Half-Life 2: Aftermath Screenshots And Release Date!

[Janooo]

QFT = Quoted For Truth

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: Kaeishiwaza
Steam is great and best of all makes Valve independent of its publishers. Never had a problem with it. It hardly uses resources relative to what any of the Steam apps use, so it's a bit silly to consider it a high overhead. I get a library of about twenty games and can pick up new high quality games for usually around $20.00 without going to the store. Best of all, I never have to patch or update a frickin thing. I wish all games were distributed through Steam or something like it. How awesome would it be to go home, flip through a huge library of available games, pick one that I like, buy it and play it without any fuss?

More power to Steam! (not a Valve employee)

thats ok, you'd be running ATI if you were

 

[TSS]

i like steam alot....now.

when it first came out it was buggy, had alot of work to be done... but now its a very good platform. which will only get better in the future. and munky, what would you rather have? a update every week that actually FIXES bugs, or have a buggy game for a whole month, while developers try to fix stuff and release a patch that make things even more buggy?

if they had updated BF1942 as much as they update HL2 and CS:S, the bugs would be cleared within weeks. the netcode was buggy till 1.3, which ment months. i heard BF2 wasnt much better either with alot of bugs. things with steam, things get fixed and updated very fast. and tahts a very positive thing IMO.

it uses some memory and you have to have a internet connection to run games yes. but more then likely 99% of the people buying the game will have a good memory connection and more than enough memory to run steam and halflife. on the upside, alot of cheaters get banned (it atleast makes it harder), the copy protection is pretty good without beeing invasive (sony, anybody?), only problem was the thing taking forever to unlock on the first few days because everybody wanted to. mine was unlocked like within 15 minutes 2 weeks after it came out. sure it was 15 minutes but cmon, for that many updates and fixes im willing to wait 15 minutes. and eventually itll be good for valve too. i just like it to have a CD in my hands in a box so i still go to the store, but i do know a few people that buy through steam. i once read in a interview that with the CDs in a store, valve gets like 5 or less dollars. purchase through steam, you'll help them 30 dollars. if there was something like that for the music industry, things would look alot better there too.

anyways... back ontopic after that little rant P), aftermath better be good... its comming such a long time after HL2, it should be quality. if it isnt, meh... ill probably still buy it anyways since im too bloody eager to see what story they can come up next, but ill complain

 

[nitromullet]

Good points TSS. Another thing I like about Steam is that Valve has taken it upon themselves to host and serve up the updates. How many games require you to get the patches elsewhere? I have an account with Fileplanet because I got sick of having to wait in various different free server queues to download updates to software I paid for because the developer/publisher didn't make the effort to host the files or thet were hosted on a site with such little bandwidth that the download took forever. Even Blizzard... WoW is great, and they tried to make the updates faster to download by making a peer-to-peer type download in their updater, but I get the files much faster from fileplanet... Should I have to pay fileplanet to support my games...?

Edit: oh... ummm... back on topic. I am pretty stoked about Aftermath, anyone know if it will be using Valve's HDR?

 

[Bartokomus]

Steam isn't that bad imo; the days of developers giving away the fruit of their labours for small gains are done. Whether its the distributor or pirates, they lose a lot.

 

[roguerower]

Originally posted by: mehmetmunur
Surprisingly I never stopped playing the game, and probably finished the game at least 3 times. I still have nightmares about Ravenholm...

Ravenhold was one fvcked up place. But I like the wizzing sawblades of death.

I agree nitromullet. I have a subscription to FileShack b/c everyone else took so fricking long downloading.

 

[videopho]

Release date pushed to April now? Hopefully it's not another April FOOL date pulled off by STEAM. DOn't get me wrong I enjoyed HL2 and hopefully HL2:Aftermath immensely.

 

[VIAN]

Yes steam does suck and so does EA. But I have more respect for Valve than EA. Not that much more, but still more. Now is the decision, EA or steam. Will EA still get money from steam? Probably. So I'll buy it in the box form then, maybe.

For taking a freaking year and a half, it better be good. Graphically it doesn't look any different accept for the new things they've been adding to CS:S.

Originally posted by: mwmorph
I bought Hl2, but i never finished it, just got bored and quit halfway(right after the driving part). Anyone else?

Unfortunately, a few more levels afterwards is when the action starts to pick up. IIRC

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Hey look at the bright side, with EA at the helm the game wont be a year late.

Itll be right on time, loaded with bugs, and in beta quality years after its release.

EA's not making it, just distributing it.

Yeah, well EA didn't make BF2, but it distributed the buggy POS to us for 55 a pop.

 

[blckgrffn]

Originally posted by: VIAN
Yes steam does suck and so does EA. But I have more respect for Valve than EA. Not that much more, but still more. Now is the decision, EA or steam. Will EA still get money from steam? Probably. So I'll buy it in the box form then, maybe.

For taking a freaking year and a half, it better be good. Graphically it doesn't look any different accept for the new things they've been adding to CS:S.

