12 Things You Didn't Know About Half-Life 2
6. Ruined Casserole
The start of Half-Life had some surprisingly light-hearted moments in it, and provided many interactive moments uncommon for games in 1998, such as passing toilet roll to a Black Mesa scientist in trouble. In the grand scheme of things these actions didn't mean anything, but they provided a level of interactivity otherwise unseen.
It was quite a surprise, then, to see Half-Life 2: Episode Two make a throwback to section this through Dr Arne Magnusson, a fellow surviving scientist from Black Mesa.
A supporting character that helps the Resistance with tech development, he tells Gordon on one occasion before leaving “If you pull this off, I might just forgive you for that debacle at Black Mesa. You know the one I mean... involving a certain microwave casserole."
It’s an incredibly obscure reference to this opening section of HL1, where you could interact with a Microwave and ruin someone’s lunch by jamming the power button. Who could’ve known that many years later, Dr Magnusson would still hold this incident against you even after the Combine invasion.