So I bought Half Life 2...(kind of a review, for anyone who's interested)

[chimp_spanner]

...and while I see there is a Half Life/Half Life 2 thread on the front page, there isn't a dedicated HL2 thread ;)

Okay, first of all...setting asides the neck and shoulder pain from several hours of thouroughly enjoyable gameplay....what the hell is up with the registration process for this game?! I've never been so frustrated by anything in my life. I guess it's a forgone conclusion nowadays that EVERYONE has broadband. Well, I like many others, do not. And as a result, installation (if you count activation and decryption as part of the install) clocked in at well over an hour. First I sat and watched one progress bar move slowly to the end....then another....then another....then another.....and then, I'm pretty sure, another one. I know developers have to gaurd their software but this is just silly. It's the kind of awkward nonsense that's going to encourage piracy, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone has up'd a crack for it already. If, in addition to the hellishly long install, the game had of sucked...I would of been very unhappy, as this kind of registration means the game is non-refundable...

Thankfully, that's not the case. After the initial rage caused by said-install, me and a mate sat down and let the thing load, and pretty much from the first second we were just sat there like "wow". The intro is amazing, because it's not strictly a set piece like in the first game. You stumble off the train to City 17 dazed and confused...but not so much that you don't notice the almost anal attention to detail. At this stage, with no weapons or armour, it's so so scary when a security gaurd charges at you with his glowing...pain stick. And there's an opening chase through an apartment complex that's just fantastic. You can hear doors being kicked down around you, men and women screaming in terror...great stuff!

The graphics on this game are incredible, and while the lighting isn't a patch on Doom 3's fully real-time system, as a whole, HL2 easily surpasses D3 in terms of graphical and technical achievement. You can easily become hypnotised watching the light reflect realistically off every little object, or staring at the reflection of the room around you in the proffessors glasses. And the water is just beautiful to stare and look at! Ahh and the facial animation....is just out of this world, especially the G-Man at the start of the game. Funny that Zemekis spent, what, $75mil on Polar Express and the motion capture system in that film looks 10 years out of date compared to the facial expression system in HL2.

Sound...not much to say, oh except be sure to turn the music off. It sucks, it really does. Pounding techno music does little to create atmosphere. The actual game-world sound itself is spot on, with random little creaks, squeaks and tortured moans making themselves heard from time to time.

Gameplay, overall is fantastic. There seems to be enough variation in play to keep things fresh, from almost platform like malarky, to tactical gun-fests dodging and weaving in between train cars, to wild races across sandy shores in a dune buggy. Just when I thought this was another corridoor, room affair <coughDoom3cough> it throws these huge outdoor expanses that really make you feel like you're part of a fully realised game world. There's a good mix between hi-tech sci fi combat against aliens and biomechanised soldiers, and more "hammer-horror" style action, which sees you pegging it through a graveyard while being chased by head-crab zombies. Which, by the way, are bloody creepy! You can hear the moans of the victims muffled by their enslaving head-crabs...almost as though they don't want to attack you. It's kinda horrible, and even more so when you blow the head-crabs off to reveal the contorted face of the human beneath. Ahh and the quick zombies...well I won't spoil it, but don't play it alone, or in the dark :)

AI is pretty good. Not that much different than the first game to be fair, although the enemy soldiers are way more aggressive. They also relocate intelligently to get a better shot at you, and recognise an opportunity when they see it, so don't stand next to any of the numerous flammable barrles curiously left lying around the entire city.

I suppose the only criticism so far (I haven't completed it yet btw) is that the boat bit (ya know with the little hover/air/thingy) lasts way too long and becomes kinda tedious. It does serve as a means to a greater end....which is to hop into a buggy and do the same thing on land lol It's not much of a complaint, it is fun. But a better mix of vehicular and on-foot combat during these sections would help break things up.

Well, as I said, I've yet to complete it, as my laptop finally blue screened after like, a half day of play lol but I'd imagine there's still alot to go. I'd like to know what anyone else thinks of the game so far, or if they think I'm hideously off the mark ;)

In the meantime, I'm gunna go to bed. It's 04:32. Eek.

[SubsonicWax]

I thought the music added greatly to certain sequences. Also the enemies took every opportunity to stand by a conveniently placed red barrel on a bridge or something to let you blow the structure up. The AI was also a lot better with grenade/flanking tactics.

