Looks like its finally happening, Vivendi made it official today with a November 16 worldwide release date.
[url]http://www.vugames.com/news_story.do?storyId=1963[/url]
Woo!
Beautiful! Finally something to compete with Halo 2 (Which i personally think isnt going to be as great as raved about, remember Doom III? [;)])
Hopefully none of us are as crazy as this guy called Greg: http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTA5ODExODA5OFJhd1J2R2x2enZfMV8…
Tbag I'm with you, Halo didn't do it for me at all, not even for a bit of meaningless fun.
Playing it on the console is one thing since FPS's just shouldn't be played with a controller but when you play the PC version it showed how bad the gameplay was, in my opinion it was the most basic form of FPS I've played, (long winding corridors hiding the loading then arena area with enemies then repeat til car bit) never got the hype.
But halflife now that was a game and if they make HL2 even close to HL1 then its a guaranteed success, I'm quietly confident they will which is good as I've been finding most PC games and alot of console games in the last few years have been a real let down.
Fable, Doom3, Deus Ex2 etc, none of these titles lived up to the PR hype-wagon.
If Valve make Halflife 2 rock it may cause other developers (or more importantly publishers) to realise they can't rest on goodlooks alone, we want depth and story dammit, even if its a risk to build!!
Bring on Nov 16th!!!
Malus, what makes Halo a great game for me is the enemy AI. I don't know how many times when I first started playing that I was outsmarted by the enemies during skirmishes because I thought it was just a standard FPS game, but Halo really pushes you to learn how to be better than the enemy, learn their patterns and implement attack strategies. Maybe you never experienced that and perhaps that's why you don't dig it. Never play Halo on anything below expert cause you're simply missing out on the main reason to play. Oh, and Co-op rules.
The only thing i dont get is why Halo was such a massive success, i mean come on though, the only thing it has over other FPS' is Co-Op and the ability to fight along side other marines (At the time of its release, there werent many games with big groups of marines fighting along side you). Im thinking possibly because it is the only decent FPS on the Xbox and at that time its graphics were considered awesome as opposed to PCs? [:p].
But i cant see how Halo 2 is going to really live upto the hype, Aliens invade earth (Very, very original [:p]), a couple of new enemies, a few graphics tweaks and a few new maps and apparently we have the worlds greatest game? It may do very well or it maybe a major letdown. But i cant wait to see what Halo 3 will be like, they have basically killed the storyline now as the aliens are getting revenge on the human race, unless the aliens strike back again in Halo 3 [:p]...
Anyway, my flag is up for Half-Life 2 at this point, although i am invited to a Halo 2 launch LAN party inwhich i will checkout Halo 2 for the first time [:p].
i think the important thing to remember about its success is that halo was a console game and as such it has a slightly different audience to the pc (although there is crossover). A lot of different people (casual gamers, kids too young to have really gotten into the pc predecessors) were exposed to that type fps which was never really seen executed that well on a console before. That's merely in relation with its sales, as its the only conclusive way to measure success because people are always going to differ in opinion of the games quality.
That said, i personally really enjoyed the game, mainly in the co-op mode rather than single. I also have to agree with many of wizend's points, im yet to find a console shooter which has executed, ai, teamwork, and graphics in such a great way. It seems to me that a lot of pc gamers have a predetermined aversion to console games for various reasons, and as such they seem unable to enjoy the game even if it isn't as bad as they want to think.
In the end though, its pointless comparing games that haven't been released yet and im personally looking forward to both of them (plus MGS3).
Conundrum/Wizenedoldman: I work on console titles, and all though I was mainly a PC guy before I got my Xbox I don't have a predeliction to just PC's at all, I just go for well made and fun games.
I would say that the FPS genre is better implemented on PC's, thats just a given due to the controllers and available tech.
As I also stated I played Halo (and completed on hard) on both xbox and PC, I didn't feel the AI was more superior to most FPS's at that time.
I think it was probably just that most console based FPS's didn't have great AI so it was an improvement on what console owners where used too.
I put its success down to being the best of the bunch on consoles, if it was released soley on PC it probably wouldn't have done as well, but then again aliens, cars and big guns always sell, lowest common denominator and all that.
Personally I just found the game a tad plug and play, not my thing, nothing really innovative.
I could tell exactly when something was going to go down, (you just needed to reach the end of those winding corridors lol) I could react easily to the AI after a few levels (until the swarm area then it took a few more to readjust), the vehicles were interesting but more like a bullet point for coolness than actually well intergrated and the weapons unbalanced and on the most part pointless (shotgun and alien assault is all you needed).
But I guess this all just comes down to my personal taste in gameplay styles.
I guess I just find it a bit disconcerting when the most popular games seem like a backwards step in terms of gameplay, story and depth. As consumers we seem to be propergating great looking but basically formulaic, flawed and shallow games over the real stand out stories, if this keeps up we'll end up with a Hollywood style games industry, not one striving for new things.
