Half Life 2 Reviews

[Trippy]

Well, I took out my old Soundblaster Live (96 or 97 version) and used my Motherboard's onboard audio. It still stutters but much less. It went from stuttering every 5 minutes, and usually twice during talks with NPCs to about every 10 minutes and only once during talks with NPCs. Vampire has the same problem but not as bad.

Here's a nice summary of the stuttering problem in HL2:

http://www.blep.net/hl2stutter/

[Resvrgam]

That stuttering dilema is really odd:

I never get any stutters in HL2...at all (though the game briefly pauses with the "loading" message for a few seconds now and then (flaw or feature of the engine I suppose...sorry I'm spoiled by streaming levels so the sudden cease in gameplay to "zone" just feels antiquated and immersion-breaking).

However, I DO get this audio anomaly in Vampire: Bloodlines...all the time.

Thanks for the heads up and linkage :)  I hope Valve makes good with their patching.

***Spoiler Below***
Did anyone else think the ending was anticlimactic?  It reminded me of the old Atari games' endings of "Congratulations, you won the game...roll credits."   It saddens me that they're going to try and milk this franchise with some episodic bullshit that will cheapen it.  

"We're rallying a 'cabal' of devs to make single-player levels that will only be available via Steam that may allow you to play as Alyx Vance!" - Gabe Newell  .....Bad idea, Gabe.  

Since Alyx has a voice and defined persona, you'll be deviating from your already established: "The player IS the protagonist" conventions.  You should NEVER break story-devices/structures!  That's learned the first day in any cinematographic/creative writing course.  Cpl. Shephard...no voice.  Barney Calhoon (given a voice and that expansion pack [Blue Shift] seemed to only sell due to the high-def pack)...Freeman: no voice.

So many plots left unresolved... The very concepts of trials, tribulation, conquest & reward have been completely tossed out the window!  It's like an M.Night Shamaylan movie (post "the Sixth Sense"): Great preface, build-up and confrontational crescendo...but the endings fall flat and end up annoying the viewers.

Hopefully, Half-Life 3 will be the final installment in the franchise and tie up all those loose ends.  If they milk this cash-cow for everything they can (which is a strong possibility), they'll have officially killed their own baby.

I'm still somewhat disappointed that I didn't get a chance to fight some of those funky aliens, vehicles? & "stalkers" that were seen as you take your joy-ride up to Breen's office. :(

So much left in the air....what a waste of an otherwise brilliant title.
***Spoiler Above***

[Ironwood]

I do appreciate the fact that HL2 doesn't require a CD to be in the drive.  Seems like every other game I've bought recently won't start without a CD.

Unless you're one of the pariahs who require the CD in the drive as well as an active internet connection for Steam.

Fuck Steam.  Fuck Half-Life 2 and Fuck Valve.

(And the AI in 2 is a thousand steps back.  They walk into your gun.  They open the door, see the bullets whizzing by from a gun hardpoint and wander into it.  What.  The.  Fuck.)

[trias_e]

There was a few good moments for the AI it seemed in the beginning at parts, but by the end it just felt like they gave up and didn't care anymore.  And sure, the story was crapfully told, the character development wasn't particularly great, and the ending was definitely at least a half hour to early.

The game still kicked ass though.  I'm not really playing HL2 for its storytelling.

[Ironwood]

The game still kicked ass though.  I'm not really playing HL2 for its storytelling.

I was.  After all, I expected them to improve on the first game, which was :

Ordinary bloke on a train, going to another fairly boring day at work.

Bam.

Next thing you know, it's 5am and you have to get up for work the next day - for real - so time to stop playing a damn computer game.

The story was what I was there for.  If I just wanted to shoot shit, I would have preferred Doom 3.

[SurfD]

I would just like to say:

Fucking Headcrabs!!  Especially the new ones that travel in PACKS on the backs of their hosts, get THROWN at you, and poison you down to 1 HP if you dont dodge.

That is all....Fucking Headcrabs....

[geldonyetich]

Given that I've not had the oppertunity to say this before, I'll now simply echo that HL2 kicks all kinds of ass.    By that, I apparently mean that you can pick a kind of ass that needs ample boot kicking, HL2 is fully reverse compatible with that functionality.

I mean, sure, Half Life 2 is "just" a first person shooter in much the same way as a 20 megaton bomb is "just" an explosive.  The truly refreshing thing is that Half Life 2 finally brings us to the feeling that we've reached the next level of first person hooters... shooters.  (Dang undeletable typos.)   Doom 3? Who cares about Doom 3.  We all know where the real mods are going: Source Engine all the way.   Why, oh why did I waste $50 on that demon-infested 3d marvel when I could have simply waited for Valve's lovechild to come sprawing on me an enraged lobster with a butter fetish?

