for those that have played the Beta.....

[Dr.breen]

.....I haven't, but I get the impression that it was pretty ropey at the best of times, so I ask you this..........Taking into account the beta was severely unfinished and also taking into account alot of the code was changed.......have valve done well releasing the game 'only' a year later?

 

[ELIXIR]

You bet they have, the beta blew the big one11111

what he said

 

[Jesus Lincoln]

You bet they have, the beta blew the big one11111

 

[destrukt]

because playing buggy levels with no story line does suck ...

 

[Ownzed]

Dammit, quit calling it the beta. It's not a beta, it's a stolen copy.

 

[Dr.breen]

Does anyone want to answer the question?

 

[Sparta]

.....I haven't, but I get the impression that it was pretty ropey at the best of times, so I ask you this..........Taking into account the beta was severely unfinished and also taking into account alot of the code was changed.......have valve done well releasing the game 'only' a year later?

Well, all of us who have played the beta, haven't played the full thing.

The beta just made me want to the game more.

 

[Reaperman]

i thought it was fun, it wasnt as buggy as people say, it was unfinished, but not buggy.... (i downloaded it, im not gonna b/s you and say "my friend" did, but i paid for my copy of half life 2, so please dont ban me!)


delaying it a year was a good move no doubt tho... it was nowhere near finished, and im sure valve made it much better for us :bounce:

 

[kiwii]

its not a beta, that was just some randome code, with some random maps. unplayble shite .

 

[czrsink]

Some of it was playable, other bits weren't. It's that long ago since I played it though, I've forgotten most of it.

That said, even then, it's fair to say that it still 'felt' right, despite it being totally unfinished. If that aspect hasn't changed (I doubt it will have done) then it won't just be the graphics and new locations we'll be impressed with.

 

[we11er]

lol kikii - love the avatar. And I hav'nee played the leak.

 

[[daniom]]

I think it was a early stage of the game.. I believe Valve have another copy they where working on that time the hacker stole parts of the game. The only thing they have complete in the leak was the source code... But Hl2 was in litle pieces...

 

[Skeeze]

It was more fun than most full version games...Doom 3 comes to mind...

 

[Prone]

I played the beta when it came, writing about it for a magazine. It was bullshit, really. Most of the textures were missing, there were parts where you could just not go further, all that stuff. Maybe someone played another stolen copy? Because what I played was nothing, no way they could've brought out the game that month last year. Which leads to the conclusion that

a.) the hacker stole a different copy from what they were working on

b.) it wasn't stolen but leaked so they could cover up that they weren't finished. This sounds harsh but I'm realist, I need that realism for my job.

P

 

[UmbrellaMaster]

It was funny playing multiplayer on the leak with a friend. It was so buggy that guns were sticking out of gray, unanimated player's crotches and when you died and respawned you got stuck in the ground and couldnt move.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the leaked version has come a long way.

Pure and simple, the leaked copy was lame lame lame.

 

[Wildhound]

.....I haven't, but I get the impression that it was pretty ropey at the best of times, so I ask you this..........Taking into account the beta was severely unfinished and also taking into account alot of the code was changed.......have valve done well releasing the game 'only' a year later?

Graphically the stolen build can't really touch the binks of more complete versions. Furthermore the stolen build had very few complete levels. Only the coast was even remotely complete.

The gameplay in that one part was absolutely fantastic though. If the entire game can match or outdo that it will be a very rare treat.

I'm very much convinced that the stolen build was not the entirity of what Valve had at that time. In fact I'm completely sure, as we had already seen many, many things that were not included.

To go from the stolen build to a complete and polished game would take longer than a year.

 

[Totalkrusher]

Graphically the stolen build can't really touch the binks of more complete versions. Furthermore the stolen build had very few complete levels. Only the coast was even remotely complete.

The gameplay in that one part was absolutely fantastic though. If the entire game can match or outdo that it will be a very rare treat.

I'm very much convinced that the stolen build was not the entirity of what Valve had at that time. In fact I'm completely sure, as we had already seen many, many things that were not included.

To go from the stolen build to a complete and polished game would take longer than a year.

I mostly agree. I can't speak for the gameplay, as I strayed away from ruining anything for me.

