Half-Life 2: Episode One

[Genghis Cohen]

You have a very good point.

But, for some reason I think that when the people made HL1 they had no idea about the success it would bring, the 'expansions' were an after thought.

Now we have a gaming industy were the after thoughts, are a money maker.

That is what people seem unhappy about........look at BF2, Oblivion ect and all the extras people have to pay for.

Do you want to buy a game knowing you will have to keep on paying just to play the game?

You dont 'have' to pay for any of them, I've got both those games and have never bought an expansion for either, they're still both good games, though I thought the orrery thing was a pisstake, sticking a door there and everything.

I think theres a difference between Episode One/Two/Three and the likes of opposing force and blue shift, the latter never really did anything for the story and imo was just cashing in, I only got them as part of some GOTY pack, whereas the episodes will advance the story, will it be in a 'lost' type fashion to keep people buying ? quite probably, was the ending of HL2 a complete pisstake ? Yes, they might as well have just gone 'Thanks for playing, why not try a higher difficulty setting ?' But that didnt stop it being an outstanding game.

There was a tradeoff in HL2 between the technology and gameplay, HL1 was built on the quake engine which gave them more time to do other stuff, whereas HL2 is all original (and still looks great now,) plus its got the modified havok physics engine, but the balance was right in the end.

 

[TonkaToy]

You have a very good point.

But, for some reason I think that when the people made HL1 they had no idea about the success it would bring, the 'expansions' were an after thought.

Now we have a gaming industy were the after thoughts, are a money maker.

That is what people seem unhappy about........look at BF2, Oblivion ect and all the extras people have to pay for.

Do you want to buy a game knowing you will have to keep on paying just to play the game?

Hold on a minute. Let's get it into perspective here.

HL2 Episode 1 costs $20.00 - An American gaming rag has already played the game and they reckon it takes 6 hours to complete. 6 hours solid entertainment for just over £10.00

If you ask me, that's value for money. It's not as though everyone is being ripped off here.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

It will cost £15-20 here.

Anyway, it's out should anyone be excited for it: http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=65249

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Aha! Seems there is a glimmer of hope:

The focus on action and combat is sensibly weighted, there are no vehicle sections at all, no time-wasting exploration required and a more satisfyingly logical approach to puzzles.

 

[Dandred]

Hold on a minute. Let's get it into perspective here.

HL2 Episode 1 costs $20.00 - An American gaming rag has already played the game and they reckon it takes 6 hours to complete. 6 hours solid entertainment for just over £10.00

If you ask me, that's value for money. It's not as though everyone is being ripped off here.

Wasn't saying people were being ripped off, I just don't like the way the games industry has taken recently.

 

[Genghis Cohen]

It will cost £15-20 here.

Anyway, it's out should anyone be excited for it: http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=65249

You can get it off steam for around £10.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

You can get it off steam for around £10.

I got mine from Play.com. Don't like Steam and would prefer to have the CD...

 

[siarc]

is it likely to be leaked anytime soon?

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Leaked? As in pirated?

 

[siarc]

something like that
probably not leaked cos the motherfuckers will force the exe to be downloaded before it works

is it worth trying to run cs-source on a hacked copy of hl2? they rejected any of the keygen sourced serials i used

 

[Bob_the_lost]

Short version is no.

 

[TonkaToy]

Wasn't saying people were being ripped off, I just don't like the way the games industry has taken recently.

Why?

 

[TonkaToy]

I got mine from Play.com. Don't like Steam and would prefer to have the CD...

Well mate, if you want any of Valve's offerings Steam is the best way. All you have when you buy the CD is an encrypted version of the game. You end up on Steam anyway to have it unlocked. May as well get it on Steam if you have the right credit / debit cards.

 

[Genghis Cohen]

Depends on your connection too in fairness, plus you never know what may happen down the line with valve or steam (you can get steam cracks, apparently.)

I personally prefer a hard copy, but theres a decent argument for getting it directly off steam.

 

[dogmatique]

Well, I don't give a toss about another dvd box cluttering up the place, I'm more than happy to download through Steam, and I can only see real objections from those unwilling to pay for the product.

