Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Half-Life 2 - Lost Coast Released On Steam

Posted by Zonk on from the shiiiiny dept.

Hatedlegion writes "Half-Life 2: Lost Coast has been released on Steam." Gamespot has details, and a hands-on look as well. From that article: "If you've played through Half-Life 2, the gameplay in Lost Coast isn't going to set the world on fire. You fight your way up a sheer cliff face, trading fire with those pesky Combine soldiers every step of the way. You'll occasionally have to deal with some of the more vicious sorts of headcrabs, and at the end you'll have to bring down a Combine gunship with Gordon Freeman's trusty rocket launcher. You'll have to solve a couple of light physics puzzles as well, which we won't detail for the sake of preserving at least a little of the surprise. You'll even get to talk to an old man at the beginning of the level, who provides you with the impetus to head up into the hills and engage the Combine in the first place."

6 of 32 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Same old? by Ford+Prefect · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's just one short level. And actually, it's more like a demo designed to show off the graphics with a HL2 map attached to it.

    Yup. To get the best enjoyment out of the game side of things, play on Hard with the commentary turned off - the latter is important because otherwise you'll be stuck in an invulnerable god-mode.

    It is very short, but quite nicely constructed. I still think that Day of Defeat: Source was the better demonstration of HDR, but this new map is still worth the download. The recommended specifications seem pretty generous too - I played on a 128MB GeForce 6600 (non-GT) without any real problems.

    --
    Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
  2. NICE! by kaellinn18 · · Score: 4, Funny

    You'll even get to talk to an old man at the beginning of the level

    Holy crap, I CAN'T WAIT to play this!!!

    --

    --------
    This isn't the sig you're looking for. Move along.
  3. Short but fun by regular_gonzalez · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Notably short, but very pretty. Some fun easter eggs for you to find as well. At the end, the old man mentions some leeches ... look around and you'll find them. Quicksave first though :)

    --
    Due to circumstances beyond my control, I am master of my fate and captain of my soul.
    1. Re:Short but fun by Hakubi_Washu · · Score: 4, Informative

      There's one shipwreck which can be targeted from the elevator and probably right at the beginning, if you climb over the rocks behind you (?), that features a comment node which talks about it being a puzzle they had to leave out because they thought people would prefer the rappeling soldiers (hint: I don't, but then I enjoy playing Myst :-P ). Also Gabe specifically asks for feedback and gives his email in one of the last nodes.

      The comment nodes are fun BTW, but I would have prefered the whole game to pause (they can get difficult to hear well if a certain machine is close). Additionally you go into god-mode when activating the comments, which is bad IMHO, since I started it with comments on, because I wasn't sure I wanted to run through a second time...

  4. What I really can't believe by nekoes · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is that it took them so long to release this. Well, really I suppose most of the time was revamping all the code to do HDR, considering the level only has 5-10 minutes of content at most. The HDR is a cool effect... unfortunately after a bit of playing it seems to hurt my eyes. I wonder how far in advance the level was planned and done, and how long it took them to get the HDR worked out. DoD seemed to hang on the HDR, and the Lost Coast came out relatively quick after that was relased. What sucks is even that it took forever to release, the Lost Coast still is buggy as hell. Often times it'll forget to spawn the soldiers with AI, among other things.

    For what it's worth, I think the coolest feature is the commentary they put in which goes along with the level to describe their thoughts behind the design and code revamp. It gives some insight into their level design process and other things.

    I think full length games with an accompanying commentary track could be pretty cool if done well. However, I don't think the floating commentary entities are the way to do it.

    Not sure it was worth the 360 meg download, but it is interesting. Valve's HDR solution is really space intensive unfortunately. :( I wonder if in the future we'll find a more viable way of achieving the same effect without taking a thousand gigs to do it...

    --
    Hey, it's my OPINION that dogs have eight legs and make a sound like a car horn every time they take a piss.
  5. Sailing by irwtdvoys · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's also possible to explore the other side of the harbour by "sailing" across in one of the boats, fun but a bit disapointing as there are no secrets or stuff over there, it's just nice to see the map from all angles :) Give it a go...

    Sailing tutorial here:
    http://www.lanse.co.uk/main/viewtopic.php?p=40409& sid=ec778b989b90a4c3252e4e834f61a7e4#40409/