Half-Life 2 Submitted to VU For Approval

Dreadlord writes "After years of rumors, leaks, and delays, Neowin reports that the release candidate for Half-Life 2 has been sent to VU Games for approval. Valve's director of marketing confirmed the story to GameSpot yesterday. "Yes, the release candidate went to VUG yesterday," he said. First words on the submission came from Gabe Newell, CEO of Valve, "The RC went to VU yesterday," read Newell's one-line post on the hl2fallout.com forums."

Comments

The Gabe Newell post is legit

[br0ck]

In case anyone wonders whether the Gabe Newell post again came from his compromised forum account, Steve Gibson at Shacknews has contacted him to verify validity and it is indeed legit.

Re:The Gabe Newell post is legit

[Sevn]

Yup. I read on a message board that he changed his password from "gaben" to "secret".

Re:Wow....

[nb caffeine]

September 30 2003, i believe it was. I was sooooo stoked about it coming out, and then there was this game "Deus ex: invisible war" and then this game "Unreal Tournament 2004" and then this other game "Doom 3" And then i bought an xbox and only play ssx3 all night after work. Of course ill play it. Of course it will rock. It just doesnt quite have the glow it used to. When it finally hits stores, it will be more like "lets see if all the damn hype was worth it"

I wouldn't get too excited

[SimianOverlord]

I heard from a mate, who heard from a mate, who heard from a guy he spoke to on IRC, that Half Life 2 is a bit of a washout.

He played an early release copy, he said, and there weren't even any monsters, scripted encounters or real puzzles, only a couple of half assed maps.

I won't be buying a copy.

Before anyone explodes...

[stonedonkey]

This does not mean the game has gone gold or is necessarily going to go gold soon, as I've seen reported since this announcement. Several candidates can and will be delivered to the publisher before one of them gets approved. Granted, since Steam has already preloaded the sounds, textures, and models, the bulk of the game is set in stone. But that still leaves the executable, overall stability, multiplayer, maps, and other QA odds and ends.

So what does this translate to?

[seraphiem]

So how much longer until the game is finally released? I fear its another 2~3 weeks until this RC will become the build to go gold. And thats IF it is even accepted requiring no re-working at all. A big IF. So folks, it seems mid-November till early December is the objective. I think if the game comes in too late in December, the Holiday season sales are going to get killed. Interestingly to me, if it comes out in the November timeframe, it'll feel like the original HL coming out in late October early November of '98. I just hope the game retains a good portion of the original feel or atmosphere.

Re:Show some appreciation!

[Marc_Hawke]

Fine...

But what appreciation should we show? What has Valve done that is so excellent?

1. They made Halflife, an excellent single-player game that deservedly won many Game of the Year awards 5-6 years ago. It had an excellent story line, and some good AI for some of the enemies (the marines.) The multiplayer was lack-luster and end of the game was weak.

Then what? NOTHING. They've done NOTHING since then.

1. They bought a mod team and distributed a half-baked copy of a great mod. (The great mod being Team Fortress, and the half-baked copy being TFC.)

2. They waited until another mod that they had nothing to do with became popular, (an internet phenomenon actually) and bought that one as well. (CounterStrike.)

3. They took a shot at a Guiness record for most re-releases of the exact same product by changing the box colors of Halflife about a dozen times. (They are only second to Lucas and StarWars.)

4. In the name of Online content distribution, they created the most intrusive DRM software to every make it to production. (It's called a STEAMing pile of crap.)

Valve has only released ONE GAME. They are still new to the business. (but pro's at 'giving the business.') They've been riding the on the success of amatuer mod teams since the beginning.

(Even though HL turned out to be a worthwhile product in it's own right, the great majority of the early purchasers were simply buying it as a platform for the much anticipated (still) Team Fortress 2. Valve had purchased (co-opted?) the design team or else we would have all been playing TF2 on Quake2 instead.)

Anyway...I don't bash Valve for anything to do with HL2. It looks very pretty and interesting. I'm skipping D3, but I'll probably get HL2. However, there's very little else in their entire history to credit valve with...except extreme luck.

I agree

[johannesg]

Maybe it's just me, but I always thought the real star of Half Life was Black Mesa. It's just such a gloomy, depressing, yet realistic and intriguing place. I cannot imagine getting quite that same "help I'm all alone under a kilometer of rock and concrete with just monsters for company and noone cares and the only ones that do want me dead" feeling when playing a game in a city, under the open sky.

I always thought the best parts of Half Life were the earlier levels, before you get out into the light of day. You start descending into darkness. Pretty quickly after the game proper starts you are teased with being on the surface, but you are forced back down. Then you get the long trek through the missile silo with its nasty yet excellent monster. After you get back to the surface it is still a good game, but it no longer reaches the lofty heights it had reached before.

I agree that Doom 3 was not as spectacular as we could hope for. I think it was the pacing (too regular) and predictability (far too predictable). Real horror works best when you _don't_ know what is in front of you. In Doom 3 you are guaranteed to have two monsters teleporting in and another one appearing from a sliding panel behind you.