Half-Life 2 - Aftermath
Eurogamer.com has word that the expected expansion pack for Half-Life 2 is already in the works. Reporting on information gleaned from PC Gamer UK, the site has learned that the expansion will be entitled 'Aftermath' and is currently slated for a summer release. Aftermath will deal with the fallout from the events at the close of the PC title as the residents of City 17 make for the hills in an attempt to get to safety. Alyx Vance, heroine and robot wrangler, will play a larger role in the expansion, but the article doesn't give specific details on what exactly her relationship to you as the player will be. From the article: "The reason we're able to do this, and why it's so exciting is because of Steam. If we were doing this without Steam we'd have to put it in a box, we'd have to start figuring out shelf space over a year beforehand. You'd see it six years from now..."
After TRYING to make it thru the stupid watercycle stage, but feeling far too sick to do it (I threw up multiple times ATTEMPTING it), I will not be giving them a dime to buy the expansion. The motion sickness or whatever caused my nausea was violently bad. It was so bad, that I went out and bought a nice 20 inch gaming LCD to see if it was my monitor -- it wasn't. Granted the game is fantastic graphically and otherwise, but the storyline seemed stupid, unlike the first Half Life.
Either way... if I get too sick to play the game, it's not worth it for me to keep getting sick to beat a game that isn't even that fun.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
To me, the game felt like a slightly long tutorial. Then it suddenly ended. So I hope this new stuff is an expansion , not just an extension .
HL2 takes you through various, unique levels, introducing new tools (car, boat, ants, traps) which I duly noted and couldn't wait to use when the game would revisit earlier locations.
But that never happened. You couldn't go back. The story wouldn't take you back. "This is the car level." "This is the ants level." As if it was a movie with pre-scripted interaction, including a pre-scripted player. "Do this now."
The game never released you to explore, but kept you on a narrow track.
After the end I felt that Valve must be tricking us and new content, some resolution, some real gameplay would be pushed through Steam after a very short while.
It's later now, but I'm hoping this is it.
J
Like HL was so popular for the game... Everyone knows it was CS that made the game the #1 for so long...
Give us Couter-Strike 2.
Don't get me wrong, I like CS:Source just fine, but Counter-Strike 2 will make me forgive the recent patch and total lack of Anti-Cheat that they have had so far... (all hail HackCam.)