Half-Life 2: Episode One Released

Updated:09:11 AM CEST Sep,08

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Gameguru Mania News - Jun,01 2006 -

Half-Life 2: Episode One Released - briefly
(hx) 09:03 PM CEST - Jun,01 2006 - Post a comment / read (15)

As promised, the first episode of three for Half-Life 2, has just been released. Half-Life 2: Episode One is now available via Steam at retail outlets around the world. The first in a new, three-part series that leads far beyond City 17, Episode One does not require Half-Life 2 to play and is available for just $19.95.

The first in a trilogy of episodic games, Episode One reveals the aftermath of Half-Life 2 and launches a journey beyond City 17. Episode One does not require Half-Life 2 to play and also includes a first look at Episode Two, which will ship by year's end.

In addition to the new single player experience, two multiplayer games are included. And those who purchase Episode One will have free access via Steam (www.steamgames.com) to Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, the interactive technology demo that introduces High Dynamic Range lighting to the SourceTM Engine, Valve's award-winning game technology.

last 10 comments:

JohnyDog	(12:01 AM CEST - Jun,02 2006 )
Nice, but short - they say it's about 4-6 hr gameplay, i would say more like 2-3. Plus, you end up how you started - knowing nothing about what's going on.

xxxx	(05:50 AM CEST - Jun,02 2006 )
thats the creative power of Valve, took em forever to release Hl2 and it was mediocre and their expansion make up for a problem of creativity and imagination in the story. Source will be best served with the upcomming M&M and Sin MP..as far as I'm concerned.

miglaugh

(06:29 AM CEST - Jun,02 2006 )

Well first of all: sin can suck a dick. Multiplayer or not it has no added value vs. anything in the steam universe, especially HL.

The new HL episode is great. HL2 was great too... Niether was/is mediocre, even now.

some people just have to hate. Anyone who favors anything sin over anything HL must be crazy, period.

I was immediatly immersed into the hl episode. I had to try REAL REAL hard to continue playing sin. POS. I only felt like i had to finish it because I blew 20 bucks on it.

From now on the only thing that'll get my money in the steam universe is HL shit.

If anyone finishes the new episode in 2 hours they are playing on easy and trying real hard just to finish... and those people can go jump off a cliff as far as i'm concerned.

whatever.....

lmer	(01:34 PM CEST - Jun,02 2006 )
Saw the gameplay yesterday in OnTheSpot at Gamespot. Just plain borring. :\

Sabot

(05:05 PM CEST - Jun,02 2006 )

Can't and wont get my head around this POS called 'episodic'
Those that buy into it are niave and, frankly, have more money than sense.
sorry but the worlds full of fools....

I cannot imagine buying a piece of software that has NO replay value and finish it in 1 quarter of a day -at most! THEN wait several months to find out 'what is behind that door?' and then do it all again..........sad,sad or what :roll:

Even an addon plane for MS or IL-2 has replayability..

Yeah it takes all sorts, no wonder games are down the tubes compaired to 10years ago

yessum

(10:58 PM CEST - Jun,02 2006 )

Miglaugh,

And some people just have to love, right?
Get your thick skull out of your ass and see what valve has done to you and millions of buffoons! You’ve been gypped! And you’re blind to see the hole in your wallet that valve has burned with a magic wand.

To appreciate the bull shit that half life 2 and half life 2: episode 1 is you should download it illegally first and see how it plays. See how long it plays. Then go out and buy it. I’m sure it’ll be worth it then. :roll:

HL has no replay value. CS:S DOD:S aren’t half life related, but those ‘mods’ still suck tremendously. Source engine isn’t / wasn’t build for multiplayer. It just cannot handle online play. It’s full of bugs, but that they, Valve, cannot fix. Sure they can fix spawn time, and spawn issues because that’s in the server related code, but hit boxes, lousy gun accuracy and everything else that is fucked up is within the source engine, they simply cannot fix. Valve is a shit when it comes to customer support. How can you support a company that doesn’t give a flying fuck about you?

Look at VAC.
Been playin’ on VAC servers? See how many cheaters there’re out there? See what valve has done to get rid of them? What have they been busy doing? Buying caviar with your $20 you’ve spent on your copy of episode one.

Valve doesn’t give a fuck about you and about everyone else. They just want your money. That’s all.

Stop supporting a company that doesn’t care.

Sin is fantastic. It plays great. It brought back the feel of the original. And, it may just be the fanboism talking, it a whole lot better than the shit that half life 2 is. Thank you.

What do you get when you spend 20 bux on hl2 ep 1?
3-4 hours of game play.
No answer to the questions which were raised ages ago.
Several month wait time to get more questions and no answers.
Lack of replay value.
Continuation to a horrible story line.
Shit HL2 MP (filled with bugs. )
Terrible customer support.
Lousy AI.

By George, it’s a fantastic deal!

miglaugh

(06:07 AM CEST - Jun,03 2006 )

For a minute I actually considered entertaining the logic in your reply. I can be too quick to the punch at times. Too bad you had to bring up how good you think sin is. That's when I put my hands over my ears and mumble loudly.

