Frictional usually starts their trailers with "From the makers of Amnesia". The fact that this is "From the makers of SOMA" is exciting.

I used to love Penn during my libertarian phase, and I still have a fondness for him; a lot of the stuff he covered on "Bullshit!" is depressingly relevant today (like the vaccine episode). Really heartening to see him growing and adapting his views

Lastly, in addition to a nice variety of maps, there was the map maker which let you make anything from a maze, to an open arena, to a huge bridge over a bottomless pit.

I remember it as a really good FPS party game, like a cross between Goldeneye and Forge mode from the later Halo games.

...there was also a ton of variety in the weapons and characters, you could be a spaceman with a laser gun, cowboy with a rocket launcher, or a monkey with a Tommy gun. You could even set up a flamethrower-only match and select a fireproof robot character if you were feeling particularly mean...

I wouldn't call myself an expert but I'd say its main selling point was the variety of the multiplayer/arcade.

You had your standard Deathmatch/Capture the Flag modes, but you also had Tag, Virus (last one "uninfected" wins), Assault (objective-based mode), and Keep-away (oddball from Halo)...

I was sure Half-Life 3 was going to be announced this time. 17th times the charm

The Expanse's zero-g battles were so cool, it makes me sad that even now, most sci-fi shows and movies just do WW2 dogfights with space wallpaper.