Review: Half-Life 2

The original Half-Life is regarded widely as a defining moment in the first person shooter genre. The game's use of story and in-game scripted elements changed the expectations of game players and spawned a bevy of imitators. The sequel, Half-Life 2, has been in the works for almost six years and is one of the most hyped and anticipated games of 2004. It was launched last week after delays, a code theft, and lawsuits frustrated the anxious fans waiting for a chance to play. Post-launch the game has received wide praise and, thanks to the unique distribution and authentication system called Steam, many complaints as well. Read on for my impressions of Valve's Half-Life 2.

• Title: Half-Life 2
• Developer: Valve
• Publisher: Vivendi Universal Games
• Reviewer: Zonk
• Score: 9/10

The first component of Half-Life 2 that a player is likely to encounter is the massive hype that has surrounded the game for over a year. Advertising, articles, and player expectations have elevated Valve's second game to a level that ensures a certain level of disappointment. Regardless of the actual merits of the game, there are some players who have been waiting for this game since late last century. The game is not a defining moment in civilization. The lame will not be made whole by playing Half-Life 2.

As we've reporting in the past week, many players have experienced difficulties in getting the game running after installation. The initial load on the Steam servers caused by the large number of people attempting to play the game at once caused massive slowdowns in authentication and file downloads. For the most part these problems seem to primarily be reported by individuals who purchased the game in a retail store in a box. I purchased the game via Steam and downloaded it in the space of about three hours. I have experienced no problems in playing the game.

With all those caveats out of the way, Half-Life 2 is an incredibly impressive experience. In playing the game you step again into the role of Gordon Freeman, a scientist who originally worked at the Black Mesa facility. The first chapter of the game finds you arriving via train in the dystopian atmosphere of City 17, a ramshackle series of buildings raised from the remains of a now mostly destroyed civilization. A mysterious organization known as the Combine exerts control through police forces and alien troops. Via televised transmissions the citizenry is controlled mentally, spiritually, and even reproductively. From the first moment you enter the game Valve does an excellent job of imposing a sense of despair and barely contained anger rippling within the populace of City 17. What we are not imparted with is a sense of what has happened to Freeman since the events of the previous game. While clues are unearthed during the course of the game as to what has occurred, there are no firm answers to the many questions players are likely to have. With confirmation already in the news that Valve has begun work on Half-Life 3, the impression that you're left with is that this only part of a larger story. The story stands well on its own, but don't expect to come away from the game with all your questions resolved.

The new graphics engine that Valve created for their second game, Source, is an incredible achievement. The level of detail in the game is nothing short of breathtaking. From the reflectivity of water and tile flooring to the incredible facial animations, the game engine places Gordon Freeman directly into the world and makes exploration a joy. One of the best moments of the early game comes in a lobby. You emerge from the depths of the train station and face one last room before the freedom of open air. It is dusty and decrepit, filled with lost souls looking for nourishment rations handed out by inhuman robotic servants. Light pours into the room from windows set high in the external wall, and these amazing shafts of light fill the room. Motes float inside the light beams, lending an almost reverential air to what is essentially a ruin.

The physics of the game are wonderful to behold as well. The tech demo at E3 last year was quite an eye opener, and Valve allows you several opportunities to enjoy the physicality of the Half-Life world. At two points in the game you take control of vehicles. The wildness of the bouncing white knuckle ride you get with the airboat and dune buggy make for memorable gaming moments. The airboat in particular makes for excellent visuals as you speed across the water in a series of canals, ripples and waves speeding away from your craft and beautiful splashes marking where you hit the water after a jump. The gravity gun displayed in the tech demo is indeed as much fun to use as it is to watch. The weapon allows you to snatch objects from distances and launch them as projectiles. While the uses of the gun are usually more practical than some of the opportunities shown in the tech demo (the number of saw blades lying around in Ravenholme is kind of disturbing), there are a number of creative opportunities scattered periodically throughout the game. Beyond the vehicles and the gravity gun, there are constant reminders of the physics underpinning the game, as enemies push objects aside rushing at you and heavy objects swing like deadly pendulums through obstacles and crush opponents.

Once you step outside the door of the train station, your moments to stop and enjoy the beauty of your surroundings are few and far between. Almost immediately you as Gordon are connected up with the Underground Railroad, populated with peoples not willing to submit peacefully to the Combine. You reconnect with old friends from the previous game and after an experiment accident, you find yourself on the run from Combine forces. The instant the crowbar returns to your hands is truly a sweet moment. From there you move through the urban landscape of City 17, hop an airboat to duke it out with Combine troops in flooded waterways, and explore the Lovecraftian ruins of a small town inhabited by alien hunters and a mad priest. The game keeps you engaged with a constantly changing backdrop of locations and a series of pretty memorable characters. I was particularly impressed by the voice actors, all of whom do an excellent job of getting across what their characters are about. Each of the non-player characters has a nice moment to talk to you and make an impression. Dr. Vance's daughter Alyx is actually the one who introduces you to the gravity gun, and the quirky time spent with her may be the funniest, best written part of the game.

