November 16, 2004

Half-Life 2 After missing its original September 30, 2003 release date and the code being pirated, Half-Life 2 has been released!!! While I didn't stay up for the midnight pacific time release, I did get up early to play it for an hour or so this morning. Anyone else as hyped about it as I am?

I bought it over Steam, but it has been on sale all weekend at some stores. Unfortunately, due in part to a legal battle between game maker Valve and distributor Vivendi even if you bought the game this weekend, you couldn't play it untill this morning. Is the the future of online distribution of games?

posted by jccalhoun 20 years ago
  • "Anyone else as hyped about it as I am?" Not really. I may or may not purchase it. It would have to be a significant departure from the structure of the first one to interest me. And it isn't, really. Yeah, fantastic physics, environments, graphics, blah blah, but I need something open-ended, these days, something I can go anywhere with.
  • Damn Half-Life 2 for falling right in the middle of essay-writing time. I agree with Nostrildamus, to some extent, although I'm definitely getting it as soon as my essays are done. My fantasy for Half-Life 2 was for it to dump you at one end of a huge Black Mesa-style installation, and let you find your way to the other end. It'd behave like an actual building, in that there would be no set path through it: you'd just have to make your way through the floor plan. Just my dorky fantasy. One question is, if you are forced to register it online before playing, what happens to people without internet connections?
  • "what happens to people without internet connections?" They will suffer from a complete and utter lack of quality porn.
  • Oh, and also, any word on how well it will run on less-than-stellar machines?
  • It won't.
  • Also, I don't have an internet connection at home at the moment, so I can't play it at all. and Steam doesn't seem to agree with 56k modems either (or at least it didn't)
  • Also, I like the way they've decided to treat all there customers as worthless scum who must prove their honesty. Its the future of customers relations, I'm sure.
  • Well, if you created a game that was 40 million dollars and 5 years in the making, and its prequel is one of the most pirated/hacked online games of all time, I think you'd put in certain measures to make sure no one enjoys it without buying it first, although I dont necessarily agree with the purely online activation(they need a phone number, like the evil empire) it definently is going to be around for a long time. but it's a sweet game. I remember talking to one person in-game up close, the models are so life like. it's kinda freaky.
  • Blaise: Turns out that it's actually quite decent for lower-spec machines (though, obviously, it depends on how you define "lower-spec"). Remember that they were originally aiming for release a year ago, and the engine performance targets they had then have barely moved, if at all. Minimum requirements are 1.2Ghz CPU, 256MB RAM and a DX7.0 3D card. I have a 2.4Ghz Athlon with 512MB RAM, but an NVidia 5200FX which isn't a great card, so I've been a bit worried. From initial reports, though, it should play just fine. (I won't know for sure until I actually get the damn thing in my hands, though. I ordered it from Amazon over a year ago. Last night they sent a dispatch confirmation. I hate waiting.) Here's detailed info from the horse's mouth.
  • Thank god that my laptop is too less-than-stellar to run it. Saved by the cheesy DX7 card.
  • I won't be getting it, for pretty much the same reason as dng. Also, my crappy phone line only allows a 26k connection. And why should I have to connect to the internet just to play a single-player game? What if I decide I want to play it five years from now? Or what if Valve goes under, or they just decide that they don't want anyone playing anymore and shut the servers off? This is the DIVX of gaming.
  • Every time I return to the MoFi front page, I see Half-Life 2 has been released!!! Must. Be. Strong. *whimper*
  • Keep in mind you only have to connect to the site for the activation of the software (like MS Office) although it is true they should have a telephone system in place to activate as well. But it is a one time thing and well worth it for such an amazing game. I also enjoy Pepsi Blue and long walks on the beach
  • btw, any Monkeys currently playing who want to add Friends to their lists? On campus it seems I can't get the Friends to work but I'd be interested if it works for adding anyone outside of my network.
  • This past Sunday I ordered a Radeon 9800 Pro to replace my current GeForce2 MX and 512MB of RAM to tack on to my current 256MB. I'm debating right now whether to get an Athlon XP 3200+ over my current TBird 1.3GHz. I keep telling myself "This isn't just for Half-Life 2. You're going to graduate school in a year and a half. You are upgrading before you run completely out of money during that time. Your system has to last for another 5 years." I don't think that argument is going to stick. My next proposal was that as a physics major I'm just looking into how well they did with the new physics engine. I think this one is even worse. Then, I tried "No, really, I need this for my work as a programmer!" but who the hell needs a new video card for that? Finally, I said "Well, maybe I'll take up 3D animation." That's when what little artistic ability I have got up, laughed its ass off and promptly fell back into its coma. There a few things sadder than a fanboy attempting to rationalize his fandom.
  • If you own Half-Life and Half-Life 2, do you have one whole life?
  • I think it might be 3/4 of a life then. Radiatioin decay and all that.
  • Flashboy: you still only have half a life, it's just that the half-life you do have is upgraded with better graphics and new sound. Those of you with a better half definitely get a good deal, since it is presumed that you have a lesser half, a better half, and now you get half-life, except that the lesser half will suffer when you play half-life, so maybe you wind up with say, a life and a quarter, instead of the life and a half you were expecting. If you dump the better half, then you're in the same boat as the rest of us, perhaps worse, because then you'll be so depressed as to have no life except for half-life, or perhaps she'll get the half-life in the divorce, so you'll have no life. Halflings only get a quarter life as compared to the rest of us, so they get completely screwed on the deal. Plutonium based beings will get negligible benefits since they already have such a long half-life. (I'm starting to overthink this, so I'll stop now to preserve whatever brain cells are left to play Half-Life 2). BTW, I also got GTA San Andreas, so I probably won't be making my paltry social rounds for, oh, six months or so (I'm really not very good). I'll be very lonely, and glaucoma-ridden, but hey, I'll be playing the two hottest games of the year.
  • This game made me sick, literally. The damn airboat gave me mausea.
  • Just beat it. And god I loved the game but I utterly hated the ending.
  • good idea for a sitcom spin-off: "I Married a Turret (and boy, was my companion cube jealous)"
  • I'm a fan of Steam games (CS, CS:S, HL2, DoD, TF2, L4D2 etc) but I got stuck with Portal about halfway through, and the trailers for Portal 2 terrified me.
  • The trailers were more intense than the game itself. They designed P2 to kind of guide you through the game, so I recommend giving it a shot. If you get stuck, you can always watch the guides people have put on YouTube.
  • That's just... wrong.
  • For a budget of "absolutely nothing" that's pretty damn impressive - apart from Freeman's beard...