Half Life 2

Anyone played it?

I downloaded it last night via their "Steam" application (all 3.2Gb of it - thank heaven for broadband) and played for a couple of minutes earlier and it looks very impressive. I already like the storyline

Even more impressive is that it seems to be quite playable on my clapped out old 933Mhz + 512Mb RAM PC (allthough I do have a relatively recent Radeon 9600XT gfx card with 128Mb DDR). Ok, I'm playing at 800x600 and the graphics options aren't maxed out but given that the minimum spec is a 1.2Gz machine I'm quite pleased. Remains to be seen how things go when there starts to be a bit of action...

Michael.

 

from what i've heard there have been problems with steam as you are required to be 'attatched' a lot of the time for live patches etc. if steam goes kaput or you connection fails then you can;t play - there is aparently a way of seting up to allow offline play but it's tricky to find.
i've not played it yet though so don;t know first hand.
cheers


julian

 

Michael, you'll love it, the physics engine is the best I've ever seen.

You can even shoot the crows that fly past you in the open air

 

iirc half life 2 uses the havok physics engine - it's a bit of a monster and has to have it;s tendrils all through your code but it certainly does the business... i've been using it for about 3 years now, it's very cool the things you can do with it. i've been playing with ragdolls recently, introducing them to cars, very fast cars, and trucks :JOEL:
cheers


julian.

 

Yes Julian, it does use the havok engine. I haven't had any issues at all with steam. I quite like the online delivery mechanism too. It's caused some problems for pirates though

Michael.

 

as i say i've not used it but it seems like a cool idea and paves the way for the internet as a serious content delivery system not just for shareware. one of the things the engine i've written is capable of is swapping out content that could be delivered over the internet so (for example) billboards at the side of the track in a racing game could contain proper advertising paid for in a month by month manner by companies. the game would check a website for updates and download them as necessary.

the stick i've seen it getting is for being unavailable - therefore rendering the game unplayable.
cheers

julian.

 

I've just played it for the first time on my machine tonight. I have to say I am very impressed so far. The game runs absolutely fine on my machine with high details in 1600x1200, and looks absolutely gorgeous. The expressions on other peoples faces are believable. The sheer detail and scale of the urban environment is set in is really good, a big city with lots of buildings, trains and other such things. Its like a real living world, and its only the second game I've ever played that gets fairly close to what I'd say is a real tangible environment (the first being Far Cry). Like the first Half Life, the way it goes through the game is really quite clever, the first parts are not too much of a hassle as can be the case in some games, and its nice to be able to take in your environment before you find yourself running for your life. The bit where they attempt to teleport you near the beginning is suitably trippy.

I'm also quite impressed with the sound too. The game has built in headphone algorithms and so as always headphones are my weapon of choice. The atmosphere can be heard all around you. Things sound exactly like they are supposed to, and there are plenty of dynamics here - loud sounds should be loud, and they are. Positioning seems pretty good too.

There does seem be an inherent "rightness" about the way it plays, it didnt seem to take much to be at ease with the controls, and it worked very smoothly. The firefights you have with your foes are quite intense but also very good fun. I'm playing on the medium difficulty setting and so far it has not proved to be too hard. The difficulty seems just right at the moment for me, although more hardcore FPS players may disagree with me here, but its not like Far Cry where, within about 30 minutes you are placed in a scenario that can take dozens of attempts to complete, in that respect I feel its somewhat less frustrating than Far Cry.

I think it is a much better game than Doom 3, which was scary and good fun at first, but quickly becomes a little tiresome and repetitive, this game seems to have much better gameplay, and the graphics, while obviously a totally different style of game, seem at very least the equal to Doom 3 in most respects (and also, Far Cry). Its the realism of your surroundings that really gets you with this game - although not photo-real you can certainly "relate" to it, and it seems very immersive as an experience.

I see it has much the same enemies so far as the original Half Life. Still, I am very impressed so far

 

awesome

I have HL2, and it looks fantastic, though I only actually played it for about 15 minutes, and I have a feeling that it will go the same way as Doom3 and not get touched again, as I spend most of my time on JO Escalation...

aquapiranha

 

You gotta give it a chance mate, I've played it for about 1.5 hours tonight (which is longer than I normally play games let me tell you), and its getting better as it goes on. Once you start getting into it, you wont wanna put it down. It seriously is much better than Doom 3.

 

i think hl1 was the last game i played to completion - more than once!
i wonder if it'd run on my laptop - 1500mhz pentium m , radeon m10 and 512 mb ram d'you recon it'd work ok?
cheers


julian

 

Im on halo2 (xbox) at the mo - 8/10 vgood but not up to usual PC class.

 

Julian,

Looking at the back of the dvd box, minimum spec :-

OS - windows 2000 / XP / ME / 98

CPU - 1.2 Ghz

Mem - 256 Mb

Graphics Card - DX7 level gc

HD - 4.5 Gb

Other - Internet connection / DVD-ROM drive

 

Quite an interesting review of twin Nvidia SLI cards on Tom's Hardware :-

http://www20.graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041123/index.html

mmm ..... Doom3 1600x1200 full on graphics 73 fps

 

i've been playing HL2 and CS:Source quite a bit since it came out very nice gfx and game play as good as ever.

it is a tad power hungry though even though i have a AMD 64 3200+ (overclockerd) and a FX 5700 i can't do any AA or AF and on default settings at 1024x768 i get FPS from 25 to 70 depending on the area of map that needs to be rendered.

AS for SLI i'm gonna get that as an upgrade in jan/feb by then the mothorboards for them might be in stock. the asus SLI mobo is due out 6th of Dec though.

 

Do you have to be on-line to play it ? or just to activate a game ?

 

If you have broadband it connects to the steam server over the internet each time, not sure if it does it over dial-up, your best bet would be to have a look on the internet.

Out of interest how far have you all got, I'm in the prison.

 

Err.. no far ! I'm just considering getting it.

 

I meant everyone that's brought it

 

Hardly played it at all (got it just before I had to leave for London) so I only got as far as being chased by the "cops" in the building and...erm...not managing to get away from them

Michael.