the eve of hl2

Okay, I finally got it to work after some fiddling. Runs suprisingly
well on such a crappy machine, and doesn't look half bad either. I tip
my hat. For future reference to everyone: It runs pretty well (25 FPS
at least) on a 2ghz GF4 MX machine. Loading times are really crazy, but
I usually read a book or something while it loads anyway.

Right now I'm on the "Water Hazard" chapter, and finally made it through after
getting murdered constantly by those damn rolling mines and stuff. To
make me feel worse, everyone says it's supposed to be so easy right
now... Bleh. Right now it doesn't really seem to revolutionary, I
dunno. The physics objects seem to be kind of like glorified pushables,
with you just adding weight to pulleys or whatever. Maybe I'm not far
enough? Must play more! :biggrin:

I'm up to the bit with that awesome Buggy with the Tau Cannon, man it's getting a lot tougher! Ant Lions everywhere!!!

I love it so far... it runs so great on my comp. The only problem is after about 30mins to an hour of play my comp just decides to stop... but it's worth it for hl2 :razz:

I REALLY wanna mod this... anyone have some original ideas we could try for a mod? :smile:

I haven't gotten to play it much yet, but I love it so far, I'm a little farther then where sloth is at the moment.

I seem to be able to run everything (minus filtering of course) on high at about 1600 x 1200 with little problems. It seems the audio effects it from time to time, but nothing major or annoying.
I'm surprised it's running so well, video wise, on my card. There are still things missing though, like more detailed shaders on people (since I have no pixel shader 2 registers)

Over all, it's so awesome, I love it so far. The only thing I think is really different from the first one is that it feels more as if you're watching it all happen as opposed to experiencing it, like in HL1. Maybe I just have to play it more.

Once I finally got home from work, I played into the early morning. Playing Ravenholm at night... and that's where physics and zombies come together pretty well... :smile:

Now I'm somewhere at the beach, and indeed, the game runs very well, though not on full specs but still looks really good. Too bad school demands my time now...

Anyone noticed Alyx' reactions when that other doctor is in the vicinity? Funny... :razz:

Oh man what a cliffhanger! It's a good ending in terms of what
you're actually doing, but don't expect much exposition. Though there
is a nice little piece of info on Gordon Freeman, if a little
small...like a sentence...heh...so yeah, after a good 17-18 hours, I finally beat the bloody thing. :smile:

Things get incredibly touch once you take to the City 17 streets,
though the last two chapters are easy, thanks to a certain weapon. :wink:
While it leaves a lot of questions unanswered, I didn't feel cheated by
the ending. It's a worthwhile conclusion to the events of the game, and
I'l certainly be looking forward to how HL3 fits into all of this (that
is, if they make one...which they bloody well better, unless I WILL
feel cheated!)

The only times I didn't enjoy the game were:

- One level in Ravenholm, where I was just wondering around for ages with zombies constantly spawning

- the buggy sequences were maybe a bit too long, though there was
a nice "Tremors" influenced sequence involving the ant lions that was
memorable.

- one of the bits in the prison where you have to setup turrets
and defend against wave after wave of combime...undoubtedly, the most
frustrating and hardest part of the game...

Apart from that, greatest game ever. :biggrin:

Ah yes, the part where you have to wait for Alyx and you have 3 turrets to set up. I just hid inside a turret locker and shotgunned anyone who came my way in the head (and picked up small bits of health they dropped). Took a few quick saves/loads, though About to get some strider action.

Really can't wait to finish the game, though. On a camera in the prison there was quite a disturbing picture of a man-thing, and I want to find out what it is (click here for what I mean).

I must say, the HL storyline is going in quite a strange direction with this game, one which I never would have guessed at. Though as a sci-fi fan the vortigons are soooo cheesey :heee:

Do you have to validate or "unlock" the DVD version? I might buy it in the end of the week.

Yes, you have to validate it - which seemed to take longer for me than it did to install the files to begin with.

I'm just before that bit in the prison with the turrets and so far what a game!. I don't know about you guys but the headcrabs are bad enough, let alone these new fast freaky ones that ride around on zombies. Ravenholm was a real bitch, especially that bit you got stuck on Yak, but excellent at the same time. Who would have thought commanding an army of bugs with a sack of hormones would be so much fun!

