Customer Reviews

Half-Life 2

5 star:		(344)
4 star:		(81)
3 star:		(61)
2 star:		(24)
1 star:		(146)

 

 

I stopped keeping time after 2am so I can't be sure what hour it is, nor can I tell you when I ran out of the cannister of Malt Balls and Peanut M&M's I brought as supplementation. What I can tell you however (in the humble opinion of a dedicated PC gamer for 15 years), is that Half Life 2 is the the most mind blowing game I've ever played.

I was at E3 with my pyscho gaming buddy cleaning the Pizza flavored drool off his chin when we got a preview of HL2. Like most, I counted the days, cursed Valve and Sierra for delay after delay, put all my faith and hope into Doom 3, was underwhelmed, went back to playing Desert Combat...basically went insane with anticipation.

In the brief moments before firing up HL2 for the first time, I was hopeful, but expecting to be dissapointed.

And I was.

Really, no multi-player! I'm one of those that have an absolute allergy to single-player games. Small beads of angry sweat began to form on my back...

But I soldiered on, and in:

10 minutes I was impressed,

at 30 minutes I was completely immersed,

at 1 hour chills were running up and down my spine, and occasional girlish yelps of horror began emanating from my pitch dark office...

...by the third hour I came to the conclusion that HL2 was/is the most impressive game software I've ever had the privilege of living in. Some highlights:

1. The engine is truly revolutionary. Doom 3 has a darn good engine, HL2 in my opinion is vastly better. Indoor AND outdoor environments are near photo-realistic (I have a 3.2GHZ w/ 1GB RAM), the physics are jaw-dropping AND deeply integrated into the play of the game, texture and lighting, faces, water, you name it, this engine is now The Standard.

2. Vehicles. Well, not only do they have them, they're really fun to operate (or be chased by as the case may be).

3. The Gravity Gun. This weapon comes later in the game, and in my humble opinion, is easily the most fun weapon I've ever used. Picking up and throwing items, using it to activate latent elements of the environment (often as weapons) is unbelievably fun. Which brings me to:

4. Humor. This game has some really funny moments. I almost busted a gut when I ran out of heavy/sharp things to fire at zombified creatures that were teaming up on me in close quarters. I desperately pulled over a large can of paint, fired, and splattered huge gobs of white paint all over their (now more upset) faces. I died, but I died laughing. And finally:

5. Immersion. The screams were obvious signs of immersion, but beyond that, I noticed myself making facial expressions of anger, empathy, anticipation...all throughout the game I found myself genuinely caring. That's a first for me.

I really could go on and on, but I can't, literally, I fear that dawn isn't far from my window and I'd like to pretend that I myself won't be a zombie tomorrow.

Enjoy,

Christian Hunter
Santa Barbara, California

The game is fantastic, if you can manage to play
for some reason valve software has decided to use steam, an internet game network, to validate the game, even the single player one.

you can read all about how good the game is (it really is) in the other reviews.
but be aware that
1) installation takes forever
2) counter strike source reports "game unavailabe" most of the time
3) You need to be online to play, wont be taking this game on any trips.
4) The steam engine is as I write this in frustration "verifing my flies" again, for the last 20 minutes!! before allowing me to play. I've only had the game for three days!

I tried installing HL2 for 6 hours before I finally gave up. I kept getting "Error 1305: Cannot read hard drive" messages. After following the instructions on the Valve Support page (of which there are precious few), and doing ridiculous things like updating my DVD-ROM bios at their request, it still wouldn't work.

I finally looked online and found that a score of others are having the same problem. The answer: Faulty disks! The media Valve used to distribute the game is horrible, some of it getting corrupted between release and my time of purchase (less than 15 days!)

I had to return the CDs for replacements, and then the game installed the first time. Oh, by the way, if you have dial-up (thanks to living in a rural area), installation will take at least 90 minutes. You have to install Steam--a ridiculous program that is the ultimate Digital Rights Management kick in the neck--(5 minutes), install the game (15-20 minutes with CD swapping on 5 CDs!), let Steam update itself (10-20 minutes), register for a Steam account (10 minutes), register your game with your Steam account (15-20 minutes), and then allow Steam to "decrypt" your game so it's playable (20-45 minutes).

After all that, it STILL takes more than 90 seconds just to get to the game's main menu when you run it! I had Commodore 64 games in the late 80's that loaded faster than that. To to it all off, with this new "innovation" in game installation (read: annoying ploy to destroy our souls to keep someone's 13-year-old cousin from burning his own copy), there are NO DIRECTIONS, NO GAME MANUAL, no nothing! There's a "reference card" to help with install, which says nothing of what Steam actually is or will do to your machine (it resides in the system tray and eats resources even when you're not playing?!)