The visuals in the game are astounding, but the auditory experience is fairly impressive as well. The musical moments in the game are few and far between, and are used to accentuate tense or impressive moments. The music tends towards electronic stings and they raise your heart rate by a good deal when they're used. The sound effects range from pretty standard clinks and clunks to the viscerally gripping howls of stalking predators. The atmosphere in the town of Ravenholme, where the predators live, is phenomenally creepy all around, and is conjured by the pervasive sound environment. The weapon sound effects are all very competently executed, with the satisfying blast of the revolver being a personal favorite.

Overall, the game is an incredible accomplishment. Valve has done an excellent job living up to the expectations their first title has prompted in the gaming community. The lack of closure in the game's story is the only real flaw in the plot, which otherwise provides excellent motivation to keep moving and find out what will happen next. Gameplay elements stay true to the previous game, providing action and some simple puzzle solving moments. The visuals and physics of the Source engine make for a beautiful and interactive world to move through. The deep audio environment keeps the player rooted in the moment, while the excellent voice acting makes the non-player characters come to life. The collaboration of individuals who created Half-Life 2 has proven again why video games are a unique art form. I heartily recommend it to anyone who enjoys first person shooters, horror and suspense, or engaging storylines.

Re:I want to, but should I?

[FiReaNGeL]

Half-life 1 is included with Half-life 2. They even upgraded it to the Source Engine (which means better graphics, prettier effects). Its a great game, you should play it before the second, just for the experience. The story is kind of confusing anyway, and the link between the two even more so, so I think you`ll be as lost as everyone else :)

Re:I want to, but should I?

[Zeriel]

You might be a BIT lost in terms of where you-as-main-character got involved in all this, but they acutally run through a bunch of the backstory in the first parts of the game.

Speaking as someone who played the first one, and is partly through HL2, it's gonna be a touch perplexing either way, and the focus of the story that I've experienced is really on "forget all the 'whys' and 'hows' for the moment, we have things to do here and now."

Re:I want to, but should I?

[nomadic]

Apparently the silver edition of HL2 (which is like 10 bucks more than the basic one) comes with HL1 remade using the HL2 engine, so you might want to get that.

I had always planned on playing HL1 when they lowered the price to bargain bin status. They never seemed to do it; years and years after it was released it was still being sold for like 40 bucks, which was annoying.

Re:I want to, but should I?

[Geek_3.3]

Depending on what version you get, nope. The 'deluxe super version' (I can't remember offhand, sorry) has the original Half Life using the upgraded source engine. MAKE SURE THE BOX SAYS IT COMES WITH IT BEFORE YOU BUY IT.

Re:I want to, but should I?

[Zonk]

There are no actual *gameplay* elements that you need to have played the first game to understand.

As far as the plot goes, as other folks have commented here, they don't do a great job of recapping what happened in the first game. If you want to be on board from the first chapter a quick play through the first game would probably be a good idea.

You can even buy a partial remake via Steam, if you're so inclined. They just reused all the old textures, so it's not terribly pretty, but the added physics and the pretty water are nice touches.

Re:I want to, but should I?

[fobsen]

Just FYI: Half-Life Source (aka Half-Life 1 using the new engine) is not automatically included in every version of Half-Life 2. You need to get at least the "Silver" Edition from steampowered.com to get HL-Source. It is not included in the boxed version. See http://www.steampowered.com/ [steampowered.com]

Quid pro quo

[Infinity Salad]

Quid pro quo is loosely translated as 'this for that.' What was stated above were 'caveats,' that is, 'qualifications or warnings.' -1 Offtopic. /dork.

Steam-like online distrubtion is inevitable

[onethumb]

I wrote a short entry [onethumb.com] on Steam and why online distribution (or a worse alternative) is inevitable for PC games (console too, eventually). I'd love to hear some commentary on it from fellow /.ers.

Also, I've heard many complaints about Steam's bandwidth and whatnot. The solution [onethumb.com] is simple, and Valve went so far as to hire Bram Cohen, of BitTorrent fame, at one point to work on Steam. (Note the timestamp on this article before complaining I'm outta date :) No clue why it doesn't intelligently swarm yet...

Don

Praise Indeed

[CleverNickedName]

It must also be said that valve did an excellent job on making the game accessable to lower end machines. It runs fine on my 2.7 GHz, 512 Meg laptop with no graphics card to speak of.

Not great, but "fine"... :)

Re:I want to, but should I?

[smiley2billion]

I do have a question though. As someone whom has *gasp* never played Half-Life, would I be lost trying to pick it up in it's second incarnation?

The story isn't too hard to follow, you're a scientist with a crowbar. You unleashed hell back at the Black Mesa (old working place). Defeated an army of headcrabs and other such monsters and also a gov. task force sent in to clean up. HL2 picks up *kind of* right after. Some time has passed and the earth is a little changed. You being the hero figure in HL2, must free the people from the "Combine" (not farming equipment). Go get the game, it should be enjoyable even to people who have never played HL1.

Re:My Thoughts, 3.5/5

[fireduck]

In terms of the game itself, I haven't played Half Life (1), so I really don't understand what is going on, or why.

basic storyline of half-life: you, as gordan freeman, work in a top secret underground laboratory, Black Mesa, doing god knows what with equipment not meant to be doing what it's doing. Game opens with you showing up to work in the test lab (in probably the absolutely best intro sequence in a game ever, simply because of the awe you have when you realize it is interactive). Something goes horribly wrong with the sample you are analyzing, the whole of Black Mesa basically blows up, and a bunch of aliens start warping in. Your job is to stay alive and get to the surface, whereupon you realize that the government is cleaning up the mess by eliminating everyone, including you. Throughout the story is the mysterious G-man, the guy in the suit, who pops up in the oddest of places to give you consternation by closing doors you just want to go through. At the end of Half-life, he gives you a choice to work with him. hence the intro to HL2.

