Originally Posted by yahooadam well maybe for you, but for alot of people, $20 / £11-12 is a fair amount of money, escpecially for a mere 3 hours entertainment ....
Lasts longer than a movie for about the same price (theatre+food or DVD purchase), plus it's interactive. I've only done about half I'd guess as I had to go to work, but I'm not at all regretting the $18 I spent (woot for 10% off preorder)
£11 overpriced! lol the cheek tbh of this place. I havn't bought it.. but because of exams. This is less than a dvd (film) you buy in the shops (£15) and those are only 1.5 - 2 hours! What next? Your gonno say petrol is overpriced jeeez! [<-- thats a joke by the way]
Originally Posted by Boswell £11 overpriced! lol the cheek tbh of this place. I havn't bought it.. but because of exams. This is less than a dvd (film) you buy in the shops (£15) and those are only 1.5 - 2 hours! What next? Your gonno say petrol is overpriced jeeez!
To some people £11 isn't an insignificant ammount of money. They want something that if they come back to they can sink their teeth into for a few hours, not an afternoon. Regardless of the fact that this game costs less then other games, I still think it delivers half or less of the value for money, based on reported playtimes.
I've played a while through it now, and I'm at the part with all the Antlions. I have to say, I am impressed so far. It's like they took all the really cool cinema-like experiences from Half-Life 2, refinished them in better graphics, then polished up the animations, and packed them all into a shorter game. I thought the part where Dog throws the van was really cool, and so was the whole Core sequence with the energy bridges and such. Seems to run really well too, I've got like High on everything and frame syncing on.
Took me 5 hours (HL2 took me some 20 hours) Really enjoyed it.
Imho, those "mysterious ships" at the end appear to be the same pods the mysterious blob-aliens were in near the start of the game and you experienced the same red pulse when they flew overhead, which would seem to back that up (The combine bosses escaping the citadel's destruction ?)
Looked to me like there was a mini-strider in one of the video sequences at one stage, wonder if those will be in one of the next episodes ?
Oh graphics, I had everything maxed out at 1280*1024, not sure if it uses AA and HDR at the same time, HDR was definetely on and added a lot, didn't really notice jaggies so half suspect AA of some sort was on ? slowdown was almost non-existant (activated fraps on the G15 LCD at one point, lowest was apparently about 30, though I wasn't paying much attention to it) I think I even forgot to clock the card above stock before I started ;)
Edit add : also at the end, sat through the credits scrolling, watched the HL2 logo appear, glimpsed my desktop momentarily and then it was loading the menu back up, no trailer for me.
i preloaded it when we had the option to, started to play it and 9:30 pm (@£$%^work) went to bed at 12 wth a pounting head (bit weird for me) but compleated it today at 1pm, was a little to short for me but i found sin ep1 the same, i feal a little disaponted that i payed $20 for 5 hours of game play but did have a bit of fun playing murder in the dark when waitign for the lift
EDIT : first thing that came to my mind when dr barnet came to the screen was where is my crowbar (scientist killing club rules ;) )
Originally Posted by Bladestorm Edit add : also at the end, sat through the credits scrolling, watched the HL2 logo appear, glimpsed my desktop momentarily and then it was loading the menu back up, no trailer for me.
thats what happened to me .... wdf is goin on ....
a cinema ticket would cost me about £5, thats for 1.5-2 hours entertainment, and hl2e1 is basically another map, they havent added alot of content as far as i can tell ... i mean, theres the zombine .... what else did they add ...
Well i'm stil playing, (been quite busy) but I it keeps locking up at the end of levels, here it says "Loading" also changing the res once your into the game doesn't work for me either. Though I am enoying the game.
Playing through it atm. It was only at around 50% downloaded and the game started, yay.
I'm up to the bit a little after the first zombies, just about to drop down from a ventilation shaft. Pretty darn good so far :) That's around 2 hours-worth, anyway (plus the game crashed just at the van part and had to start again).
