Tunnels

[StealthDP]

If you have not yet seen the "Tunnels" video, you must check it out. This game is looking amazing!

[Inkswitch]

Sweet vid.

I have the Kleiner's Lab vid and the Docks vid waiting to be uploaded when Mikey fixes it.

[-F7]

I NEED this game like a fish needs water.

[IHopeToGod]

Tunnels is pretty cool and so is Kleiner's Lab but we all want Barney Fighting In the Streets, The driving dune buggy vid and of course Strider! :D

The BugBait vid will be released tonight.

[Hort]

So the difference between these vids and the 500 mb dl is that these are full game renders and those were cinematic? Is that it? 'Cuz otherwise they are the same.

[-F7]

These new movies coming out expand a little more on certain areas of the E3 demonstration. For instance, E3 only showed the part with that blue thing killing the guy. Tunnels shows a bit more of that whole entire area as well as *I think* giving first glimpses of the Half Life 2 HUD.

[IHopeToGod]

Actually that Tunnel vid was available right after E3 but was not in the Gamespy 500mb download...

There is a very significant difference in quality from the movies released right after E3. These vids are the same but are not shot from a camcorder but are recorded directly off the pc and they are 1028 x 768 resolution I think. The G-man vid, Kleiner Lab, Tunnels reveals some of the cool graphics while the others focus more on gameplay. Get rid of the Early E3 vids and download these instead. I think there are 3 or 4 more E3 vids left to release and then Valve says they will release brand new never seen before stuff and will talk about the multiplayer aspects of the game :cool:

[stapuf]

If the low end specs work (700 mhz, GF2 card) I would be pleasantly surprised.

The game looks great, the AI looks good.

I hope it is not buggy, cuz I will probably buy it the day it comes out.

No willpower.

[Paladin]

I can't remember how much of the original I played. I think it crashed right after the openning train ride. Can't remember if I ever got it running or not....

So is it fairly safe to assume that when HL2 comes out, BF/DC playing will fall off like Gary Coleman's career?

Is it going to have multiplayer, and if so, will it allow playing the storyline co-op?

[-F7]

I don't think BF will fall out. Everyone is anxious to play HL2 no doubt about that, but the multiplayer has to be awesome for me to drop BF. If the MP sucks, people will wander back to BF after the initial excitement wears off. Then it's up to the mod community to keep HL2 going.

[Paladin]

I just watched the Trap Town and Barricade videos. I'm damn impressed. Very damn impressed. The leap in technology over what else is out now is amazing. It's like the jump from Astroids to Pac Man. :)

Judging from what I saw, the attention to detail in the environment and the AI level (the soldier going immediately to shoot through the windows when the door was blocked in Trap Town) is incredible. I can't believe Valve would do all that and slap on a lousy multiplayer component.

It's interesting. I've looked at several gaming sites. About the best answer I've found as to what kind of multiplayer it will have is from the FAQ at halflife.uk.org, which said basically "You'll be able to play multiplayer just like the original". Not much help for me, having not played the original.

Found another interesting article written back in May with some frame-by-frame looks at graphical glitches in the engine. Firstly, that was in May and probably assembled from the best pieces recorded over the course of a week or two. I have to figure the graphics have been updated since then. Second, none of the glitches were earthshaking...it was mostly weapon effects being visible through solid objects. Third, one point he made was that in the buggy driving scene, the speedometer went up and down according to how fast it was going. That's just an insane level of detail. You can read it at http://www.city-17.net/art_minormistakes.php if you want to.

If anyone comes across a full-up preview, preferably hands on (and I have to believe we'll start seeing them when the September magazines hit the shelves in a week or so), please let me know. I'd really like to know more about this game before I decide whether or not to add it to my growing Fall gaming list. The key for me will probably be multiplayer. If it's good, I'm in. If it's largely a single-player game, I may forgo it. I'll have Knights of the Old Republic for that.