Listening to a recent radio interview, Fraya (I feel like I'm missing a letter there... freyla? freyra?) and the rest of the Natural Selection team said they'd "love to bring Natural Selection to the Source engine", but they're not sure how easy that would be yet, and "if the community's going there".   Clueless, brilliant bastards.    I can forgive them (and rebuild the small altar of worship I made for them out of recycled shoeboxes and earwax) under the knowledge that they've just now got their hands on the SDK.    Fray?a and team estimates that, should they decide Natural Selection Source is doable, we'll see Natural Selection out for HL2 in a matter of a few months some time after Beta 6 is released.   That's (nearly) good news for me, because Natural Selection is my favorite multiplayer mod of all time.   (That NS is my favorite mod sort of took me by surprise as I initially (before playing it) thought NS would have as much popularity as Battlezone 2, that is to say, lousy.)

Meanwhile, I have tried Counterstrike Source, and it's playable enough.  By "playable enough" I meant that I ended up spending 6 hours just playing the office level, mostly shooting surprisingly bulletproof file cabinets in attempts to tip them over, tearing apart entire rooms of hapless office supplies with my lovely but pathetically inaccurate Paras machine gun, and (even simultaniously) mourning the repetitive destruction of the vital microwave oven within (even Counterterrorists need hot pockets).    However, that Counterstrike is only means of multiplayer conveyance for Half-Life 2 is hardly adequette.  Day of Defeat is coming soon, but I'm not sure how I can get my mits on it without being forced to shell out more money than I already have.   I need my precious, precious Natural Selection.

[angry.bob]

However, that Counterstrike is only means of multiplayer conveyance for Half-Life 2 is hardly adequette.  Day of Defeat is coming soon, but I'm not sure how I can get my mits on it without being forced to shell out more money than I already have.   I need my precious, precious Natural Selection.

Woah, wait a minute... you have to buy the mods now? They're not going to be downloadable like they are now? Wow, that's really stupid. Don't they realize the only reason the first HL lasted this long was all the free mods people could download and try. Between this and requiring me to have an active connection and the disc in the drive make me regret not getting it via an alternate distribution network, and I don't mean Steam. GUess I'll be going that route with any mods I want.

[geldonyetich]

I think you have to pay for DoD and Counterstrike, but that's because Valve bought them.   If I try clicking on DoD what pops up is a little screen saying, "come spend $60 to buy the "silver" version of half life that includes DoD.   (DoD is technically not released yet, but it's "coming soon.") Now, if I could just pay $10 to upgrade my existing copy of "bronze" Hl2, this wouldn't be that bad.   But, it's completely out of the question for me to buy a completely different copy of HL2 just to get my mitts on DoD.

Mods being made by third party developers such as those making Natural Selection shouldn't cost you anything.   Although, with steam involved... hmm, good question.   They could potentially charge you a subscription service just to use steam to download and integrate these third party mods.   Given that Steam is the only way to launch the Source engine, that's a definate possibility.

[Samwise]

No, mods don't cost extra.  You can install HL1 mods right now and they show up in your Steam menu under "third party".  I run Natural Selection (the creator of which is FLAYRA... as in "flay Ra") under Steam just fine, as well as The Ship.  I see no reason to suspect that HL2 mods will function any differently.

[geldonyetich]

Hmm, I wonder why it is that clicking on DoD brings up a dialogue to purchase Half Life 2 Silver, then.

[Samwise]

DoD isn't a third-party mod, nor is CS.  They are commercial games now, owned by Valve.

Natural Selection, by contrast, is a third-party mod not owned by Valve, and its owner does not charge for it, so it is free.

If Valve charged extra for playing third-party mods, their mod community would evaporate in a flash.

[Resvrgam]

The MOD bug bit me (I've been tinkering around in the un-finished SDK) and have been having a blast.  After about a year of discerning what one can and cannot do with the SOURCE engine (without having to devote a staff of 40 programmers and an entire LLC), I've designed my Total-Conversion MOD and patiently await Valve's release of the real SDK.   I know it's no Counterstrike or Natural Selection but: I'm hoping this endeavor will be worth my time & effort (it sure has been fun mucking about with the engine as is).
MOD's Website.

I'm hoping Valve doesn't get hostile to us amateur content creators :(

[Samwise]

If Valve were hostile to amateur mod creators, they wouldn't have released the mod tools before releasing the game.  They know very well that Half-Life was a huge success because of its mod community (mostly the CS team), and they plan to provide more support to modders this time around if at all possible.

[Shannow]

Yup, I never even played HL1 single player. I just bought a copy to play CS and DoD.