I love this game... just completed it... I find bizarrely there's only one appearance by our funny speaking friend; G-man.
must admit I found the huge bit with all the zombines and regular zombies annoying... I need more flares goddamnit! (not flared trousers, although that might help.)
could've done with being a bit longer, but for the 3 hours (ish) of gameplay it's incredibly good quality.
Also with an x800GTO 128mb (essentially a budget card nowadays) I can run everything on high including full HDR at 1280x1024 and 16AF... never drops below 30fps. Glad the half life 2 engine still runs well on modest hardware.
If you want the trailer for episode 2 (if you can't access it... or too skint to buy episode 1 :p) visit http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=11173&type=wmv for a nice HD video of it. I love the music in the vortigaunt carrying Alyx scene... prettiness. I think the (possible) loss of Alyx as shown in the trailer is a bit of a letdown... you find yourself getting emotionally attached to her... I love story based games :p
I just cannot believe this. I just cannot believe Valve is selling such a bland, totally uninspired POS, lasting only 5h for 20 USD.
I don't care about environments that took months and months to make, if they don't offer what I spent my money for: Being the canvas for a game. The fundamental property of a game is its interactivity, allowing the player to influence and control it. If I want to watch a movie, I go to a movie theater.
In HL2, the game controls the player. It's extremely linear. EP1 didn't even try to maintain an illusion of openess and a vast environment.
Some analysis:
Beginning of game: Loooong scripted sequence featuring the wonderful robot 'Dog' showing emotions to Alyx and throwing stuff around, including you and Alyx in a car wreck, followed by the car wreck doing a long slide down the fragmenting Citadel. I sat and watched ... and watched ... and watched ... and wondered when I would finally be allowed to continue to play.
Next I had to find my path through the Citadel. Been there, done that before. Hooray, I get the super grav gun, again, time to whack around Combine troops, again! Yawn.
Oopsie, how do I get through these energy balls? I hardly made that part, it made me curse. I had to switch difficulty down from hard to easy to get through that. Oh yeah, what a well balanced and polished game.
You call the pathetic "jump and run and whack some more combine to fix the reactor" part a riddle? Alright, to each his own. And why do I get this deja vu (heh) here? Oh yeah, HL1's blast pit!
Don't let me forget this "challenge" of the elevator ride where you have to play catch with the huge debris falling down on you. What a novel idea. Well, hold it, did I say "play catch"?
Fast forward a little ... fight your way through dark ruins and hordes of zombies, and, uh oh, Combine zombies that can survive insane amounts of lead pumped into them, rush you in a straight line and, yay! throw grenades at you that are really hard to escape from, given the cramped environments. (Man, I had seen something like this before: Remember those beheaded, bomb wielding guys from Serious Sam?) You have that fabulous grav gun, but all you can throw around with it are some concrete blocks. Where the heck are my saw blades and other fun stuff? What? Oh, alright, this time it isn't about fun, it's about displaying all the fabulous ideas and 1337 level building skills of the Valve people. Sorry, my bad. :p
Finally we reach the outside. So what? Deja vu, but a short one (funny that the ppl you have to escort in the end say that all the time ... )
Ok, back in some buildings. Did I hear some sarcasm in Alyx' voice when she referred to Gordon's duct crawling expertise? Yes, you guessed it, some more airduct crawling, leading to another
Challenging riddle: Get through a room booby trapped with laser mines and full of fuel barrels. Burn baby, burn. But hadn't I seen this before? Oh yeah, this is the armory from HL1, just 50 times smaller and w/o the Ninja spec ops! Could it be Valve just reckoned most of the HL2 audience would be too young to even know that anyway? (The whole game feels like its made for children 10 years and less of age).
What actually was a novel idea was that you can cover antholes with some big enough object to keep them from endlessly spilling out of them. It's only - after the third time of having to find three car wrecks and pushing them over three antholes you start to wonder whether the level designers had used some level toolkit here they just had to plug together ... deja vu, huh? :p
I found it also of stringent logic that you regularly had to circumvent some electrically locked door to turn on some regularly powerless door fuse.
