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Half Life 2 Goes Gold
AhabTheArab writes "IGN is reporting that Half Life 2 has gone gold. After months of speculation and delays, it is finally true this time."
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I can't get enough of first person shooters! Why, there just are so many of them out there that I can't make up my mind which one to play. And it's not like they are at all similar to each other. The weapons in one are completely different from the weapons in the other ones. Also the enemies in one are completely different than the enemies in the others.
I can't wait until next year when they update this with a booster pack that includes different weapons and enemies!
Hell reported to be experiencing record-breaking temperature lows. Predictions show that Hell will freeze over just about when Duke Nukem Forever goes gold.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10);'
Valve Software's Half-Life 2 has been submitted to the BBFC for certification, we've learnt this afternoon, news which adds credence to recent rumours that Vivendi is shortly to announce that the hotly anticipated first-person shooter sequel has finally 'gone gold'.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
...errr, or years.
Does it reflect our desires or the nature of humanity to any extent?
Duke Nuken Forever will arrive any day now!
Read the article on IGN (actually, it is Voodoo Extreme), and you will see that Valve has submitted the game to BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) and PEGI (Pan European Games Information) for rating. While this would most likely require the game to be in final build status, there has been NO announcement from Valve or Vivendi as of yet.
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
For those who haven't heard, Vampire: Bloodlines is a vampire game done by Troika. It also uses the Half-Life 2 engine and looks to be a very interesting game. Reports are that Vampire should ship soon after Half-Life 2.
hmmmm.. time to plan a week of sick leave in november.
What if Half Life 2 became available to download in a week's time, before it hit stores? Would Valve still release it ahead of time? Better yet, would people download it from Steam or get it for free anyways?
Furthermore, I just want to take this moment and talk directly to developers and publishers who have worked so hard to get their games out just before this holiday season: Sucks to be you. This year is filled with some immense competition from a lot of sequels, especially in the console arena... Doom 3, Half Life 2, San Andreas, GT4, Halo 2, and I believe the newest Biohazard is coming out, as well as Metal Gear Solid, right?
That being said, I just bought HL2 "Bronze" (I couldn't see myself spending $90.00 just to get a hat and a soundtrack).
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
After all this time, I need at least a photo of something a bit on the golden side to believe ANYTHING about HL2
DON'T PANIC
i've had it downloaded on my HDD for days...havent really played it though ;-p
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Except for the litigation between Valve and VU, I'd believe you. With that going on, VU could hold the game and not even announce that it has gone gold. They can even hold the game until March if they wanted.
When I see a Press Release, I'll finally believe.
There has been no confirmation from Vivendi or Valve yet.
http://ipod.fresh27.net/
New algorithms and canonfodder for armchair killers. I wonder how many times we can save the universe before itself self destructs because of boredom ...
There should be some sort of law against posting headlines like that - my heart went quite aflutter.
Sadly, it's not true, and until Valve AND Vivendi issue a press release saying "Gold, and you'll be able to play it on this date" none of these "nearly gold", "almost gold", "so almost gold I can taste it" announcements really mean anything.
Mod headline -1.
Sometime in mid 2008, a computer actually capable of running the game will be announced...
How about online proof? Numerous game outlets (including EBGames) had moved the game back to the end of November for release. This morning, a brief search of sites (including EBGames and Vivendi's online store have the game shipping on November 1st!
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
..is all speculation. This is yesterdays news, and hasn't involved an official PR by Valve or Vivendi. As much as I would like this to be true, there aren't any facts to substantiate it.
Between playing CS:Source and reading the steampowered.com forums, I'd be amazed that it will be available for a November release.
There are tons of bugs, exploits, and cheats going around any CS:Source (HL2 powered) servers. IMHO, it looks like they really rushed CS out the door, and it's pissed off a lot of steam subscribers. I should only hope with the official gold announcement comes a big patch to address the many issues they've already got.
I remember having read this story before... Damn those editors!
I can't be the only person who didn't understand this term: http://www2.tranceaddict.com/forums/archive/topic/ 207966-1.html
Now we'll see if the game lives up to the hype it has been subjected to. Doom 3 suffered much from this (don't look at me, i loved it).
As of today November 2nd, Half life 2 was leaked via the access to Gabe's password which he apparently changed from gaben to Gaben. So please. lets all gabe with Gabe.
GOOD. I was one of the stupid ones to preorder when it was first announced and the stupid store wouldnt refund my money even though they knew it ouldnt be out for ages. On the plus side I'm getting it for way less than RRP since I got in before the new taxes and duties came into effect.
if you look on the BBFC page http://tinyurl.com/6t96x you'll see that GTA:SA completed certification on 4th October, a week before going gold. Vampire: Bloodlines a week prior to that and that one hasnt even gone gold yet afaik. Factor in that the process takes a couple of weeks then you could still be looking at anything up to a month before it even goes gold.
sig free since 1993
Purhaps they should do what real journalists do and actually search out for the truth by contacting Valve or Vivendi Universal, rather than trying to connect the dots or use sources like "An Industry Insider". That way they don't sound like trashy womens magazines that get their sources from "Close Friends" and the like.
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"I may have invented it, but Bill made it famous." - David Bradley, inventor of Ctrl-Alt-Del
PC Gamer's latest issue has an early review of Half Life 2. They gave is a 98% rating and said it's "arguably the best game ever made".
I'm not too thrilled about it "going gold." So it's [B]finally[/B] going to be released. Booyah.
:o).
What would really make my day is if they declared HL2 went gold [B]and[/B] they have a Linux client. Because until they get that second part down, the first is rather meaningless (for me at least).
And don't tell me to get Windows if I want to game. I have my reasons
How long until "demi vie deux" is available ;)
liqbase
"Gold" in this case means that its the final version, ready for sell. It does not mean "sold a million copies" as in music sells.
Anonymous Cowards suck.
I tend to disagree. To decide for yourself, you can check out the movies at the Yahoo preview. Personally, I'm amazed at what they've done with Half-Life 2's facial expressions.
PC Gamer's latest December 2004 issue has a very extensive review of the completed HL2 with loads of screenshots and spoilers. They call it "history in the making" and "arguably the best game ever made," finally giving it a 98% rating. For comparison's sake, the same issue also rates Call of Duty:UO at 93%, Evil Genius at 88% and The Sims 2 at 85%.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
Professor: James, what's happened? It seems like your studies have become disorganized - and your test scores have taken a turn for the worse. Is there anything I need to know?
.. it's hardest to watch for .. these.. these headcrabs.. especially at night.
Me: I'm having.. trouble sleeping, Professor. It
Professor: *leans closer* I know; scary little bastards.
// James
It shouldn't be too long until that can run HL2 in all its DX9 glory. It can probably run it fine in DX7/8 already.
Some "jerk" in the production line has swiped a copy of the French version...
The only weapon in the French version allows you to shout obscenities at each other until you pass out.
Yesterday, it had told me I had "100%" of the preload (Silver Pack), and now that dropped to 80% and its downloading again.
Perhaps this is a seed of the final changes. I wonder if Steam can do incremental patching of the other preloaded content. Seems likely now.
I'm really not a "closet conservative", but I learned to stop arguing politics a long time ago, because nothing good comes from it.
Jay | http://oldos.org
...If you get the 'collectors edition'. That's also the only one they are releasing on DVD.
:)
I pre-ordered mine at EB yesterday. $79 for a game? Yeah, I'm their bitch...
Here's the link:
http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/product/243836.asp
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I'll say it again: So What?
And don't tell me to get Windows if I want to game. I have my reasons :o).
;)
Get an XBox then, since I hear it will be made available for the console. More more money to MS, but its just not for Windows
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
So does the retail version also have the MS-like product activation "feature"? Well, Microsoft has forced that down my throat once with XP, but since I'm interested but not an avid ego shooter fan, this could definitely be a reason for deciding against purchasing it, regardless of how much praise the game gets...
see subject
gaben
First of all, this is 2 or 3 day old news. Second of all it does not indicate that Half-Life 2 is gold. Third of all, where is the official announcement?
-Zeecog
First of all, this is not bleeding edge news. This was known a couple days ago: http://www.halflife2.net. Second of all, even this news does not constitute gold status. Until Valve officially announces that the game has gone gold (which I will admit will probably happen on Monday) I don't want to hear any more rumours or speculation.
-Zeecog
Slashdot is saying that IGN is saying that Computer & Video Games said that a strictly anonymous insider said that "as far as Vivendi is concerned, the game [Half-Life 2] is finished." Does this remind anyone of a bad rumor circulating in high school?
What the hell man .. this game isn't even OUT yet. More hype than Kerry's purple hearts...
The deal is that Valve has no real control over when the game ships. So a gold announcement from Valve is largely meaningless in terms of when it's going to ship. Wait for an *official* announcement from Vivendi (not Valve) because they are the ones who have the final say as to when it going to ship.
Ideally, if everything goes well, HL2 might be on the shelves in late November because it takes about 6 weeks from going gold to reach the stores. Also, buying thru steam won't let you get it any faster. Valve cannot release HL2 thru Steam until it appears on retail store shelves.
When all else fails, run.
Morons being the story submitter and editors who published it in its current form.
I fail to see any indication anywhere, even in the text of the linked story itself, that this is any different from any of the other hundred rumors. It is entirely conjecture and extrapolation of information coming entirely from third-party sources, nobody official will confirm anything, yet suddenly "it's finally true"? This has only slightly more credibility than the dates on pre-order diplays in Game Stop from 6 months ago. But by all means, phrase the headline and synopsis in the most sensational way possible with no regard for the facts whatsoever.
Bye bye karma.
Remember that we're dealing with Valve here, folks, and they lie about release dates.
In the case of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Gabe Newell announced in September 2003 that the game had gone gold and would be on store shelves October 17. In reality, it wasn't released until late March 2004. Now I ask you, how can you delay a game for six months after it's already gone gold?
Computer and Videogames reports that, "As far as Vivendi is concerned, the game is finished."
Valve hangs a pinata in their office to be broken when the game goes gold (Here's a picture of it in pre-broken state). Gamespot has learned from an "informed source" that the pinata has been broken.
When the game is submitted to the BBFC as this is reporting, it means it is a final build and we can expect a gold announcement on Monday.
In the gaming industry the term that a product has "Gone gold" means the golden master has been produced and is ready for duplication. This term has been commonly used for years. For proof, go look up the announcements for major games over the past few years that a game has gone gold. They're not referring to having sold a certain number of copies.
Spotted this on a certain messageboard, either an actual leaked press release (in which case it's a kick in the nuts), or it might be a fake.
quote:
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HALF-LIFE 2(TM) HAS GONE GOLD
LOS ANGELES, Calif. (October 16, 2004) - Vivendi Universal Games announced today that Half-Life 2, the highly anticipated next installment in the best-selling and beloved franchise, has gone gold and will be released December 6th in North America, and December 20th in Europe.
"Half-Life 2 offers an unprecedented gameplay experience," said Michael Rouling, EVP, Vivendi Universal Games. "It features the most advanced AI ever seen in a game, combined with state of the art graphics and sound.".
Developed by Valve, Half-Life 2 is the highly anticipated sequel to the best selling Half-Life title, named "Best PC Game Ever" by PC Gamer. By taking the suspense, challenge and visceral charge of the original, and adding startling new realism and responsiveness, Half-Life 2 opens the door to a world where the player's presence affects everything around him, from the physical environment to the behaviors even the emotions of both friends and enemies.
The player again picks up the crowbar of research scientist Gordon Freeman, who finds himself on an alien-infested Earth being picked to the bone, its resources depleted, its populace dwindling. Freeman is thrust into the unenviable role of rescuing the world from the wrong he unleashed back at Black Mesa. And a lot of people he cares about are counting on him.
Half-Life 2 carries a suggested retail prices of $54.95 and has been rated "M" for Mature by the ESRB with descriptors for blood and intense violence. For additional information please go to www.half-life2.com.
About Valve
Founded in 1996, Valve creates entertainment software titles, including Half-Life®, Counter-StrikeTM, and Team Fortress®. Valve's portfolio accounts for over 12 million retail units sold worldwide, and over 88% of the online action market. More information about Valve is available through the company's Web site at www.valvesoftware.com.
About Vivendi Universal Games
Headquartered in Los Angeles, VU Games is a leading global developer, publisher and distributor of multi-platform interactive entertainment. Its development studios and publishing labels include Blizzard Entertainment, Sierra Entertainment, Fox Interactive and Massive Entertainment. VU Games' library of over 700 titles features multi-million unit selling properties such as Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo from Blizzard Entertainment; Crash Bandicoot, Spyro The Dragon, Empire Earth, Ground Control, Tribes and Leisure Suit Larry.
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Huh? what new trailer? where?
Hell, It looks that way...
the mark of a _good_ FPS is the weapons and level design working together to make the gameplay different and interesting. Take Unreal Tournament vs Quake III. I find the latter emphasizes accuracy while the former clever use of resources. Or compare the level layout of say, Duke Nukem 3D with the orginal Half-Life, where Duke has numerous alternate routes (but not much story) compared to the more linear, story driven Half-Life.
Weapons can drastically change how you play. In Quake I, ammo was so limited you were often forced to run (anyone ever actually kill a shambler w/o cheating and/or wasting all your nail gun ammo?), Quake II has plenty of ammo, but it was well distributed between all the guns (and the level design meant they where all useful at some point), so you did fine on ammo as long as you made good, stratigic use of your weapons.
We've come a long way since Wolfenstine/Doom. But yeah, there's a lot of mediocre crap out there. Just avoid that junk. There's plenty of first rate titles.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Gravity gun.
True story.
Seriously. HL was crap, CS was good until about beta 7. The source code is already on the internet for this game, which I think was a marketing ploy more than an accident to buy them time.
Because of the source being on the web, do you REALLY think there's not already cheats out there? The game is going to be worthless other than for single player for that very reason and thus not worth more than $20.
I missed that one. Got a link?
I don't know about you guys, but FarCry absolutely rocks. The engine is gorgeous - lush, expansive outdoor scenes. Just absolutely beautiful, with excellent gameplay. I hope HalfLife 2 is just as good or better.
doesn't it make pirating the singal player game trival? I think what everyone is worried about is that Valve will have some kind of verification system in place that like MS Product Activation. I can live with Microsoft doing that, because a) I don't have a choice and b) Microsoft isn't likely to be wiped out in a re-org before my copy of Windows XP is obsolete (in the literal sense, that is, I can no longer find hardware to run it).
What Valve should do is store a unique product # based on a key somewhere in the system/registry (probably at random, using some algorythim) so that when you go to run the game from your back ups and the PID isn't there, it asks for your key again. If they're doing something like this I'm all for steam, and as soon as valve releases a game I want I'm all for it (Half-Life just isn't my cup of tea).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Found this on ESRB's site, it has been rated...
Half-Life 2 Sierra Entertainment (Vivendi Universal) PC CD-ROM Mature (17+) Blood,Intense Violence 10/9/2004
Bout time they announced HL2 went gold, considering the source code has been sitting on Steam(people who bought a copy using steam, had an unactivated HL2 on their hard drives) users hard drives for a week or so. Pretty awesome that they already gave steam users the ability to download the game pre-release, though they can't play HL2 till it goes on sale in retail establishments.
And pigs fly.
Flat Screen TV for F
I can't shake this feeling that I've already heard this news already??? Or maybe I'm just stupid, and I need a lot of sleep.
--- hows it taste mother f$#@er!!!
The plan: to bust the sucker (piñata) open when the game achieved goldIn other news, Bellevue, WA police arrived at VU games this morning to discover a bizarre scene after responding to a call of attempted homicide. On site, officers discovered two additional piñatas cowering in the corner of the room babbling "My god, what are you doing?!" "Stop attacking! He's a friend!" and "Are you insane?". Suspect, and company director, Gabe Newell, was taken to Bellevue-Sinai hospital still clutching what appears to be a gold-plated crowbar and is listed in critical condition after being shot by VU security, who, clearly shaken by the whole incident, could only keep commenting ""Hey stop that!" and "Are you crazy? Leave him alone!"
think it's wierd how Slashdot always complains and bashes Bush, and yet half of the nation thinks he's done a good job
How could this be???
Maybe Slashdot does not represent half the nation?
Then there's the old adage, "You can fool all of the people some of the time and you can fool some of the people (maybe 50%!) all of the time."
I really want Bush to win at this point, because if Kerry wins, he's a definite one-termer because of the terrible mess he's been handed, thus leaving the door open for yet another soul-crushing Republican "compassionate conservative" to step in, take credit for the slight improvement made under Kerry, and dig another enormous hole that'll take even longer for the country to get out of.
No, let Bush win, fuck the whole country up, then somebody better than Kerry get in and have 8 years to fix the country. Assuming that there's one left post-Bush.
Half Life 2 Goes Gold... In Japan!
I won't be holding my breath!
before itself self destructs
before it itself self destructs
I'll believe it's gold when someone here posts a torrent / emule link.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
I had a look at Steam News - on Oct 14th Valve started preloading the maps. Does this mean that only now they have the final maps and that their 'announcement' that they had handed the final game to VU in August was a lie? Or does it mean it takes Valve 3 months to prep an update to Steam?
Well duh. If a game doesn't go gold before it is released, people would be buying "OMGZ IT'S ALMOST FINISHED" copies.
In The in-game benchmark for CS:Source I get an average framerate of 63 FPS and I have a GeForce FX 5200. If I'm staring into a corner with no models just walls I can get that in Doom 3. Granted CS: Source probably doesn't push the bar graphically and with in game physics as single player HL2 will but the engine itself runs beautifully with a crappy video card. So I don't think you'll have that problem. HL2 looks more processor driving and Doom3 is more GPU driven.
>PC Gamer's latest issue has an early review of Half >Life 2. They gave is a 98% rating and said it's >"arguably the best game ever made".
Not to say that it isn't going to be awesome...I think it probably will be...but there are some games/game companies that are unfortunately beyond genuinely objective reviewing. Id were the first, Epic were probably the second, and now Valve. If John Carmack had a really violent attack of diarrhea, wrapped it up in newspaper, and sent it to either PC Gamer or Gamespy in particular, it'd get reviewed at 98%.
Game reviews these days are only likely to be marginally objective when they're about offerings from a relatively unknown company. I'm not saying id and the other two companies mentioned above aren't made up of enormously talented people; of course they are, and we all know that. But just because we know they're as talented as they are doesn't mean we should automatically expect that a new game from them is going to be the best yet, purely because all the others in the past were. Each game needs to be assessed purely on its own merits, not just because it comes from a company that has had X number of other successes in the past. Everyone has bad days, and everyone has misfires, regardless of the level of their intelligence. Wait until the game is in your hands and you've played it for at least a few hours before forming an opinion either way, and try to base said opinion purely on *that individual game*, not on the fact that the game is from Valve or id or whoever.
"Half-Life 2 has surpassed our expectations in every sense - its high-quality graphics, ground-breaking physics and immersive first-person shooter gameplay set a new standard for PC action games," said Bruce Hack, CEO of VU Games. "Half-Life 2 will go down as one of the best-selling PC titles, and we are thrilled to deliver this ground-breaking title to the worldwide gaming community this fall."
Well, it is now officially official :) Here is a link to the press release: http://www.vugames.com/news_story.do?storyId=1963
Now, when can I unlock it through Steam?
SIGFAULT