Mailbag

Half-Life 2, but there's also stuff about Half-Life 2.

Hello,

First off I just wanna say thank you all for providing the greatest game site on the net. But I must say i have been playing quake 3 nonstop for some time now. And when i finally got my steam account to play the game.. Well lets just say i wont be playing quake for a while.

The controls are wonderful! I just cant believe how well they got the control scheme down. very fluid movements and you still can do some strafe jumping =D

The graphics are amazing and i cant believe how fluid the system runs with everything on the screen reacting and particles flying! You gotta love the Havoc engine too =) im having way too much fun with the gravity gun. Picking up things and throwing them at everyone. On the coastline i was even having a contest with my friend where we switch off and see how far we can get a barrel to roll down the road.

The weapons are well modeled and well tuned. I do wish there was a little more ammo, I frequently have to go on a search for ammo but it does make the game a bit more challanging so im kinda torn on it.

The driving levels are really cool i like the hoverboat but the dune buggy... well turning is a pain and the turbo is nearly useless unless your going straight.

And wow.. the story. I never played the first Half life. I know, i know, but i was way into quake and it didnt have anything special about it at the time for me to spend 49.99 on it (what can i say im a gamer on a budget). So when i first loaded it up i had no idea on what to expect. I quickly sliped into the world that valve had shown me. Everything that you see is in some way believable. My craving for adventure and mischeif were satisifed right fromt he get go. Soon enough i was confronted with danger and thats when I really relized 'Holy Sh*t this game is baddass!' (took a while to sink in, i was too amazed)

Oh yea the sound, you gotta love the action music. :p It just heightens the emotion of the player even more. I felt like rambo plowing through the dead citys. I like the ambiant sounds as well as charcter sounds. This game has some of the best voice acting ive seen in a game! And i love how wood, cardboard, glass all sound right on the money. They really took sound seriously in this game, and did a wonderful job.

Overall i really do believe this is the Best Game i have ever played. I know that a really bold statment but im not a rpg player i dont like mmo's im all about tatics and instant gratification when i want some action. Good FPS are too few nowadays but this game has given me a newfound respect for valve. I tip my hat to all you at valve and say thank you for an amazing game.

Thank You IGN and Thank You Valve,

Jim Husman

Hey IGN,

I picked up the collector's edition of Half-Life 2 yesterday, along with the thousands of other people around the world. I'm still playing it, and I've gone as far as the buggy level, but wow, what a game. I would still be playing it too, if I didn't have work.

So far, the game has been great. The only complaint I have is not really about the game, but about what I had to do in order to play it. I think you know what I'm talking about. It took me a good 45 minutes just to get through that stupid Steam verification and unlocking thing. I realize that Valve Software is trying to prevent their products from being pirated, but after holding my breath for so long then making me wait with the game in hand, another 45 minutes is a killer. Nevertheless, the game was worth the wait.

What really impresses me is the graphics and the physics of the game. The details that went into creating this virtual world are remarkable. The enemies are smart, and the weapons are just stand-out cool. The crowbar is always my favorite, but the handgun had that "umph" that I was looking for when killing a headcrab or a combine soldier. However, I did feel that the level where in you drive that hover boat thing lasted a bit too long. But getting my hands on that gravity gun sure made up for it. The sheer ability to manipulate standard objects, turning them into deadly projectiles and weilding it at your enemy, is too much fun. My favorite part of the gravity gun is when you throw those saw blades and cut those headcrab zombies in half. Made me laugh evey time and it never gets old. And how about that Father Gregory, he cracks me up! So far the pace of the game and the story has really been good. The whole layout of the levels is great, and it keeps you drawn in to it, not making you want to leave. I stayed up till 2:30 AM, trying to finish the game in one night, but I couldn't keep my eyes open for long. But again, wow, that game had been on my mind the whole day, and my congratulations goes out to the team at Valve Software for making such a remarkable game. Oh and good job on your review. However, I think you guys could have given it a 10 rating; I would.

Laters,

IGN and Half-Life 2 fan

Once you get past the frustration of the ill-fated Steam experiment and actually get into Half Life 2, it has to be one of the best gaming experiences ever devised. The thing that strikes me the most to this point is the ingenious use of physics in the game. A lot of games in recent memory have started using the Havok physics engine, but the physics usually don't amount to more than being able to run into boxes and have them tumble around a room. Games such as Max Payne 2 did have pretty breathtaking firefights where boxes, bodies, and other objects were flying around the room as things exploded. Half Life 2 seems to be the first to actually make physics an integral part of the game, however.