However, the few real, non-e3 levels I played had a lot of problems which say the "beta," or "alpha," or whatever, was not what Valve had at that time. First off, if you looked in the console during gameplay, you would say many texture and model version mismatches (ie the called texture does not match the version on the harddrive, etc.)

As to answer the poster's question, unless you think all the reviewers have been bribed, they clearly had enough time to fix up whatever version they had. I don't believe the leaked/stolen copy was at all representative of everything Valve had. Levels didn't advance to the next section, there were bugs galore (mostly behind the scenes), and so on.

 

[Wildhound]

One thing I will say though is that it was very good at ignoring bugs and carrying on regardless. Where most games would say "Oh noes! This r teh happeninG!!!" and crash, it just popped an error message in the console and got on with it.

There were times when a level would carry on after encountering 30 or 40 errors.

 

[Totalkrusher]

One thing I will say though is that it was very good at ignoring bugs and carrying on regardless. Where most games would say "Oh noes! This r teh happeninG!!!" and crash, it just popped an error message in the console and got on with it.

There were times when a level would carry on after encountering 30 or 40 errors.

Yeh, like every time. I never loaded a level without getting at least a dozen of those red error messages. Then you would get some during gameplay as well. I think HL2 only crashed once or twice for me, which I think is pretty good, considering.

 

[eiric]

Dammit, quit calling it the beta. It's not a beta, it's a stolen copy.

agreed, and it was so long time ago since I played it (at a friends, of course) that I really can't remember the "story". Altough I know I remember thinking it was totally awesome! =) Can't wait for HL2. =)

 

[Brian Damage]

I played the beta when it came, writing about it for a magazine. It was bullshit, really. Most of the textures were missing, there were parts where you could just not go further, all that stuff. Maybe someone played another stolen copy? Because what I played was nothing, no way they could've brought out the game that month last year. Which leads to the conclusion that

a.) the hacker stole a different copy from what they were working on

b.) it wasn't stolen but leaked so they could cover up that they weren't finished. This sounds harsh but I'm realist, I need that realism for my job.

P

Realism? Then stick with (a). The reason? With the stolen build came a load of VALVe's valuable source code. They wouldn't "leak" that even if they were desparate.

 

[Prone]

On the other hand VALVe are not dumb so stealing the version from a machine which connected to the net leaves me wondering. It does not matter anyway. One thing though: the game had a x days until release sign in the corner. There is no way they could've finished it.

The coast portion was playable or finished? Seems like I played something different.

 

[Fliko]

Wasn't the leaked copy just for the E3 demo, that is what i thought
It is still illegal from what i know to download it, even if you paid for the game

 

[geradraz]

The fun thing about the leaked alpha was that if you did it right you could get on a peice of wood, aim the gravity gun down at it, jump and use the gravity gun and sortof ride the peice of wood like a hover board. =P

 

[thefiznut]

On the other hand VALVe are not dumb so stealing the version from a machine which connected to the net leaves me wondering. It does not matter anyway. One thing though: the game had a x days until release sign in the corner. There is no way they could've finished it.

The coast portion was playable or finished? Seems like I played something different.

The leak was a build of the game made a good bit earlier than the time in which it was released.

To those who played it and thought it was lame, why?

 

[Pauly]

.....I haven't, but I get the impression that it was pretty ropey at the best of times, so I ask you this..........Taking into account the beta was severely unfinished and also taking into account alot of the code was changed.......have valve done well releasing the game 'only' a year later?

Well, first of all it was not even a beta. hl2 went into beta stages in early spring-summer 2004. It isn't even an alpha. It is just an early build of the game. The build that was stolen was at least 6 months before e3 2003.

 

[lanzemurdok]

I played it.. great.. kept me entertained for like 3 hours.. the damn alpha itself... I imagine i'm going to take like 30 hours on the actual game.

I probably had more fun playing the leak than a lot of full games.

 

[P43.2/1Gig/X800P]

:rolling: man the leak is Awsome i play it every day for like 3 hours with the physics,combine and manhacks its insane

Ps i got it like 1 year and 1 month ago from my friend and i still play till this day