EA won't get anything from the steam distribution. Remember Vivendi Universal, screaming, kicking, and suing when they realized that Valve meant to quickly sidestep them. I bet EA is just happy to distribute the boxed copy of a game that will be a very big seller, it will make them tons of money with compartively minimal effort.

Nat

 

[bjc112]

Trailer looks cool!

 

[professor1942]

Steam is good stuff, no messing around with no-cd's and mounted images, no wasted paper/plastic and gas driving to the store to get a game, etc. No PST/GST for us Canadians... It's the way of the future, so get used to it!

I loved HL2, but I'm dead sick of Alyx now. Can you kill her in the expansion?

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: VIAN
Yes steam does suck and so does EA. But I have more respect for Valve than EA. Not that much more, but still more. Now is the decision, EA or steam. Will EA still get money from steam? Probably. So I'll buy it in the box form then, maybe.

For taking a freaking year and a half, it better be good. Graphically it doesn't look any different accept for the new things they've been adding to CS:S.

Originally posted by: mwmorph
I bought Hl2, but i never finished it, just got bored and quit halfway(right after the driving part). Anyone else?

Unfortunately, a few more levels afterwards is when the action starts to pick up. IIRC

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Hey look at the bright side, with EA at the helm the game wont be a year late.

Itll be right on time, loaded with bugs, and in beta quality years after its release.

EA's not making it, just distributing it.

Yeah, well EA didn't make BF2, but it distributed the buggy POS to us for 55 a pop.

Exactly, EA pressures developers to rush titles out the door when they arent ready. They also have horrible playtesting for most PC titles.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: VIAN
Yes steam does suck and so does EA. But I have more respect for Valve than EA. Not that much more, but still more. Now is the decision, EA or steam. Will EA still get money from steam? Probably. So I'll buy it in the box form then, maybe.

For taking a freaking year and a half, it better be good. Graphically it doesn't look any different accept for the new things they've been adding to CS:S.

Originally posted by: mwmorph
I bought Hl2, but i never finished it, just got bored and quit halfway(right after the driving part). Anyone else?

Unfortunately, a few more levels afterwards is when the action starts to pick up. IIRC

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Hey look at the bright side, with EA at the helm the game wont be a year late.

Itll be right on time, loaded with bugs, and in beta quality years after its release.

EA's not making it, just distributing it.

Yeah, well EA didn't make BF2, but it distributed the buggy POS to us for 55 a pop.

Exactly, EA pressures developers to rush titles out the door when they arent ready. They also have horrible playtesting for most PC titles.

I doubt EA can pressure Valve, Gabe would just tell EA to FO!

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: mwmorph
I bought Hl2, but i never finished it, just got bored and quit halfway(right after the driving part). Anyone else?

QFT

Sooo boring! I dont know why, it seemed ok, but I stopped right after the driving part... or was it the river baot part... anyways, stopped and havent played in 5 months.

im glad im not the only one that thought it was boring. ravenholm was the only fun part to me. the whole ball throwing thing at the end was sooo stupid. the game didnt have any freedom at all. you were just forced to go a cetain way the whole time. even doom3 had more freedom and far cry was way more fun.

 

[Powermoloch]

Steam : :thumbsdown:

 

[RobertR1]

Steam has gotten a lot better since it's inception. The only negative actually stems from it's positive aspect. While valve can give regular updates to it's customer base, it's also allowed them to release games well before they should be. Valve's mentality is that "we'll just fix issues via steam patches as they come up." Valve basically uses their customer base as their QA department. So many steam updates have had errors that would quickly be highlighted during any sort of QA testing.

The concept of Steam is great but Valve's usage of it needs to be reconsidered.

 

[KeepItRed]

I love VALVe. Their only problems are Steam, and choosing EA to publish their games.

 

[nitromullet]

im glad im not the only one that thought it was boring. ravenholm was the only fun part to me. the whole ball throwing thing at the end was sooo stupid. the game didnt have any freedom at all. you were just forced to go a cetain way the whole time. even doom3 had more freedom and far cry was way more fun.

I personally thought HL2 was fun almost the entire way through, although based on its level of difficulty, I would imagine that it was targeted towards a larger audience then just the hardcore gamers. HL1 was much more difficult IMO and way longer. I agree with you about farCry though. I'm really curious to see if Crytek can pull off another single player game with the freedom and options that FarCry had. I am also surprised (and a bit disappointed) that games to come out since FarCry have not copied that aspect of the game. Everything else has felt linear since FarCry, and it is more noticable now that I have seen that it can be different. It would be very cool to have had the same free range over City17 as one did on the islands in FarCry.

 

[Phantronius]

Originally posted by: mehmetmunur
Surprisingly I never stopped playing the game, and probably finished the game at least 3 times. I still have nightmares about Ravenholm...

That level scared me more the the entire game of Doom 3

 

[CP5670]

I personally thought HL2 was fun almost the entire way through, although based on its level of difficulty, I would imagine that it was targeted towards a larger audience then just the hardcore gamers. HL1 was much more difficult IMO and way longer. I agree with you about farCry though. I'm really curious to see if Crytek can pull off another single player game with the freedom and options that FarCry had. I am also surprised (and a bit disappointed) that games to come out since FarCry have not copied that aspect of the game. Everything else has felt linear since FarCry, and it is more noticable now that I have seen that it can be different. It would be very cool to have had the same free range over City17 as one did on the islands in FarCry.