[Double Bass Jim]

Good review man, I agree that the steam system is ridiculous. Someone will figure out a way around it and copy it anyway so they should save the users time and energy and go back to the standard system. Waiting for a game to install/load is kinda fun sometimes but this isnt, hour to two hour delays are uncalled for just to start playing.

[strangerdanger]

Good review, mate.

[chimp_spanner]

Cheers guys! :D I guess there's lots of little things I missed out, but you get the idea - I'm impressed. However, I'm a little concerned that last night, HL2 blue screened at exactly the same place twice lol I gave up and went to bed in the end, cos it was nearly 5am. But, I'm gunna try again. Please please please say it isn't screwed!!!!!

[Retrovertigo]

Excuse my noobness, but what exactly is Steam? I know it's a modding community for CS or something, but what exactly?

[incubliss]

modding community for CS?

no, it's a program used to access Valve's games. you have to download this program, and download the new versions of the games to play them. you can buy games through it, add friends to your list, and instead of having individual updates in downloadable files, it's all updated automatically when you log on to play a game.

but it gets very bust at times, so it tends to be slow in updating, like when Half Life 2 was released, it was barely usable.

it's just a program to use Half Life, and it's mods.

[Retrovertigo]

modding community for CS?

no, it's a program used to access Valve's games. you have to download this program, and download the new versions of the games to play them. you can buy games through it, add friends to your list, and instead of having individual updates in downloadable files, it's all updated automatically when you log on to play a game.

but it gets very bust at times, so it tends to be slow in updating, like when Half Life 2 was released, it was barely usable.

it's just a program to use Half Life, and it's mods.

Is it mandatory for patches?

[cobert]

Cheers guys! :D I guess there's lots of little things I missed out, but you get the idea - I'm impressed. However, I'm a little concerned that last night, HL2 blue screened at exactly the same place twice lol I gave up and went to bed in the end, cos it was nearly 5am. But, I'm gunna try again. Please please please say it isn't screwed!!!!!

Blue screen reminds me.......Theres a scene not long after the accident in the original where a scientist-turned-zombie is in a chair with his tentacles waving around and hes staring at a blue screen of death.

[Let's Chop Cats!]

I have broadband I have never had a problem with Steam (aside from early/beta stages), but alot of the problems was do to the fact that millions all over the world were trying to get this game, so obvioulsy their servers couldn't handle it all. Evenw ith 56k it isn't bad registering a game, it was just that so many people were doing it.

I have yet to buy this because I don't have a PC able to run it. I tried the CS:S Stress Test and my PC locked up and froze, but I have been oggling screenshots I've found on the Valve boards.

[witch doctor]

I suppose the only criticism so far (I haven't completed it yet btw) is that the boat bit (ya know with the little hover/air/thingy) lasts way too long and becomes kinda tedious.

you're right. I got so sick of that chapter, but once I got by it, things were much better. myself, I think that there needs to be more enemy variety (there seems to be only 7 or so different enemies in the entire game), and maybe a few more weapons.

great review though. :thumb:

[chimp_spanner]

Hey again! Well it looks like the blue screening was probably some crap left over in RAM, because it seems to work fine today :)

I seriously haven't enjoyed a game this much in a while - there's this massive gunfight that takes place on the streets of City 17 (and I have my own little army...rock on), and by the end of it there's blood everywhere lol. I mentioned in the "What's Wrong With Gamecube" thread that not every game has to be about violence, but I gotta say there's nothing more satisfying than blasting a CP's guts out and watching his limp ragdoll body stumble into a heap in the corner. It does get bllllloooody hard though - and no, I still haven't completed i yet :) At certain points there's pretty much an endless stream of "Combine" soldiers, which usually occurs while you're waiting for something very important to happen.

I only hope this builds up to something good (although reports seem to indicate that I'm heading for a LOTR2/Matrix 2 style ending!!!!!) because the scope, scale, tension and action just seems to be building and building...where can it go...

...I don't know. But I gotta stop playing for a while. I'm being so anti social. Even the game geeks around here are like "dude....maybe you should come upstairs, give it a break ya know, you've had enough"

"I'll tell you when I've had enough dammit"

*snarls, and crawls back into dimly lit corner*

:)

[JoJo T. Magnifficnet]

Evenw ith 56k it isn't bad registering a game

heres somthing to think about. at the start of the year formatted my computer. I had the steam install but hadnt used it before. I decided what the hell, lets play some good old Half life, and try out this steam thinngy while im at it. 5 1/2 hours later i was finally able to play half life. Im on 56 K.

