Before Half Life 2 was announced

el Chi

Newbie
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Messages
7,439
Reaction score
2
Before HL2 was announed, just over a year ago, what form did you expect it to take? I mean I'm sure most people knew it was going to be an FPS, but what else? Where did you think Valve might have taken the story?

Personally I thought it would have been interesting to have started off as another G-Man, that is to say Freeman in a suit and with a briefcase. Other than that I was pretty unsure of what I expected. I certainly didn't expect the way the story's turned out - I assumed the BMRF incident and Xen portals, etc. had been contained. As for features, I wasn't sure and I certainly didn't expect what Valve are offering - physics weren't really even an issue in '98 (except for Trespasser, and we know how well that did) The AI and graphics getting even better were a given but even so, HL2 has surpassed what I expected. I'd also expected Valve to have licensed an engine rather than built a new one practically from scratch. Don't know why...
 
I though the same about the engine. About the story... I just couldn't see Gordon, having a PhD and all, turning into some secret agent killing people, working for the G-man. So I didn't actually have any clue what was going to happen. Anyhow, looks like it turned out really surprising and intruiging. Bet its going to be even more spectacular than what we all are expecting.
 
When I heard of HL2 - I was too busy drooling over doom 3. I really wanted valve to liscense the D3 engine, then. The first screenies looked nice - but I couldn't say much, in fact I though it would prolly be the same claustrophobic indoor jargon. Then I remember some dude at gamespot back from the E3 2003 HL2 theatre and said it was the best game EVAR. So I got intrested. I waited like 3 hours in a line to download the gamespy movie - and when I finally started I pee'd in my pants and couldn't help saying "OMG" after every 3 seconds...

I had lost my hope in valve as a developer after they didn't make a good game for 5 years - coming out with the new cs updates and stuff - I seriously thought that they made that milestone game and will remain ever dependant on it. But when they showed HL2 - it brought back my faith in them.
 
Ansur said:
I though the same about the engine. About the story... I just couldn't see Gordon, having a PhD and all, turning into some secret agent killing people, working for the G-man. So I didn't actually have any clue what was going to happen. Anyhow, looks like it turned out really surprising and intruiging. Bet its going to be even more spectacular than what we all are expecting.
Exactly, I love it that he's still just the wrong man in the wrong/right place.
But he has to get back to his nerd roots!
 
I heard a rumour I think like a year before it was announced that it was going to be darker and that it was based in a city. Turned out to be right.
 
Yeah I'd heard rumours about their interest into that psychologist's work on facial expressions. I'd also heard rumours about a female sidekick, but other than that I don't remember hearing much.
 
:dozey: Seriously, when I first heard about Half Life 2, I was like meh... I might get it. This was barely like one year ago as well, my perspective has changed a lot about games well. Before I wasn't a too big fan of Half Life and junk, I just played the first on my cousins PC. Got it for the PS2 and that was that. Everyone was talking about the game, so I decided to give a peek at the e3 2003 vids and I was blown away. From there on Half Life 2, the whole Half Life franchise has important to me, wowsa.
 
I didn`t even expect that there would ever be Half-Life 2.
And now, that we all know that there WILL be HL2 I have no money for an upgrade. That is, around 1000 euros. :dozey:
So there is a possibility that I`ll spend around half of them on cyber cafes playing it...
This sucks

p.s. ok, anyone has any spare 9800xt/x800?
 
lol i never thought they would come up with a second game ! after blue-shift, it appeared that they would make endless numbers of expansionpacks and multiplayerupdates. but i always wondered why they never made hl2,hl was so sucsessful and great and they earned so much money.
but then i heard that hl2 was already in production over all those years, and i was so ****in happy :D !!!! but i didnt expect it to be such an innovative game. when i saw the e3 2oo3 movie i couldnt even keep my mouth closed and every 4 or 5 seconds a mumbeled things like "oh my god" or "impossible" ! well that was great :)

erm sorry for my bad english :cheers:
 
When I first saw the G-man video... wow... it still blows my mind!
 
ZeeM said:
I didn`t even expect that there would ever be Half-Life 2.

p.s. ok, anyone has any spare 9800xt/x800?

Ive got a dead 9800 with an arctic cooler on it if you want lol...
 