At the end of your post where you list all that stuff, what are you comparing it to? FEAR? SIN? DOOM? etc? Face it, no single game has all those features. If there is one in your mind I've already played it, and am eagerly awaiting the next.

I think our disagreement is a symptom of the major illness of the industry, not something wrong with either one of us. Games just aren't good enough.

Aside from HL, I see nothing else to spend my money on except the upcoming and still far away land of crysis. The industry is absolutely chock full of shitty games. I just happen to think HL isn't one of the norm.

When peoply talk about shitty AI, I'm not sure what they want. If AI were as good as they wanted, they wouldn't be able to advance at all in a game, because in reality one person cannot kill 240,520,234 people and save the day/city/world.

I'm gunna go finish off EP1 and then play some CS:S, enjoy your evening.

xxxx

(06:49 AM CEST - Jun,03 2006 )

Sin MP even in it's basic form will kick hl2 dm ass to hell in quality and if you don't see that you are a fool. HL2 DM they give for free for a reason, support sucks for it and the game itself is flawed with a bunch of lamers who hop around exploiting the game while Valve sits there with it's thumb up it's ass in ignorance. Valve is was and is always gonna be a lousy company with a fat bastard who's rich and got dumb and went with EA, Steam and a quest to get as many subs shoved down that big gaping fat ass hole of a mouth of his. Gabe is an unimaginative fat bastard who lost the creativity when he borrowed the source to Quake 2 and made HL1 and he got rich. He's a 1 hit wonder if you can call him that.

yessum

(07:18 AM CEST - Jun,03 2006 )

miglaugh> For a minute I actually considered entertaining the logic in your reply. I can be too quick to the punch at times. Too bad you had to bring up how good you think sin is. That's when I put my hands over my ears and mumble loudly.

Opinions vary from one to another, but saying when an unfinished game without a proper model for the main character (yes, when hl2 was released Gordon wasn't there for the single player experience) is gold, then it's just bullshit you're spewing not opinions. :P

miglaugh> At the end of your post where you list all that stuff, what are you comparing it to? FEAR? SIN? DOOM? etc? Face it, no single game has all those features. If there is one in your mind I've already played it, and am eagerly awaiting the next. If anything we can compare hl2 and ep1 to wolf3d, original doom and blood 2: the chosen.

Now ID has given us Doom3. Repetitive, yes, but it's an amazing run through and it is extremely well polished. Not some rushed / dated POS that is HL2.

Monolith, has given us AVP2 / 1. NOLF 1 n 2. FEAR. Condemned. I mean, it does have a few flaws like NOLF 2.5. And some other crap but it has more pros than cons. And they keep delivering.

miglaugh>
When peoply talk about shitty AI, I'm not sure what they want. If AI were as good as they wanted, they wouldn't be able to advance at all in a game, because in reality one person cannot kill 240,520,234 people and save the day/city/world.

Deadly Dozen/FEAR they have outstanding ai. AI that makes you want to actually compete. HL2 is just a run of the mill shooter with dainty graphics. I mean I enjoyed the repetition of doom 3 more than the god-awful rubbish that came with HL2. And deadly dozen is a couple years old. At first AI was simply impossible to beat. After a patch to fix that. Yes a company knew it made it too difficult and they helped the community out. They were even friendly about it. Well, after that patch, the game was majestic. I enjoyed it. AI was well balanced. And the game was enjoyable. :)

miglaugh> I'm gunna go finish off EP1 and then play some CS:S, enjoy your evening.

Ah, CS:S full of hackers, numbskulls, and prepubescent children running their mouths thinking they have the biggest you know what.

Just Adorable. Why not pick up a game with some challenge involved. With people who have reached their puberty years ago. Why not pick up… UT?

miglaugh

(08:58 AM CEST - Jun,03 2006 )

Talk to xxxx about Doom3, he has plenty of eye openers about that game.

Like I said before, any better game you could mention I've played already.

I loved AVP2 more than most people, I imagine.

Saying HL2 was rushed or dated doesn't make much sense. HL2 ceartainly wasn't rushed (ahem, 6 years in dev). AND it certainly wasn't dated... It had the best graphics (and physics) in town when it was released.

I've played condemned as well, and although it was fun the first time around, it certainly has no replayability. It also has problems with damage prox (aka reach).

I have no interest in UT, which may be my downfall, but so be it.

to xxxx, I haven't seen you aplaud an FPS game in a long time. you seem to be caught up in games like oblivion and the like.

v1m	(10:44 AM CEST - Jun,03 2006 )
Looks and sounds uninteresting. The linear, repetitive HL2 being drawn out further... And at $20? Heh, the community used to provide this kind of thing for free back in the great Quake days.

yessum

(05:37 PM CEST - Jun,03 2006 )

miglaugh> Saying HL2 was rushed or dated doesn't make much sense. HL2 ceartainly wasn't rushed (ahem, 6 years in dev). AND it certainly wasn't dated... It had the best graphics (and physics) in town when it was released.
Physics were the same as max payne 2 [exactly the same]. And max payne 2 used them a lot better than hl2 did. Graphics in max payne 2 were also slightly better. I loved the realism they posed. The engine was six years in development not the game. If the game was six years in development they would have had their fifteenth episode ready for release on June 1st. Episode One took them 6 months at most to finish it.

miglaugh> I've played condemned as well, and although it was fun the first time around, it certainly has no replayability. It also has problems with damage prox (aka reach).