What else was thrown in was
one Gunship to take down with RPGs (yawn)
one Antlion to take out w/o any good cover and any real chance to escape it (switched to easy here again, though normal would probably have done, but I got bored)
One Strider you first have to escape from by scaling huge containers (hold it, haven't I seen the container gig, too? Oh yes, it was in this storage hall in HL1, again with some ninja spec ops, d'uh!) It also was absolutely immersive (cough) that the Strider could blow away walls with it's main gun, yet its machine gun couldn't penetrate foil-thin steel plates provided as cover for you.
One combine troop transport. Heck, this thing took a lot of RPGs before it blew up!
Before the premature ending and the strider fight, you had to escort some groups of civilians through combine infested ground. Wow, now that was challenging! With the combine always appearing at the same spot ...
What I almost forgot is charming Alyx who I'd have shot if she hadn't been a "vital mission resource", just to get rid of her constantly standing in my way when I needed it least. :p
Finally a long train ride out of City 17, the reactor blast, screen turning white ... and the credits! Oh what, hey, that cannot be, I have just played this game for 5 hours! >:(
Anyway, apart from the complete repetitiveness of the game, it's an impertinent rip-off to offer me only 5h of game play for 20 bucks!
I paid about 40 USD for HL1, and it took me like 60h to play through it, and I played it twice. That's what I'd call "bang for the buck". Same for Descent, Operation Flashpoint, or Deus Ex. Ghost Recon, which was a great game, lasted somewhat shorter, and the addons were rather short too, but they were absolutely thrilling and fun to play. That's what I call "quality", and it has to do with the essence of the game. For me the HL2 package has become a big, huge, 10 cft shiny box with two or three small pieces of candy inside.
I am done with Half-Life, and I give a flying f* about its story (and having to pay 20 bucks for each of a countless number of way too short 'episodes' to find out more about it).
Time to move on.
karx
PS: When Alyx christened the Combine zombies "zombines", she mentioned it twice to make sure you understood her stroke of genious. What I am hearing there is actually the level designer (or whoever came up with this), who found his idea so brilliant he had to make sure everybody got it. Geez, how old is this guy? 12?
For $20 dollars I'm happy, grabbing it off steam is by far the best way to get the game in the UK with the excange rate being almost $2=£1. Had I bought this on the shops for £20 I would have been really annoyed. I'm resisting reading your article, I havn't got very far on it yet so I don't want to spoil it but it's a very cool idea.
I'm enjoying the game, I think it might've been better to sell it for 10-15USD though for the amount of stuff you get, and it is kind of a technical demo of the improved engine like lost coast but carrying on the story of HL2 instead of being completely random. The audio commentary is a nice touch, I enjoyed listening to it in Lost Coast so after I complete the game I'm gonna have another run through with the commentary on.
Originally Posted by Bladestorm I guess 10% off for pre-order (ie $18) is a start, though I'm still not sure where that last pound or so has gone.
yes its $18 with the 10% pre-order discount, however, that does not include tax
by the time you add tax, it came to $21.09 which is £11.30 somthing (with the exchange rate of the 31st may)
But dont forget credit card companys generally screw you over on the exchange rate
Originally Posted by yahooadam yes its $18 with the 10% pre-order discount, however, that does not include tax
by the time you add tax, it came to $21.09 which is £11.30 somthing (with the exchange rate of the 31st may)
But dont forget credit card companys generally screw you over on the exchange rate
Yes, but it's still alot better than the £19.99 price in UK shops.
I completed it last night, and in spite of all the complaints about "not being worth it" I thought it was. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, the graphics are amazing, and I can't wait for Episode Two.
It was pretty fun. Too short though even for the £10 price and ending it on a cliffhanger is just cheap. I played it through on hard in 3hrs of game time so it was too easy aswell where's the episode 2 trailer?
Comments 51 to 75 of 96
ReplyAlso, I managed to get Alyx killed, oops! It would appear that she is not completely indestructable, but just very tough. :D
To some people £11 isn't an insignificant ammount of money. They want something that if they come back to they can sink their teeth into for a few hours, not an afternoon. Regardless of the fact that this game costs less then other games, I still think it delivers half or less of the value for money, based on reported playtimes.