After this i had copius quantities of *** pains trying to play half life when i was not on the net. not to mention opposing force, i full installed it and for some reason steam said i only had 50% of it :-S. after 4 hours of what im guessing was patch downloading.

therefore my conclusion is:

OMFG STEAM SUX0RZ TEH BIG ONE111!

I blame Steam on the declining PC game market. Looks like its back to my trusty old PS2. atleast that doesnt make me wait 10hrs to play a game.

[popinfresh]

I need a better computer..

[incubliss]

Is it mandatory for patches?

when you goto play the game, it automatically updates. you can't play without updating, it does it automatically.

[chimp_spanner]

Yeah Steam does indeed suck very badly. I know the game is worth it, but as I say, this kind of nonsense just discourages people from taking the "legal" route - if what I get for £34.99 is a 2 hour (I've heard anywhere up to 5) wait before I can play the thing, plus having to tie up the phone line to be able to do so, then I could just as easily say I'm never buying another game that runs off Steam again - I'll just wait until it turns up as a cracked version. Of course, I do actually believe in supporting game developers, so long as the games are good ;) so hopefully they'll realise how sillly this whole Steam endeavour was.

Or not. *shrugs*.

Popinfresh, what kind of computer do you have? I run a Centrino laptop, 1.5Ghz (yes, that sounds incredibly low, but it performs basically like a 2 - 2.4) with 1Gb of RAM and a 64Mb Radeon Mobility 9700 and I have every detail turned up to max, with the exception of anti-aliasing (I leave it off) and for filtering I choose BiLinear. Resolution, I stick to 800x600 and it still looks and plays great. Needless to say it must be breathtaking with everything up to max, but I'm not too fussed/convinced by the benefits of anti-aliasing so, meh!

**Possible Spoiler**

So anyway I completed the game. Which sounds crazy seeing how I only bought it yesterday, but seriously, I played the crap out of it. Just non-stop. Couldn't leave it. And, this was on easy difficulty level. I would guess that on normal, or hard, it will take at least 2 to 3 times longer to complete.

But yeah, still alot of questions unanswered. Like in the first game, you "accidentally" open a gateway to Xen, and the G-Man is overseeing all this. In the second game, some of the inhabitants of Xen are actually on your side. Added to this there are lots of tall grey alien guys working in the Combine Hive/Citadel, but we're not told if these are the ones behind the plan, or if they are in fact slaves to another unseen race. We're lead to believe the latter, because the main evil...guy is seen, only breifly, talking to some huge alien that hasn't yet been seen. So I'm guessing G-Man is either some sort of middle man between Earth and this master race who go around enslaving various other alien races, or, G-Man is operating on behalf of another unseen power and is actually orchestrating all this for a purpose - after all he does put Gordon in City 17 for the sole purpose of destroying the Combine......on whose orders?

Guess we'll find out in HL3!

It had better not be another 5 years in the making though....

[Xybex]

So in theory, if you have a bad particulary bad connection and you are on one of those unmetered dial up deals that cuts off after two hours, you may never get to play it at all? This is not the case with me, but I still don't like the sound of that. I was going to buy it soon, but I think i'll wait until some genius figures out how to bypass Steam.

Sounds good though.

[chimp_spanner]

^ Yes I never thought about that! If I had of got it for xmas, I wouldnt of been able to use it till I came back to Uni, cos at home we're on a 2 hour time limit. **** that would suck. They should really rethink this strategy. I don't like it.

[Double Bass Jim]

I think the game is more enjoyable to watch, I was watching my buddy play it when it first came out, The cinimatic quality's pretty incredible, to me it seems like somthing is missing from the action portions. I guess all that hype blows your expections beyond whats possible in a game.

[ledfloyd_fan]

I watched my friend throw a milk carton at a gaurd and then run away for half an hour. Pretty awesome.

[Hevy Tred]

Blue screen reminds me.......Theres a scene not long after the accident in the original where a scientist-turned-zombie is in a chair with his tentacles waving around and hes staring at a blue screen of death.

OH man i loved that part

And does anyone else notice the G-Man? hes the ****, always there, but then gone the next, and he can "spoiler!!!



stop time!
thats osm
it took me 2 days of onn and off playing to beat the game but worth it overall
its a good game, despite steam problems blah blahddy blah

[capri sun junkie]

The game itself is quite simple. I had it done in three days. Although, I couldn't experience its amazing graphics (I overestimated my computer :upset: ). At least there's CS:S, and that is quite fun.

