The Crowbar Returns - HL2 Aftermath

Kimi writes "1UP is running a week's worth of coverage on Valve; content includes Aftermath, Lost Coast, Day of Defeat, Sin Episodes, Garry's Mod, Half-Life 2 Xbox, and an exclusive interview with Gabe Newell. Be sure to check out the kickass cover image, which was designed using assistance of the Garry's Mod community." From the subsite frontpage: "It all started with a tram ride into unknown catastrophe. With the release of Half-Life in 1998, Valve put themselves on the map as the undisputed saviors of PC gaming. For 1UP's second-ever cover story, we team up with sister-magazine Computer Gaming World and go behind Valve's iron curtains to get an exclusive sneak peek at Half-Life 2: Aftermath, the latest chapter in their Half-Life saga. "

Comments

What about Mods

[superpulpsicle]

I have practically downloaded every free mod available for HL2. So far they all feel very beta-ish. Plan of Attack, Garry's physics mod, strider mod, you name it... it seems like the HL1 mods were much more fun.

Re:What about Mods

[KrisW]

I've noticed this with mods for a lot of recent games. I think the culprit is that these newer, more advanced engines take a much larger team a much longer time to create content for.

While the engines of late allow for much more advanced architecture and physics, it's getting to the point that all the tools in the world aren't going to let you utilize the engine to it's fullest potential. Just take a look at how many mods released as of late have the same plain, boxy environments as mods based on games released 5-10 years ago.

Re:What about Mods

[Anonymous Coward]

This is all too true. Once upon a time all one had to do was a few lines of code, make a new boxy little map using world craft, add in some 8bit textures off the net, and maybe toss in a 400 polygon player or weapon model and call it a mod!

Now we have to deal with levels littered with prop models and physics objects created with traditional 3D packages, super high res textures that need "Color Maps, Secular Maps, Bump Maps, or Normal Maps," and your player and weapon models are now twice as detailed. For one character with normal maps you have two distinct models to create, one is the high model, with millions of polygons, and the other is the low model that you use in the game. (1800-2500 polys, still a lot more than HL1 days) You create a normal map based on the high poly detailed model and use that normal map data on the low poly model to make it look like the high poly model.

It almost makes it too much work to be fun anymore...

enough with the 1up stuff...

[Malor]

It would have been more interesting to link to this page AFTER the week has passed, so that we could read everything all at once. As is, the coverage is incomplete, so many of us will miss the later entries.

If the purpose in all these links is to drive traffic to 1up, rather than to link Slashdot readers to complete and interesting coverage, then by all means, continue what you're doing. I, however, would feel better-served if the link was posted after all the content was actually there to read.

Saviors of PC Gaming?

[Godai]

undisputed saviors of PC gaming

Hyperbole much? I really enjoyed Half-life, but it hardly saved the platform. FPS can be done quite satisfactorily with a little work on a console. If anything, RTS games like C&C or War/Starcraft, or MMORPGs like City of Heroes & World of Warcraft have kept PC gaming healthy, you know, things that can't be done on a console? (Yes, I know, the odd MMORPG makes it to a console but really, how good is it compared to it's PC cousin?) Valve seems like a decent bunch of game makers, but let's not cannonize them quite yet.