To keep Riot Act installer small, they did not include some sound files. These are compiled on engine first launch. I did it with Steam online and got no problem.

Very good mod! Comes close to Minerva, I'd say... 

I tried Steam on-line with and without HL2 on-line, but no joy.

I can get it to work if I run it in a window. 

With Episode One, and I had to physically carry my computer into my fathers office (from my house, a street away), and plug it in to the internet just to get it to work. And then my dad came in and said 'what are you doing to my computer!!!'. So I explained how the bastards at Valve mad a game which you have to connect to the internet atleast once even if you dont want to play online.

Then I installed Roit Act (among other things) and it wouldnt let me play it for the same reason.

Thats whay I'll stick to my 360 for HL games, although I know I'm losing out on all the custom stuff!

Shame really, I should go and get broadband installed at my house!! 

Very nice. Felt better and longer than Episode 1. I hope they expand on the (somewhat) nonlinear elements, namely the valley fight. The hint at the microwave casseroll incident made me laugh. Looking forward to Episode 3 and it would be cool if it included a return to the Black Mesa facilities..

Barney isn't there for obvious reasons: he died in the explosion of City 17 - that's what he got for being foolish enough to attempt rescuing survivers. Sorry czg :/ 

 

[SPOILERS]


it would be cool if it included a return to the Black Mesa facilities..

Black Mesa was nuked by the warhead at the end of Opposing Force. Also: no, it wouldn't be cool. Stories should not run backwards.
Also: Ep3 is to be set in the Arctic, on the trail of the legendary Borealis and the Aperture Science tech on board.


Actually, this leads me to something I've been thinking about a lot since completing Ep2.

It seems clear to me that there is a 'seasonal' cycle being played out in the design of HL2.
Going by screenshots of the Ep2 trailers on its Wikipedia page, Ep2 received something of a chilly misty facelift after the first trailer was made. The pine forest setting was already there, but Valve deliberately made it more cold and....autumnal. And Ep3 is to take place above the Arctic circle in what one can only assume will be snowy terrain maps.

So lets run through this from the start...

Half-Life: Black Mesa, New Mexico desert. Hot. Bright. Sun-drenched. Summer

Half-Life 2 -> Ep1: Eastern Europe. In the City. While a variety of day/night times are used, sunsets are prominent and one of the developer commentaries even mentions an 'autumnal' coloring for the streets in Ep1. Summer gives way to Autumn

Ep2: Europe. Out of the City. Mist. Cold blues and greens positively saturate the Ep2 color palette. Autumn gives way to the ominous onset of Winter

Ep3: Almost immediately following the brutal death of a key character, our heroes must travel north, above the Arctic circle into cold. And probably dark. Winter

Half-Life 3 ???: The worst to befall humanity yet, the darkest hour etc. The final battle to permanently liberate Earth of the invaders.
Humanity travels out of the dark Winter into a new beginning...Spring


I maybe spend a tad much time thinking about flavour text and the like, but it's hard to deny the deliberate design choice of ambience in Ep2 and the likelihood of Ep3 taking place in an even colder, snowy environment as already seen in the Mossman communication.

And this is exactly the sort of mature design approach typical of Valve.

So I just want it on record that I called it :P 

Barney isn't there for obvious reasons: he died in the explosion of City 17

You are a bad, bad person and you are going to android hell.



There won't be any cake. 

You smoke beetles and it's going to piss down in HL3. 

since everyone's being positive, i feel i should mention this:

most of the cave levels blew. :( 

pretty cool, even though for some reason it looks very jaggy despite me having 8xSAA on.

Movement feels shit but once you get used to that, all the different combat possibilities are great. 

http://www.gamedesign.jp/flash/chatnoir/chatnoir.html 

that is so cool. 

Heh, fun, it's strange it kinda feels like playing a very basic version of Go. 

I have a boardgame quite similar to that, just that it's on a rectangular grid and you can build towers. once two towers stand in a combination like the horse in chess, you can build a wall between them. Goal is to reach the other side of the board. 

is AWESOME

Such cool design, doesn't need any instructions or words at any point... seems impossible for a while but then you I got the hang of it and it's very satisfying. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TwixT 

since everyone's being positive, i feel i should mention this:

most of the cave levels blew. :(


I'm not entirely positive about Ep2. I agree with czg; while it isn't bad, I wasn't blown away by it the way I was by HL2 and Ep1.

