Half-Life 2 - I have seen the light

super_furry

Just nearing the end of it on the Xbox and it's already game of the year for me. With the original Half-Life, I never thought it lived up to the PC hype on consoles, and as I don't have a gaming quality PC, I expected the same from the sequel. I was wrong.

It's nigh on perfect and only spoiled slightly by the intrusive loading times, which in fairness are to be expected. The pacing, the story, the level design, the AI, the puzzles, everything is brilliant and while I still think the original Halo edges it out as the best console FPS, it's definately the best game I've played this year.

koneko

Loved it on PC, havent played it on Xbox but I've heard very good things about the port, apparantly they did a great job on it.

Ri_Nollaig

bit strange how they decided to release it on the xbox when the 360 was so close but from wat ive heard they did a great job

super_furry

And aparantly it runs terribly on the 360 - it's emulated badly and has a shocking frame-rate.

leeroybrown

It may have been a relativlely easy port to the Xbox given that it is just a cut down modified PC.

MontgomeryClift

and the conversion has been in progress for ages. Re-writing it for 360 would have been a serious job, maybe, with the different architecture and all.

R0ot

Played it on the PC, recently started playing it again, excellent game, a mate of mine tried the X-box version and he has not been in college for the last week.

evad_lhorg

i think it would have been better if they had have just put it as a launch title on 360

Omnipresence

yeah dunno why they did this.. would've been better to do a port and use the new hardware...

Bought my PC to play HL2 ! nothing has ever come close ... playing HL2 at 1600 res is seriously amazing....

Looking forward to part 2 which is due to be released around easter i think...

-Alan

Laguna

It's the best FPS I've ever played in my life and I've been playing them since the Doom days, I only have the PC version but I'm sure the Xbox version is the same more or less. It really does illustrate the half arsed job that Rare did with Perfect Dark Zero.

Nick_oliveri

aloleary wrote:

playing HL2 at 1600 res is seriously amazing....

What Graphics Card are you using?

Ive a flatscreen and the fooker wont go past 1024x768. Im using a Radeon X800. Got a nice surprise the other day when i tried to play F.E.A.R full blast. Needless to say it didnt go well.

Half Life 2 was and is the best game ive ever played. Felt like i was on ecstasy at the very end. Unbelievable game. Wasnt impressed by Lost Coast as i noticed no difference (Graphics up full) between the two graphics wise. And my god, such a short level/demo.

1huge1

loved half life 2 on the pc but downloading all the updates and everything else on isdn was brutal
so much to download to even let you play the game
and everytime i feel like playing it theres always something to download

tman

Nick_oliveri wrote:

Wasnt impressed by Lost Coast as i noticed no difference (Graphics up full) between the two graphics wise. And my god, such a short level/demo.

did you play it with the commentary on?
they explain all of the new jiggery pokery that's going on. fairly interesting expierience... even if most of it went way over my head:p

Omnipresence

Using a Radeon X850XT...

But instead of a flatscreen which was on offer with my PC at the time I went for the CRT, since this was not what most people were going for they threw in a 23" Trinitron Flatscreen (yes 23 !!) for playing games its amazing... no response time issues as with flat screens at the time... guess they are catching up now...

-Alan

Nick_oliveri wrote:

What Graphics Card are you using?

Ive a flatscreen and the fooker wont go past 1024x768. Im using a Radeon X800. Got a nice surprise the other day when i tried to play F.E.A.R full blast. Needless to say it didnt go well.

Half Life 2 was and is the best game ive ever played. Felt like i was on ecstasy at the very end. Unbelievable game. Wasnt impressed by Lost Coast as i noticed no difference (Graphics up full) between the two graphics wise. And my god, such a short level/demo.

Omnipresence

tman wrote:

did you play it with the commentary on?
they explain all of the new jiggery pokery that's going on. fairly interesting expierience... even if most of it went way over my head:p

I thought it was amazing... it was only a tech-demo rather than anything else... it was a level i think that was going to be in the game but didn't make it...

The HDR stuff is really cool though and should add that extra bit of realism in future games... the sun-glare and darkness re-adjusting of your eyes was very subtle but very good....

-A

ShiverinEskimo

The ending of Half life 2 was total bollox - pissed me right off.

johnny_ultimate

Yep, my favourite game ever. How they improved upon half life 1 is an amazing feat. And I kinda liked the ending... Roll on Half Life 3 (probably 2008 or so).

BLITZ_Molloy

I felt HL2 was incredibly good in some areas, but very weak in others. The guns were pretty limp and the AI of the enemy soldiers not nearly as fun as the previews had implied. From a purely shooter point of view it wasn't as punchy or satisfying as Code of Duty or Quake 4.

As far as storytelling goes I think HL2 is definately the future. It's just a shame they didn't have a story worth telling. The ending was a serious cop out. Just trying to string people along with sequels for 10 years instead of making a satisfying standalone experience.

GrumPy

i think it's great, but in terms off replay value? nah, cod2 multiplayer, or halo for me, i dont think theres many fps that have amuch of a replay value in story mode, but im still really enjoying HL2 none the less.