2 Looking Good At 3.

[Stewart]

Half Life II that is, at E3.

With all these delays and stuff really getting on everyone's mams, its perhaps a bit easy to just go 'Sod it, bet its not worth the wait when it comes out anyway', but its keeping a lot of people very interested.

IGN.com's coverage is pretty good, and they gave the award for 'Technological Excellence on PC' to Half Life II. They also report that Half Life II will ship with Counter Strike and the classic Half Life for free, once it hits retail. Which will be nice. (If true)

I don't know what to think about this game anymore, I really don't. Part of me is thinking - well, the last time this happened; a madly hyped game, that you'd been waiting to play for ages, was finally released after a string of delays, I was disapointed.

The game was Tiberian Sun, and whilst good, it was no more than that, and it needed to be the best thing since sliced iPod, to live up to the hype and satisfy me, after all that build up and waiting.

On the other hand, Half Life II is still the main reason I'm spending a decent wodge of cash on a X800XT and a 939 socket Athlon 64 in a month or so. Only other game I'm following screen-shot by screen-shot is Rome: Total War. (Which got the 'Game of the Show' award, with Half Life II runner-up, out of interest)

So, there's still something about Half Life II that gets the old juices flowing, even after all these delays and cock-ups.

The following is a quote that gives me confidence that this game won't be a very long awaited turkey:

"So, what about Half-Life 2, the title that a year ago promised to reinvigorate PC gaming? Well, given what we've seen so far at this year's E3, we're ashamed to have had any doubts in the first place. And so should you be. Half-Life 2 is creating the same excitement now that it did at last year's show, and given Valve's claim that the code is essentially complete, needing only bug-fixing and level tweaking, we could be seeing that renaissance in PC gaming quite soon indeed."

If true, I'll do this to people; the one's who seem to think this games dead in the water, because of the massive cock-up the development, to us outsiders at least, has been.

How do the rest of you feel? Still excited about it, still reading news stories, E3 reports and looking at screen-shots, or are you a 'when its out, its out' man?

[Devilbod]

Hmm I'm the complete opposite, I still think it will be a success but mores the pitty if its a bit poo or average.
Single players games only last a few weeks tops so for me it's about the multiplayer side of thing, I never really got that excited about it to begin with because of Steam, Half Life II may turn out to be one of the greatest games ever but I don't like the idea of paying for online line play.
Role playing games have a subscription because of the severs the developers provide, the stat and character logging, Half Life II is going to have what? updates and extra content? Why should I pay for updates and extra levels and mods? all usally free on the net, I mean will you see Valve paying the creaters of popular mods that end up on steam?
I don't like the way that they can just charge what they like further down the line, which I bet is what they will do.
As for Steam it buggy as hell and I don't like the security issues, I'll be doing this when Steam falls over at the release due to the demand.

I'm still not that impressed with the graphics of Half Life II, doom to me has a load more atmosphere, Half Life II look a little to much Half Life I with every room being boxed shape and the textures just being a slightly higher res..
I played Half Life I through not that long ago and it hasn't aged well, by todays standards the puzzles are too easy, and the gameplay is a little sparse in a lot places, I found myself getting bored with the endless platform jumping and the end levels are really bad, it almost like they got bored making it. If Half Life II is more of the same then it's not really worth the effort.
The Physics is nothing new, Havock engine in Painkiller and Stalker show that and I refuse to get excited about something that hasn't appeared earlier in games due to technology limitations, the physics has been in place in 3DMax and Maya for more than a few years.
And I still not happy about all these set peices, if they are too obvious they make the game too linear (for me personaly), you feel like your following a path through the whole game, no real freedom to wonder about to use your own wits and skill. It's like when you spot a baddy but can't kill it because it's a trigger event, or spotting a group a guards standing next to flamible barrels even though you have had a massive gun fight round the corner, I personal always spend my time standing in a puddle of petrol with a lit ciggy in my mouth...

I'm going to wait until I hear some reviews of the finished game before I put the money on the table for it, and reviews from Edge not PC Zone or PC Gamer because they seem to worship the ground Valve walk on.
If the versions of Half Life I and Counter Strike are the updated ones using the using the new Source then that might make it a bit more interesting but on the whole if it's not, then why?

Counter Strike has annoyed me anyway, I think the new version isn't very good it would have been better if they had done a update on all the graphics and added some new really good levels (i.e. at least 5 or 6) rather than adding some gimick guns and that carp shield.

[Stewart]

Hmm I'm the complete opposite, I still think it will be a success but mores the pitty if its a bit poo or average.

Must have been a break down of communications, because that's what I was trying to say as well.

I'm still not that impressed with the graphics of Half Life II, doom to me has a load more atmosphere, Half Life II look a little to much Half Life I with every room being boxed shape and the textures just being a slightly higher res..

Have you seen the full 680mb E3 2004 vid? I'm just about to watch it, has the latest look at some of the levels, so I'll be able to comment more on them being or not being impressive in a bit.

Have a look at it, if you're on a fast enough connection.

[Steve]

The original HL was the only FPS single player I've played through time and time again.

If they can pull the same off with HL2 I'll be very happy!

I can't wait for it to come out - as long as it's this year I won't go nuts.

[Shogun]

Linky for the e3 video?

[Trash Man]

Is that the video with a small clip of CS2 at the end I have heard about?

[Stewart]

Linky for the e3 video?

http://www.downloads.jolt.co.uk/ind...lenotes&id=2769
ftp://pixelrage.ro/movies/hl2_fulldemo_e32004.zip
ftp://www.counter-strike.hu/movies/...demo_e32004.zip
http://195.70.51.208/hl2_fulldemo_e32004.zip
http://www.hardwired.hu/dl.hw?id=2282&dl=1
http://www.gamedox.hu/index.php?page=download&id=1074
ftp://ftp.hcgamer.hu/pub3/hl2_fulldemo_e32004.zip

One of those should work with decent speed. I got it from PixelRage (The second one)

Hope that helps.