As for other tie-ins (and i'm only at the airboat section). The guard you meet, Barney, was the nickname for the lovable loaf from the original HL. The barney's basically run around to get killed in the original, and because fans loved them so much, they got a semi-expansion at one point (blue-shift?). In the original HL, there were 3 scientist models, 2 of them re-appear as characters here (at least thus far in my game); although Robert Guiamme wasn't a voice in the original game.

In an HL expansion (opposing force), we learn that some of the aliens don't get along, with some xeno slavery being practiced.

As for the loading issues and telling Valve to talk to Bungie: the original HL was much better in this respect. while there were loading periods, they were much much shorter than HL2. So Valve obviously knows how to do a semi-seamless transition, just perhaps that hasn't been optimized yet (which is frustrating).

Re:I want to, but should I?

[ronfar623]

If you do get HL1 to play it, forget about the expansion packs (Opposing Forces, Blue Shift.) They really didn't add anything signifigant to the story.

While I agree that they don't add anything really significant to the story, they do actually add quite a bit. For example, just off the top of my head, the nuclear device the G-Man reactivates at the end of OpFor. I would recommend at least giving the expansions a shot. Blue Shift isn't so great, but Opposing Forces is quite enjoyable. I'd say it was at least as fun as Half-Life, if a little shorter.

Something you maybe didn't notice:

[Canthros]

The game still looks good in lower-detail modes.

The last game I played through was Tribes: Vengeance, which runs off the UT2K4 engine. Doesn't run well at all on my decrepit GeForce 3 until quite a few things are turned off, at which point, only the number of polygons is impressive: the textures are muddy, the light soures don't glow, etc, etc.

Half-Life 2 ran beautifully on the same hardware at the same resolution with only a couple of settings turned down (textures at Medium, water reflections on simple). There were times when I needed to turn things down a bit more (shaders caused me problems at various points), but it still looked fantastic.

Re:My Thoughts, 3.5/5

[CleverNickedName]

There have been a few places in a game where I was requird to load a previous save in order to continue (dune buggy was under water, and couldn't be moved, I was surrounded by radioactive slime, and couldnt escape, etc)

I've played HL1 and it really doesn't make much of a difference. In HL2, Gordon Freeman doesn't really know what's going on either.

As for reloading, it is never necessary. You can knock your dune buggy out of the water with the grav-gun, and as for being trapped in slime, it sounds like you just didn't have much energy left. I got stuck there too, but only because I went the wrong way. :)

I'm not saying the game is perfect, it is just another linear FPS, but I don't think that particular complaint is valid.

Re:I want to, but should I?

[zx75]

I didn't read the review, because I'm still playing and I didn't want to chance upon any spoilers that might not have been warned against.

I never played Half-Life to any real extent, I started it, shot a few aliens, then went to counter-strike so a lot of things are very new to me.

Well, let me tell you that Half-life 2 has been a lot like falling down the rabbit-hole. It submerged me in this world and I haven't been up for air since. Its a lot of fun, and more than a little disturbing at times, but there were no issues with holdover information, you will pick up everything you need to know about the story as you go.

Re:I want to, but should I?

[IKnwThePiecesFt]

There is no subscription fee, and no, steam can't be removed without removing HL2 as well. This is for both retail and steam versions. The reason is that Steam is an integral part of the engine (for example, you can access your friends list while playing). However, once activated, you do not need an internet connection.

Re:I want to, but should I?

[strider5]

Steam also keeps the game updated. I find it to be a great value-add versus the "old way"

Re:My Thoughts, 3.5/5

[Richard Jones]

Nope, you don't need to talk to Steam to play the game (once it's unlocked). Try unplugging your network.

Actually, the Source update is iffy

[Nomihn0]

Yes, Half Life 1 was updated with an integration of the Source engine. However, the geometry was not updated. You'll get the same old blocky Gordon man-hands as in the first iteration of the game. Because of this half-complete update, the HAVOK physics engine fails to chagen the game whatoever. It has almost no affect on the environemnt. For example, a barrel in Half Life 1 might be a static object in game, essentially fixed to the ground. The engine does not change any class definitions, obviously, so the game could seem a bit imbalanced to the player. It's like playing Tenebrae Quake [tenebrae2.com]. The graphics simply don't fit the game. They are superfluous and actually serve to break the suspension of disbelief (note that Tenebrae is working on that).

The Source Engine Half Life 1 update was done as a test of mod compliancy by Valve. It was just a convenient result that it proved releasable with a minimal investment by Valve. . . an extremely lucrative midnight project.

Re:No no no no pro-problem!

