Half-Life 2 (PC)

[Chadruharazzeb]

I almost completely ran out of ammo in Ravenholm for shooting bloody head crabs. They are the chav of the alien world.

[weightgain]

lol - what like with bling on, burberry hat and some alien hoe's nearby ??? Jesus, I have to get this game.....

[Concept]

I almost completely ran out of ammo in Ravenholm for shooting bloody head crabs. They are the chav of the alien world.

I'd never thought of them like that. What Jibber said to be honest, aiming with guns is too difficult when they're jumping around. Just switch to using the crowbar in short distance combat and it's fine.

[Zapp$ter]

You shouldn't really bother wasting any bullets on the headcrabs. I just pull out my crowbar, wait for them to launch themselves at me and then hit the mofos with a perfectly timed swing of the crowbar. Ah it's so satisfying when you hear that little thud as you crush those bastards. It's almost like playing baseball. The new headrcrabs on the other hand

[Spatial]

This game just almost made me want to throw up.

Why ?

The bit on the bridge ! I honestly felt like I was getting vertigo, just like on the canyon ledges of the first one. Sweaty palms and everything ! The wind blowing was so realistic it added to the whole `up high` feeling. And the vibrating from the train almost made me **** my pants.

I was sitting there going "Argh ! What now ? Whats going on !!??" until I clicked

And that tunnel bit at the beggining of SandTraps was so much likethe tunnel bit in 28 Days Later, I was bricking myself !

This game truly does keep getting better and better

Oh, and when I said yesterday that Concept's tips for audio stuttering didn't work for me, I was talking complete rot. Tried them again late last night - the caching ones sped up the loading times, and the snd_mixer one (when set to 0.9 for me) has made the stuttering barely noticable. Not only that but its improved the sound quality, and I can actually hear echos of gunfire etc in wide open spaces

[Concept]

Spatial. You're only up to there?

You've got all the best bits to come.

[Concept]

Oh, and when I said yesterday that Concept's tips for audio stuttering didn't work for me, I was talking complete rot. Tried them again late last night - the caching ones sped up the loading times, and the snd_mixer one (when set to 0.9 for me) has made the stuttering barely noticable. Not only that but its improved the sound quality, and I can actually hear echos of gunfire etc in wide open spaces

I managed to improve the load times on average by a good five or so seconds, and I've also got rid of most of the little sound ticks that still remain too.

I've put in -heapsize 512000 (half my ram) in Half-Life 2's launch properites in Steam, although I'm sceptical it does anything. Below, these are the parts of the config file you really need to pay attention to in terms of sound issues. The parts in bold are the ones I've played about with. And I've managed to pretty much sort most of the problem out now, thank god.

Also, in dxdiag (through run) placing sound in standard acceleration also helped.

dsp_dist_max "1440.0"
dsp_dist_min "0.0"
snd_mixahead "0.6"
snd_musicvolume "1.0"
volume "1.0"
snd_pitchquality "1"
sv_forcepreload "1"
sv_voiceenable "1"
dsp_enhance_stereo "1"
dsp_volume "1.0"
dsp_slow_cpu "0"
cl_allowupload "1"

cl_allowdownload "1"
cl_forcepreload "1"
cl_soundfile "sound/player/jingle.wav"
cl_logofile "materials/decals/spraylogo.vtf"
cl_timeout "60"

[Zapp$ter]

Spatial. You're only up to there?

You've got all the best bits to come.

I'm not even that far into the game I think (coming to the end of the Ravenholme level) but I don't want to rush through it. I figure, I've waited 6 years for this sequel and it is bloody good, who knows how long it will be before another game as good as this is (IMO) comes along. I don't want it to be over in a flash. So I'm trying to savour it now, but I'm finding it hard to pull myself away from the game.

[Concept]

I savoured it too, but then I completed it in two nine hour stints basically.

I'm playing through again, noticing all the little details. Tom mentioned earlier about the story being a little too open perhaps, and I think Chad has suggested a similar thing. However, if you pay attention to the environment, then you get all sorts of little details that complete the picture. Just take a look at the message board at Eli's lab to know what I mean.

So, I'm going through it again, even more slowly than before, soaking up the atmosphere. I've already spotted the G-Man three times now.

Terrific game. Oh, have I said that already?

[Spatial]

Spatial. You're only up to there?

You've got all the best bits to come.

I know, and thats why I'm so elated ! Its already surpassed my expectations and I would gladly have turfed over the cash to play it this far and have it come to an end right now.

I'm only up to Sand Traps cos I'm playing through it on hard. Its not because I'm **** at all. Nope thats not it *ahem*

I really want to take my time on this game, I just do not want it to come to an end yet. I'm limiting myself to playing it twice a day for 2 hour stints to try and stretch it out

As I can't afford a US PS2 and a copy of MGS3 at the moment I'm trying to stretch the HL2 experience out to the maximum. However if anyone wants to dig deep and donate a US PS2 and a copy of MGS3 to go with it, I'll gladly accept it and sit down for some 24 hour gaming stints with HL2

Gman sightings so far - only 2 and one of those was so quick when I looked back he had vanished, but I'm assured that he appears over 50 times in the original so I'm guessing he's there a lot more than I've seen so far

edit:- by the way why has no one commented on my really groovy HL2 avatar yet ? It completely r0x0rs your b0x0rs and you all know it

[MartyG]

Got to play the game for 45 minutes at lunchtime and it's quite impressive but there are a couple of things that I'm disappointed with. Smashing people with TVs, breeze blocks and tables should cave their heads in, but it doesn't even bruise them, and objects mysteriously float in the air when you pick them up, which looks odd. Nothing major though.

[Concept]

edit:- by the way why has no one commented on my really groovy HL2 avatar yet ? It completely r0x0rs your b0x0rs and you all know it

A rollermine for a 70's disco ball? That's the image I get looking at it.

Trouble is, there's a big jar of large marbles downstairs, and whenever I look at them after playing Half-Life 2, I wonder what it'd be like to fling them around gravity gun style.

[recipher]

How's this for frustrating...

Bought a new PC, well specced for HL2 (X600 Pro 256mB + 3.4 P4 + 1gB mem, etc.) plus a 20" TFT (16ms response). Lovely. Unfortunately, the delivery for the TFT has been put back a week. I've now borrowed a POS CRT but the colour on it is slightly goosed, and everything is *way* too dark when I'm playing so I can't see bugger all.

So, now I've gotta wait until next Wednesday at least.

Arse.

[Spatial]

Trouble is, there's a big jar of large marbles downstairs, and whenever I look at them after playing Half-Life 2, I wonder what it'd be like to fling them around gravity gun style.

The good thing about HL2, you can make one hell of a mess and not have to worry about cleaning any of it up.

Thats the Votigant's job

[Ish]

I wish I could have restrained myself and spent more time savouring it like you Spatial.

Unfortunately it was like the videogame equivelant of a rich dark chocolate cheesecake and I gorged on it like a fat bastard.

Now its gone. And I feel empty again.