Half-Life 2 is out!!!

[BustaMike]

Originally posted by VJ
Bustamike: How good is the plot? Has there been any real surprises so far, or has it been just a typical, predictable half-futuristic POS (like, for example, FarCry was)?

Well, I wouldn't ever compare it to Far Cry (that game sucked except for the graphics). There isn't a whole lot of story to speak of in HL2 so far, but I like how what little story there is has been exposed. At one point, there are a bunch of newspaper clippings pinned to a bulletin board that you can read that give some explaination of why the world is how it is. When you start looking at them, the guy comes over and starts telling you about them, too. So far though, 95% action and 5% story, no surprises so far.

Playing on hard, I have only reached 2 areas of the game so far that have given me any trouble as far as difficulty goes.

Spoiler:

The first was when I first reached Nova Prospekt. There are two of those bug gunship things that you have to fight at the same time. They take about 8 rockets each to kill, and they will shoot down your rocket if you don't guide it past the guns. Since you can only hold 3 rockets at a time, and you need a minimum of 16, this part was pretty problematic.

The second part was much much harder until I figured out how to cheese it. Once you are inside Nova Prospekt, there is a spot where you get locked in to a jail area and soldiers attack from all sides (there's probably a total of 40 that come). You're given 3 stationary guns to set up, but they can be easily knocked over. I kept trying to find the perfect place to set up the guns so they couldn't be knocked over easily, I tried hiding in a cell, I tried tons of stuff, but I died over and over. Finally I figured that I could stack up a bunch of boxes and take the guns and myself up to the second story of the room (where the guys can't reach ever). Then it was cake.

I've made it to the part in the game where you can control your squad. It's cool to have people to fight with, and their reasonably smart. I'm think I'm just getting to the part with those big walker things, so I'm eager to see a guy get impaled.

[MattH]

I'm stuck!

I'm totally stuck at the location pictured below, can anyone give me a hint?

Spoiler:

It's the puzzle where you have to push a washing machine onto a platform to lift a makeshift bridge. The bridge is raised, but when I jump from it onto the wall I cannot pass over - it's as if there one of those "level walls" that prevent you from walking off the edges of the current map. I know the map continues on the other side of the wall because I hit noclip, but when I walk up the people there don't react.

[ZargonX]

MattH: It sounds like you did exactly what you needed to do to get past that part. Maybe try hitting the jump from a different angle?

[ZargonX]

BustaMike: The second part you mentioned really gave me problems too, until I remembered the boxes. I used them for a different reason, though; I set up a barricade on one side so I could concentrate on one entry point at a time

[MattH]

Originally posted by ZargonX
MattH: It sounds like you did exactly what you needed to do to get past that part. Maybe try hitting the jump from a different angle?

I've tried jumping up and down and crouching and reloading the level, no dice .

[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.

[BustaMike]

Originally posted by ZargonX
BustaMike: The second part you mentioned really gave me problems too, until I remembered the boxes. I used them for a different reason, though; I set up a barricade on one side so I could concentrate on one entry point at a time

Are you playing on hard? When I did this the guys just knocked it down.

[ZargonX]

Are you playing on hard? When I did this the guys just knocked it down.

Playing on normal. They did knock them down, but it generally delayed them enough to have them get torn up in some crossfire.

[BustaMike]

Beat it.

[Solver]

I beat the game last night (thanks to a week long national holiday). I'm speechless. While, much to my surprise, some of the stuff that was advertised as being in never made it, the game was fantastic. The story, atmosphere, environments, action, graphics... just about everything. Looks like it even surpasses Doom 3.

[Kassiopeia]

I'm about ~4 hours in (after the mines). I'm glad they didn't opt for the Doom 3 kind of "scary", I think sudden surprises are too easy and cheap. The gravity gun is incredibly hilarious and useful at the same time, and I'm on Normal happy to find myself striving to spare ammo as much as possible lest I end up throwing small blocks of concrete at the enemies.

[ZargonX]

happy to find myself striving to spare ammo as much as possible lest I end up throwing small blocks of concrete at the enemies.

But you know, I think pegging a combine troop with a cinder block from across the room is one of the most satisfying things you can do to them

[Kassiopeia]

Ah, but I haven't had too many chances to use the grav gun against Combine forces yet. I did toss a few grenades back at them when I had one though.

[BustaMike]

I never had a problem with ammo or health. There seems to be a TON of it lying around.

I do like pegging soldiers with bricks though, or even better pegging them with one of those flying camera robots or a manhack.

Spoiler:

At the end you can even pick up guys with the grav gun and toss them around.

[Kassiopeia]

Ooh, I was wondering if I could do that at some point. Yay.

As I've played on, health has been more plentiful, but I did keep running out of shotgun cartridges in Ravenholm.