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HL2.... Best game ever made..


Guest Hellbinder[CE]
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Guest Hellbinder[CE]

Been playing Hl2 all night after it unlocked from Steam.

What can you say. Best Game of all time. Imo Doom-III is not even in the same league as this game.

-Stunning Visuals

-Stunning Sound

-Awesome interactvie story development

-Awesome Awesome Atmosphere

-Very Intense fighting

-City17 and the World looks just Jaw dropping.

I have to Work now.. on no sleep

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Definetley a great game. I managed to play for around 20 minutes before work and on the drive in a few things struck me. First of all it was how many emotions it stirred in me. There was excitment, intensity, fear, anger, panic... just to name a few. I actually felt bad for the woman who was at the train station... waiting. (People that play the game will know what I'm talking about). I couldn't help but think about all of the old balck and white footage of Nazi Germany while playing those few moments. I finally looked at the clock and had to run at the teleportation mishap (again handled in a very cool way). I was pissed to have to leave but happy to be savoring the short timed I'd played and eager to jump back in... after all I have some stun gun shots to the head to avenge!

"You there... pick up that can."

I'll have more to say on it when I get a few hour under the old belt but man... it's already hella good.

Peace

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Guest Grayfox

ummmm ok...

great game so far yes... cant say im all emotionally choked up over it, but a very clean smooth game. after playing the first one god knows how many times, im not at all surprised with this one... which is a good thing.

barney and the "head-humper" was funny as hell.

and the new version of CS (source) is killer...

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After playing HL2 for a few hours now (took 6 hours to download on steam 5 gigs worth), I'm up to RavenHold, all I can say is eh. Other than the graphics and the Source engine, it's nothing I've not seen before in many other games. The story line so far another eh. The weapons are standard fare except for the three new ones the gravity gun in particular. My biggest gripe is the missing HL2 multiplayer instead we are thrown Counter Strike. It would have been nice to try out the new weapons and vehicles in a HL2 multiplayer enviornment. Even the first Half Life had the multiplayer which I played many hours in.

Here's the break down IMO:

1: Source Engine: 10

2: Gameplay: 8

3: Graphics: 10

4: Weapons: 9 (only because of the three new weapons otherwise 7)

5: AI: 8

6: Sound: 9

7: Music: 2 (I'm being a little generous here)

8: Total Immersiveness: 8

9: Multiplayer: 0

Total: 7.1

There is one glitch, don't know if anyone else has encountered this, I'll carry a box over to a wall drop the box and find I can't move away I'd have to pick the box up again and throw it away from me and after a few seconds I can move again.

IMO Was it worth the wait? Yes and no.

Yes: The graphics, the fun factor (yes it is fun to play), the vehicles, the gravity gun and the immersiveness.

No: There was absolutely no risk taking with it by sticking to the same old formula. Story line. No multiplayer. Minor glitches.

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Multiplayer will be modded in, as a matter of fact some guys already found a way to play it multi (there is code embedded in the retail game already just requires skins and some map tweaks). I expect the modders will do a better job with the multiplayer than Valve would anyway. Afterall it wasn't Valve that created CounterStrike or for that matter Team Fortress.

The game is damn good. There are some levels that are just too long though (the airboat one for sure) but aside from that very little to complain about as far as design. Technically speaking the game runs well. I do have issues with occassional sound glitches though and considering I am running this game on a pretty high end rig it's a bug (others report this problem too). They need to fix it... it kills immersion at some points.

Ravenhold thus far has been my favorite level... it is just plain spooky. Right now I have been volunteered to take out a gunship... I am looking forward to coming through for humanity.

I don't think FPS have any new ground to cover so I really cannot (and therefor will not) bash the game because there isn't some new approach contained within. I think the mixture of simple puzzles and gunplay is something that works well with Half Life and I believe in not fixing things that aren't broken. Half Life works on so many levels and at the very least if it follows the formula it does it better than anybody else.

The music is almost irrelevant. You get it once in a while and for short segments within the game. I found it suitably scifi (think campy techno) and one or two of the tunes were thumping enough that you drove faster or fought harder. Again, it's not even signifigant enough to really weigh in the scheme of scoring.

Half Life 2 will be game of the year... that's a given and it will be because it did live up to the hype. It is FUN. It is gorgeous. Facial detailing is the strong suit that makes you go... "ahhhh". The textures are a little bland and lack depth however and that's a shame. I run this thing on a 6800NU with all of the goodies maxed out (the game recommends all high for my system) so I don't think it's my card. Weapons are balanced and fun to use. The gravity gun might be the greatest weapon ever invented and the way you get introduced to how it is used is GREAT.