HL2 has definately opened the door for people who want to do a Starship Troopers mod, as fighting the ant lions reminded me of that, with a bit of good ol' shot gun action.

Adam Hawkins said:
Yes, you have to validate it - which seemed to take longer for me than it did to install the files to begin with.

Aww... Crap. I'm having a dial-up connection. How long did it take? I hope that it works faster at the end of the week...

I'm not sure how long it took as I went and cooked my dinner while I waited, and when I returned, it was done. I don't know whether it was the validation process that took a long time or whether it was Steam doing its stuff over the net that did it.

Validation took about 15 minutes for me, and then it downloaded something very small.

I've been playing for about 2 hours, i've just got past the point of opening the second huge door on the water buggie thing whilst getting attacked by helicopters :sad:

AAAAGGGHH DAMN YOU VALVE AND YOUR ENDING!

AAAAGGGHH DAMN YOU VALVE AND YOUR ENDING!

is it really that bad ?

Kage_Prototype said:

• one of the bits in the prison where you have to setup turrets and defend against wave after wave of combime...undoubtedly, the most frustrating and hardest part of the game...

What? That part was awesome. Actually almost all of Nova Prospekt was awesome.

Kage_Prototype said:

• one of the bits in the prison where you have to

setup turrets and defend against wave after wave of
combime...undoubtedly, the most frustrating and hardest part of the
game...

What? That part was awesome. Actually almost all of Nova Prospekt was awesome.

It would have been fun if I didn't keep dieing. :wink:

Forceflow said:
I have crappy video card (GF4 MX 460), so why bother downloading ?

I've got it running on minimum settings on my comp: 1 GHz PIII, 256 MB RAM, 32MB GF2 Go. It only looks slightly better than the original HL, and most of the models disapear if you are more than ten feet from them, but it's still fun.

Is anyone running this on a radeon 9600? If so, how does it run?

Is anyone running this on a radeon 9600? If so, how does it run?

My specs:

Athlon XP 2600+

512 MB RAM PC2100

Radeon 9600 Pro

I run with all high details, no AA, trilinear filtering, at 1280x1024,
and it tends to stay within the range of 20-40fps most of the time,
sometimes hitting lower or higher (higher moreso). The only problem is
that things can get jerky when entering a new area or someone says
something. Nothing a quick memory upgrade can't fix. :smile:
The coast areas tend to slug a bit, as do some of the water-intensive
scenes in the canals at the beginning, but otherwise, it's very smooth.
Valve have pulled some serious wizardry with this engine.

Has anyone else found crow hunting hilarious? I started shooting at the damn things just for the hell of it and was rather shocked to see one drop out of the sky!

xconspirisist said:
Is anyone running this on a radeon 9600? If so, how does it run?

My specs: AMD Athlon xp 2500+ 512 pc2700 Radeon 9600 pro 128mb [hercules]. Runs smoothly on medium settings.

Tracer Bullet said:
Has anyone else found crow hunting hilarious? I started shooting at the damn things just for the hell of it and was rather shocked to see one drop out of the sky!:lol:

That and throwing stuff at combine soldiers ...

Wow, thats pretty cool then. Doom 3 crashed, burned, and spat the ?29.99 back in my face.

That and throwing stuff at combine soldiers ...

Hehe, I love doing that. I threw a bottle at one of them... First it
looked down at the bottle, then it looked up at me and turned on its
baton! I ran for my life! :smile:

AAAAAARGH SHUT UP SHUT UP NO MONEY MUST BUY

aww man I already finished it I could kill for another 20 hours...

It didn't have the same impact as HL1 did, but it had a ton more kickass action. It would have helped if any of my questions of things between games were answered, but oh well

Okay I consider myself pretty strong of will - I resisted at least... 12 hours before ordering the boxed game online. I guess I can wait another week after these two years.

I like playing fetch with the robot....

So far, great game, some parts took me a while to figure out due to my small brain, that part where you had to put the bottles under the cage thingy to lift it up took me sooooooo long to get it!

I got stuck in ravenholm by the electric fence for a while, but while
some of the other puzzles took some time to figure out, they were
always challenging as opposed to frustrating.

Unfortunately my experience so far has been dampened by one thing - the
friendly NPC in ravenholm got stuck in a cliff! Unfortunately this
meant I had to use noclip to get through a gate he would otherwise have
opened, but at least it didn't ruin my game.