Oh and petrol is overpriced.
Imho, those "mysterious ships" at the end appear to be the same pods the mysterious blob-aliens were in near the start of the game and you experienced the same red pulse when they flew overhead, which would seem to back that up (The combine bosses escaping the citadel's destruction ?)
Looked to me like there was a mini-strider in one of the video sequences at one stage, wonder if those will be in one of the next episodes ?
Oh graphics, I had everything maxed out at 1280*1024, not sure if it uses AA and HDR at the same time, HDR was definetely on and added a lot, didn't really notice jaggies so half suspect AA of some sort was on ? slowdown was almost non-existant (activated fraps on the G15 LCD at one point, lowest was apparently about 30, though I wasn't paying much attention to it) I think I even forgot to clock the card above stock before I started ;)
Edit add : also at the end, sat through the credits scrolling, watched the HL2 logo appear, glimpsed my desktop momentarily and then it was loading the menu back up, no trailer for me.
EDIT : first thing that came to my mind when dr barnet came to the screen was where is my crowbar (scientist killing club rules ;) )
a cinema ticket would cost me about £5, thats for 1.5-2 hours entertainment, and hl2e1 is basically another map, they havent added alot of content as far as i can tell ... i mean, theres the zombine .... what else did they add ...
i blame the zombines.
i am confused.
I'm up to the bit a little after the first zombies, just about to drop down from a ventilation shaft. Pretty darn good so far :) That's around 2 hours-worth, anyway (plus the game crashed just at the van part and had to start again).
must admit I found the huge bit with all the zombines and regular zombies annoying... I need more flares goddamnit! (not flared trousers, although that might help.)
could've done with being a bit longer, but for the 3 hours (ish) of gameplay it's incredibly good quality.
Also with an x800GTO 128mb (essentially a budget card nowadays) I can run everything on high including full HDR at 1280x1024 and 16AF... never drops below 30fps. Glad the half life 2 engine still runs well on modest hardware.
If you want the trailer for episode 2 (if you can't access it... or too skint to buy episode 1 :p) visit http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=11173&type=wmv for a nice HD video of it. I love the music in the vortigaunt carrying Alyx scene... prettiness. I think the (possible) loss of Alyx as shown in the trailer is a bit of a letdown... you find yourself getting emotionally attached to her... I love story based games :p
anyway, I yabber on too much.
I don't care about environments that took months and months to make, if they don't offer what I spent my money for: Being the canvas for a game. The fundamental property of a game is its interactivity, allowing the player to influence and control it. If I want to watch a movie, I go to a movie theater.
In HL2, the game controls the player. It's extremely linear. EP1 didn't even try to maintain an illusion of openess and a vast environment.
Some analysis:
Beginning of game: Loooong scripted sequence featuring the wonderful robot 'Dog' showing emotions to Alyx and throwing stuff around, including you and Alyx in a car wreck, followed by the car wreck doing a long slide down the fragmenting Citadel. I sat and watched ... and watched ... and watched ... and wondered when I would finally be allowed to continue to play.
Next I had to find my path through the Citadel. Been there, done that before. Hooray, I get the super grav gun, again, time to whack around Combine troops, again! Yawn.
Oopsie, how do I get through these energy balls? I hardly made that part, it made me curse. I had to switch difficulty down from hard to easy to get through that. Oh yeah, what a well balanced and polished game.
You call the pathetic "jump and run and whack some more combine to fix the reactor" part a riddle? Alright, to each his own. And why do I get this deja vu (heh) here? Oh yeah, HL1's blast pit!
Don't let me forget this "challenge" of the elevator ride where you have to play catch with the huge debris falling down on you. What a novel idea. Well, hold it, did I say "play catch"?