Puzzles can be solved through the manipulation of objects. For instance, near the very beginning of the game, and the first instance of the physics playing a major role in the game, there is a large board centered over a round concrete cylinder. You need to raise the other side of the board to reach the ledge, so what do you do? Throw some concrete bricks on the high side of the board to lower it and in turn raising the opposite side so you can jump to the ledge. That, to me, is just amazing. There seem to be a lot of physics based problems throughout the game which is just cooler than the other side of the pillow. And, of course, there are the amazing firefights as well. Bodies, boxes, exploding barrels...everything goes flying about like a ballet of destruction. It's beautiful to watch and loads of fun to play.

To quote the good people at Guiness, Half Life 2 is absolutely nothing short of "Brilliant!"

Kurtis L.

The game is awesome. My only complaints are:

1)The overly long installation process. I mean, come on. I was cool with the online registration, (even think it's a good idea. Only downside is people who do not have a ready Internet connection. But out of the people who are going to play this game, those are few and far between.) But I bought the game off the shelf, installed it from the CDs, and it still has to "Unlock the game files"? That's kind of ridiculous. At least when that failed, along with my CD key registration due to server overload, it still let me play (in the meantime).

2) Personally, I got sick of that hovercraft thing. I thought I was on it way too long. I hope the dune buggy sequence is a long way from here and that it is not nearly as long. (This is, however, just a preference thing.)

3) Maybe it's just my setup for some reason, but the rear speakers seem vastly quiet. Even when I turned them up all the way, I had trouble hearing people in the train station talking behind me.

Aside from those things I am totally loving it. Throwing stuff at the guards in the beginning of the game is great. The atmosphere they set up at the very beginning of the game really pulls you in. The only reason I stopped playing is because my real-world body got in the way. (Sore neck and needed sleep). The characters are the most realistic I've ever seen. The lighting was pleasantly much better than I had believed it was going to be, due to some of the videos I had seen. Everything seems to have a history, like Eli with his false leg, and the city with its desolate look. Even some of the mundane details are great.

I've seen some people on other forums talking about how small the sections are between zones. As far as that, I don't think that the zones are really any smaller than the first game, you just notice them more because they take longer to load. (at least they do on my comp, which is just below the recommended system setup.)

Overall, I would highly recommend this game to anyone who wanted a total immersion game experience.

Robert Leo "Akrovah" Hovorka III

Smile, it makes people wonder.

Okay, first things first. I know people have said that Source isn't all it's cracked up to be, and the physics in Half Life 2 are nothing new, but they are DEAD WRONG. The source engine in Half Life 2 makes it out and out the most impressive game ever made. Throwing a grenade into a pile of tires in the middle of a firefight, and watching them fly every which way and bounce all over the room as they knock out Combine soldiers and tip over tool benches has got to be the coolest thing ever.

My favorite part about the game by far, though, is the familiar, yet alien look and feel of the Combine. All of the soldiers look human, but they don't act human. The vehicles look human, but they don't act human. Take for example the hunter seeker helicopter, with its recharging machine gun, or its inexplicable ability to drop far more bombs out of its hull than it could physically have the possiblity to do so. It's just so good. It literally destroys Halo 2 in every aspect. And I'm a huge Halo fan, and my friends would consider this blasphemy.

Tyler D.

Hey Guys,

So far, so good for gameplay. It feels awesome, and what I can see looks GREAT, but therein lies my issue. I am sure it's my own damn fault, or hardware issues, but I am not getting half the game. A lot of the textures are not being drawn in my game, just wire-frames. Again, the only 2 issues I can see are vid card issues (bad install, or bad drivers--I did install it myself though, and many other games work just fine, like CS: Source--or my preload of the game is oddly incomplete (missing textures?). Any thoughts? Here are the specs:

420W p/s in a mid case with 2 external fans exhaust, and 1 intake. Coolermaster Aerogate 4 AMD 2500+ (overclocked, but bigger fan), 512MB RAM, Radeon 9600 SE, 128MB 120GB WD Hard Drive, Asus A7N8X-E NFORCE 2 Deluxe, using the Soundstorm for audio.

Not a major system by any means, but I play source and Halo often and have had no issues what so ever on either. And now that I'm at the end of this letter, I realize you wanted feedback on gameplay.... not some geek's problems.... maybe I should delete this letter now? NAH! Enjoy!

Jason

No worries, Jason. My guess is that you need to get the latest vid card drivers from ATI. Also, the SE flavor has a bit of a bandwidth issue that makes it difficult to get playable framerates with antialiasing and anisotropic filtering enabled. I'd also recommend tweaking the graphics. Go to Options, click the Video tab, click the Advanced button, and try disabling a few things until the problems go away. Hope that helps!