For a game that was so severely delayed, this is not just disappointing-this is unconscionable design. There are as many pages of advertising for ATI video cards as there are instructions. By the way, forget about tech support. I emailed them 3 DAYS AGO, and have heard nothing back. Of course, you can try "live tech chat." Good luck with that, if you can even get connected. No telephone support, and no contact info for support on the ridiculous card that's not even a manual. There's no game manual even on the CD, from what I can find!

For those who say you can't rate a game based on its install and interface, I have to disagree. In fact, I think it is inane to think otherwise. How can you rate a car that's nearly impossible to get into? Sure, it might drive great, but if you can't actually squeeze through the door to get in, what use is all that speed?

I hope to enjoy the game..I got it yesterday from eb games and YES I noticed the online connectin required. HOWEVER, MOST WILL ASSUME THIS IS FOR REGISTRATION ONLY Its not an online game(primarily) . Until you actually open the box you dont realize that you are required to have one to even play. I DONT agree with that AT ALL. They will still get their money, this is the sort of thing thats driving pc gamers to console, and making these companies spend more on consoles than pc games (much to the chagrin of pc gamers). While the game itself may be worth it, (looking forward to it) this BS with "steam" is definitely NOT

I've waited a long time for this game and picked it up yesterday. The game took 30 minutes to install, which is fine. But then this stream server wants to connect to it's web site and I spent another hour over a 56k connection unlocking my half life 2 files. Even after all this I could still not play the game. When I clicked on the play game button I was told it would take another 19 minutes till I could start to play. The doc said about clicking remember my password to play offline, which I never saw. I don't like spending $55 for a game to be made to feel like a criminal. I never even played this game, since it would not let me. I'll be taking the game back for a full refund. I will not support these kind of games. This may be a great game with great graphics, but I was never able to find out.

As some reveiwers have already mentioned, Half-Life 2 requires registration on a program called Steam. Well, to make a long story short, I've spent my entire day salivating over a mere taste of the game I just forked over $55 to play, but instead of battling aliens in City 17, I'm battling network problems that Valve should have anticipated... but that's absurd because I want the single player campaign, and my internet connection (etc etc) shouldn't even be an issue.

Most games average $39.99 new, but no, Valve demanded $55 (as did Doom 3 and Diablo 2 and all those overhyped "we're doing you a favor letting you buy this masterpiece at all" games), and to add insult to injury I can't even play what I paid good money for. I don't know what the game is like, so I can't judge it -- but I can vent my frustration, as others have done (and are doing in increasing numbers), by informing potential buyers of all the pains that come with owning Half-Life 2. You shouldn't have to jump hoops when you've already paid, and to say I'm "steamed" (forgive the pun) is quite an understatement.

I'm showing Valve how much I appreciate this mess by selling my copy of Half-Life 2 and turning my back on it. I don't care how great PC Gamer thinks it is -- my principles of a consumer demand it.

You must register online before you can even play offline.

This is ludicrous.

This is also a very disturbing trend for a game - if you buy this one, you can expect to see more games use a similar scheme.

What happens once you uninstall the game and it is no longer even supported years doen the road? You are out of luck. They could just as easily decide to stop supporting it once the next version is out and force you to upgrade.

Stop the madness now before it gets out of hand or we will all come to regret it and pc gaming will be choked out of existence.

I just got the game and to my surprise, even though it's a single player game, I HAVE TO BE CONNECTED TO THE NET TO PLAY IT !!

Not only that, but the game converts all your old Valve games to the new technology, so you also can't play them anymore unless you're connected.

Now I don't know which website this is, but can you imagine the scene? You and 50 million kids all wanna play this game on Saturday morning. What do you think the chances are? Particularly if you have a dial-up.

I'm returning the game unplayed. No way am I paying $55 for a game and don't really own it. Very stiff rental fee. I'll buy no more Valve/Steam products.

Not a comment on the substance of the game, but just a note of caution to buyers: even though this is an "offline" game, you need to be connected to the internet to play the game, in any mode.

Why?

Because the creators/publishers are paranoid about piracy --- so the game discs you are buying do not contain all the files needed to play the game. In order to get these needed files, you need to download them from the creator's website on the internet. On launch day, this was taking 4-8 hours to do. In addition, after the files are downloaded, you need to register the game at the website before it will allow you to play it when you are not connected to the internet -- and that registration line can be long and slow! And this is for the OFFLINE portion of the game, not the multiplayer portion.

The retail box apparently says "internet connection required". They mean this folks -- NOT just for multiplayer! You need to set aside several internet-connected hours in order to download the remaining files and register the game before you can play one second of it offline.

Booo! Hiss! The creators and publishers here are putting their own paranoid security above the ability of gamers to play their offline games in peace, without having to deal with the lag associated with online games. Poor show indeed, Valve and Vivendi, poor show!

"Steam", I hate you. I don't say much more, just: save your money!!!!!