I wish I had more time to play it but I really need to focus on coursework at the moment :sad:

Holy crap those roof jumping monster things in raven [can't remember the rest of the name] are fricking scary!

"Fast zombies" are their technical name, I believe. Clever.

Heh, i'm still on the waterboat part, though I think i'm coming up to the end of it. I like how they've implemented the physics for things so far too - like putting the barrels under the ramp thing so that it floats up etc. Not exactly brain-taxing but very cool :smile:

Crono said:
That and throwing stuff at combine soldiers ...

And so I found out that, obviously, trying to throw a fuel barrel at a combine isn't a good idea...
While carrying a sentry gun in front of you is a much better idea... I actually carried one through half a level to get some extra firepower with me. Plus, it automatically targets and fires, even when held... Man, I love these things! :smile:

Woo! I completed it :smile:

Pretty short... but it was damn fun! Left me with the same feeling I had completing the first one...

Brilliant game, can't wait for the mods!

Haven't even bought the game yet, might leave it a week. No one in the general public is really buying it either- personally I'd say HL2 is a failure, I don't really wanna buy it, the PR has been terrible and theres no adverts for it. So cheeky they thought they could get away with no advertising. As a result all the games shops in the city of Plymouth are filled with copies of HL2 which no one is buying. And trust me- they arn't downloading it either.

There IS advertisting for it, even on TV! I've seen adverts in quite a
few games magazines as well, and of course don't forget the advertising
in the form of magazine / internet reviews and shop displays.

And you have no right to say its a failure without playing the damn thing, you old HL2 sceptic you :razz:

Myrk- said:
Haven't even bought the game yet, might leave it a week. No one in the general public is really buying it either- personally I'd say HL2 is a failure, I don't really wanna buy it, the PR has been terrible and theres no adverts for it. So cheeky they thought they could get away with no advertising. As a result all the games shops in the city of Plymouth are filled with copies of HL2 which no one is buying. And trust me- they arn't downloading it either.

:rolleyes:

sounds like somebody needs a hug!

Remember that the whole idea was to get HL2 out for the holiday season. Holiday season sales won't peak for a while yet.

ReNo said:
Unfortunately my experience so far has been dampened by one thing - the friendly NPC in ravenholm got stuck in a cliff! Unfortunately this meant I had to use noclip to get through a gate he would otherwise have opened, but at least it didn't ruin my game.

I found a similar bug when I was playing catch with DOG . I accidentaly threw his "ball" outside the level, so he just ran right through the cliff face to go get it, and never came back. Needless to say that sort of broke the rest of the sequence.

LOL, my flatmate did the exact same thing :biggrin:

I did that, but Alyx just said "Where's your ball gone dog?" and it moved on

Leperous said:
I did that, but Alyx just said "Where's your ball gone dog?" and it moved on

LOL, the gravity gun is fun :biggrin:

Myrk- said:
Haven't even bought the game yet, might leave it a week. No one in the general public is really buying it either- personally I'd say HL2 is a failure, I don't really wanna buy it, the PR has been terrible and theres no adverts for it. So cheeky they thought they could get away with no advertising. As a result all the games shops in the city of Plymouth are filled with copies of HL2 which no one is buying. And trust me- they arn't downloading it either.

Yeah, appearing in every PC game magazine on the face of the f**king planet means no advertising. So nobody in your town is buying HL2 = nobody in the world is buying HL2? Way to make a completely baseless argument, champ.

I haven't seen that much advertising nor buying in my place either, the game wasn't even sold in several toy shops, but that
doesn't mean it won't sell. Perhaps some people gotta find out it's
actually released for real this time first... :razz:

And I've finished it now too, yeah... wow, that last part was like
running on steroids, really... and indeed, as weird as usual. Rather
unusual actually. Mhh, well, anyway, gotta give the editor a go now.
Lat0rz!

uuhhh, i have to say it, sloths avatar is freaking me out.. its disturbing in its originality.

on that note, i have to crash, nite/nite all

Wasn't sold in toy shops? Well considering it isn't for kids...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v255/drew2k/alyx_underwear.jpg

Has anyone noticed this? :dodgy:

I was expecting softcore Alyx pr0n... oh well, its just a matter of time I guess... :dodgy: