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Half-Life 2 Street Date

Posted by Zonk on from the head-crabs-for-christmas! dept.

JFlex writes "According to Valve's website, Half-Life 2 will hit the streets on November 16th! From the press release: "The Company confirmed that Half-Life 2, developed by Valve Software, has gone gold with a planned retail street date of November 16, 2004." Gonna have to rush home and beat Halo 2 as fast as possible to free up some time for HL2!!"

9 of 44 comments (clear)

  1. Old by Southpaw018 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Heh. I emailed the on-duty editor, saying that this was old news. In fact, I mentioned the VU press release that was edited into the article. The press release is from October 18th. Abort the story instead of making a nonsensical edit, /., this is old stuff.

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    1. Re:Old by JVert · · Score: 2, Funny

      This "breaking news" is also posted on the side of the website. Where the ad's usually are. In big bold letters... ...

      its been there at least 3 days.

  2. Wow by Poseidon88 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Thanks for the news!

  3. How can you... by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 2, Insightful

    All geeks support such a company who disregards all computer users as theifs, criminals and crooks?

    Their program needs nannyware to even start up. As a geek, I find that reprehensible. Thats also why I use only windows 2000.. So I dont have to deal with MS's "change some hardware and fuck up your system" crap.

    I also know that many geeks refuse to touch this flaming pile of crap (even if the game content is good). Provide a respectable way for us to play without resorting to demeaning us as criminals, by default, and Ill buy it.

    If not, fuck Valve.

    PS: I was a paying customer of 3 sets of HL1.

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    1. Re:How can you... by Poseidon88 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't understand this viewpoint. All games these days have copy protection in one form or another. For the most part, these schemes are more of a hindrance to the legitimate users than the dedicated pirates. Steam actually gets rid of all the annoying problems caused by current copy-protection, and goes a long way towards actually preventing piracy. No requiring the CD in the drive, no hardware issues, no worrying about losing your key or having someone else use it, game content delivered as soon as it is available, patches downloaded automatically... And the best part: an online distribution system like Steam may help release game developers from their dependence on huge publishers. Frankly, I think more people should be rejoicing about Steam and the way it is changing the games industry.

    2. Re:How can you... by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 3, Insightful

      6 years down the line, I can still install Win98 on an old machine, provided I have the drivers to run the hardware. Never the less, it will still install and work. The same goes for Windows 95, 3X, NT, and 2000.

      The same cannot be said for Windows XP. Can you guarantee that when WinXP goes out of support, MS will still hand out unlock codes? My greatest fear is not putting the CD in when a program runs, or having some dumb dongle, or some gimmick. My biggest fear is putting the power to run YOUR computer software in the hands of some company that can decide not to support it whenever they wish, and there's not a damned thing you can do about it.

      A likely scenerio I can see Valve going through is thus:

      1: They produce a forced online-register for new game.
      2: A while passes, and game is "old".
      3: More time passes, and they start loosing revenue.
      4: They decide to sell themselves (and their IP) to another company
      5: That company cares not if further "registrations" go on, and let the online register servers die.
      6: That money you paid for to get that game is now suddenly... worthless, and the new parent comapny cares not.

      Case in point: Aureal sound cards... Creative bought the rights to them, and now do absolutely nothing with them. Any work done is on Linux, and reverse engineered from Windows drivers.

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    3. Re:How can you... by Warpedcow · · Score: 2, Informative

      Your valve scenario doesn't really hold any water. Assuming you already have a steam account, and Steam and all your games are installed somewhere, you can run any of them without any sort of internet connection in "offline mode". So if you're worried about not being able to play HL2 in 10 years or whatever, just make sure you have a backup of your Steam directory and you will be able to play, no matter what.

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      moo
  4. Between this and Arafat... by cnsc1rtr · · Score: 3, Funny

    I've stopped paying attention to all news regarding Arafat's condition and Half Life 2. I was listening to the radio during my 15 minute drive home the other night and when I got in the car, the news was saying that a reliable source close to Arafat said that they were going to pull the plug as soon as some religious leader finished giving him whatever final blessings he needs. Just as I got home, I hear that his doctors are saying that he is in ok condition and will probably last a while longer!

    That is about the same as the news about HL2 has been for too long. "HL2 is going to be released tomorrow!" "Oh, wait... Make that next month!"

    I suggest we all just ignore both of these things until we have real proof that (a) Half Life 2 is really out for the public to purchase and play and (b) that Arafat is really dead and doesnt have any plans for resurrection.

  5. Steam by aliens · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Do the copies sold over Steam become playable at 12 midnight? And in what timezone?

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