Half-Life 2 (PC)

[Kotatsu Neko]

Back in City 17 now, and finally the game is as spectacular as those videos from the first E3 promised. Striders! Awesome stuff, hope it lasts for a good while.

Nova Prospekt really got good towards the end too, the ripped straight from Aliens gun turrent defence set pieces were great fun, aside from the 2nd from last one which had an enormous difficulty spike. Took plenty of attempts to get through it and I was glad to finish it by the end. Difficulty in general is a real mess in HL2. Very easy for the most part, but with the occassional severe spike. HL1 was so balanced, HL2 isn't.

I wish the whole game had been of the intensity of City 17 and Nova Prospekt - those driving sections dragged on for way too long. Would knock the game down a score point for me.

[Ish]

I thought the bit after toe bit your talking about Tom was the best bit of storytelling. The bit when Alyx is shot and captured by the Covenant. Even though I could see it coming I was left feeling desperate and helpless..

[yashiro]

Having hated the first half life I am quite suprised of my enjoyment with this game. Could do with a bit more battling perhaps. I've been playing Killzone lately; it's maybe the reason I feel this way.

I'm well impressed. Roll on the updates and mods!


Technically, it runs OK even on my dog**** 850/GF4. (unlike Doom3)

A DirectX Comparison
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Not the best of articles (it's ign) but interesting none the less.

http://gear.ign.com/articles/567/567437p1.html

[Concept]

Good to see you're enjoying it Yash. It's up with ICO for me in terms of one of the best games in recent years. So many 'wow' moments...

To make matters better, I've just had two emails. One to say MGS3 has been shipped from VG+ (which means I can play Half-Life 2 through a third time whilst I wait), and Raising the Bar from GAME, Half-Life 2's coffee table making of book.

Seriously looking forward to finding out more about how Valve built up this world.

[Nijo]

Ok, I've just got to the start of the buggy section. I'm playing on hard and still haven't saved once - there are a couple of places where you have to figure out the strategic point to fight from, but there are so many health packs I'm quite happy to get through a section on 50% knowing that I'll be fixed up soon after. You can even pick up the spare packs and throw them ahead of you fs.
You *can* make huge piles of dead zombie in the places where they respawn though

Hardest points for me so far... I think somewhere near the beginning (in the canals) vs a bunch of manhacks while running out of ammo... and later with the helicopter above just after you get the magnum (tbh the part after that where you shoot it down is easy - you can pretty much sit still and shoot... and then I tried to take down the g-man in the same area ).
Ravenholm has been a blast - the zombies kind of look like elvis after you hit them with a paint can. The mines were atmospheric but could have been a bit longer, perhaps with a corresponding shortening of the boat section. A cave troll would have been cool too

Also, I have to say that playing on headphones is very cool. I don't think my 5.1 would give the same feeling of immersion.

[gizmo1990]

I keep hearing people say they haven't saved. How is this possible since the game seems to auto save each time you reach a new check point?

Can this be turned off or something?

[Nijo]

Nah, I use auto-saving - then it's basically a checkpoint system like Halo. I don't have time to play through the whole thing in one sitting!
But I object to quick-saving after every skirmish, and especially to quick-loading after every health loss.

[Molloy]

Bah.. this is tricky enough in places. I've been killed 3 or 4 times at the start of the mines. There's a room with 40 or 50 head crabs in it that's a pain in the arse.

How do I get out of that room anyway? There's a railway line on the ground and walkways above. And a few explosive barrrels.

[Nijo]

You can get a few with the barrels, but really you just want to leg it across to the steps on the other side. Fire a few health packs across just in case.

[Mardigan8]

Picked up my copy yesterday and gave it a whirl to see what Valve have came up with. Trying to finish the fantastic Halo2 campaign before get right into the Half-life 2 world.

What I got last night was the singularly most astonishing introduction to a game EVER. Truly feels like you are in this world and the bit at the start where the spider walker walks past your view left my jaw on the floor. Have only scratched the surface so far and am still on the run from the guards... the chase along the rooftops... genious!!

Amazed at the quality in this game and looking forward to losing many many hours in it... well done!!

[Tom Salter]

Did anyone else realise there were three types of headcrab? I only noticed two when I played it, but my flatmate's just shown me the difference between the fast and slow normal ones!

[Zapp$ter]

Did anyone else realise there were three types of headcrab? I only noticed two when I played it, but my flatmate's just shown me the difference between the fast and slow normal ones!

Where did you think those speedy mofos in Ravenholme came from? Through them speedy headcrabs

[Kotatsu Neko]

Yeah I noticed the 3 headcrab variants. The black ones are the worst. Zoom in on them and they are hairy, like a tarantula... Nasty.

[Chadruharazzeb]

The black ones are cowards, they scuttle away when you shoot at them.

Can someone assure me that a plot becomes apparent at some point? I'm near the end of Ravenholm and I still don't have a clue what the point of it all is, other than I was being chased for some reason, now I'm stranded in some ****ed-up village en route to somewhere...??

[Kotatsu Neko]

The black ones are cowards, they scuttle away when you shoot at them.

Can someone assure me that a plot becomes apparent at some point? I'm near the end of Ravenholm and I still don't have a clue what the point of it all is, other than I was being chased for some reason, now I'm stranded in some ****ed-up village en route to somewhere...??

I'm battling through City 17 and have yet to see a plot.

Some things happen, some events, but they do not add up a story.

And if 15 years have passed since HL1, surely some kind of intro at the start would have helped.