[mansa]

Here's an update from Valve on that issue, looks like it should be fixed today or tomorrow:

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

Re:My Thoughts, 3.5/5

[fireduck]

So was this whole evil-government-controlled-cities thing in the first game as well?

no. the original game took place almost entirely in and around the black mesa research complex. so you never see the rest of the world. indeed the army that is sent in to clean up is your standard military, rather than the very oppressive group we see in HL2, suggesting that a major change has taken place. however, we do have the army killing civilians theme going on, which suggests that things aren't entirely right in HL.

my feeling, and this is based on me not even getting out of city 17 (as i said i'm still in the airboat), is that the world is now overrun with aliens from Xen (the alien homeworld we learn about in HL), and a new world order has been instituted to control things.

the one plus for us is that Valve are committed to community. They know their success is due entirely to their fans (HL wasn't on top for 5 years soley because of its single player mode). They're gonna do what they have to to get the game working as best as possible.

Beat it last night (the game). Pros and Cons:

[Tibor the Hun]

Cons:
-Storyline is missing for the most part (most of it you have to guess, or get from forums)
-Stuttering
-Long load times (good for stretching and blinking exercises)
-Nothing is explained at the end (reminiscent of Matrix 2, so they'd better not pull a Matrix 3 fiasco)

Pros:
-Shooting zombies with a can of paint actually paints them white (tee-hee)
-Awesome graphics and sounds
-Very involving environment
-Physics rock (are you reading Carmack?)
-Awesome weapons (especially at the end)
-Echoes of a deep story are present.

Overall, I'd give it 9/10. If they had fleshed out the story more I could overlook the load and stuttering issues and give it 10/10.

My wishlist is to use the Adrian character from Op. Force and do an expansion on how the Combine overtook the Earth...

Spolier: Brief synopsis of Half-Life 1.

[sammy baby]

I haven't yet played HL2, although my experience with its predecessor makes it a pretty sure buy for me (once I have a PC capable of running it. Ahem.) But since you're complaining that you feel a bit lost about the storyline, I thought I'd fill you in on what happened in the first installment of the series. (Note: this is a very brief walkthrough and based on my dim recollections of playing the game years ago.)

NOTE: It ain't karma whoring if you write the whole thing up yourself. ;)

***SPOILERS BEGIN***

You are Gordon Freeman, at your first day on the job at the Black Mesa Research Center as a recent Doctoral graduate in physics (specifically, of the theoretical variety). As part of your first assignment, you are escorted to a lab deep underground, given a high-tech "hazard suit", and instructed to participate in an experiment.

As is always the case in such stories, the experiment goes horribly awry, tearing a hole in between dimensions and letting through all manner of bizarre monsters. At first, your only objective is escape to the surface. Upon reaching it, you discover that the military has been dispatched not to assist in your rescue as you'd hoped, but to "sterilize" the site and eliminate anything there they can find, including you. Along the way, you keep catching glimpses of a mysterious man in a suit carrying a briefcase, always beyond your reach.

With help from a few scientists and security officers you meet along the way, you discover that if anyone is capable of sealing the breach between dimensions, it would be the scientists at the nearby Lambda Complex. Once reaching it and making contact with them, they explain that the breach is being held open by a force on the other side, in a dimension called Xen, and that the only hope of closing it is to cross over into that dimension and destroy it.

(Side note: most people I know agree that the "Xen" part of HL1 was the weakest part of the game. Seriously, people - jumping puzzles? We hate that stuff.)

Anyhoo: cross over to Xen, find the big bad, kill it. The Man in the Suit finally reappears, congratulating you on your feat, claiming that you have "unlimited potential." (It becomes obvious during the course of his shpeel that he is more than just a random government crony - he seems capable of teleporting you around virtually at will.) He then makes the classic "offer you can't refuse": accept a job working for his organization, or "a fight you have no hope of winning." After you accept - I mean, you accept, don't you? - he congratulates you on your choice, and the closing credits roll.

*** SPOILERS END ***/B

Re:Doom3 Engine Comparisons?

[Repugnant_Shit]

Physics:
In D3 the physics, to me, didn't seem like a big deal, or a large part of the action. HL2's physics are threaded through the entire game - it just wouldn't be the same without them.

Shadows:
D3 had wonderful technology. If three light sources were shining on an enemy, it would have three shadows. HL2's shadows seem to be a one-shadow-per-model deal. And they sometimes seem to be cropped when they land on walls.

Graphics:
D3 has good graphics. The interactive, high-quality computer textures were amazing. The way light fell on enemies was well-done, and really added to the atmosphere. However, HL2's graphics were much more varied and colorful. The attention paid to detail was unbelievable.

Also, because of the more varied level and model design, features such as bump-mapping and are used to better affect in HL2, although D3 is quite stunning.

AI:
D3 is an iD game - there's not much AI to speak of. HL2's AI is an improvement over that of HL1, but with 6 years to get it right it should be. The enemies work together as a team, and your friends do what they should.

Maps:
D3 featured mostly small, cramped maps. While beautiful, I felt that the reason there weren't many large open areas was because of performance. Outdoor areas never seemed to have as much detail. HL2 does have its share of cramped hallways but also an equal share of outside fun. A beach, a city square, etc. add variety and run as smoothly as the indoor scenes.

Performance:
I have 2.4Ghz P4, 1GB of RAM, and a GeForce 6800. D3 performance was nothing special, dipping as low as 15 FPS. HL2's benchmark gave me 85 FPS, and the actual game was silky smoooooth, with anti-aliasing and 8x anisotropic filtering.

On the whole, they both have good engines, but I enjoyed HL2 much more, and think they did a much better job of showcasing what a modern engine should do. The Doom 3 engine is probably more advanced, but also almost too resource intensive (note the quality setting for video cards that don't exist yet).

