Athlon something-or-other currently running at 1.9 GHz. 1 GB DDR-something RAM. Radeon 9600 128 MB
I play at 1024x768 with most if not all detail settings on high, 2 or 4x FSAA, and a decent level of anisotropic filtering. It plays fine to me, no stuttering or noticable framerate drops.
Maybe if you ALWAYS buy the latest and greatest video card it's fine.
But lets say that today you buy an LCD at 1600x1200 and a computer with a video card that can play all of today's games at that resolution. A year from now, if you had a CRT, you could play the more graphically intensive games of the future in 1280x1024, but not with the LCD.
It was an amazing FPS for consoles, I guess. On real computers it was just good. The shield concept was a nice innovation, but Halo 2 blew it by having just shields and no health bars or health packs.
"Let's go through all the maps BACKWARDS" was the most ridiculous part.
The big deal is that when Greg Duffy published how to trick Google Print into giving you the full text of books, Google responded by erasing GregDuffy.com from the index for a while. That's shady.
s/key fails it. It is a pain in the ass to use, and what happens if you need to log in from a computer that doesn't have the s/key program? You can carry a pad around with one-time passwords, but then you have your password written down.
Maybe the CIA needs that sort of stuff, but my e-mail doesn't.
So Apple says you should only be able to burn DVDs with their drive?
It really mystifies me why people think Apple is better on some moral level than Microsoft. At least I don't have to buy a Microsoft CD-R drive to use XP's built in CD burning...
You don't need people to keep seeding. When a patch is released, the game company's server is the initial seed. People will download the patch, sharing their bandwidth at least while they are downloading and probably seeding for a few hours or days. So in the frenzy surrounding the release of the patch, you can support a Fileplanet sized crowd for the cost of a server or a few in the colo.
After a periood, everyone will have stopped seeding, but at that point you can support fast downloads for the one or two people at a time that will be downloading, because the company just keeps seeding forever.
It's no biggie. Just change up the text next time.
This is the second time I've done something like this. The first was when I submitted Don't Copy That Floppy to bytemonsoon, someone linked it on slashdot, and it spread to be much bigger than it was before...
His body got rested - I figure he was knocked out for eight hours in the teleport - but basically he was knocked out at the end of HL1 and woke up on that train. No vacation, no Xen cruise or anything.
The rocket crates are the best idea ever. It leaves you free to actually use your rockets when you feel like it instead of having to always save them for the big battle. And it makes possible long battles.
There's deeper themes and stuff to the HL2 story, especially compared to HL1. Mostly they're subtle though and seem to have gone over the majority of the gaming population's head, who are now bitching about how they're not given a History of the Combine cutscene at the beginning of the game.
Tim
Re: I have played HL 1, but still I don't understa
on
Review: Half-Life 2
·
· Score: 1
>What good or bad does my killing of the big >nastie in the end of pt. 1 accomplish?
You stop that specific alien invasion of Earth, and you free at least some of the alien slaves (lightning shooting guys.)
>Who are the poor losers in hazard suits >scattered all over XEN?
They were guys from Black Mesa who died while exploring Xen.
>Is The Administrator a.k.a. G-man a human or an >alien, a traitor or a spy? What did he have in >common with Black Mesa research program? What >does he carry in his briefcase besides the gun(checkable by noclip)?
It's not revealed. My current guess is some sort of divine/near-omnipotent being, or the servant of such a being. Half Life 2 reveals that he is insanely powerful - but there's nothing inside his case this time. The G-Man is NOT the Administrator though - the Administrator is a guy named Dr. Breen who is the Vichy government of Earth in HL2.
>What are the samples examined by Gordon in pt.1 >and was resonance cascade phenomenon effect of >an accident or a sabotage? Did G-man have >anything in common with it? Who decided Black >Mesa (apparently a private company) does so >dirty job civillians should be wiped out? Why >did Lambda team need an extra satellite in >orbit?
This stuff isn't really revealed either. You see a material that might be the same stuff as the HL1 sample, but no one makes a big deal of it. Black Mesa was a government lab.
>And what did Gordon actually do after accepting >the administrator's offer?
He teleported off the train at the end of Half Life 1 onto the train at the beginning of Half Life 2. No rest for him.
Tim
Re:I want to, but should I?
on
Review: Half-Life 2
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Load times are comparable to HL1 load times - when HL1 came out. I think I actually waited longer for HL1 level loads on the computer I first played it on.
Slashdot Mirror
Athlon something-or-other currently running at 1.9 GHz.
1 GB DDR-something RAM.
Radeon 9600 128 MB
I play at 1024x768 with most if not all detail settings on high, 2 or 4x FSAA, and a decent level of anisotropic filtering. It plays fine to me, no stuttering or noticable framerate drops.
Tim
Maybe if you ALWAYS buy the latest and greatest video card it's fine.
But lets say that today you buy an LCD at 1600x1200 and a computer with a video card that can play all of today's games at that resolution. A year from now, if you had a CRT, you could play the more graphically intensive games of the future in 1280x1024, but not with the LCD.
