Half-Life 2 (PC)

[Spatial]

I've just had a wonderful thought

Its happening more and more often with big game titles now ( and even some DVD's ) that shops are breaking street dates to get that extra bit of money

It usually happens with potential big sellers ( ie:- Tomb Raider AOD and LOTR : Two Towers )

I'd be willing to bet there'll be many an unscrupulous merchant who'll be breaking the release date !

Which means we'll get it early !

WOOT !

[Manta Ray vs Guitar]

To protect and serve.

[quexex]

I think it's safe to say that for all PC usage including games, your top end P4 kit will always out-perform the best of AMD Athlon XP. Of course, you'll be paying a massive price premium for it but the superiority is clear to see.

img - some images from the original post which I've removed cause there big needless to say there Toms at Tomsharware waffling about how great Intel is compared to AMD hmm suspicious considering he used to be so pro AMD and anti intel a labour party style U turn! probably cash induced too - img


Anyway, enough about hardware wars. How about discussing how awesome HL2 will be?

Shame Tom sold out really now I would trust him as far as I could throw him he used to be pro AMD and all of a sudden he changed his mind and went pro intel...some one slipped him some bucks me thinks...(and so the rumors go) ...

On another note anyone with below par hardware reducing the AI or more likley the physics will help your underperforming processor and reducing the graphics detail will help your graphics card! To be honest even if you have a stonking machine it still looks like you may have to make some concessions as it chugged at the show repeatedly dropping below 10-15 frames a second!

cheers

Quexex

[Garibaldi Biscuit]

To protect and serve.

Stop spamming this thread.

[nips]

They [Strider monsters] seem to take a real pounding from rifle fire in the video so I think it'd be best to try and escape from one alive rather than attempting to kill or disable it, unless there are any nearby gratings on the road of course.

I really hope there is no quicksave option, I'm pretty confident there won't be. You always see developers saying in interviews that they will being doing their best to try and avoid the stop-start quicksave mechanic in their single player game.

Ah, grates, I didn't think about that. Good idea... I think that it will have to be possible to blow out a leg or summit!

Personally, I want a Quick Save option. I did abuse it, but when I was really getting into the game I'd forget about saving and just want to play more. But, I wonder, if the difficulty increases with your skill, so If you lose little health and kick ass the game gets harder. IF that is the case, then even with Quick Save, you'll have to get better in order to beat the game.

Have any of you seen pictures of the aliens that shoot electicity, or the dogs that shoot out stuff along the floor. I loved the sounds that they made. I'd know when they were nearby, and I'd know what to do, either get off the floor or avoid the fire until they re-charged. I was definitely expecting the Head-Crabs to come back, they are legendary and I can't wait to crowbar thier asses.

What difficulty will you people be starting with? I normally start with normal, but as I've completed the original on Hard and everyother add-on, at atleast normal, I think I may start on a slightly higher difficulty...

I wonder whether this game will feel slightly backwards though! After Halo, and the great weapon balance etc, will this game feel slightly generic in someways? I wonder how far the actual gameplay can develop, and whether I actually want it to.

[Concept]

Nah. I can't imagine Half-Life 2 disappointing.

From what I've seen of it so far, the game appears quite simply gob smacking. It's an important title too, because I feel once its released, Half-Life 2 is going to well and truly thrust the PC back into the full gaming lime light.

[replicant]

Apologies, I forgot you clocked you processor so high. Maybe at 2.4 it's geting close but you don't need a freezer hooked up to your P4 to keep it running like that .

You could say Ive got a few fans Didn't bother going down the water route. Chip is steady at 44-50 temps so its fine at this clock. Paid a bit of extra dosh on good quality thermal cement. Its amazing the difference it can make compared to the cheap stuff when applied correctly!

[replicant]

Nah. I can't imagine Half-Life 2 disappointing.

I wouldn't tempt fate bud!! You never know.

I agree that it does help put some focus on pc gaming this year. Which can only be good news for people interested in pc gaming, and gamers as a whole.

[MO2J]

Skimmed over the last five pages of this thread, so I hope I have not missed anything too major. Half Life 2 seems to be currently scheduled for a release date of November 14.

This has been reported at: http://www.tothegame.com/search.asp?...le=half+life+2

These guys are usually right on the money and I use them for all my release dates. Of course, this isn't concrete until Valve/whoever let us know officially. It's looking less like Sept 30 though...

[Fire]

It was stated at ECTS that the game is still on for a Sept 30th release, Valve themselves have never actually said anything different.

Valve's Greg Coomber: "it'll be tight, but Half-Life 2 is still on for a September 30th ship"

[Spatial]

At the moment everone has a different opinion as to the game making it out for the 30th

Every online and high street store and every games review site has changed their release dates at least once ( and some have even changed it back again )

Fire's right, Valve are still sticking to their guns and have never said anything other than the 30th . Until there's an official statement to the contrary I believe them

( mind you, ask me about that again when its the 29th September and there's still no word about it )

IMO ToTheGame have got it a little bit wrong - unless they're taking into account time zone differences and such.

They say the release date in the US is the day before the UK. Valve have always maintained that it'll be a worldwide release ( and lets face it, it would have to be to avoid imports and l33t hax0rs and all other sorts of shinanigans )

While a day might not seem much of a difference, if you've got enough people breaking street dates ( see my other post ) it might just be enough in their eyes. Its not so much the monetry cost but the damage that may be done to the storyline and other details they've struggled so hard to keep quiet for the last 5 years

[Tig]

Here's my humble attempt:






It just oozes class, doesn't it?

[choddo]

I think it's safe to say that for all PC usage including games, your top end P4 kit will always out-perform the best of AMD Athlon XP. Of course, you'll be paying a massive price premium for it but the superiority is clear to see.

img - some images from the original post which I've removed cause there big needless to say there Toms at Tomsharware waffling about how great Intel is compared to AMD hmm suspicious considering he used to be so pro AMD and anti intel a labour party style U turn! probably cash induced too - img


Anyway, enough about hardware wars. How about discussing how awesome HL2 will be?

Shame Tom sold out really now I would trust him as far as I could throw him he used to be pro AMD and all of a sudden he changed his mind and went pro intel...some one slipped him some bucks me thinks...(and so the rumors go) ...

It wouldn't be simply because the AMD chips out-performed the Intel chips for a while, and now Intel have overtaken again then? Some people just love a conspiracy theory

And when you consider that anandtech find exactly the same thing e.g.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1810&p=8

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1810&p=9

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1810&p=20

and

The review community unanimously agreed that the processor was not deserving of its 3200+ rating
...
If you spend your time reading through, understanding and learning from our reviews then you can come to your own conclusions just fine. Yes, AMD needs to update their benchmarking suite, Yes the Pentium 4 has continued to dominate in performance and as you will see by the end of this review, Yes the 3.2GHz Pentium 4 is noticeably faster than the Athlon XP 3200+.

so I wouldn't pay much attention to those bribery rumours. It's just the AthlonXP has reached the end of its useful life. The Athlon64 will be another story soon. I've got 0.10 Euros that says Toms rates it highly when it appears.

And "Manta Ray" ... no, everyone is not dumb, threads just go a bit OT sometimes. But it's better than just saying "it's 23 days now, or it might be 72, depending on if it slips" ad infinitum... now that would be dull.

[Firsty]

Lol Tig, very nice.

It just occurred to me. Do PC games still use CD Roms????
That seems a bit crazy when all the consoles are nice high capacity discs.
Or has compression come a long way lately?

[Adam]

They mostly come on multiple CD roms.