Wow that was long. Hope this helps somewhat. Couldn't tell you about audio because Windows doesn't believe I have a 5.1 setup, so I can only do stereo.

Cut and dry pro con review

[Anonymous Coward]

Pros
+ Excellent Water and glass shaders. Very realistic (very impressive)
+ Excellent physics engine. Gives a good sence on realism.
+ Excellent player models/skins
+ Well done voice acting

Cons
- Level Design, Very linear. Flat surfaces are everywhere. Terrain, street, and rubble's flat surfaces look very unatural.
- Story. So many unawnsered questions. Besides the fact that G-Man sends you in, details about what has happened, how the whole situation came to exist, why the aliens that i killed in the HL1 are now helping me in HL2 etc etc are no where to be found.
- Worst ending ever. (ill leave it at that due to spoilers)
- Vehicle implimentation is poor. See ut2004 for good vehicle control
- Repeditive enemies

I've completed both hl1 and hl2 and feel very unsatisfied with the 2nd edition. The story of hl1 was its strongest point, i find it to be the weakest in halflife 2. To keep a player interested in a sequal you need to appeal and develop the characters and story from the first. The combine race didnt even exist in the first halflife. No background information is given on them. The aliens that help you were the same ones you killed in the first. I've finished the game and still dont know the story behind that. So many gaping holes in the story for returning players. I exspected some awnsers... not just more questions.

As a standalone game I would suspect that the story is a little more engaging. Accepting the world as it is is easyer when you are thrust into it. Knowning the backstory leaves out what seems to be a good 10 years of information. /rant

Re:Actually, the Source update is iffy

[Alereon]

They did. The models are from Blue Shift, the textures are all new.

Re:If only I could get past the menu screen..

[M.C. Hampster]

Maybe these might help? (the first isn't the same error, but the resolution might help)

Games: "Stop" Error Message That References Nv4_disp.dll [microsoft.com]
A7V8X - motherboard problems, computer reboots randomly [google.com]

Ultimately, nv4_disp.dll is part of the nVidia driver, so you may want to try reinstalling the drivers. If that file doesn't change after reinstalling it, you may need to find some way to forcibly remove it to update it.

Re:My Thoughts, 3.5/5

[tsvk]

...then download it at 30-50K/s...

Pausing for 3-20seconds in the middle of an action sequence while the game loads the next zone doesn't make any sense and just works to break up the game play.

Have you defragmented your hard drive after downloading the HL2 content from the Steam server(s)?

I'd imagine that the Steam download system is somehow load-balanced and that you have downloaded the content from several sources in parallel. This may have resulted in very fragmented game data files, causing the unconvenient disk load delays.

Where are the negative reviews?

[Lord Bitman]

Some tips to get you started:
- It was much too easy, primarily due to horribly layed-out maps (Hmmm, we need to make a corner here so that not to much is rendered at a time. I guess we better fill the corner with enough ammo and health that nobody ever feels excited or like they're taking a risk). Setting the difficulty to "hard" makes enemies take more hits to kill, but still substantially fewer than the piles and piles of ammunition laying absolutely everywhere.

- The premise of the game seems to be "Hey look, you can pick things up". Yes, it's fun, it looks cool, and it's completely and totally pointless. At no point in the game are you rewarded for doing something interesting with the physics or with picking things up. Whenever that might have been the case, it is ruined by being the only option available.

- Infinite Rocket crates. The most simple thing anyone could come up with to suck all the excitement out of what otherwise might have been a really fun battle, is in just about every major battle. Two of the most fun moments in the game were when you fought along side other soldiers, and did not have an infinite supply of ammunition. Firing off your rockets and watching those around you working together to take down the same enemy, somehow that seems more fun than crouching next to a box.

- You inexplicably can't fling corpses around. This is completely inexcusable. Then, at the end of the game, you suddenly /can/ fling corpses around. This is ruined by then requiring that you fling corpses around (all other weapons are taken away, and the magical corpse-flinging ability also makes all weapons disintegrate). What could have been turned into a nice treat at the end of the game was made stupid by having it shoved down your throat. They even take away your fucking crowbar. There's no excuse for that. It's done, btw, because otherwise you'd be able to take out the last goal in one second using a machine gun. At least, I assume that's why.

- "interactive" means "lots of unskippable cutscenes in which you can't do anything". Even the smallest level of interactivity- like bumping in to the computer monitor as seen in the E3 video, has been removed. The long ride in the last chapter makes what probably would have been the most frequently returned-to chapter just not worth playing. I have an expensive graphics card, so it looked really cool. Once. After that, I just wanted to fling some corpses around for a while. The ability to look a little to the right or left does not make this pointless waste of time "interactive". In general, if you're designing a game and stick somewhere not in the very begining a scene where you need to climb into a steel coffin and wait for twenty minutes as you look at inexplicable gimp zombies (are they supposed to be Strogg or something?), you should probably re-think your pacing.

