Half-Life 2 is out!!!

[BustaMike]

Yeah, in a few areas there guys respawn forever. I didn't bother killing too many guys there. Also, I use the crowbar only for the headcrabs (1 hit kill) so I still had plenty of ammo.

[The Viceroy]

What a game ! It reminds me of hunter back in the amiga days, but a billion times better. The graphics are mind blowing, but what really gets me is the way objects react as if they are in the real world, shoot corpses and they move about, throwing objects etc.

Ive found nothing as yet particularly difficult, thank God you can use the torch at the same time as your gun.

There are a few scarey area's though, don't really want to give much away .. Ive got quite far through, but as ive yet to finish, don't really know how far that is in relation to the end, but there are certainly some spooky bits.

For me, this game is much better than Doom3, more detail, more atmosphere, less shooting things you can't see .. but saying that, a little easier.

Well worth the money !

[DrSpike]

Hmm I'm going to play this next I think. Have they sorted out the opening day jitters?

[FrostyBoy]

This is the greatest game I have ever played (In terms of fun). Physics is now a must have in FPS'ers.

I'm only half way through I think, I'm at Nova Prospekt, is that half way?


I am constantly surprised by the physics. For example, shortly after I got the crossbow, I fired at a combine soldier who was standing next to a building. My arrow hit his elbow. Later, when I walked up to the dead combine soldier, I noticed that the arrow had pulled and attached this guys elbow to the wooden house behind him and the guy ended up dangling from the arrow.

Another moment:
I built my own sea-saw. I grabbed a drum, put it down on its side; smashed down a fence and took a large plank of wood, placed it over the drum. I placed a health pack on one end and used the gravity gun to blast the other end. The health pack flew right over the top of me, over my car and into the ocean.

This game is just one big ass fun-factory.

And Solver....LOOKS LIKE it even surpasses Doom 3? .. it is obvious Half Life 2 puts Doom 3 to shame.

[FrostyBoy]

Oh and Viceroy: I remember Hunter, that was a great game!

[The Viceroy]

Wow, I wasn't sure if anybody else had played Hunter .. for its day, it was pretty amazing stuff.

Another detail i noticed was, earlier on i was getting shot to shreds, and when I moved away, I noticed my own blood up against some corrigated iron sheets behind me...

I placed a load of explosive barrels and when the bridge fell, the iron runs shot over the top of my head (just missing me) and landed just behind me .. Its realism gone mad.

I have to say, I only play doom 3 for multiplayer and thats got well boring, the level designs are very poor..

[Solver]

And Solver....LOOKS LIKE it even surpasses Doom 3? .. it is obvious Half Life 2 puts Doom 3 to shame.

Doom 3 has a few superior things. It's still more scary. Not the monsters jumping out at you, but the general atmosphere like in Delta Labs. Also, the lighting in Doom3 is far beyond HL2. But gameplay... yeah... this is the thinking man's FPS, HL2 has it. It will win all GOTY awards. And the way it uses physics is a revolution of the genre, this is the first time that physics matter always, not just as eye candy or on limited occasions.

[MattH]

Originally posted by BustaMike
Stupid question.... you are taking the boat with you right? Because if you didn't ramp the boat over that fence, I would assume you would get stuck later without the boat.

I tried one and not again, that was my mistake. I must have not gotten enough speed so I decided to jump it. All's well.

Except I have the flicker problem a lot of other people have.

[Alex]

damn, I'll have to upgrade just to play this game...

[FrostyBoy]

Originally posted by Solver

And Solver....LOOKS LIKE it even surpasses Doom 3? .. it is obvious Half Life 2 puts Doom 3 to shame.

Doom 3 has a few superior things. It's still more scary. Not the monsters jumping out at you, but the general atmosphere like in Delta Labs. Also, the lighting in Doom3 is far beyond HL2. But gameplay... yeah... this is the thinking man's FPS, HL2 has it. It will win all GOTY awards. And the way it uses physics is a revolution of the genre, this is the first time that physics matter always, not just as eye candy or on limited occasions.

Hmm.. I'm not sure about Doom 3's lighting. Many a time I came across lighting that just looked like fake lighting effects.

Half Life 2's lighting effects seem much more refined.
When I picked up one of those blades with the Gravity Gun and fired the blade into a wall, it would cast a long shadow against the wall leading down to a small shadow on the floor, accurately casting the correct shape of the blade. Most of Doom 3's shadows were completely black, but most of HL2's shadows are transparent, which is far more realistic.

The only thing Doom 3 really has going for it is its fear factor, but I didn't find that very fun.

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by Sn00py
Oh and Viceroy: I remember Hunter, that was a great game!

As do I Wasn't it mentioned in Name the Game once?


As for HL2 I wouldn't dream of playing it on my system. Maybe in a year or two?

[BustaMike]

I would give the edge in lighting effects slightly to Doom 3. That's the only edge it gets. Otherwise, there is no comparison in any aspect of the game. HL2 surpasses it in every other way.

Funny Half-Life Moment
There's a part in the driving section where you have to get some batteries to open a door. Well, 2 of the batteries are right there, but the other is waaaaay up on some platform that you can't reach. So, I took a barrel and lobbed it up there. It hit the bottom of the platform and sent the battery shooting up in the air. Like a dumbass, I watched it the whole time, until it hit me square in the face and took off 10 health .

[Kassiopeia]

I've tossed a few ammo packs up like that just to see what happens. Managed to dodge them by the last minute though.

[Kassiopeia]

All the street signs and store signs and stuff are in Russian, yes, and there are places called Nova Prospekt and New Little Odessa and so on. I have no idea why that is, at least not yet. Heck, there's a town called Ravenholm with a clearly Orthodox Christian church building. I'm hoping it's not a strictly aesthetical choice (ooh, "Nova Prospekt" sounds neat, it has "nova", and it's almost like "prospect" but it has a "k"!).

[Kassiopeia]

I do have a theory, though.

Spoiler:

The events actually take place in an alien world. All the subjugated humans and vortigaunts have been relocated there from Earth and Planet Vortigaunt (or whatever) by the evil Combine. The place the game takes place in is a portion of the planet where most people were originally Russian, which explains the signs and the place names. That would explain the strange ecology.

The only problem with this is that Dr. Breen calls City 17 "one of the last remaining urban centres". Either there has been a nasty war of resistance on this alien world, or the game actually happens on an Earth that has been devastated by the war operations that resulted from the alien incursion.