[chimp_spanner]

^Which difficulty level?

Granted I finished it in around 2, but it was on easy and I played ALOT. Some of the combat sequences were quite easy only because I could take alot of damage in addition to dealing alot of it too. Assuming that on hard, you take more damage, and there are more (smarter perhaps) enemies, the game would IMO be very very hard in the later stages, particularly the street battles, and the end level inside the combine. I also think given the amount of high up places and the possibility of taking a long fall to a nasty death, save points (as opposed to save every 10 seconds if you wish) would of made the game last longer, although it would of also made it more annoying in a sense too. So it's swings and roundabouts. It would increase the longevity of the game, but anger alot of people.

Sadly I can't play CS:S yet cos would you believe it, I'm in the middle of Cambridge and still can't get broadband.

Yet.

[Wo@lcan]

I haven't had problems with steam actually, it works very well at my computer/internet line... at first with that registering tha game thing, I realised that it would take forever (about after 20 minutes) so I clicked on the hl2 icon. and then I was able to play hl without having registrered my game :cool:! so I played for 6 hours non-stop and it then it was finished :D IMO no problem actually!

I've completed the game on normal, and are now half way on hard... the hard difficulty aint that hard actually, the only thing thats pure **** is those gunships. So I guess the striders will be a bloody nightmare compared to the gunships :upset:
Speaking about striders... I love the fact that they can actually blow up an entire building! those last two striders in the game were going nuts on me! It ended up with the whole block was in ruins! But I truly busted a cap in their arses!

[Retrovertigo]

I think the game is more enjoyable to watch, I was watching my buddy play it when it first came out, The cinimatic quality's pretty incredible, to me it seems like somthing is missing from the action portions. I guess all that hype blows your expections beyond whats possible in a game.

I have a feeling one of these days a game will just be a movie, instead of a game. These guys need to go back to what make games. The GAMEplay, not cinematics.

[AMAC]

I got the game yesterday and played for a solid 7.5 hours. Scary stuff.

I'm in Ravenholm right now. Insane.

[chimp_spanner]

Yeah Ravenholm is just scary and depressing lol and the first time you see those super fast jumping zombies, it's just horrible. And I don't like the noises they make either! It's like they just spaz out at you and scream and shriek and....no no no it's not pleasant ;)

[towniceman]

Iwas waiting for a review thanx man good job. I will now go out and Buy it ,I did'nt wait for the review of Doom 3 and felt totally ripped of when I played it , it was a visually stunning game but gameplay was to repeditive

[chimp_spanner]

Yeah totally agree. At first I was kinda wowed and dazzled by the high poly counts and fancy lighting of Doom 3, and as a horror/action FPS it is successful in that I can't play it by myself with the lights out lol (and I'm how old, nearly 21?) . But gameplay wise it's only a marginal improvement on the original Doom; corridoor, room, switch, corridoor, room, switch, boss, repeat....which is just not good enough, for the price tag, or the hype surrounding it prior to release.

Glad you enjoyed the "review" :) it didn't start off as that, but I typed pretty quick and I get kinda carried away hehe.

[Pale-Folklore]

I thoroughly enjoyed your review.

[Triangle]

Good review. Im at the bunker bit on the beach. Its pretty hard on normal...

[Systemhead]

Awesome review.:thumb: I'm in Nova Prospekt right now and I love how there's such a seamless transition between gameplay and cinematics. One second you'll be talking to Alyx, the next you'll be frantically attacking Combine soldiers. Easily one of the best games I've played this generation.

I don't have a problem with Steam, but that's probably because I have broadband.

[xizoesira]

Ravenholm was an absolutely amazing segment. Father Grigory was really cool. Also, the part in Novae Prospekt where you take the three turrets and defend against the waves of soldiers gave me a really hard time.

I just beat it like an hour ago. It took me a few days on normal. I never played Half Life or read any history, so the ending was extremely confusing until I went online and got some information.

[chimp_spanner]

It's not "Gospel truth" as such, but someone has made the effort at least:

http://members.shaw.ca/storage_4/hl2story/

:)

Playing the game again on Hard and, well, it's hard hehe. I like the way Civil Protection can still whip my butt with a pistol. God only knows what they Striders are gunna be like. Eek.

Trying to figure out how to get the level editor though. Looks as though it wasn't included on the disc? And you have to download all 1Gb of the Source SDK off Steam?