- On a note related to pacing, the game does not follow any natural progression whatsoever. In Half Life 1, each scene blended into the next and almost every chapter was good enough that sitting down for a quick game could easily turn into a night of "I can't believe I just re-played through the whole game". Here, you've got three unrelated games smashed awkwardly together. You've got urban combat, stupid vehicle levels which I assume were added so that the claim could be made "With two new driveable vehicles!" in advertisements. They add a small amount of fun in exchange for removing replay value from the game as a whole. And then you've got the stupid survival-horror "OMG ZOMBIES" levels. having such vastly different segments with no transition between them makes for an awkward and poor experience. You have the ability to select any chapter you want to start a new game from. I'm sure that at some point I'll start a new game on each and every chapter. But the poor or nonexistant transitions ensure that I'll never actually play through the whole game again.

- No friendly fire. This is just annoying. An option to turn it on would be nice. I know they

Re:Actually, the Source update is iffy

[Dimensio]

No, they didn't. The models are the low-poly ones from the original HL.

I did a comparison last night. I also looked into a method for possibly importing the high-poly models into HL: Source, but I'll need some tool to convert the model format, since despite having the same file extention, the original engine and the Source engine clearly use different formats.

Re:Actually, the Source update is iffy

[Dimensio]

A couple of the reviews I've read are wrong, then.

No, they're right, the previous poster is wrong. I have both HL:S and Blue Shift and I can confirm that the models in HL:S are the old, blocky ones.

Re:I want to, but should I?

[Chyeld]

You have the option to download it as many times as you need to as long as Steam is alive. There are even instrucions avaliable on the Steam forums (which I would link to if their search function wasn't currently out of order) which tell you how to backup with your authorization file so if Steam dies you wouldn't be out in the cold. Given you can make as many copies as you want of these files, I would say that would trump the single CD since eventually even that will need to be copied to preserve it.

The really nice thing about Steam is that I can install these games on every computer I want to, since playing the game is tied to my account, not my computer.

Re:My Thoughts, 3.5/5

[Karhgath]

Here's my anecdotal rebutal =)

For all its praise I'm not too happy with steam. The essence of which boiled down to this for me; pay $50 for a game, then download it at 30-50K/s (on a line capable of 200K/s).

First, I bought HL2 on steam before it's release, so I already had the whole game on my PC when the game was released, so I only went thru a ~10 minutes 'unlocking' phase. Then I went right in the game. That was a 4 am EST, 1 hour after the game was released(midnight PST).

My friend bought it this weekend from Steam. He downloaded the game at 600-800KB/s, which is pretty much the max he can get. At first he was a 50KB/s, but after opening the correct Steam ports on his router, he was flying.

To add insult to injury, I have to go through Steam every time I try to play the game, which wastes a few seconds 'Preparing' for an unknown reason (I have heard that it actually connects to the server every time I play... which seems rather redundant)

You can play in offline mode, BUT you either have to disconnect yourself from the net or do some non-obvious tweaking. A big 'play offline' button would be nice, I agree. You still need to be connected to the net to authentify the game if you bought it in store.

On the other hand, I think it's a MUCH better piracy protection that having it on the CD (which results in slow load times, incompatibility problems, etc.) The problem is that Vivendi Universal included a CD-check on the boxed version, which defeats the purpose IMHO, but that's not Valve's fault. I'd rather have no cd-checks but authenticate the game once via the net, than to have a cd-check over and over and having to download 'untrusted' cd fix to bypass it(if you're so inclined).

In terms of the game itself, I haven't played Half Life (1), so I really don't understand what is going on, or why. Vague references from the in game charecters hint at what is going on, but I really think I would have needed to play the first game to understand

Well, playing HL1 won't help much. The 'basics' of HL1 and HL2 is this: you are at the wrong place at the wrong time and all hell break lose. The only driving force is survival, but along the way you encounter people that help you or that you help out to survive. It's a 'fugitive' feel in HL2 while you're trapped and need to get out in HL1. I believe no story is needed for those kinds of games, as they suck you right in. Some people might not like that kind of narrative tho, so I can understand you.

Valve needs to walk over to Bungie with a presents one day, and beg them for education on how this load/save/death thing should work. Pausing for 3-20seconds in the middle of an action sequence while the game loads the next zone doesn't make any sense and just works to break up the game play. Death also requires a reload of the previous checkpoint. This is all stuff that Bungie figgured out for Halo 2, if only Valve could watch and learn.

Hmmm... You ever loaded in the middle of action? I finished it this weekend and NEVER loaded in middle of action. Might depends on play style, but I rarely pussy-out of combat and run back.

For the other part, well, you die then load your last save game. I never played Halo 2 but I can't see how different it is. You know you can quicksave with the F6 key, right?

The physics is fun, I really enjoy the ocasional puzzle with ropes and weights, It adds a little something, especially when most of them are optional for extra ammo or health. You feel like you've accomplished a little something when it's done. There have been a few places in a game where I was requird to load a previous save in order to continue (dune buggy was under water, and couldn't be moved,

Tried the gravity gun to get it out of water? You shouldn't be stuck often, and in this case it needed creative thinking =) And yeah, physics really adds to this game, it's not just eye candy, which I love.

I was surrounded by radioactive slime, an

Re:I want to, but should I?

[EvilAlien]

The whole "friends" concept is pretty important and common for online multiplayer FPS games. See Unreal Tournament 2004 for another example. If you don't have any friends, you may ignore this option, plz/thnx.

Anyways, no problems whatsoever with my install via Steam, the only way of getting that game that doesn't involve the publisher [vugames.com] taking the product given to them by the developer [steampowered.com] and packaging it. BTW, VUG's site has an update on the install issues [vugames.com]:

Vivendi Universal Games would like to notify you of two important updates regarding the product installation for Half-Life 2. The issues identified below are easily addressed.