Fast forward a little ... fight your way through dark ruins and hordes of zombies, and, uh oh, Combine zombies that can survive insane amounts of lead pumped into them, rush you in a straight line and, yay! throw grenades at you that are really hard to escape from, given the cramped environments. (Man, I had seen something like this before: Remember those beheaded, bomb wielding guys from Serious Sam?) You have that fabulous grav gun, but all you can throw around with it are some concrete blocks. Where the heck are my saw blades and other fun stuff? What? Oh, alright, this time it isn't about fun, it's about displaying all the fabulous ideas and 1337 level building skills of the Valve people. Sorry, my bad. :p
Finally we reach the outside. So what? Deja vu, but a short one (funny that the ppl you have to escort in the end say that all the time ... )
Ok, back in some buildings. Did I hear some sarcasm in Alyx' voice when she referred to Gordon's duct crawling expertise? Yes, you guessed it, some more airduct crawling, leading to another
Challenging riddle: Get through a room booby trapped with laser mines and full of fuel barrels. Burn baby, burn. But hadn't I seen this before? Oh yeah, this is the armory from HL1, just 50 times smaller and w/o the Ninja spec ops! Could it be Valve just reckoned most of the HL2 audience would be too young to even know that anyway? (The whole game feels like its made for children 10 years and less of age).
What actually was a novel idea was that you can cover antholes with some big enough object to keep them from endlessly spilling out of them. It's only - after the third time of having to find three car wrecks and pushing them over three antholes you start to wonder whether the level designers had used some level toolkit here they just had to plug together ... deja vu, huh? :p
I found it also of stringent logic that you regularly had to circumvent some electrically locked door to turn on some regularly powerless door fuse.
What else was thrown in was
- one Gunship to take down with RPGs (yawn)
- one Antlion to take out w/o any good cover and any real chance to escape it (switched to easy here again, though normal would probably have done, but I got bored)
- One Strider you first have to escape from by scaling huge containers (hold it, haven't I seen the container gig, too? Oh yes, it was in this storage hall in HL1, again with some ninja spec ops, d'uh!) It also was absolutely immersive (cough) that the Strider could blow away walls with it's main gun, yet its machine gun couldn't penetrate foil-thin steel plates provided as cover for you.
- One combine troop transport. Heck, this thing took a lot of RPGs before it blew up!
Before the premature ending and the strider fight, you had to escort some groups of civilians through combine infested ground. Wow, now that was challenging! With the combine always appearing at the same spot ...What I almost forgot is charming Alyx who I'd have shot if she hadn't been a "vital mission resource", just to get rid of her constantly standing in my way when I needed it least. :p
Finally a long train ride out of City 17, the reactor blast, screen turning white ... and the credits! Oh what, hey, that cannot be, I have just played this game for 5 hours! >:(
Anyway, apart from the complete repetitiveness of the game, it's an impertinent rip-off to offer me only 5h of game play for 20 bucks!
I paid about 40 USD for HL1, and it took me like 60h to play through it, and I played it twice. That's what I'd call "bang for the buck". Same for Descent, Operation Flashpoint, or Deus Ex. Ghost Recon, which was a great game, lasted somewhat shorter, and the addons were rather short too, but they were absolutely thrilling and fun to play. That's what I call "quality", and it has to do with the essence of the game. For me the HL2 package has become a big, huge, 10 cft shiny box with two or three small pieces of candy inside.
I am done with Half-Life, and I give a flying f* about its story (and having to pay 20 bucks for each of a countless number of way too short 'episodes' to find out more about it).
Time to move on.
karx
PS: When Alyx christened the Combine zombies "zombines", she mentioned it twice to make sure you understood her stroke of genious. What I am hearing there is actually the level designer (or whoever came up with this), who found his idea so brilliant he had to make sure everybody got it. Geez, how old is this guy? 12?
I'm enjoying the game, I think it might've been better to sell it for 10-15USD though for the amount of stuff you get, and it is kind of a technical demo of the improved engine like lost coast but carrying on the story of HL2 instead of being completely random. The audio commentary is a nice touch, I enjoyed listening to it in Lost Coast so after I complete the game I'm gonna have another run through with the commentary on.
by the time you add tax, it came to $21.09 which is £11.30 somthing (with the exchange rate of the 31st may)
But dont forget credit card companys generally screw you over on the exchange rate
Yes, but it's still alot better than the £19.99 price in UK shops.
-
« Previous
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
Next »
Discuss in the forums