Okay, it may be annoying to have yet another program clogging up your pc in order to do so, but I'd rather have Valve's Steam dealing with it than some third party shite like Gamespot.

BTW: Just started the third chapter - it's all going a little bit too fast if there's only five...

 

[DG55]

Ehhh? About the PC specs, no your wrong!

I have an x300, Pci Express, costs £30 new, and it works a gem, thats on high detail settings too.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

There looks to be some proud people on this thread so I’ll be tactful!

I don’t particularly care what form the game comes in tbh. What I care about is my ability to play it whenever I want for as long as I want. At present my experience of steam (I have an 8meg connection but it takes an age to download over it) aint excellent. It’s slow, the updates have screwed up CS more times than I can remember (once last September I couldn’t play for over six weeks, not fun when you’re one of three admin in a clan…) and installing from DVD is always faster than downloading ime.

If my hard drive dies (as happened on my previous machine) then DVD installation is the fastest way to be up and running (read updating all those fecking patches!) again.

As said somewhere above no one knows what might happen with Valve, they could dump steam, they could get bought out or go bust and I’d prefer a hard copy now than being annoyed later. Anyway, it’s my preferred choice based on my experience of Steam and I’m more than happy to pay an extra few quid for it!

 

[siarc]

this has leaked (in some adulterated form)

 

[Kid_Eternity]

What, Half Life 2: Episode 1- Porn Edition?

 

[siarc]

06.02.06.Half.Life.2.Episode.One-PROViSiON

 

[siarc]

actually

 

[Genghis Cohen]

***SPOILERTASTIC***













Touch underwhelming, fall through floor, shoot zombies, go outside, use gravity gun to put car in hole, go into another building, fall through floor, oh look a lift that doesnt work perhaps you should fix it, etc.

Inevitably, little in the story was resolved, we can assume Breen was the big fuck off slug that does that shit to you in the citadel (and at the end, think that was the clue) but It really could have done with an appearance by the G Man at the end, I dare say I'm not the only one who was expecting it.

£15 for a game lasting 4 1/2 hours is perhaps a bit steep.

 

[siarc]

seems to run fairly well

screenshot

there's is a trailer for the next 'episode two' with it

 

[siarc]

how do you get it to run in custom resolution

i edited the batch file to

hl2.exe -steam -game episodic -width 960 -height 600

which should work i think? but it doesn't

 

[poului]

98k98u0i09

Finished it too.

Well, it was more of the same - but looked fucking mint (what with the HDR rendering and stuff).


Episode 2 looks a lot better though, seeing as it's presumably set in a entirely new location etc.

 

[siarc]

episode two does look a lot better - very 'return of the jedi' by the looks of things :0

anyone paying £15 for ep1 got conned,

if you explore around and repeat the interesting bits (there's some excellent tactical fighting stuff near the end) then you'll get more than 4 or 5 hours, but the first section takes off from the end of hl2, so it's the same shit as before for a little while

emphatically not worth it so be sure to get a copy and don't let valve fuck you over

 

[Kid_Eternity]

£15 aint that much, and besides I'd rather not risk getting banned as my main online gaming is CS with the U75 clan...

 

[siarc]

the leaked version is just a hacked copy, doesn't install at all so you couldn't get banned

how did valve become such a load of cunts

they were probably always cunts (ex microsoft after all) but half life was so good i thought they could do no wrong

 

[TonkaToy]

the leaked version is just a hacked copy, doesn't install at all so you couldn't get banned

how did valve become such a load of cunts

they were probably always cunts (ex microsoft after all) but half life was so good i thought they could do no wrong

Huh? What are they doing that soo cuntish?

 

[bmd]

£15 for a game lasting 4 1/2 hours is perhaps a bit steep.

True and if you bought it with SiN Emergence you'd be getting about 10 hours of gameplay for £30, which is shit really. I'm not massively impressed with episodic gaming so far, it just seems to be a cash cow.

The reason Valve give for the episodes being so short is that their research tells them that most people don't finish a game. So make them 10 times shorter and charge half as much!

The price of this episode kind of gives lie to all that bollocks they talk about how the game has to be so expensive to cover production costs. HL2 took 6 years and cost £35, this took 1 year and cost £15.