GameSpot preview up

In March of this year, Half-Life 2 finally went alpha, which means that the game is feature-complete and now undergoing extensive testing. It's currently slated for tentative release this summer, but understandably, there isn't a more-specific date to look forward to. At Vivendi's preshow event, a Valve representative candidly admitted that the source code theft last year contributed to the game's lateness, but now the team is back pushing full steam ahead, revitalized by the alpha milestone, and is excited to be able to play through the game from start to finish. Now the team can concentrate on giving Half-Life 2 that all-important layer of polish it's going to need to make a strong impression, according to Valve anyway.
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Also, there is this:

At the Electronic Entertainment Expo, there will be two new noninteractive demonstrations of Half-Life 2,
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Offcourse not, valve wants to save everything for the REAL presentation.
 
IGN's is more upbeat. I've reread GameSpots and it not negative, just... blah
 
It was a pretty bad article. It had a decidedly "GRRR Half-Life wasnt released on time , and we wont let it go" tone and message to it.

Half-Life 2 will still have just as big of an impact today. Those other games still dont touch HL2. Wether they be cartoonish or just different styles these engines dont touch the graphical detail and realism that HL2 has. And realistic physics!? NO game to date has had realistic physics , one game had stuff that kindof moved , stuff swung back and forth , but it was never of any use. Max Payne 2 is the only other game Ive played which had physics which were any fun or of any use at all. (Coincidentally or not MaxPayne2 uses Havoc too)
 
Yeah, they obviously don't feel like they got to see much real action gameplay or enemy AI. They loved the no-weapon beginning though. They just seem bitter that at this late date all they get to see is a tiny bit of the game instead of lots of different sections that include things like in the original e3 videos. I think they are appropriately skeptical. At this point, we can't just trust that all this promised stuff is fantastic if nobody has seen it yet. We'll just have to wait and see.
 
yeah i really felt that a negative rpeview considering whatis was. They got a playtest and couldn't seem to let go of the fact it was still an FPS, they got frustrated with the buggy because they kept dying...which to me sounds like they just couldn't use the damn thing and nothign to do with what is was. Plus when they mention the mines that drag them into the water they make it seem like an annoyance as opposed to a challenge that needed to be defeated...fools
 
Honestly, i agree with the emotion the writer put fourth! The game should be going gold now or within weeks yet there's still that lingering distrust in Valve and release dates. Summer could mean anything, literally.

We'll see what E3 has in store...
 
Anyway, the action basically seemed solid, and the audio was nice and clear, but what little shooting we got to do didn't really seem that far out of the ordinary
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Hmm I am sad... :|
 
That GameSpot's review is just bad..IGN wins this one with more intresting and appealing, longer view of the pre-e3 demo. It can't be that bad as what is the impression from GameSpot, can it ?

edit:

Thinking now that the answer is: no it's better :thumbs:

from IGN's preview:

"and any of you worried about some of the early screenshots and videos showing very noticeable aliasing will be happy to know that the objects in the game looked much smoother when I was playing."

Also the site has seen a lot of effort telling the story from the gamer's perspective in general :cheers:
 
Their impression isn't bad. It's just unconvinced. They felt the intro scenes proved Valve still had it, but they felt like they didn't get much action play at all (maybe they expected to get to play things like the cemetary scene), and so had no real way to judge the game.
 
the article sounds sour to me, but then maybe i am being a fanboy....

Still think it was careless writing though. Rather than work with the materials given they lamented the absence of others, it's like using a geforce 2 (which i shall be :() and blaming the game for my lack of an ATI X800.
 
Apos said:
Their impression isn't bad. It's just unconvinced. They felt the intro scenes proved Valve still had it, but they felt like they didn't get much action play at all (maybe they expected to get to play things like the cemetary scene), and so had no real way to judge the game.
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True, but it seems like the two sites had gone trough a bit different experience..(different demo maybe?) it almost seems that the GameSpot was shown some HL1 stuff and IGN got the prettier cake this time.
:rolleyes:
 
They keep bringing up Farcry, while a good game, it wasn't that great IMO. I mean, in some of the levels the AI is just ridiculous. Some of the night levels you can't see two feet in front of you but the AI can see you from fifty yards away and shoot rockets at you. I could see if they had night vision goggles on, but from what I saw they clearly don't. The AI in Farcry wasn't all that I read it to be, and still read. Of course this is JMO. Gamespot is probably just sour because they had to stop playing it.


Gamespot kept bringing up the old HL weapons and seemed bitter because they were in it. I am kind of glad they are bringing back some of the original sounds & weapons from HL into HL2.
 
They both seemed to have played the exact same things. I think Valve has been trying to hold back on showing new weapons.
 
Well you can't satisfy everyone can you..I mean can Valve pull out something that will appeal to everyone's taste? I don't think it will, or can. I mean I like sports, not everyone does!
 
did anyone pick up on this? It's on page 1 of the Gamespot preview, and I don't think anyone else mentioned it before...

an action sequence involving action both on foot and behind the wheel of a nitro-equipped buggy (the one shown off at last year's E3).

Do they mean nitro as in NOS? that would be so cool!! imagine a drag racing mod where you get to use the on-board gauss rifle as well!
 
Vahishta said:
did anyone pick up on this? It's on page 1 of the Gamespot preview, and I don't think anyone else mentioned it before...

an action sequence involving action both on foot and behind the wheel of a nitro-equipped buggy (the one shown off at last year's E3).

Do they mean nitro as in NOS? that would be so cool!! imagine a drag racing mod where you get to use the on-board gauss rifle as well!
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Yes, you will need to use it to jump over big cliffs and stuff.

I think the Gamespot preview is indeed a bit sour, come on, they say that HL2 will have heavy competition with BF:V and UT2k4, come on! They're completely different games.

It also says:
The game does incorporate realistic physics, but so have many other games that have been released since last year's E3, so Half-Life 2 will face some stiff competition.
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I haven't encountered a single game that actually uses them. So why would a game that uses physics have competition of games that use them as a gimmick?
 
I bet the writer of this preview is a Far Cry fanboy. At least not a HL guy.
 
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