Tell you what though, I wish I was the marketing genius who figured out the fanboy marketing strategy!
"Let the consumers fight our marketing battles with competitors and its all free advertising!" Brilliant lol. [:P]
I first had a bit of an aversion to consoles, but since getting my Xbox this year, I've completely turned around. I hardly ever play PC games at the moment. There is a lot more variety to be found on the consoles that is missing on the PC.
In regards to Halo, I've played both the Xbox and PC versions. Thouroughly enjoyed playing it on the Xbox, but the PC version isn't that great. Theres something about Halo that makes it good on the console. Singleplayer is good, coop is great, and multiplayer with a few people is just a blast. Since getting my Xbox I've wasted countless nights playing Halo multiplayer.
Turning back to the subject of Half-life 2, finally the bloody thing is done! And it arrives just after I finish exams for the year, perfect.
Unlikley it will come this November, probally next year, as they developers are in a court battle that will probally take it into next year.
"Valve and Vivendi are embroiled in a legal battle that may last well into the new year. The rift is over Balve's wish to sell the game online while boxed copies, which Vivendi will sell, are still on the shelves."
That is from the Herald Sun.
Personally if i was the judge i would tell Vivendi to kiss my balls, Valve made the game and as usual some cheap money grubbing whores are after it.
I highly doubt it wont make its release date on November 16th, considering hundreds of thousands of Half-Life 2 copies are currently been duplicated in a factory somewhere, im pretty sure the factory manager would be pretty pissed to lose $150,000+ worth of CDs and what not.
i think from what i know of the situation, vivendi's argument is valid. they are the ones who have pumped a substantial amount of money into the production of the game and given valave over 6 years to complete it, then valve decides to distribute copies of the game through their own system taking the money and leaving vivendi out of the loop, which would be fair enough if the game was self funded, but vivendi financed it. sure, a lot of people complain about the way publishers treat developers but i dont think this justifies valve actions. mainly because if this sets a precedent, then other developers would start doing it too, leading to either the publishers asking for a higher level of ownership on the game content or simply not funding as many games, either way, everyone loses.
Even the customer loses [:(].
See from what i was told, Vave funded the whole game themselves, but now i know the whole story i can re-think over what i said [;)].
I still dont get it though, why dont they just agree to give Vivendi like 20% of the profits from Steam, i mean come on its Half-Life 2, you can tell its gonna sell pretty damn well and at a 20% cut, you got yourself atleast a nice cool few million [:p].
[url="http://steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=160845&perpage=1…"]An internet connection is required to activate Half Life 2[/url] before you can play (singleplayer offline or multiplayer)...
So when you have your boxed copy of Half Life 2, you install HL2 and Steam, then you have to connect to the net to activate your game to get it working...
Of course, product activation is more of a hinderance to legitimate purchasers than pirates who'll most likely get a version with no activation needed. I never thought it would ever cross over for games though!
quote:Originally posted by mcdrewski
...and you can never sell or trade the game? :)
Its people like you that make me avoid second hand games [;)]. Actually, i only ever buy second hand games if i find the game impossible to get (Generally old games) and if it has no stupid CD key registering stuff like Steam, because otherwise you get jipped.
Also, on the topic of the Half-Life 2 being banned here. Correct me if im wrong, but did we not get Doom III? And as far as im concerned, its a lot more violent.
[url="http://www.sumea.com.au/snews.asp?news=1222&related=Industry"]That small news item I wrote[/url] seems to have made it on a fair few HL 2 websites/forums and other game news sites as well. I'd never guess it would be passed on and filtered out to so many websites (the page has been been view over 11,000 times and growing rapidly), and it's only been up for a few days. In any case, I'm glad that the local classification issue is being talked about, plus it's spurred on other matters, such as Steam/Valve's distribution model's ability to handle such a peculiar situation.
I do wonder if the webmaster/server admin of the Office of Film & Literature Classification website is scratching his/her head over the sudden 11,000+ (and much more to come) Half Life database queries... [:0]
quote:Originally posted by Souri
I'd never guess it would be passed on and filtered out to so many websites (the page has been been view over 11,000 times and growing rapidly), and it's only been up for a few days.
It's worse than that, you're on Slashdot [url]http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/25/1713221[/url]
Dear god.. just a bit of social commentary on an issue, which gets posted on a half life 2 forum by somebody, and then it gets blown across everywhere else. It's appearing on major game news portals like Shacknews and Bluesnews now. 19,0000 hits and counting, and the server is barely holding up at times. I still stand by what I said in the news item though. Tt doesn't contain any lies or made up facts, but plenty of people are missing point or even taking it as confirmation that HL2 is getting banned. [:X]
The comments for the news item has been a bit of a pain though, constantly having to look out for and remove offensive trolling all the time. Anonymous posting really does bring out some idiots.
*dances* should be great :D
im enjoying having the new CS:S levels, the glass and the computer that breaks into mutliple peices in office is a highlight. The source engine sure is a bit of fun