Opposing Force 2 - It's coming soon! news

It's been a great year in Opposing Force 2's development cycle. We've had a lot of great team additions, and some unfortunate losses, but thanks to the addition of these new members, we have been able to work towards our goal of releasing the first chapter. We also want to take this time to formally thank all of the fans, who have given us criticism on our recent media updates, and helping us improve upon our vision. Your suggestions and comments really do help us perform at our best! Keep the critiques coming. If it wasn't for the support of our long time fans, and new comers, we wouldn't have been able to prevail through the rough times we've faced. It's a real pleasure to post updates, and hear all the responses, good and bad. We truly hope that we're making something amazing, not just for ourselves, but for all of you! At the end of the day, you're the real hero's behind Opposing Force 2's development. Thank you all so, so much!

On this update, we present you guys the GAUSS-2 cannon, a video of it in action, our Combine Soldiers and their alien SMG named by our fans, and multiple pictures!

The man who modeled this beast was DOG-GY, based on his own concepts. It went through various stages of texturing, based on suggestions from fans on ModDB, our forums and even other forums like Facepunch, until it finally got to the actual looks of it. The particles were done by Ghor, who also worked with Ferdam to get the collision models, attachments, the actual model working with the code and the enter/exit points right.

Finally, it was coded by Chris528 who based the gun on the original HL2 jeep code. It took us two months to brainstorm ideas, model the gun, get the model in-game, get the particles done, and actually test it until we thought it was perfect for the gameplay. You can see early tests he did of the Gauss-2 on his YouTube channel: Youtube.com

The Gauss-2, storywise, was a prototype taken straight from Black Mesa during Opposing Force 1 (Hence why it's a bit rusty!). Right now it's at its polishing stages were we get to add more nifty particles and FX, sounds and tweak the animations and overall looks of the gun.

Something awesome about the Gauss-2, gameplay-wise is: you've got to protect it. It's set in a map featuring an invasion sort of play style. After a wave of enemies, the gates close so you can get ready for the next wave. You can fix the cannon, pack yourself up and lay down turrets at the gates to stop enemies coming and dealing even more damage to the cannon, which is going to cause a big impact at the storyline! Overall, quite fun even at the testing stages! It starts smoking after it takes a certain amount of damage. Hitting it with your trusty wrench multiple times fixes it, but a video should speak wait louder than words:

Here's pictures of it critically damaged...

...which is pretty much the point of no return. You gotta be pretty lucky not to get shot too much at this stage because the Gauss is nearly busted!

Now, let's move to something completely different.

As you might know, Opposing Force 2 takes place only 6 months after the 7 Hour War. The Combine hasn't been able to experiment too much with humans, so the end result is this heavily Synth-based humanoid creature. They, however, haven't developed proper human graspers to handle terrestrial guns. After noticing that on our early pictures, our alien soldiers were holding human SMGs, fans suggested that we should give them their own Combine counterpart of the SMG. And so we did:

The gun, however, was left nameless for a short period, so we decided to ask the fans what they'd like the gun to be called. We ended up officially naming it the Synth Assault Carbine, or "Swordfish Rifle" . The ones who came up with the names were ZombineVelancious, who suggested "Synth Assault Carbine", and Skyu who named it Swordfish! They'll be referred as both names in game, while "Swordfish" will be more of a nickname the marines put on it.

Now to properly end this update, we're approaching the end of the year, and you know it's time for the Mod Of The Year awards. Please vote for us on our mod page, and help us win this!

Again, we want to thank you ALL for participating in this, suggesting, criticizing, and overall giving us the feedback we NEED to keep this going. The OF2 Team thanks you, and we wish you Happy Holidays!