I just saw the box in an EB games store and was like SWEET!! Ill pre-order this game right here... Half-Life was the reason I really got into video games and computers :]
 
Hmm I thought it be a more 'normal' 3D-Shooter, back in 1998 .. because yeah ... I thought: The G-Man will give you orders and you will kick the aliens ass and at the end the G-Man isn't really do something good and he was always lied to you etc. ... something like this with a 'cheap' Story ... (like HL1) ... I never thought it has so lipsinc characters and so detailed models and .. and .. yeah it was 1998 .. if I had the idea like HL2 yet is back in 1998 I will be working for Valve now, because then, I maybe very creativ :D
 
I remember before HL2 was announced, I hadn't even gotten the chance to play all the way through the original Half-Life. I was always very attracted to the game, but things always got in the way of me being able to play it. I bought an old copy that had compatability issues (found out about Steam later :D) one of my friends that had it was too afraid of the game to let me play it, and the friends that weren't afraid of the game never let me play it for very long (they knew it was a long game, and that I would get sucked in for hours if they didn't tear me away.)

Then I heard about HL2 on another forum, and I got very interested again. I found out about Steam, bought a very old copy of Half-Life (probably from the original production run :p) for about $3, and used the CD key to finally get the game. After playing through Half-Life, I looked further into HL2. I waited and waited, and the release dates kept passing. Then the April date turned out to be false, so I found this board, and have been waiting with you guys ever since :)
 
I remember how I got HL - I'd heard alot of good things about it, so I decided to try out the Uplink demo, and was amazed. A few weeks later, I went with my family to see Star Wars: Episode 1 *what crap that film was* and it was on that day when my parents bought me a copy of Half-Life.

When I played it, I was totaly gob-smacked. I actualy remember my jaw dropping at the train intro sequence *it was so graphicaly advanced in those days.* I loved it and have to say, imo, it's still the best game ever.

Anyway, I always knew there HAD to be a sequel to HL, they couldn't just leave it there.

Then the scan from Edge magazine with "next month" and the HL crowbar appeared, with it's shadow making a "2." I was like "OMG! Can it be!?" Surely enough, the scans were leaked onto the net and my excitement reached critical level. Then the E3 2003 video was released and I was sure this would live up to, and even surpass HL1.

I can't belive how well Valve have done though. They have surpassed my expectations imensely. Here's to HL2 and Valve!
 
the exact same shit with much more stronger graphichs and better gameplay
 
All I had in mind for a possible story-line in HL2 was stemmed directly from the fact that you were just hired by the G-Man.

I imagined that it would start roughly the same way as the first, you're on task for a mission/experiment or something.

As for the details, I had no clue until last year's reveal. I am pleasantly surprised by the direction that the story is going. Intriguing, smart, and full of class.
 
I thought that valve would just whore HL1 to death, and live out the rest of their life on a 6 year old game.
 
ZeeM said:
I didn`t even expect that there would ever be Half-Life 2.
And now, that we all know that there WILL be HL2 I have no money for an upgrade. That is, around 1000 euros. :dozey:
So there is a possibility that I`ll spend around half of them on cyber cafes playing it...
This sucks

p.s. ok, anyone has any spare 9800xt/x800?

... Get a 9800 Pro. (Sapphire preferably). Should get one for ~200 euros... Or buy it from Sweden for that price, heh.

brightgreen said:
All I had in mind for a possible story-line in HL2 was stemmed directly from the fact that you were just hired by the G-Man.

I imagined that it would start roughly the same way as the first, you're on task for a mission/experiment or something.

As for the details, I had no clue until last year's reveal. I am pleasantly surprised by the direction that the story is going. Intriguing, smart, and full of class.

... There's something left out when you talk about Half-Life... Class.

It's always been class.
 
Perret said:
Hmm I thought it be a more 'normal' 3D-Shooter, back in 1998 .. because yeah ... I thought: The G-Man will give you orders and you will kick the aliens ass and at the end the G-Man isn't really do something good and he was always lied to you etc. ... something like this with a 'cheap' Story ... (like HL1) ... I never thought it has so lipsinc characters and so detailed models and .. and .. yeah it was 1998 .. if I had the idea like HL2 yet is back in 1998 I will be working for Valve now, because then, I maybe very creativ :D
what ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? do you mean that H-L1 had a crappy story ??????????????????????????????
you gotta be dumb !!
 
after a few years, I put HL1 back on my system and replayed all of it. Then I wondered when HL2 was coming out. (this was back in 2000) Then, after I read about HL2 I put HL1 back on my system and replayed it again, and realized that even with all the hype, it will still surprise us when it comes out.
 
it was a gooood day

The day that I read that Halflife2 was presented to the press I had been rather excited, also because Doom3 was already in development.
 
AJ Rimmer said:
holy crap that's funny, is there anywhere you can check out what people thought about it?

I think there was a link to the mailbag at the end of the article.. or you could search the mailbag for that date... there was one.. pretty funny too :)
 
Back
Top