1. Half-Life 2 - CD Installation error when Counter-strike: Source is not selected The following has been identified as a known issue with Half-Life 2 Standard Edition (not Collector's or European DVD editions):

Problem: If during the initial installation process the option to install "Counter-strike: Source" is NOT selected, an error may occur during installation. The message will be: cabinet file error, fatal disk error, or something similar.

Solution: Cancel the current installation process and reinstall the game from the beginning, starting with Disk #1. Make certain to select the option to install both Half-Life 2 and Counter-strike: Source.

Note: If you prefer not to retain the Counter-strike: Source program on your system AFTER INSTALLATION, you can remove it using the following procedure:

* After HL2 has been successfully installed, open up the Steam client.
* Select the Play Games list
* RIGHT click on Counter-strike: Source and select Properties
* Select "Delete Local Content."

2. Product Authentication Delay When Installing Half-Life 2 Some consumers may experience delays in authenticating Half-Life 2 during the installation process. This is due to the high volume of consumers who have purchased Half-Life 2 and are installing the game, which is causing high traffic on the Steam authentication servers. Please inform any Half-Life 2 customers that encounter this situation to keep trying, as this is a temporary delay.

I also know that I don't care. I got my game direct from the developers and haven't had problems other than the little stuttering bug and the desire to upgrade my computer so I can run HL2 with full AA and AF. I can't imagine what the performance hit would be like trying to run it under Cedega (WineX)... gah.

Re:Online connection is _not_ required

[Chuckaluphagus]

The only difference I can see so far is that I specifically exited Steam first, and only then did I double-click the HL2 icon (not the Steam icon, obviously) on the desktop. When I did that, I got the message that Steam was launching, and then the screen asking whether I wanted to play in Offline Mode.

I gather there are two ways to exit Steam, one of which is "Exit" and the other being "Exit and Logoff". From what I've read, if you choose the former you can continue to play games without an internet connection, but if you choose the latter nothing will work again without signing back onto Steam. Don't know why you'd choose to logoff before you exit then, myself.

Also, and I have no idea whether this might apply to you, if you buy a game through Steam (which I did for HL2) it needs to be fully installed (as in the install bar reads 100%) before you can play it offline.

I hope some of this helps. If not, good luck and please post anything you find out back in the thread.

Re:My Thoughts, 3.5/5

[Fishstick]

>my feeling, and this is based on me not even getting out of city 17 (as i said i'm still in the airboat), is that the world is now overrun with aliens from Xen

Well, I'm not a whole lot farther (just made it to BM East), and I don't think this is much of a spoiler, but yeah, the Earth has been invaded and the guy with the white hair/beard that you see on the jumbotrons has somehow cut a deal with them and is apparently their puppet.

When you get to BM east and the professor invites to "have a look around", go over to the board full of news clippings and he'll start explaining what happened.

BTW, this was one of the parts I was most impressed with (yeah, the action and physics are excellent): as you walk around the lab looking at things like the photo of Alex as a child with her mother, the scripting kicks in and the professor starts talking about the object you are looking at.

Also, not all aliens are bad/enemy as there are a few instance where they are working with the underground, hanging out at checkpoints, in labs, etc -- haven't quite figured out what that's about yet.

Re:Doom3 Engine Comparisons?

[sosume]

HL2: Interactive adventure movie
Doom 3: Interactive horror movie

Graphics score equal, though both in different aspects. DOom 3 has better interiors, HL2 has better outside levels and AI. Both have good storytelling and you can walk only one way,
The downside on HL2 is that it is a more restricting on a lot of things. This makes the game feel less 'real' and more like a movie.

HL1 AI

[Anonymous Coward]

"The AI did not seem as good as in HL 1, rather, it does not seem to have the same level of self preservation."

I wouldn't be surprised if the AI was actually less-capable in HL2, simply due to the significantly different, significantly more dynamic environment (more choices means harder problems). However, I should add that the AI actually wasn't all that great in HL1 -- but it did a damned good job of pretending to be good.

Example: When being attacked by soldiers in HL1, the developers capped the number of guys who could shoot at you at any given time. Once those two slots were filled, no other soldiers could shoot at you. When a soldier ran out of ammo, he was coded to shout "Cover me!" while jumping back and reloading. Meanwhile, since he vacated that fire slot, another solider took over and began firing.

It looked like the soldiers were coordinating fire and movement to flank you and cover each other, but it was really just semi-emergent behavior from a very simple system -- but very well presented behavior.

Another example: if you threw a grenade into a crowd of soldiers, the cover-seeking pathfinder routine would go buggy, and the soldiers wouldn't dive for cover. Since this was a very difficult problem to fix, the developers did something brilliant: they detected when the error occured and coded the soldiers to duck down and cover their heads. A great way to cover up the limitations of the AI routines.

Sharp code and cheap tricks: the lifeblood of a game AI programmer.

More than meets the eye

[SamSim]

While you are essentially correct, there's a little more to the story of HL1 than meets the eye. Spoilers ahoy for people who haven't played the original Half-Life:

At the time of the original accident that Gordon Freeman is present for, Black Mesa has had working teleporters for at least a few months and has been able to go to and from Xen for at least a week. They've captured and domesticated a good few indigenous life-forms - witness the Barnacle weapon and the ecosphere set up for some houndeyes in the Opposing Force expansion. Gradually they've captured more and more fauna until they "start getting collected themselves..." They get as far as Nihilanth's lair and manage to retrieve a mysterious orange crystal.