I don't know, I think that Valve got all of the details right. They didn't set out to redefine the FPS genre all they set out to do was to maintain the high level of story and play they achieved with their first offering. They succeeded and gave HL a worthy successor. What more could you ask for?

90% Rating

NOW BRING ON THE MODS!

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quote:

Originally posted by Takvah:

Facial detailing is the strong suit that makes you go... "ahhhh". The textures are a little bland and lack depth however and that's a shame. I run this thing on a 6800NU with all of the goodies maxed out (the game recommends all high for my system) so I don't think it's my card. Weapons are balanced and fun to use. The gravity gun might be the greatest weapon ever invented and the way you get introduced to how it is used is GREAT.

NOW BRING ON THE MODS!

Nope not your card. I was thinking the same thing I have the ATI 9600xt and the textures are rather average mostly on the NPC models. The water is drop dead gorgreous however.

Agreed about the length of the airboat mission it was a little overkill on it's length. I thought the damn thing would never end. I'm in the buggy now and having lots of fun. Took out a gunship with a newly aquired rocket launcher. Now I'm on my way to another destination.

As for the multiplayer. I know about counter strike not being a valve creation. Hope you are right about a third party (fan based or otherwise) multiplayer add on. Someone did it for GTA:vice city and it wasn't half bad. My hopes are high.

The load times on my rig are moderate.

BTW: I made a slight mistake the level is named RavenHolm (don't know why I keep calling it Ravenhold). Also, I wasn't trying to bash the game just making some critical observations. It's good for what it is and tries to do: Give you a fun experience and that it does. I still think KOTOR is the better game and should take game of the year hands down. In fact, I find I'm having more fun in Thief III (the character models are great especially the main charater of Garrett scar and all) than I'm having in HL2. But, at the end of the day, these are just my opinions.

In your own words: Bring on the MODS!!!!

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If we got the names of the levels right LOS we'd be considered fanboys... not knowing says volumes for the fact that we aren't so consumed as to know those details. *snickers*

By the way I wasn't attacking your review and if it seemed that way I apologize. I was just countering it and honestly it was more Devil's Advocate than "how dare he say that" heheh. I thought you were fair.

Peace

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quote:

Originally posted by Gol_Stoan:

KOTOR Was "Game of The Year" 2003 in PC Gamer. KOTOR 2 does not come out until February so it will not be in the running for this year.

Hah, I know I was just coming back to change that. Didn't realize it until before. All of a sudden I said to myself KOTOR ugh that was last year.

Takvah,

No, didn't take the bashing comment that way I know it was a general statement. Just wanted to clear up my point of the review it's not a bash just based on what I've played so far.

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Guest Hellbinder[CE]

Ok finished the Game..

i wont post spoilers but i will say that the ending was a GIANT HUGE MAMOTH LET DOWN for me. In fact it put a smear on the whole game as far as i am concerned.

It becomes obvious (to me)that at least 1/3 of this game was just tossed out and book-ends were put on a series of scripted leves just to get the game out the door.

Major dissapointment.

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I think the game succeeds in creating a cool atmosphere, especially in the beginning and Ravenholm. Nice dog, too.

Even on my lesser Radeon 9200, I find I'm impressed with the apartment buildings and cityscapes in the distance.

There were a few instances where I found a different solution to a problem than what was intended and was a bit disappointed that the game wouldn't let me continue (wouldn't let me walk past a certain point or jump on something about an inch high).

Other than that, it's fun so far. And I don't cheat while playing but like to play with the cheats for a little bit just to see what I can do.

It cracks my ass up to see a dune buggy fall from the sky at the touch of a button... driving around the square (in the beginning, before I even have a weapon) in a buggy that came out of nowhere makes me smile.

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Guest Grayfox

quote:

CS:S is much more fun than cs:cz or 1.6. When I first played it though I had to relearn how to 'shoot' if you cam make sense out of that. The weapons seem to fire differently.


yep. know exactly what you mean. my first day of cs:s was spent dying cause i couldnt hit crap... a few days later it all started clicking and ive got my old form back... nor more dying from me.

now i cant wait for the VAC to be implemented to cut down on those speed hackers...

