So what’s this, then? RPS readers: ASSEMBLE! We must solve and reveal. A video, below, featuring some remarkably impressive special effects, seeming to be part of the Half-Life universe. Not only does it feature some really neatly woven background mattes on regular film, but there’s a sense of scale that seems like it should be beyond a couple of guys mucking around on their weekends. Who has the capacity to take over a street, leaving cars strewn all over? And buses. Make sure to watch it in HQ.
As excellent tipper Chris Deter points out, there’s Half-life 2 sound effects, and a news ticker along the bottom that at one point reads, “Millions feared dead … no news from disaster area … Largest single collapse in history since Black Mesa”.
Also supremely impressive are the displays on the “Computer Brain Interface”. As the character holds up cellphones, data about them pops up and scrolls, in a way that makes me want a Computer Brain Interface right away. Oh, and that it’s one continuous shot Oops, wrong about that. But still.
However, this isn’t Valve’s style at all. Live-action isn’t something they’ve used, and it seems to have been shot in the Netherlands. I might be wrong about that – smart readers, can you identify the road signs/license plates? But the level of detail is astonishing. Note the circling birds at the end, who fly away at the sound of the explosion. Or the video screens inside the bus, glimpsed for about half a second. Creator Timacious shows prowess for special effects in the other videos he has on his YouTube channel. Whatever this video is – and my guess would be simply a remarkable fan project – it’s incredible, and deserves attention.
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Jut after the character puts on a face mask (2.00 minutes in) there’s a scrolling display on the HUD that says “Largest single collapse since Black Mesa”.
Perhaps based around HL/2?
Does no-one think the most likely idea isn’t Episode 3, but Portal 2?
Let’s say this is a viral ad for the next Half-Life game, judging by the sound effects, possible use of our favorite hero and references to the Half-Life universe.
Now, let’s say it takes place after the Combine have been driven off Earth, judging by the scrolling news and modernization. This would mean that it would take some time after Episode 2.
Now, in Episode 2 we know that humanity was victorious. The combine superportal was eliminated and most of the forces destroyed.
This could mean that that Episode Two was, in fact, the last of the episodes, and this video part of a marketing campaign for Half-Life 3.
It’s so simple I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out already.
@Mr Toad the words on the cube when red look to be Lyrics from Beelzeboss (The Final Showdown) – Tenacious D
Ok, next question is what are the letters and number that are rapidly scrolling just underneath the box of the http://www.whatsinthebox.nl/ webpage?
A lot of things are being repeated. Read the comments, please.
@ Rei Onryou: I definitely heard some Star Wars prequel music.
hay guys, i checked the swf file and found the rapidly scrolling text/numbers in the actionscript :V
bullshitArray.push(“0001″);
bullshitArray.push(“WSAD”);
bullshitArray.push(“134G”);
bullshitArray.push(“ASDF”);
bullshitArray.push(“123A”);
bullshitArray.push(“1234″);
bullshitArray.push(“5223″);
bullshitArray.push(“QWER”);
bullshitArray.push(“FASG”);
bullshitArray.push(“4213″);
bullshitArray.push(“UUUU”);
bullshitArray.push(“READ”);
bullshitArray.push(“FAST”);
bullshitArray.push(“JFSD”);
bullshitArray.push(“2123″);
bullshitArray.push(“BOXR”);
bullshitArray.push(“SAGA”);
bullshitArray.push(“JFSD”);
bullshitArray.push(“2123″);
bullshitArray.push(“6335″);
bullshitArray.push(“2347″);
bullshitArray.push(“2678″);
bullshitArray.push(“7856″);
bullshitArray.push(“1111″);
bullshitTxt = “0003″;
I think there’s a lot of overthinking going on here, definitely.
Going on the assumption that this has some relation to the Half-Life mythos (because if it doesn’t, it’s just not as interesting to me – though it’s still cool), there are elements to look at the people seem to have skipped.
Babel Research, primarily. In the Half-Life “universe”, we already have two major research rivals. Black Mesa and Aperture Science. Babel Research appears to have a logo based on the design of the two towers at the center of the apparent portal event, which implies that they’re quite central. And also, the very concept of towers and the name Babel should be self explanatory to even a passing knowledge of religious study.
