, and later on Barney teases him about the two's relationship. Go on across, Gordon. She's waiting for you. You lucky dog, you. Things get even more blatant in Episode 2, with Alex winking at Gordon and rubbles asking her if he's her boyfriend. So, uh, is that your boyfriend? And it really comes to a head near the ending sequence. Eli makes a crude comment about how Gordon should breed Alex now that the suppression field is down, making embryonic development and pregnancy in humans feasible again. Alex gets flustered and embarrassed, which Eli laughs at. Then he fucking dies. But not really. I do want to say that it's not unrealistic that Alex would start developing feelings for Gordon by this point. Even if he is a mute psychopath whose number of victims is probably now higher than his MIT thesis papers word count. He saves her life multiple times, seems to be in pretty good shape, and obviously very intelligent since he has a PhD. Most people would be interested to be honest. And while it's easy to point at stuff like this and dismiss it as fan service, I think it's important to remember that Alex's bond with Gordon is realistic. Or at least more realistic than Gordon surviving several thousand firefights equipped in nothing but an orange teletubby suit. The interactions that suggest a romantic interest only happen after the two have shared many life or death experiences together. And I also think it's important to put it in context of the era. Look at Duke Nukem, which allows players to pay strippers to shake their breasts. Or Sin, in which every single female character looks like the scrapped female scientist from Half-Life 1. Despite the impression you might get from this video, Half-Life was more modest in handling sexual themes than most games of the era. So if I don't see Half-Life as a particularly raunchy or offensive game, then why did I make this video? Because I think it's interesting that both Half-Life games started out with heavier sexual themes and then toned them down. And also because it was funny. Gordon! Have sex with me right now.