Tim
It was an amazing FPS for consoles, I guess. On real computers it was just good. The shield concept was a nice innovation, but Halo 2 blew it by having just shields and no health bars or health packs.
"Let's go through all the maps BACKWARDS" was the most ridiculous part.
Tim
The big deal is that when Greg Duffy published how to trick Google Print into giving you the full text of books, Google responded by erasing GregDuffy.com from the index for a while. That's shady.
Tim
So immigrants don't count as "American"?
Tim
Dean really isn't very liberal at all. Read about how he ran Vermont.
Tim
s/key fails it. It is a pain in the ass to use, and what happens if you need to log in from a computer that doesn't have the s/key program? You can carry a pad around with one-time passwords, but then you have your password written down.
Maybe the CIA needs that sort of stuff, but my e-mail doesn't.
Tim
That $580 PC is absurdly overpriced, unless it includes a monitor. Which the Mac doesn't.
You fail it.
Tim
So Apple says you should only be able to burn DVDs with their drive?
It really mystifies me why people think Apple is better on some moral level than Microsoft. At least I don't have to buy a Microsoft CD-R drive to use XP's built in CD burning...
Tim
Zelda? MORE LIKE CELDA!!!
Tim
If I saw someone dumb enough to buy an MP3 player that doesn't have things like a SCREEN I would look at them funny.
Tim
You don't need people to keep seeding. When a patch is released, the game company's server is the initial seed. People will download the patch, sharing their bandwidth at least while they are downloading and probably seeding for a few hours or days. So in the frenzy surrounding the release of the patch, you can support a Fileplanet sized crowd for the cost of a server or a few in the colo.
After a periood, everyone will have stopped seeding, but at that point you can support fast downloads for the one or two people at a time that will be downloading, because the company just keeps seeding forever.
Tim
Yeah, I'm always covered in oil underneath my PC, tightening up the bolts and changing the oil.
Wait, I mean your post makes no sense. About a year ago I put my computer together. That's all the maintenance ever.
Tim
It's no biggie. Just change up the text next time.
This is the second time I've done something like this. The first was when I submitted Don't Copy That Floppy to bytemonsoon, someone linked it on slashdot, and it spread to be much bigger than it was before...
Tim
I only submitted to Metafilter.
Tim
Yeah, those kids are gonna dig that i(t) = i(0)e^(-t/RC), and the differential equation that explains it.
Tim
His body got rested - I figure he was knocked out for eight hours in the teleport - but basically he was knocked out at the end of HL1 and woke up on that train. No vacation, no Xen cruise or anything.
Tim
The rocket crates are the best idea ever. It leaves you free to actually use your rockets when you feel like it instead of having to always save them for the big battle. And it makes possible long battles.
Tim
The only Source multiplayer game that comes with HL2 is CS:Source, with a promise of Day of Defeat:Source with Silver or Gold packages.
People are working on getting HL2 DM up and running it and it should probably be good within a week.
Tim
In Halo, if you decide to be really hardcore and walk the end sequence, you're screwed in 6 minutes.
Tim
There's deeper themes and stuff to the HL2 story, especially compared to HL1. Mostly they're subtle though and seem to have gone over the majority of the gaming population's head, who are now bitching about how they're not given a History of the Combine cutscene at the beginning of the game.
Tim
>What good or bad does my killing of the big >nastie in the end of pt. 1 accomplish?
You stop that specific alien invasion of Earth, and you free at least some of the alien slaves (lightning shooting guys.)
>Who are the poor losers in hazard suits >scattered all over XEN?
They were guys from Black Mesa who died while exploring Xen.
>Is The Administrator a.k.a. G-man a human or an >alien, a traitor or a spy? What did he have in >common with Black Mesa research program? What >does he carry in his briefcase besides the gun(checkable by noclip)?
It's not revealed. My current guess is some sort of divine/near-omnipotent being, or the servant of such a being. Half Life 2 reveals that he is insanely powerful - but there's nothing inside his case this time. The G-Man is NOT the Administrator though - the Administrator is a guy named Dr. Breen who is the Vichy government of Earth in HL2.
>What are the samples examined by Gordon in pt.1 >and was resonance cascade phenomenon effect of >an accident or a sabotage? Did G-man have >anything in common with it? Who decided Black >Mesa (apparently a private company) does so >dirty job civillians should be wiped out? Why >did Lambda team need an extra satellite in >orbit?
This stuff isn't really revealed either. You see a material that might be the same stuff as the HL1 sample, but no one makes a big deal of it. Black Mesa was a government lab.
>And what did Gordon actually do after accepting >the administrator's offer?
He teleported off the train at the end of Half Life 1 onto the train at the beginning of Half Life 2. No rest for him.
Tim
Load times are comparable to HL1 load times - when HL1 came out. I think I actually waited longer for HL1 level loads on the computer I first played it on.
Tim
That is why God invented NOCD cracks.
Tim
Across the street.
Tim