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quote:

Originally posted by Hellbinder:

Ok finished the Game..

i wont post spoilers but i will say that the ending was a GIANT HUGE MAMOTH LET DOWN for me. In fact it put a smear on the whole game as far as i am concerned.

It becomes obvious (to me)that at least 1/3 of this game was just tossed out and book-ends were put on a series of scripted leves just to get the game out the door.

Major dissapointment.

You are absolutely positively 100% right. I was screaming like a madman for 30 minutes after the game ended. I also found myself wishing there were more dramatic sequences. Also the least interesting levels are the ones that seem to go on the longest - and the 'defend yourself' bits were frustrating as hell.

Altogether I'd give the game a 7/10.

I'd really like to give it higher, but there's too much frustration there to overlook. Not to mention the fact that the Source Engine has some very buggy audio/sound (The Engine itself, not the game). But again, that has to be one of the WORST and most deliberately outrageous endings EVER in the history of gaming - it truely rivals Eye of the Beholder.

From what I hear, they are planning on both free and premium episodic content to continue the franchise - available through Steam, of course. Sounds like they gave us half a game on purpose.

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I didn't mention before because I thought it was my system and wanted to clean up the game drive with uninstalls and defrags before I made a comment about it. However, this problem persists and was thinking maybe the 6 hr download for 5gigs on steam wasn't altogether a clean download. Now I know I'm nnnnnnnot aaaaalone, nnnnnnnot aaaaalone, nnnnnnnnot aaaaalone, nnnnnnnnnot aaaaalone.

Since its release last week, Half-Life 2 has been scooped up many-a-PC gamer. However, many of those same gamers have encountered recurring problem with the long-awaited shooter. As conveniently summed up on blep.net, many Half-Life 2 players have "characterized by a sudden massive drop in frame rate when turning corners or moving into new areas of the game." Said frame-rate drop is "usually accompanied by looping or stuttering sound."

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Sorry for the double post but there's also this:

Valve suspends 20,000 Steam accounts. The developer stages a mass bust of users attempting to "illegally obtain" Half-Life 2, and shoots down warez-trap rumors.

They've been fairly busy with this is all I can say 20,000 that's quite a chunk that's a $1,000,000 loss @$50 for retailers and Valve right there.

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Guest Grayfox

the ending did dissapoint me, but didnt piss me off too much... just left waaaay too many loose ends... which can only mean one thing: trilogy, and hopefully we wont get crap installments either. im talking full blown finale, not little bits and pieces dragging on forever.

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From what I have read (PC Gamer and a few other publications), Half-Life 3 was in the works before HL2 hit the shelves. Knowing this, I did not mind the ending too much.

On a side note, I thought that Dog bore a striking resemblance to some of the robotic critters from Gunman Chronicles. I rather enjoyed that game, quirky in some ways, but the tank was cool. It is too bad that it is no longer supported.

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After playing HL2 after the new update on 11/24 stuttering is still occuring but not as bad as before. I Did figure out what the culprit is. I notice HL2 does an auto autosave every 2 min's or so. Actually, it seems to do an autosave every time something intense or important will occure. I found this out by going to the options/load right after the stagger/stuttering problem and saw a new autosave right at the point it occurred.

Does anyone know how to turn this auto autosave off? Why did they do that? I do enough saves on my own I don't need the game to do that for me screwing things up. They should have just done the autosave with the new area load.

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quote:

Originally posted by LostInSpace:

Does anyone know how to turn this auto autosave off?

I have heard of people doing this

quote:

you can disable autosaves simply and neatly by

simply making the four autosave files (two saves, two screens) read only.

but this could also be rubbish.

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Well, just finished the game. The ending was EH. A trilogy, crap they can keep this going on for a few games to come. Anyway, now that I've finished a few things struck me:

1: Dune (Ant thumpers/Worm thumpers)

2: War of the Worlds (the Striders)

3: Tron-The Movie (for the ending battle)

4: 1984 (book or movie I don't care)

I did enjoy taking the tour of the combine. I've seen some battle creatures that would have been so cool if they were used in the game. It did look like the combine were preparing for a massive counter attack.

Best game ever? Nope. It could have been and should have been but there was so much left out of it and considering the amount of time spent on developing this game it just boggles the mind why. Too much time of the game with the aircar and buggy you'd think it was done to drag the game out and make it seem longer than it actually is. In other words, just filler.

Did anyone watch thru the ending credits?

[ 11-27-2004, 06:46 PM: Message edited by: LostInSpace ]

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