- "Pick up that can. Now put it in the trash can."
- ―Civil Protection[src]
Dr. Breen's Private Reserve, written "Dr>Breens Private Reserve", or simply >B, is the brand of a drink manufactured by the Combine, named after Earth's Administrator Wallace Breen, and used as another propaganda tool. Vending machines for that drink are seen all around City 17.
Overview[]
Like the water, the ">B" drink probably affects the memory of Citizens; "Don't drink the water. They put something in it to make you forget. I don't even remember how I got here," says a Citizen at the start of Half-Life 2. Similar to what is in the original Half-Life and its expansions, the vending machines deliver blue cans with ">B" written on them, although they don't give health points to the player, being simple props. However, the can model in the Source SDK model viewer shows alternate colors, red and yellow, possibly because of scrapped plans to give the cans the same properties as in Half-Life and its expansions.
The first vending machine is at Half-Life 2's start in a City 17 Trainstation, right after the turnstile. After leaving Barney at Half-Life 2's beginning, a Metrocop purposely knocks over a ">B" can with his Stun Baton and makes the player throw it in the trash while saying the words "Pick up that can," then laughing and saying "All right. You can go" when following the order. The player can also throw the can at the cop. The player can also leave it there and step back or throw it past the cop. Either way, the cop will hit or chase the player if they don't follow the order. The cop's action was to show the player how to pick up objects with the "Use" key, and also to show how to throw items.
A vending machine hides the entrance to Kleiner's Lab. It was converted to open itself with a specific code. In Episode Two, in the garage where Rebels are repairing cars near the Combine Autogun, a red ">B" can is next to a car being repaired. Soon after the car repair, red and yellow cans are on tables near a Lambda cache under a nearby tree.
Behind the scenes[]
- The vending machine was originally a brush. It can be found in several WC mappack maps, such as City 17 Trainstation, Ravenholm or Borealis maps. The first model, similar to the current one, was a Pepsi machine. It also appears as a prefab in the Source SDK but was left unused for community maps. It was to also mainly be a Pepsi machine instead.
- Two early can models bearing the brand "T Dog", a yellow and a red one, can be found in the playable Half-Life 2 Beta files.
- In the E3 map
e3_phystown
, a vending machine spits out a copious amount of yellow T Dog cans when damaged or shot.
- The font used in the ">B" brand logos is Impact, the same font used for the Metrocop armband or the Black Mesa badge.
- The ">" in the title could be a typo or an easter egg mocking it, as it is a common mistake on US & GB keyboards, made by many people who are used to holding down 'Shift' on their keyboard to write in capital letters, rather than using 'Caps Lock'. The title is all in capital letters, so it is fair to say that it was meant to look like as if the capital letters were done by holding down 'Shift' and the '.' was written with the 'Shift' key still pressed, making it a '>'. This "illiteracy" is further corroborated by the lack of an apostrophe indicating property (Breens instead of Breen's).
Related achievements[]
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Put the can in the trash. |
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Hit the trashcan cop with the can. |
Gallery[]
Pre-release[]
Retail[]
List of appearances[]
- Half-Life 2 (First appearance)
- Half-Life 2: Episode One
- Half-Life 2: Episode Two
- The Final Hours of Portal 2