Tom

Hey, I had a rather quick question. I would love to play Half Life 2, and Doom 3 yet was unsure of my system. I asked the guy at Best Buy, who attempted to sell me everything they had in stock, so I came to you guys. I currently have a Dell Dimension 4700, Pentium 4, 2.40Ghz with 256 RAM (I've ordered an extra 512 from Dell). And an nVidia GeForce FX 64 MB video card. Now, would I be able to run these games with what I have, extra RAM included, or should I upgrade more? If a new graphics card is needed, any recomendations? Thank you for your time.

Josh M.

Hi Josh,

Well, I'd say your best bet would be a Radeon 9800 Pro. If you look sharp and act quickly, you can find it for around $200, but they're in high demand and go out of stock quickly (because it's such a good price/performance ratio). If you have money to spend, the GeForce 6800 and Radeon X800 Pro are also good choices, in the $400 dollar range. I prefer the GT because it has more pipelines (16 versus 12) and Shader Model 3.0 (improves framerates while maintaining image quality), but ATI appears to handle antialiasing better, with 2xAA often being on par with nVidia's 4xAA--and that's a hefty performance consideration.

You may see them in the $150 dollar range--avoid those. They're the "EZ" flavor, which is a gimped version of the 9800 Pro.

Tom

Hi Dan!

I couldn't agree more with your review!!
Halflife 2 is my best experience in front of a computer EVER!
In most major games one usually finds one or two flaws to complain about.
In HL2 I couldn't find anyhing… The graphics, the sound, gameplay, story, characters… Everything is so perfectly knitted together

What impresses me the most is the attention to detail.
One example… A gamer here in Norway went nuts with the crowbar, and wrote his name on a wall. Later he returned to that place and the name was still there! Even during a "cut-scene"
The guys at Valve really took their time finishing this game, and I'm extremely grateful for it!

I miss one thing, though… HL2 deathmatch. I just hope Valve comes up with an update that includes this, or that the mod-communities take matters into their own hands.
Until then…. I'll just play HL2 over and over and over again!

Oh, happy days!! :)

Keep doing the wonderful work you guys do!

Best regards
Håvard
Norway

What's up, IGN. I know this is probably not the best place to ask this, but I've tried the Steam forums, and I can't find the answer anywhere. So here's my question. I purchased HL2 from Steam and downloaded it, and it's working fine. But what I want to know is, what happens if, say, my computer crashes and I have to re-format or something? Can I then re-install the game, or am I screwed out of 60 bucks? I guess I should have thought of it before, but I didn't, so do you have any idea? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, and keep the good work.

Daniel.

Daniel, Daniel, Daniel. You were just one click away from all the answers to all the questions you could possibly have about Steam. About a half an inch to the left of the tab on the front page that says "FORUMS" is the one that says "SUPPORT." But the short answer is that no, you're not screwed. Your game is tied to your Steam account, not to any computer. You can re-download everything, even if you bought the retail version and not the Steam version, and you can also backup your current installation. You back it up by right-clicking on a game in the Play Games list and selecting "Backup Game Files." Assuming you have a CD or DVD burner, you will be able to burn the files onto discs for safekeeping.

Tom

I just wanted to know if you guys at IGN know of a way for me to voice my anger at the SOBs that made the HL2:CE. The box is crap, the prima sampler is crap, the game is excellent, but you need the dvd in the drive even after steam authenitcation while steam gold people don't and have a backup tool. I'm just really pissed at the poor quality and the fact that euro collectors edition buyers get a metal tin. If you don't post this message, could you guys atleast provide in the mailbag a way to get to VU/Valve about many retail CE buyers displeasure? Thanks and keep up the great work on all the stations and especially INSIDER!

My first impressions of Half-life 2 were great. AI is impressive, though it has its time where they can be dumb. One time is when i found my self running from a Fast Zombie, i hid under a flight of stairs and it lost track of me, even though its able to see me through the steps. That i thought was a little stupid. Another was in the Graveyards of Ravenholm. Again being chased by several Fast Zombies, one of them got stuck in the wall, and kept running towards it mindlessly, another stupid problem. Installing can be a little hassle too because of the lengthy wait, well for the Collectors Edition anyways. And unlocking the game can be a hassle, as well as registering for steam for those who don't have steam already installed for the first few days can be a little hectic for many new people will be registering. It took me a couple times to register with steam.But these little problems and glitches are merely a tiny glob of paint of a Master piece.

Daniel Abad Jr.

Some Other Stuff Happened… But Who Cares?

I know this might come as a shock to you, dear readers, but the above is just a random sampling of the avalanche dedicated to Half-Life 2 and the enlightening experiences many have had with the Steam service.

Oh, and in other news, use your spellchecker, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. It's okay to not know how to spell many familiar words and to not use things like commas, but let the computer take care of the problem.

I have spoken. Carry on.

--Tom McNamara