I thought Far Cry was sort of a mixed bag in that respect. The outdoor parts were extremely free-form, but the indoor areas were just the opposite. I think the first Deus Ex really got this nonlinearity aspect right, but there hasn't been anything comparable since then. Although that STALKER game looks like it will be even better, whenever it comes out.

I bought Hl2, but i never finished it, just got bored and quit halfway(right after the driving part). Anyone else?

I came very close to giving it up around the prison level, but kept playing on since I had already put a lot of time into it anyway. I honestly found it the most boring and repetitive game I've played in years. It had some good parts towards the end but you had to go through the first nine or so dreary levels to get to that point.

The Ravenholm level was fun though, simply because you could make those hanging legs at the beginning go absolutely ballistic by shooting them from certain angles. I spent nearly a hour just screwing around with that.

 

[NoStateofMind]

Originally posted by: CP5670

I personally thought HL2 was fun almost the entire way through, although based on its level of difficulty, I would imagine that it was targeted towards a larger audience then just the hardcore gamers. HL1 was much more difficult IMO and way longer. I agree with you about farCry though. I'm really curious to see if Crytek can pull off another single player game with the freedom and options that FarCry had. I am also surprised (and a bit disappointed) that games to come out since FarCry have not copied that aspect of the game. Everything else has felt linear since FarCry, and it is more noticable now that I have seen that it can be different. It would be very cool to have had the same free range over City17 as one did on the islands in FarCry.

I thought Far Cry was sort of a mixed bag in that respect. The outdoor parts were extremely free-form, but the indoor areas were just the opposite. I think the first Deus Ex really got this nonlinearity aspect right, but there hasn't been anything comparable since then. Although that STALKER game looks like it will be even better, whenever it comes out.

I bought Hl2, but i never finished it, just got bored and quit halfway(right after the driving part). Anyone else?

I came very close to giving it up around the prison level, but kept playing on since I had already put a lot of time into it anyway. I honestly found it the most boring and repetitive game I've played in years. It had some good parts towards the end but you had to go through the first nine or so dreary levels to get to that point.

The Ravenholm level was fun though, simply because you could make those hanging legs at the beginning go absolutely ballistic by shooting them from certain angles. I spent nearly a hour just screwing around with that.

LOL! I did too!

 

[Kroz]

Steam is not so great but if I have to have it to play HL2 - Aftermath, then I have no choice have I?!

 

[Ackmed]

Originally posted by: Kaeishiwaza
Steam is great and best of all makes Valve independent of its publishers. Never had a problem with it. It hardly uses resources relative to what any of the Steam apps use, so it's a bit silly to consider it a high overhead. I get a library of about twenty games and can pick up new high quality games for usually around $20.00 without going to the store. Best of all, I never have to patch or update a frickin thing. I wish all games were distributed through Steam or something like it. How awesome would it be to go home, flip through a huge library of available games, pick one that I like, buy it and play it without any fuss?

More power to Steam! (not a Valve employee)

I agree. I dont have to worry about multiple CD's when installing a game, or having the disc in the drive, or trying to find the latest crack for the latest patch. Just fire up steam, and its done. It patches itself and is easy to use. Saves money as well, as you dont have for tax, the the trip to the store. You get it sooner, and cheaper.

It saves them money, which is better for us gamers in the long run. If the devs make more money, they make more games. Lots of companies are going under sadly, and saving money is good.

Im looking forward to Aftermath a lot. HL2 was my fav game (sp) of last year easily.

 

[zagood]

Originally posted by: Kroz
Steam is not so great but if I have to have it to play HL2 - Aftermath, then I have no choice have I?!

From http://www.tweakguides.com/HL2_4.html

Do I have to have an Internet Connection to play Half Life 2: The short answer is Yes. If you don't have any kind of Internet connection, you cannot play Half Life 2. Steam requires online authentication of your Half Life 2 CD Key and it also needs to download additional files to activate and complete the Half Life 2 install before it can be played. There is no legal way around this - the CD Key must be authenticated online, and sharing Steam cached files with your friends is illegal. However once you've registered your CD Key and updated Half Life 2 you can play it offline at any time without having to have an active Internet connection - see below.

Playing Half Life 2 offline: Once installed, verified and updated online, you can play Half Life 2 without having to be connected to the Internet. To do this, follow the Steam Configuration instructions further below. Then whenever you want to play offline, make sure you don't have an active Internet connection and launch Half Life 2. When prompted, select the 'Play in Offline Mode' option and the game will load and play offline.

 

[BespinReactorShaft]

How the heck did this thread get into the Video forum anyway?

Originally posted by: mehmetmunur
Surprisingly I never stopped playing the game, and probably finished the game at least 3 times. I still have nightmares about Ravenholm...

Well, let's look at it this way: unlike nightmares, games allow you to go right back and kick the butt of whatever's been scaring you until it stops scaring you completely.