What was it though about the cave levels that "blew"?

I thought the actual sculpting was superb, really the first cave map to actually be shaped exactly the way real caves are. I wondered if it had been made as a model in max or maya and then imported, until I played with commentary and discovered it was done with Hammer's 'displacements'. I've heard of this before, but I have no idea how it works.

I also thought the custom shader written specifically to render the look of a flashlight casting long shadows off every little protrusion on the surface was the first use of bump mapping I've seen that added something useful to the experience.

The colors otoh I was less impressed with. The same green and blue the Valve team apparently decided to make the signature palette of Ep2. Kinda bleh, and gray/brown would have been fine

The Larval Essence was also a disappointment. As an item significant for being both:
1) the key to saving Alyx's life
2) the goal of a sizeable chunk of stylised mapping in the episode
it should have had a unique model, placed in the center of a spiral-like cavern path.
Instead, I wanted to ask the Vort why we couldn't have just got some from the identical honeycombs I'd been fighting my way past for the last quarter of a mile.

But I still found the caves a cool place to be, and the combat fortunately wasn't tediously hard, unlike when you are later bludgeoned with the Hunters.

So what blew? 

My parents had a box of old board games from the 60s and 70s. One of them was twixt. Another one was that version of mastermind with the james-bond-themed cover:

http://www.junkyardclubhouse.com/2007/04/08/mastermind/

Here was the twixt cover:

http://members.aol.com/ttonuch/images/twixt.jpg

And of course everyone seemed to have yahtzee back then. 

that mastermind as a travel-version right here, I'm holding it in my hand as I type. Parents have the normal bigger version at home.
Game of the year! 

that version of mastermind with the james-bond-themed cover

Oh dear god >_<

Yes, when you look at this distinguished man sitting at the table, you can now know that his lap is secretly spoiled with cat pee.

The world is now a very slightly, but permanently, better place ^_^ 

I used to have that version of mastermind too! I remember thinking even back then it was a slightly odd cover, and the guy didn't look like a mastermind of anything much, and the girl didn't look much like a bond girl. 

sorry, i should have explained what i meant in the original post.

it's not so much that it blew in the sense that i thought it was not well done. it's just that that set of levels is incredibly visually boring. the part where you have to basically run from one hidey hole to the next before the antlion guard kicks your ass bugged me. 1 because i don't really enjoy gameplay like that when i can't really fight back and 2 because the tunnels all look so damn similar, i was never really sure where to go.

the last part, where you see the antlion standing across a chasm, and then you have to make the longest run to the next hidey hole than any of the other runs, for example.
i didn't actually know where to go, and the first time i took the correct path to go the long way, i thought i had taken a wrong turn (because of the incredible distance vs the other times) and so when the antlion headbutted me, i didn't bother trying to actually get into the hole and just reloaded, instead trying to go the other way which leads back to the beginning.
it took me like 4 reloads before i realised which way to go and it was really annoying.

also: regarding the honeycomb model, i noticed that too! hehe

i think another reason i didn't really like it was because i was really looking forward to seeing more of the city/town stuff and almost from the start you're plunged into (what i found to be) really boring caves.

i would have loved to see more of the topside mine entrance area. instead, i had to run through really quickly because antlions were making eyes at me.
also, the area right after alyx is healed where you fight in the huge canyon, as well as the spot before you heal alyx where you take that long elevator up and watch the vort take on a horde of guys for a little bit.

otoh, i really liked hunter combat! i liked how they were introduced early on at the mine entrance, and then the first combat at the communication building at the top of the hill. really fun and fast paced fighting = win, for me. :)
i also thought the fight in the hotel when the combine traps you was awesome. what with all the dudes outside shooting in, and the hunters breaking through the walls, it was hectic and awesome.

i have yet to replay with commentary on, mainly because i don't really feel like it. maybe when i hear some of the rationale for the choices they made i'll like it more, but i don't think it should be necessary to listen to dev commentary to like a game.

sorry for the disorganization of my thoughts, btw. >_< 

Heh, I have the same version too. Never put the cover in relation to a James Bond theme (though it actually fits well). Never liked the game much either. 

Just finished it. Liked it. 

I never tried a web flash game before. It's pretty addictive.

I've done it a few times and am very slowly picking up some vague ideas how to do it. But I still feel I'm not grasping the game mechanics, more just floundering around and occasionally glimpsing what to do...