FilePlanet as well, of course.

[Steve]

Cheers Vaul, you've saved me a 1hr fileplanet queue - I HATE that place, damn game spy, taking over all the good game sites... oh you've got me on one now!

[Devilbod]

So, there's still something about Half Life II that gets the old juices flowing, even after all these delays and cock-ups.

Thats what I'm a complete opposite to, no feeling of excitement about it in the slightess, looking forward to games like GT4, Driver 3, MGS 3 and Doom 3 al lot more.

Downloading the trailers though and I'll get a few screen grabs for the poor fellows who have slow connection be about an hour.

[Stewart]

Just watched it, all 682mb, all 25 minutes.

Wow.

Its looking good man, I have to say. It’s looking classy, sophisticated, and very slick. Although the whole look is very much a Terminator style post-apocalyptic look, it's done so well, that you just get sucked in, and it’s totally believable, which is hard to do, as a million other games, not just FPS, can testify.

The physics are obviously superb, but what marks them out from the sort of stuff we have seen in Far Cry, is how interesting the situations are. In Far Cry, the odd bloke would fall off a platform, and you might push a barrel down a hill.

In Half Life II, you drop massive cargo containers onto troops, throw fire extinguishers at zombies, knocking one out and sending it flying into a burning car, which explodes seconds later, sending bodies flying everywhere.

It’s just a lot better done, although, of course, this is a recording of someone playing through a set-piece situation, but still.

Looking good, that's all I can say. It seems to have some sort of Tarantino-esque qualities to it. It’s cool; cooler than other games of its type, and you can’t quite put your finger on the reason why; it just is.

Give me this and Rome: Total war, and I’ll be a happy man.

Cheers Vaul, you've saved me a 1hr fileplanet queue.

Sound.

[Devilbod]

Ok here are the screens:














It is looking better but still looks a bit flat like Half Life did if you understand me , but I'm still not convinced.
Saw a few mistakes with the shadows and the sprites for the water spray where better on CS than in HLII? Made it look a bit unfinished...whens it supposed to be out?
<Edit> "Look no hands" on the hovercraft and door handles, a personal thing for me but still annoying.

[Shogun]

can anyone say aztec? im amazed they have kept some of the old maps, but im all for it

[Stewart]

Ok here are the screens:

Nice work mate. I'm sure the 56kers will appriciate that, even if the screens don't do the moving images justice.

It is looking better but still looks a bit flat like Half Life did if you understand me , but I'm still not convinced.

Nope, don't understand you. What do you mean 'flat'? Is Far Cry flat? Are we talking enviorments or what?

Saw a few mistakes with the shadows and the sprites for the water spray where better on CS than in HLII? Made it look a bit unfinished...whens it supposed to be out?
<Edit> "Look no hands" on the hovercraft and door handles, a personal thing for me but still annoying.

Well, the doors just open in FPS games, you never see a hand reach down and do it. As for the other small error's... the code still has to have a bit of a tidy up. I'd expect Valve to address these issue's before the 94th release date is nearly here.

[paradidle]

Hmm, Ive never really gotten into hl/cs. The new one looks alot like Far Cry, I just hope (if I ever buy HL2) its nothing like. Tbh, Im not arsed either on how good it looks, Im more interested in gameplay, be able to learn something new each time u play it. Take RA2 for ex. Not one of the most impressive looking games when it came out, but jesus there was so much u cud learn from it each time u played it.

I look for how good it is online aswell. I always buy games that have a good following. (cept Unrealy tournie) I also heard u have to pay to play it online? **** that.

Meh, Im too Doom3 bias. Lets hurry it up id.

[Devilbod]

lol, Na I mean the textures themselves look flat - they look like wallpaper it's down to the way the lighting works and/with bump maps and the size of the textures (both file size and width/hight), mainly compaired to Doom III and the next version of Unreal of course but also Far Cry. - I'll admit I'm little unfair because you wont need the X800XT to play Half Life II (although it will make it damn smooth and fast) I don't think they've used pixel shaders, to the same degree at any rate. Unlike Doom III and the next UT and thats the main trick with the new gen of cards coming out is the seperate pipelines for pixel shading and lighting, Far Cry on the other hand looks great....

The 5th screenshot down is good with the crack in the wall, but I did notice that later on in the trailer the town levels were not as good or the in car/hovercraft bits but the last screen shot the sand in that doesn't look as good as the sand in Far Cry, but it's a camcorder movie....

It probably is just me because I've been using 3DsMax's Light tracer and that adds a little more shadows in the right places giving more depth.

[Stewart]

I don't see that, to be honest. Also, I'm not sure Half Life II is going to require less power to play than Doom III or anything. Where did you read this? I expect both games to require next-gen cards, X800pro or X800XT (Or the Nvidia offering's) to play.

As I say, I don't think it looks flat, no 'flatter' than any Doom III pics and vids I've seen, although I do think that Doom III needs to ease up on the 'every level is dark and red' if its going to be any more interesting than Far Cry.

I'm not going to get into an in-depth discussion on which game has the better looking sand , but as you say, its a camcorder movie of an unreleased game.

Its perked me up, to be honest. Valve are still on the ball, after all these cock-ups, and it looks great. Loads of attention at E3 (Where was Doom III at E3 anyway? Anyone know?) and no-one seems to have come away disapointed.

Now... release the game Valve, for arse sake.