Given that Black Mesa and some form of “collapse” is mentioned, it seems logical to extrapolate that this is taking place after the events of Half-Life, but prior to the Seven Hour War mentioned in Half-Life 2.
My theory, again based on Half-Life continuity, would be that this takes place based around the very first emergence of the original Combine forces.
So likely what you have here, is an event at yet one more research facility – probably one dealing with communications, hence the first cellular phone’s use of “Babelnet”(?) as a service provider. The emergence of the first Combine forces, who may be in the process of abducting the civilian population. This could either be something directly related to the Seven Hour War, or it could be a distant prelude to same.
Lots to think about.
Also, found out that they’re calling hovering the mouse over the box in the flash for ‘crossing’, which makes the box and credits beneath go into ‘panic mode’.
That was totally awesome, and the chat in this thread makes it even more intriguing ;]
Keep it up!
@TellarHK:
If this is before or during the 7-hour war, then those aren’t Combine soldiers that we see (which would be weird anyway, since they look nothing like combine soldiers, and other HL fan movies I’ve seen had the budget for good-looking Combine costumes). The humanoid troops did not appear until the Combine’s conquest of Earth was complete and they began taking humans and turning them into their slaves and soldiers.
Whoops.
In any case, there are three things which are leading people to conclude that this is Half-Life related. First, the reference to Black Mesa, which could just be an homage given how peripheral it was in the film. Second, the use of Combine voice effects for the hazmat-suit troopers, which could just be because they’re good voice effects for menacing future gunmen. And thirdly, broad visual and thematic similarities to HL2. At the very least we know this was made by someone who’s a fan of Half-Life, but I think it’s too early to conclude that it’s explicitly related to the games, fan-made or not. It certainly could be, but we can’t say for sure yet.
Just thought I would throw this out. Someone elsewhere posted an image of the text in the background when you mouse over the cube. A quick Google Scholar search found that it comes from this paper:
http://www.luehmann.net/archive/2003/PyridineBasedMolecules.pdf
Published a few years ago by researchers in Sweden and the Netherlands.
Don’t think Valve has any branches in the Netherlands, which is definitely where this video is from; there’s Dutch everywhere and the website has the .nl tag.
Could be a Valve universe (the one that contains both the “Half-Life” and “Portal” games) setting, but way in the future… tech levels are beyond anything that could have been made before the 7-Hours War.
It’s more likely this is a completely different game universe, and they just used Half-Life sound files and music to fill the sound out. I did something similar in a video class: chopped out all audio, added a narration track and took apart the game’s sound archives for sound effects to use.
Ok, some things that appear in the ticker at the bottom:
-”Largest single collapse since Black Mesa”
-”Millions feared dead”
-”No news from disaster area”
-”Hundreds found in poor condition during kennel raid”
-Various references to stock increases and decreases (specifically The Dow [Dow Jones Industrial Average, for the many non-Americans out there], NASDAQ [National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations, also American], AEX [Euronext, which is Eurpoean], and the S&P [Standard & Poor, also American]).
Messiest parenthetical ever.
While there’s plenty of Half-Life lore in there, it seems pretty clear to me that this has absolutely nothing to do with the Half-Life universe. The stocks, news reports, and pristine city-streets strongly suggest that the world never went through the Combine apocalypse (unless a significant period of time has passed). Furthermore, the suggestion that Black Mesa collapsed within a singularity doesn’t coincide at all with the Half-Life story, and the clearly-human pursuers are completely uncharacteristic of the Combine, especially when it’s so early in the invasion.
The box appears in the mythbusters movie by the same maker.
http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/37134/2771e162/millingenaar_tim_smit_en_nijmegenaar_steven_roeters.html
from 3:50 – 3:53.
Weird
Apparently it’s not official (say Gamespy: http://uk.gamespy.com/articles/964/964493p1.html ), but it’s definately a viral something: http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=27633&start=30
It’s scarily good quality, however. Most impressive.
I live in Nijmegen (where this was shot apparantly) and noticed something you should see. There is a physics magazine called leonardo bode, and on the back of some issue’s there appear to be a hint to what’s in the box!!1!!
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/4773/dsc00783f.jpg
What does this mean!
What’s in the box?
GLaDOS
http://www.whatsinthebox.nl/
Anyone else notice that when you cursor over the box to make the ?’s appear, that there is something written on the cube, but only when it is red?
