Half-Life 2 Interview Illuminates

As part of the continuing Half-Life 2 media blitz, GameSpy has an interview with Valve's Doug Lombardi about the much-heralded FPS sequel. This insightful interview has info on who'll be returning: "A few of your friends from Black Mesa are in Half-Life 2, and they are sort of immediately your allies; like some of the scientists and Barney the security guard character", as well as more on system requirements: "I think that Valve tries very hard to support as far back with system as we humanly can, and in this case we're going back to a Pentium II 800 with 128mb of RAM, but as get up to a Pentium 4 class you'll see better water and better effects." Meanwhile, the third direct-feed Half-Life 2 movie, 'Kleiner's Lab', is available via Steam, Gamers Hell, BitTorrent via GameTab, and most of the other usual online stockists.

Comments

Re:Hype for Half-Life 1?

[Jad LaFields]

Well, all those other games you mention came out after Half-Life (except System Shock 1), and in some ways were influenced by HL.

It's no surprise that HL was big when it came out, it was astounding, AI like no other game, graphics that beat pretty much all but Unreal, a fairly realistic gameworld (much less fantasy than Unreal, Quake, et al), the story, the pacing. But why is it still considered so great today?

Because it does everything right. By now, nothing is a standout, graphics are clearly dated, AI in someways has been done better, there are far more realistic games, more innovative playstyles. But Half-Life still offers one of the most complete package of not-top-line but really great "components" in one incredibly polished and well-designed game.

I loved Deus Ex, it had a better story and more depth to the gameplay, but was less immersive with cutscenes that "took you out of the action". I only played a demo of Thief, and I really liked the gameplay, but I didn't feel like I could play an entire game of just sneaking around. Half-Life had its sneaking parts, its puzzle parts, its run-and-gun. I played a demo of SS2, got stuck on a stupid piece of equipment, had to play the first half of the level again (I forgot to save), and enjoyed it, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. From the reviews, I hear there are no other people in the game, but that they "talk" to you through logs, which sounds somewhat uninteresting to me.

And lastly, I've still NEVER seen a game that comes even CLOSE to the level design and the monster design of HL. The head crabs are truly ingenious.

Wow, I haven't played the single player game in years, but just right now I shuddered, remembering about the sound they make. Now that's a good game. =)

Oh yeah and about the "normalcy" of Gordon... I really didn't catch all that much "pushing" of that angle at all, but you might have read different previews than me. I felt that they pulled off their real intention perfectly: to really not even have the character "Gordon Freeman", but to have YOU, there, and just happening to be called Gordon... it worked for me... I still imagine I can take down an entire squadron of highly trained Marines =)

System Shock 2

[johannesg]

SS2 is easily the scariest game I've ever played. One of the elements that helps produce that fear is the sense of being alone, the last human survivor on that once-proud outpost of humanity, surrounded by the twisted shapes of your former fellow crew members. So, the log system works well - you are not supposed to make contact with other humans.

That is not to say there aren't any - there are at least two other survivors (of which you catch a brief glimpse when they escape the ship using an escape pod) and there's of course dr. Janice Polito who is guiding you (by radio) through the first four levels.

But still - the logs tell the sad stories of the crew going about their daily business, unaware that they only have hours to live; the stupid decisions by the various commanding officers, leading to the disaster to follow; the desperate attempts to regain control of the ship, and later to simply survive. It's gripping stuff.

For some reason my copy of SS2 no longer works - the graphics completely fall apart when enemies fire at me, and in certain rooms. This didn't happen the first time I played it, but I've installed a new DirectX and a new Detonator driver since then. Has anybody else experienced this? Is there a solution for it? I'd love to play this game again, especially using those new models from SS2: Rebirth.

As for the other games you mention, I agree about Thief (it seems just too tiresome to play), Deus Ex is absolutely fantastic, and the head crabs from HL seem rather inspired by the movie "Alien" ;-)