Yup. The crystal at the start of the game is the same as the three powering the final boss. Look and you will see a hole in the wall where the fourth crystal was stolen from. No wonder there was resonance cascade. The original accident causes a lot of random teleportations to and from Xen and brings over a whole lot of dangerous animals, but it's only about 12 hours of game time after the original experiment that stronger enemies - the green slaves, and the huge alien grunts - begin appearing spontaneously. This is no longer accidental: this is enemy action by Nihilanth, who is moving to attack Earth... which is something the Administrator, who observes pretty much the whole course of events, has been expecting, indeed, preparing for. Read Alan Shepherd's diary and you know this was actually expected to happen.

Realising what has gone wrong the grunts are sent in, find it's too difficult a task to take on, are pulled out and replaced with black ops who attempt to nuke the place as a last resort. Shepherd stops the nuke and between them, he and Gordon Freeman block the alien invasion and kill Nihilanth, thus solving the problem in a different manner from what the G-man expected, but successfully.

The bigger picture - who is the Administrator? Did the G-man trigger the cascade just so he could single out Gordon Freeman for future employment? - is still sketchy at this point, but when I figured all this out I was mightily impressed with Valve's storytelling abilities. The inattentive player would have missed a whole lot. I have high hopes for the story of HL2, which my PC is currently too underpowered to play...

Re:My review:

[Anonymous Coward]

- You should be able to give your team the order "STAY HERE AND DON'T FUCKING MOVE!"

My pet peeves on this:
When you get too far from your squad, they usually (not always) decide that you're leaving them behind accidently, so they start following you. This became awkward when we got to a "hold them off while I sabotage this generator" segment. I park them in the middle behind some walls for cover, and then run around setting traps. Oh, wait, I have to wander too far away to set the traps and my team follows me into the street... just in time to get wasted by the guys that just appeared while I take cover behind a wall.

While replaying this area, I told the team to stay in the center behind the walls, only to find that 1 team member decided to "take cover" on the wrong side of the wall, 30 feet from where she should've been, in the middle of the street, standing up and looking around aimlessly.

And then there's the time I see a blockade through the windows, so I tell me team to wait behind me a ways and use the crossbow to sniper the guy behind the gun emplacement. The rest of the guys start shooting back and I take two of them out (the only two with a clear shot). My team decides "they're shooting at freeman, we need to help!" and a guy runs past me, opens the door I didn't want opened, and then runs out into the teeth of the second gun emplacement. Then a second guy follows him. Scratch two teammates.

Re:Praise Indeed

[detect]

Runs very well on my 2500+, 512meg and GeForce MX400 card. No slowdown at all and looks so much nicer than I expected.

Re:Half-life 2's invisible walls annoying...

[koreth]

I wasted two hours on exactly the same invisible wall before I finally broke down and read some spoilers that told me what I had to do. Like the parent says, it's not the only place you're penalized for trying to find your own path through the game.

For those who want to see this themselves... it's in the "Water Hazard" level. The section in question has a beached ship on the left, followed by a ramp that you're supposed to use to jump over the water into a tunnel on the right. The main part of the area is a big open space with a beached ship in the middle, a couple of broken cargo containers on the outside walls, and two armored cars on the pier/road above you.

If you ram your boat repeatedly into the space just to the right of the ramp (there's a little gap between the ramp and the fence) you can flip your boat up into the air and land on the other side of the fence at the bottom of the ramp. From there you can back off to get a running start, go speeding up the ramp, and you'll hit the invisible wall rather than going through the tunnel.

What you're supposed to do is... (spoiler)

...walk to the far side of one of the cargo containers and see that it contains some explosive barrels. Shoot one of the barrels and the end will be blown off the container, after which you can drive your boat through and around to the ramp.

Another example is in the section with the crane -- it is possible to stack stuff up such that you should be able to climb up and over the barbed-wire fence. But no, the game designers didn't think of that, so instead of sneaking up behind the guards nearby, you get to paw helplessly at the glass wall above the fence, like some poor little zoo animal in a display case. The guards are probably too busy laughing at you to bother shooting you.

Re:I want to, but should I?

[TheOnlyCoolTim]

Load times are comparable to HL1 load times - when HL1 came out. I think I actually waited longer for HL1 level loads on the computer I first played it on.

Tim

Re:More than meets the eye

[Orcish_Rodent]

Further advice on the depth and food for thought while playing HL2. At the end of HL1 you are given a choice of death or working for the g-man. At the start of HL2 the g-man 'wakes' you up [for work]. Note at the start of HL2 alot of people say "So soon, I expected more warning." And late game in HL2 it is implied that your 'services' can be bought. A question to pose is if the g-man sells you to the highest bidder (although unable to control you). Did the rebels pay the g-man? Do they know what your fate is? Who the fuck is the god damn g-man?! Always just ahead of me, just out of range for my guns, always watching.

Btw, the administrator is the bastard you go against in HL2. It's in the first 1min of the game.

In retrospect the game is too short, story lacks real depth. But as blizzard say, the illusion of detail is far more powerful.