Over dialup...get screwed lol

[shabutie]

Good review, I really love the game, I do like Steam though. It gives back to the maker of the game instead of the publisher and thats A O K in my book

[Blah1989]

The only negative aspect of HL 2 is that Storywise it practically mimics the first.

[shabutie]

The only negative aspect of HL 2 is that Storywise it practically mimics the first.


The story, my friend, is flawless...

[Toozey]

I'm play this for the third time now.

[chimp_spanner]

Weeelll........I dunno. I mean it's certainly a continuation of the first, but not an exact copy.

***MASSIVE BLATANT SPOILER ALERT***

KEEP AWAY

CERTAIN DEATH ENSUES

HL1 - You're part of an experiment which opens up a portal between Earth and Xen, where the Combine is enslaving the inhabitants of Xen (Vortigaunts). You have to escape the top secret research facility, while fighting the Vorts that pour through the permanently open portal, and end up killing the Nihilanth and freeing Xen! At the same time you unwittingly become an "employee" of the mysterious G-Man.

HL2 - You awaken as a citizen in a world gone bad (still in the service of G-Man) - the Combine got píssed that you killed their enslaved Xen army, and the portal let them know exactly where Earth is. They wipe out our armies, trap us in 1984-esque cities, sterilise every living human being, and begin converting us into biologically altered soldiers to further advance their army. You have to bring the Combine occupation down from the inside...inside City 17, the seat of their power on this planet.

It's a logical progression, but not a copy IMO. Although there are similarities - the puzzle type tunnel sections, the teleport mishaps, etc.

I'm guessing HL3's story will be based around taking the fight to the Combine. Perhaps visiting other worlds they have conquered, and ultimately freeing like...the whole galaxy or something. Who knows. :)

Oh and thanks to everyone who's complimented my review :D *thumbs up*

[Toozey]

I think it will be a long time until Half Life 3, I wouldn't be surprised if it was 10 years to be honest.

[Blah1989]

The story, my friend, is flawless...


Im not panning it.. I just thought since its been years that they would try something newer.

[Amit]

Half Life 2...Just got it today....Wow.

Anyway, while the single player is excellent, what will (hopefully) make Half Life 2 the best game in terms of value is the potential modding community and multiplayer.

[IvortheEngineDriver]

I just beat it...amazing game, yet I was dissapointed with the ending...that it?

I hope this has more replay val...*look at Counter Strike*...I'll be back

Hey, feel free to ask me any questions, I'll be more than glad to fill anyone in...tips or whatever

[strangerdanger]

chimp spanner, you dozy cunt. Unless the story line you just posted appears on the box to the game, you've offered a fairly large spoiler.

I had no idea at all what the story line was, and have been very careful in reading the gamespot reviews. You just ruined a lot of potential suspense. Please edit or remove your post.

[shabutie]

^Chill...Out

I wouldn't have posted that much info but their is no need to rip him out for it.

[strangerdanger]

^Chill...Out

I wouldn't have posted that much info but their is no need to rip him out for it.
It's early here, so all I'm going to say to you is, get ****ed, ****knuckle.

[Let's Chop Cats!]

I just got this yesterday as an X-Mas gift (little early I know), but sadly my PC sucks so I cna't play it till I buy a new one (which is soon).

[chimp_spanner]

chimp spanner, you dozy cunt. Unless the story line you just posted appears on the box to the game, you've offered a fairly large spoiler.

I had no idea at all what the story line was, and have been very careful in reading the gamespot reviews. You just ruined a lot of potential suspense. Please edit or remove your post.

I added a Spoiler warning okay.

Lighten up man, yeah okay – my bad, I gave away perhaps a wee bit too much, although 99% of that is blatantly evident from the first 10 minutes of the game.

********YET ANOTHER SPOILER!********

The monitors in the city centre tell you about the alien occupation, the sterilisation, and civilians tell you about mysterious “relocations” of friends/family. You see pods, you see the citadel, civ’s go in, Combine come out….pretty obvious to me. All within the opening chapter of the game.

And besides, the way this thread was going, people are clearly discussing various later stages of the game that you don’t have to read. I wasn’t aware that every comment outside of the scope of what is on the box has to be prefaced with a huge warning and flashing sirens and lights. I’ll remember in future, anything to keep you happy, of course.

Oh and don’t call me a “Cunt”.

Twat.

:thumb:

[Under A Serpent Sun]

i beat it and you're gonna be hella disappointed in the ending. by this i mean story wise and how quickly it comes.

[Let's Chop Cats!]

Has anyone played HL2DM yet?