Also: Cones.
http://planetquake.com/greyvoid/mancubus.jpg 

no spoilers
or type this first before your spoiler:

---------------spoiler---------------

kthx 

Well I hope up at 6:00 a.m. so that I could play for a while before my 8:00 a.m. class. After unlocking the game which took 5-10 minutes, even on my super rig, then another 2 minute load I was into the game.

First off all those previes that mentioned the facial expressions made by the characters are spot on. The characters really seem to portray a life that hasn't really been accomplished yet. Doom 3 did a very admirable job, but HL2 really emotes feeling from the players.

Beyond that game seems pretty sweet. You'll see some returning characters on the way. I haven't gotten very far but you can already see how Valve is attempting to give you freedom within the environment in respect to what you can pick up and move. So far, very postive experience.

Exciting stuff, looking forward to the rest of the campaign. I'll comment more when I'm further. 

Just played for about 4 hours. I'm in the canal section right now. Setting is good. Environment looks good. Characters and stuff look good. The puzzles are good.

It's good! 

 

Censored the title?? Eh?? Justify yourself you power-mad reptile. Don't you know tongue-in-cheek irony when you see it (in which case, I'm assuming it was an american...). 

26%.................27%.........

...argh! :D 

it was me

now eat me 

Looks like tonight I'm gonna be "unlocking" a little "steam", and I'm not talking about Half-Life 2, gnome sane?

^_~ 

not sure what you are saying there, Kinn ol' bud. 

he's got a whole bunch of poo stored up cookin' in his bowels. it's hot and steamy. he needs to poo. 

Good luck with that Kinn. 

Graphics are pretty. Not a technological feat like Doom 3 was, but they are functional. Nothing here we haven't seen before.

Atmosphere; AA+++*++. It's like Soviet Union circa 1981 with aliens in the future! ( http://angryflower.com/only4d.gif )

Physics are awesome. Period. Not sure if they are "better" that what we've been seeing in Doom 3, but so far they've certainly been put to much better use. (Albeit there are a few overly obvious setups.)

The facial expressions thing that people are gawking about is truly gawkable. Impressive stuff, looks totally convincing.

Gameplay is kinda ok-ish atm. So far I've just made it to the end (I think) of the canals section, so I've got quite a way to go yet. There are some great moments when you're running around and you're like OMG GUARDS, and you hop off into somewhere and like OMG MANHACKS and then you run into some exploding barrels and you like OMG EXPLODING OMG BARNACKLES! Excellent!
But inbetween those moments, sadly, it's walking along some place, oh hello guard, bang dead repeat.

Finally, Barney is fucking sexy ^_~ 

bah! 

I have minimum spec to play the game. Weeeeee. Maybe I will buy it after all. ;) 

CZG got fanbw0y0xr3d! 

I don't think it's fantastic. It's good tho. 

is in need a hottie. Is it possible to have attractive (read sexy) MALE videogame heros? Is Valve note only breaking gameplay barriers, but also the social barriers of our very exsistence? 

To start up dammit! I start it up and after about 2 minute's of hard drive access it stops and freezes up. Fucking steam can bite my ass. 

i wonder... will this work on a 1.80ghz celeron with no "real" video card? (just a 64mb intel graphics thing) hehe. damn :( oh yes, 512mb of ram. :)

*me goes to die 

It'll run I'm sure, just don't count on it being as pretty as the screen shots you've been seeing. Your intergrated video system is probably only a DX7, maybe 8 class card. As a result you won't get the reflections to look that great as all the 9.0x cards. I would suspect you would also have to turn down most of the details and resolution, and forget about AA and AF. Still it might run, I get the feel that it is a fairly scalable engine. 

Errrr, how have people got on with the "You must download an entire HDD full of Steam technology and suck steams dick for 24 hours before being allowed to play" stuff?? Seeing some bad reports from Blues, and as someone who has no interest in Steam and never will have any, is it possible to get the game working in a simple conveninent manner?? 

Only way to avoid steam.

Me personally haven't had any trouble with steam, but it sitting in my systray, me knowing that within lies the possibilities to play CS...
It makes me feel so dirty! 

Gotta find a no-steam crack then I guess. I find it offensive that Valve think they're so fucking special that they can force paying customers to go through some tedious extra rigmarole just to promote their damn Steam service. 

I've seen that HL2 will be proposed on X-Box near May 2005, but what about other console platforms (PS2 particularly) Does Anybody know if HL2 will be proposed on PS2.. or not ??