Shai,
I agree. Think of how bad hands would have looked when picking all those different sized items up. God only know what it would have taken to make it look/work correctly. Given the quality of the rest of HL2, I have to believe that it must have been a rediculously large problem to solve. Ask around some game developers who do this stuff for a living, they can probably tell you had big it would be to add the hands.
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http://www.oceas.com/SpreadFireFox
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He cut the possum's face off then cut around the eye socket. In the center of the belt buckle, where the possum's eye would be, he has placed a small piece of wood from his old '52 Ford's home made railroad tie bumper. Damn, he misses that truck.