Edit:

Found a preview: http://www.gamespy.com/previews/may03/halflife2pc/

Dates back to May though. It was linked from the Half-Life 2 page on Planethalflfe. According to that page, co-op multiplayer won't be included in the retail release. I guess it will be up to the mod community to add-on. I like what the article says about level-building using Hammer and the Warehouse idea. One of my biggest peeves with the latest Unreal engine stuff is how hard it is to build levels for. Almost everything out there now seems to require a 3D modeller and a texture artist to do anything original. I wasn't a very good level builder with the original Unreal Tournement engine, but I could do it at least. Now, most of my ideas die on the drawing board because I can't do models, and even if I could, I can't texture them. I can learn 3D software given time, but learning to be a computer artist...not likely. I really expected there to be huge numbers of ready made static meshes available on any number of Unreal Editing websites, but it never happened. And so many of the meshes used in the Unreal games now are stored in the MyLevel pack (especially the retail maps) where they are hard-to-impossible to get at for custom level building. Hopefully Valve's warehouse idea will make finding objects and textures easier.

[IHopeToGod]

If anyone comes across a full-up preview, preferably hands on (and I have to believe we'll start seeing them when the September magazines hit the shelves in a week or so), please let me know. I'd really like to know more about this game before I decide whether or not to add it to my growing Fall gaming list. The key for me will probably be multiplayer. If it's good, I'm in. If it's largely a single-player game, I may forgo it. I'll have Knights of the Old Republic for that.

Half-Life is 5 years old and it is still one of the best games ever made regardless of genre; and many will argue that it is the best first person shooter ever made. From the looks of it Half-Life2 could end up being the best shooter ever made regardless of how good or bad its multiplayer component will be. Watch the G-man video and the Kleiner's lab video and you can see that the body and facial/emotional expressions already put this game way ahead of any game to date. Now it is possible this game could flop :D like Unreal2 or UT2003, but since Half-Life2 consists of most of the original developers, that is unlikely - but you never know....

It is said the multiplayer will support at least 32 players and will have vehicles. Character Facial expressions will be seen online and can be used with Voice Chat. So you can cuss all you want :) . Team Fortress2 will be a stand-alone product but maybe owners of Half-Life2 will be allowed to download it for free perhaps. Or maybe it is stand-alone but might come with Half-Life2. You have to wonder why they would keep the multiplayer aspects so secret though, unless they were afraid other developers would copy their idea before they got it to the market :D . You should be able to find previews at all the major gaming sites . In fact HL2 won just about every E3 award for most impressive showing at E3

[Paladin]

It is said the multiplayer will support at least 32 players and will have vehicles. Character Facial expressions will be seen online and can be used with Voice Chat. So you can cuss all you want :) .


Heh. Thanks, but I get to read enough cussing on the Battlefield 1942 servers....usually on the roster page. I don't need to be able to hear it.

Having seen the videos (and I've only watched the two I mentioned before), I was really hoping they'd include co-op multiplayer. I'm sure Team Fortress 2 will be fun, but that's not really the experience I'm looking for. I've got a thread going on the forums at http://www.quirkybastards.net regarding what people want Doom III to be. My vote is to replicate something similar to Aliens, team based and with the baddies actively hunting you. It looks like Half-Life 2 will have the latter, but solo only. TF for all it's good points, takes the story and setting elements away and replaces them with classes and objectives. I want F7 running over headcraps in a dune buggy, while Sobeit lobs grenades into zombie hordes, while I plunk striders from a nearby rooftop with a .50 caliber sniper rifle, and somebody else watches my back with a pair of Uzis and Igloo cooler full of clips.

PS: If you elect to check out the http://www.quirkybastards.net website, make DAMN sure you click the link or type .net in your address bar. Damn lousy domain campers.... :bash:

[IHopeToGod]

Since Team fortress2 may not be included, I am inclined to believe that multiplayer will either be CounterStrike2 or something similar to BF1942 but with conventional and hi-tech weapons and Strider! :D. They say HL2 maps can be the size of BF1942 maps and since multiplayer supports at least 32 players they might be aiming for some kind of large scale warfare combat. If that is the case then I bet such a multiplayer may outshine BF1942 especially since the graphics are much better :rockon:

I will check out that link you pointed to.......