And what kind of replay ability does half life 2 / episode 1 have? I find my self struggling to go back and replay the rubbish levels in half life 2. Sure they look spank and have a dainty feel to them but there’s nothing extra to find. In condemned you had additional objectives, just like in COD2 (though COD1 was much better)

miglaugh> I have no interest in UT, which may be my downfall, but so be it.

Such a shame. I find the multiplayer in all UT games far more impressive and far more entertaining that those in half life.

And as for doom3. I liked it. Sure it may be a scripted piece of shit, full of rubbish, and low detail textures, but I enjoyed it. Just as I enjoyed painkiller. I knew they both, d3 and painkiller, were meant to be generic shooters with lots of enemies. That didn't stop me from enjoying them. But HL2 and EP1 and so on are and will always be advertised as if they were meant to change genre in ways never seen before. And that just disappoints me when I run through the game and see nothing new/innovative.

Plus Episode 1 is full of clipping issues. :D

miglaugh

(07:22 PM CEST - Jun,03 2006 )

I don't think extra objectives help with replayability. What would be nice to see is a game that is different everytime you play it, like the way STALKER was supposed to be. Any linear/scripted game depreciates I'd say prolly about 85% the first time you play it. If that first time was fun enough then a couple months or a year down the line you may want to play it again. If you had to struggle through the game wondering why you paid for it then most likely you won't want to play it again.

Sin was like that for me, and I prolly won't play it ever again. If HL2 was like that for some of you, then I'm sorry we disagree.

Don't think we disagree about DOOM3, Max Payne (1&2), Condemned, COD (1&2), etc... I liked all those games even though they all had thier rough spots. Thing is though I don't sit here replaying them all the time. Once an a while when a memory is triggered I might replay a level for nostalgia, but thats it.

Once games are blown wide open and are dynamic, thats when we'll see the real fire.

yessum

(08:02 PM CEST - Jun,03 2006 )

Extra Objectives add a tremendous lot to replay ability. If GTA series only had the story missions, it would be a boring game (only replay value would be the same of the carmageddon series). If mafia had only story missions, it would be great, but still rather short and boring.

COD 2 had additional objectives. Non-Primary, and I just wanted to accomplish them. Finish the level at 100%. Have a sense of accomplishment. Y’know. Makes you feel like you’ve actually achieved something in a game. You just don’t have that in HL2. Even if you beat the game all you get is a, “so what?” expression. You did all of that and nothing. Credits roll. You’ve wasted time and you have no reward at all.

Splinter Cell : CT, had lots of those minor objectives (tap phone lines, get all mics, etc..)

And they were all are fantastic. They slightly draw you away from the main objective while at the same time allowing you/helping you accomplish it.

Hell 'rescuing' all those citizens in episode 1 was so damn repetitive. I wanted it to end so quickly. It was just so tedious.

And I think you're looking at all the added content in the levels as these (interactive additions). Like rocks you’re allowed to pick up with your g-gun, destructible wooden environments. I mean if this were a tech demo of the engine, that's all fine by me, but we saw it all in hl2 we saw it all in cs:s (when they put barrels on dust just so we can see how they'll roll down the hill) and even in dod:s.

It’s nothing new. At all.

Episode 1 is just a so what game.
Episode 2 looks to be a bit more enjoyable with the open forest like enviroment. Maybe it'll be a bit better. :wink:

Anonymous

(04:27 AM CEST - Jun,11 2006 )

Doom3 is boring, repetitive...
UT is a crappy game with crappy sound effects like POS voices, a game to make you feel like a sci-fi retarded rambo.
Hallo: played for 20 minutes, then uninstalled it... most UGLY game I've ever seen.
And so on...

I'm not defending Hl2 and its episodes here, despite the fact that I've really enjoyed playing it . I just don't understand how people can call the games above mentioned like "good" or "best" games!- I think its only a question of marketing brainwash!!

IMHO good games where (in their own time): AVP, MOHAA, COD.
When Mohaa arrived, he teached game developers how games should SOUND and FEEL in ambience. (not that crappy voices: "I've got your number!"- like I've heard in Far Cry!)
COD was about inovation in your comrades AI, and how to put hundreds of angry soldiers running down a hill at the same time!
AVP- well it was one of the most freaking and scaring games I had the chance to play...

About EPISODIC HALF LIFE: I don't demand my cable tv provider to restore my money back just because I can't understand what's happening in "LOST" series, episode after episode...

Take care!

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