http://www.forumplanet.com/planethalflife/topic.asp?fid=6549&tid=1352802

when he was booted from PlanetHalflife for the crime of being right too many times about Valves consistent history of lying and his comments on Valve's bullying Gamespy into deleting his content? I can just visualize Gabe Newell on the phone, "Hey, Gamespy I'm giving you a choice. You can have new Half-Life 2 pics for your little clickheads to drool over (came out today, and they are pretty nice. Almost FarCry quality http://media.pc.gamespy.com/media/492/492830/imgs_1.html) or you can keep that punkass on your staff? Entirely your choice."

But I kid. Surely in reality it wasn't that overt. I have to say from my limited but meaningful experience in Party politics it is always that overt. 

And it just re-affirmed my lack of interest in the title. I'm sure Valve will eventually ship this title, they eventually got Condition Zero out. Even if those shots look kind of pretty, they just don't seem exciting. I guess I'm missing something because nearly every other message board on the net is full of people talking about how great this game will be. How they know this is beyond me tho. The movies and screens released look pretty standard fair. The same can be said about Doom III in that regard, I just think the atmosphere of D3 will be more convincing. Either way, I'll hold judgement on this title until it ships, whenever that maybe. 

well, when i originally saw the e3 movie, i was stunned at some of the cool things like the realistic physics... but now that i've seen those same physics in games like mp2 and pk, it's just not as special anymore. i'm still looking forward to it, but i think that game should have been released a while ago... if they wait too long, all the cool uniqueness will be gone because other engines will have done it already. 

clickheads... that's awesome. This is of no relevance what so ever, but the essay I wrote for my last phil class included crediting Fragmaster in the endnotes. 

GG on linking the same shots I linked but in smaller sizes. 

in my righteous indignation I missed that. Shambler. Two self flagelating lashes on me back there!

And of course ProdigyXL, by saying that they 'look almost as good as Farcry" I was giving a backhanded compliment with the emphasis on the backhand. The models in those shots all have a 'stiff' look to them like a tensed up boxer in the first round. This one in particular http://media.pc.gamespy.com/media/492/492830/img_2101784.html is a good example of what I mean.

It is the same stiff look I get when I pose figures I have not yet animated for in game shots. I don't want to focus too much of the criticism on the creative staff because I'm sure there are many first rate artist in it, and I can empathise as well because the power fantasy that fuels every fascistic boss is to take those who work under them down with them. 

http://www.hl2fallout.com/screenshots/screenshots 

ehehe, that's so cute, a flash light that shines through monsters. walls that appear flat. boring architecture. sooooo 2003. 

how a game that looked so good at first, now looks utter shite.

BTW, ITS GONE GOLD!!!!ONEONEONEONEONEONEONE
oneone11 

Doom3 Barrels vs HL2 Barrels... let the FIGHT BEGIN!!! 

Half Life 15 |]4 |30|\/||3. Doom3 15 900|] 700, |3|_|7 |\|07 45 900|]

HL2 = |3357 94|\/|3 3\/4.

|<33|* |20(|<!|\|'. 

Half Life 15 |]4 |30|\/||3. Doom3 15 900|] 700, |3|_|7 |\|07 45 900|]

HL2 = |3357 94|\/|3 3\/4.

|<33|* |20(|<!|\|'.

"Half-Life is da bomb. Doom3 is good too, but not as good.

HL2 = best game eva.

Keep rockin'"

Am I doing this rite? 

resurrecting old threads is out of fashion 

tan tan 

jkvf;gmb
\ 

jkvf;gmb
\ 

I haven't played this yet. Watching bits of it, i just got too sick of every-one worshipping GF (jesus - i can't even say it), and Alexis seemed too cute for a shooter. I loved HL1, and HL2's tech looks amazing but something just doesnt grab me. I heard episode one was good. 

Was longer and seemed more inventive - they spent alot of time doing features instead of maps for ep1, or so it seemed.

HL2 is one of the best shooters I've ever played. Top 3 maybe. 

HL2 is amazing. As are both the episodes! Well worth playing if you're a shooter fan! 

I found Episode 1 a little boring, but Ep2 improved hugely on the original game which was a nice surprise! Sadly its innovations got a bit lost amongst the Portal and TF2 hype. 

i just replayed it a few days ago and i enjoyed ep1 more than ep2. for one, the whole caves section of ep2 at the start gets boring pretty quickly without much visual variety. i also wasn't a fan of being chased around by an unkillable ant lion guard for most of the map. the things i like most about hl2 were always the urban post-ap environments which ep1 had more of.
the ending to ep1 also was more visually interesting. technically, ep2's ending was probably more accomplished because it had a lot more complex npc scripting but launching a rocket and watching a far away light show is not as cool as escaping a city that's exploding at the back of a train while a gunship crashes down right behind you and scenery whizzes by at breakneck speed.

i have mixed feelings about ep3 (if it ever comes out, heh) because as far as i can tell, it'll take place in like the antarctic or something trying to get to that boat. that probably means no urban environments at all or probably a lot more caves.
i can only hope the aperture science tie in means we might portal to urban environments. :P 

I liked Zombines. Was awesome.

Awesome. 

I like ep 1 a bit better. It's somewhat less spectactular and the environment has less variation, but I feel like, looking back on it, it has a feeling of cohesion that ep 2 lacks to a degree.
I also feel like Episode 2 marks a potentially unfortunate shift in the tone of the story line. Although Half Life and HL 2 were reliant upon lots of typical Sci Fi tropes, an element of mystery and ambiguity kind of kept things from becoming corny.
Ep 2 gets more explicit with many things, and though it indicates there will be a true form of closure, I'm worried the story will be cornified and cheapened by some of the developments...

...or not...

I can't really put my finger on what it is that makes me feel this way... Does anyone else feel like this?

I just hope it doesn't suffer from X-Files/LOST type issues of interminable red herring loose thread bullshit and/or a sudden and retarded ending episode.

Depending on how it's done though, I think the environment could be pretty fucking awesome in this - and if the portal elements make it into the half life series I'll be incredibly stoked.

PS does anyone know if/when that HL 1 remake is gonna be released? 

They were meant to release at the end of 2009, so hopefully they are just crossing some T's and dotting some I's... Hopefully :)

I prefered Episode 2 over Ep1 myself, I really enjoyed the new Hunter enemies, they were excellently done and are great fun to fight against. The combat areas were a lot more freeform and allowed you to take out the enemies in the way you felt was best, rather than pigeon-holing you into a combat experience the developers intended.

Not to say episode 1 was bad in any way, I really enjoyed it! 

on the driving maps...

i don't know if there's some kind of maximum map coordinate size in hl2 like in quake (ie: -4096 to +4096) but the driving maps felt really small.
they tried to make them last longer by having you drive in the opposite direction, or have you go through winding roads but that only serves to underline how small the actual maps are.

there are sound files for the car in ep2 for up to 4th gear, but i rarely ever got out of 2nd.

on top of that, hl2 isn't exactly a racing game so it's not really fun to maneuver around twists and turns with just keyboard input.

the driving sequences in the original hl2 were more straight roads, iirc. and they just seemed a lot bigger in general. details were more sparse, but i think i'd actually prefer a little less detail and larger drivable areas.

i would have loved to have a bit of exposition from alyx while just driving on a long stretch of highway or something. it gives you the sense that you're really travelling.

i dunno, this post was more stream of consciousness than i thought it would be. :P
let's just say that whole back half of ep2 would have really really benefited from some kind of streaming map data thing.