Gaming News
Half-Life 2
I've read a lot of things on various forums regarding HL2 and its installation, some good and some bad, but once people manage to start playing, I've not seen a bad word written about it.
My personal experience was that the installation from a retail DVD went fine. I already had an up to date Steam installation, so that bit was not an issue (many people reported issues creating Steam accounts on the day, but that's hardly surprising given the load the servers must have been under). The only bit that took a while was the unlocking of files - that was a good 15-20 minutes. Once that was complete, the game started fine. Note that Trebz found that his installation from DVD failed unless he opted to install CS:Source aswell as HL2. The Valve HL2 Forums have plenty of discussions on installation issues.
So onto the game itself - absolutely superb. I've not got particularly far yet (just got to the bit where your bike thing gets its gun) but the bits I've seen are just great. It has the expansiveness and graphical detail of FarCry but on top of that it's kept the atmosphere of the original HL. The interaction between your character, the AI characters and the objects and scenery is spot on. The ability to pick up and move just about anything on the map meant they could be really creative with the various puzzles throughout the game. It's not just a case of finding hidden buttons or levers anymore. Eg in the sewers, there are a couple of places where you have to move bricks or barrels to weigh down one end of a plank of wood in order to make a ramp for your bike to jump off.
I've not had chance to look at the multiplayer side of it yet, but no doubt will do in due course.
My personal experience was that the installation from a retail DVD went fine. I already had an up to date Steam installation, so that bit was not an issue (many people reported issues creating Steam accounts on the day, but that's hardly surprising given the load the servers must have been under). The only bit that took a while was the unlocking of files - that was a good 15-20 minutes. Once that was complete, the game started fine. Note that Trebz found that his installation from DVD failed unless he opted to install CS:Source aswell as HL2. The Valve HL2 Forums have plenty of discussions on installation issues.
So onto the game itself - absolutely superb. I've not got particularly far yet (just got to the bit where your bike thing gets its gun) but the bits I've seen are just great. It has the expansiveness and graphical detail of FarCry but on top of that it's kept the atmosphere of the original HL. The interaction between your character, the AI characters and the objects and scenery is spot on. The ability to pick up and move just about anything on the map meant they could be really creative with the various puzzles throughout the game. It's not just a case of finding hidden buttons or levers anymore. Eg in the sewers, there are a couple of places where you have to move bricks or barrels to weigh down one end of a plank of wood in order to make a ramp for your bike to jump off.
I've not had chance to look at the multiplayer side of it yet, but no doubt will do in due course.