I don’t mean to be the wet blanket, but I rather disliked this. It was only vaguely related to Hl2 via the storm around the tower and some sounds, but everything else was original. The helicopter model was not Hl2 based, the combine were not dressed as they are in HL2, they weren’t using guns that appear in Hl2, the pulse hand held weapon that the viewer uses is not in Hl2, etc.
And the cheese factor of the Computer Brain Interface and showing anger via exaggerated hand motions was too much for me. I consider this a step back from video #1. Lets hope video #3 is better.
A-Scale, you are indeed the wet blanket, but a dumb one.
Perhaps if you read the thread, you’d notice that very little is HL2-based because Valve didn’t make this, some fans did. Perhaps you’d like to pony up some budget for some more authentic-looking Combine uniforms.
Anyone interested in following this further, there’s a thread over at unfiction:
http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=27633
6:49 the sheep from one of his other videos…
Yea, looks like its Dutch, the phone book myth video you can find on that account was made for a Dutch Discovery Channel Contest. And there are more things, like the dutch writing and the freezer bag packaging :p.
Finished watching, definitely shot in the Netherlands. Well, that’s the second fan made Half Life video this month. Maybe its the start of a trend?
Very interesting, although that it was set in the Netherlands reminds me of something that always interested me from HL2. Why is it set in Eastern Europe? (from the cyrillic characters everywhere). What are MIT graduates doing there, especially given that Black Mesa and Aperture Science were in the US? I doubt this video is much more than a well made fan video or a viral for a new movie, but I sure hope I am wrong.
It’s in the Netherlans alright. I even recognized the street.
I also believe this to be nothing more than a graduation project rather than a viral marketing campaign set up by VALVe.
It is actually a smartly used application of viral marketing but not in the sense of promoting a game or phone etc. Bare with me. This particular movie is only a showcase of the possibilities of the producers. By implementing some Half Life elements in combination with the mystery box, the Lost music (JJ Abrams did a lecture on a mystery box) and the website they use mystery as the binding element for a viral marketing synergy. Since gamers are very active on the Internet, the word about this short movie is easily spread.
The mystery makes it unclear what the origine and goal of this movie actually is, thus it leaves enough space for speculation which in turn keeps the mystery alive.
Today a couple of things have become clear: It is fact that this is made by Dutch students for a budget of around €150, although production time is not taken into account. Furthermore Tim (Smit) has already been contacted by various hollywood studios, one off them being 20th Century Fox.
So concluding; what they did was show that with passion and autodidactic qualities it is possible to make these kind of quality special effects. By using viral marketing they have been able to showcase this to a broad audience, peaking the interest of the bigname studios and possibly other potential groups of interest such as sponsors.
I love to see passion and entrepreneurial spirit being paid off. Imagine what they can do with a budget.
Further the movie was shot in a city in east of The Netherlands called Nijmegen. My best guess is that it will never become clear what is in the box and finally the interview with Tim Smit of last night (in Dutch):
http://dewerelddraaitdoor.vara.nl/Video-detail.628.0.html?&no_cache=1&tx_ttnewstt_news=5738&tx_ttnewsbackPid=631&tx_ttnewscat=148&kalender=1237849140&cHash=7ff714635e
or: http://dewerelddraaitdoor.vara.nl/Video-detail.628.0.html?&no_cache=1&tx_ttnewstt_news=5738&tx_ttnewsbackPid=626&tx_ttnewscat=148&kalender=1237849140&cHash=5968957fd9
@SAGA
So you’re saying that the countdown in the video information on youtube (which currently stands at “5″) will eventually reveal Tim Smit’s business card for movie studios to collect?
I swear i have seen that bloody hand posing somewhere before, am I the only one? Far Cry 2 or something? idk, maybe it’s used more than I think. I think some things in this video say Valve, some things say no, escape from city 17 looks even more viral valve than this does though, this looks more like a college media project.
Well it was basically someone’s demoreel. Nothing more.
Some of the aspects are totally incongruous as well. Why would peaople leave in an emergency without their phones? Even if they had no signal it makes sense to keep it if their network becomes available in another location.
The billboards were often in nonsensical locations and at redundant orientations.
Also, how retarded are the cops? If you haven’t got the budget to have them fire, don’t give them guns or just don’t have them running so closely behind you and not firing. The way they pursued they looked like Police Community Officers or something.
Anyone else notice that as he ventured out of the lab, the whole street is completely devoid of human life? Aside from the hazmat soldiers and the main guy himself, there were cars, bikes, and buses littered throughout the street. All empty, while people’s belongings, like their backpacks/purses are still there. Theories?
Crispy, maybe they’re not cops? Maybe theyre confused as to how theres only one guy remaining, and the other people are gone somewhere. Maybe they want to capture him and interrogate him. Maybe theyre NBC military soldiers?
Anyone else notice at the end they say they are going to amputate him? What does that even mean? Are they going to try and save his life on the spot or does it mean amputate him from his life ? lol Or maybe I heard that last part wrong.
I’m impressed with the exploding garden shed.I assumed at the end one of those nasty brain things from EP 2 came through the portal and was shreiking its stunning song.
@Serondal The combine use medical anaogys when talking about ‘criminals’ in the hl2 universe – when gordon is escaping city 17 in ep1 they talk about an ‘infection’ and ’steralizing’.
So the amputation thing is just a euphamasim for execution…
I am very conviced of a viral. After viewing the official page http://www.whatsinthebox.nl/ which have a flash and a frameset which leads to http://babel-research.eu/witb/. You can see the source code of that page and see some things that resemble a game like LOST did on their website, where you can follow some clues to get something. There are comments in code that leads to an mp3 file (http://babel-research.eu/witb/snd/jables.mp3) and other comments that say:
“some things will only be revealed through mirrors and light”
“Unmask the URL”
There is also some letters over the big O in the flash that looks like letters in hexadecimal code which probably leads to more stuff. I think that’s very elaborated for just a fan film.
http://babel-research.eu/ which is where the flash movie is hosted looks like another fake website which have logos of Black Mesa, Portal, and…. HANSO Foundation (creators of The Dharma iniciative in LOST).
Looks like a fan copy of the game that LOST made on their site which was revealing some clues after completing research games.
Since there are references to Half Life 2 (Black Mesa), Portal and LOST (HANSO Foundation, Oceanic airlines)… either is a fan-made-large-scale-well-done big game, or Valve and ABC joined their brands to make a tv show of hl2/portal…
Definetly not fan, or fan at the beggining and someone bought the idea to exploit it.
Babel-research.eu hides a mp3 file named discedoMalum, it needs to be reverse-played to hear a voice “Sound, project detainable misfailed” o something like that.
another webpage: babel-research.eu/witb host a flash, overexposing reveals some text down left: +HS PQY – 4FLI
click on each side of this red circle, apears this things: S o E X P P E
click on each piece of paper
Whois results on babel-research.eu domain shows: registrant: “timaciousd@gmail.com”
appears address and other numbers…
I’m stuck on it… viewing dots in colors and hex colors
lots and lots of “hidden” images at the babel-research.edu website i.e: http://babel-research.eu/images/schrodinger.gif
lol, a Lost/Half Life 2 cross over would certianly help Lost make more sense. The Island is obviously a portal to Xen or something crazy like that.
@4:16,01 Remote Access Code = 59462
@http://www.babel-research.eu/ enter code at the top
And you get this message “As of 6th of august all remote systemchecks have come to a halt. Please contact local authorities or use remote any remote accesspoint.” meh. :(
who are you, Dennis Nedry?
Hey guys my brother just found out something, if you go to the main page: http://www.whatsinthebox.nl/?, and write the word “Babel” on the text field you get the next message:
“Why are you giving me the directions if you are the one who needs them” Pretty weird, hu?….. I really dont have a clue of what it means….. It would be great if you find out something else….greetings
Besides something even weirder. If you type: “Babelresearch” you get back the message: “Babel re-search” I guess the page is indicating that you must type only “Babel” as i just indicated.
And here comes the Big part, if you type: “Hanso” you will get: “4 8 15 16 23 42″ THE LOST CURSED NUMBERS!!!! AAAAAAAAAH!!! What does this mean???!!!!!! Lost Numbers!!!!!!
One last Thing….. if you type “4 8 15 16 23 42″ you’ll get “System Failure” back….. System failure??? what does this mean??? the Lost Last season??? Half Life?? or What??? WATH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!