14-11-2004 12:56									#1
	Half-Life 2 is out!!! Tired of ads?

It was supposed to be released on the 16th, but Best Buy is selling it early. The problem is that Vivendi, being the bunch of frog bastards they are, won't allow Valve to validate copies through steam (required to play) until the 16th.

Not a big deal though, you can rest assured that I will be playing this Tues, ASAP.

So far this years shooters have been pretty lacking. Doom 3 was a huge letdown, and Halo2 isn't much better. Halflife 2 though... this game looks to be the best thing EVAR!

Who else is gettin' it?

PS. It should run really well on my new Athlon 64 and Radeon X800

	14-11-2004 15:01									#2
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

Hater.

Doesn't matter though. You and I both know that you could only play a game like this with cheats enabled. I know you set all your stats to 1 million in Morrowind.

	14-11-2004 16:41									#3
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I won't buy it because I don't have the hardware for it.

	14-11-2004 21:18									#4
	Tired of ads?

Well, I'm getting it, though I haven't seen anyone selling it early around here. Guess I'll just keep enjoying World of Warcraft until Tuesday

	14-11-2004 21:20									#5
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Actually, the publishers Vivendi have vetoed unlocking it. I almost always hate the damn asses that game publishers are.

	15-11-2004 00:18									#6
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

It's not out here yet.

	15-11-2004 02:57									#7
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

quote: Originally posted by Solver Actually, the publishers Vivendi have vetoed unlocking it. I almost always hate the damn asses that game publishers are.

I'm pretty sure that's what I said

	15-11-2004 03:05									#8
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Vivendi And what's more, the unwashed masses will blame Valve when they buy a game only to discover it doesn't work. Not sure who decided to copy protect it like that, though. It's ridiculous really. What I've heard, you only need a single little file to make the game think you've validated it, all a release group will need is that and the actual game files. The only ones suffering will be customers who have actually bought the product but can't get the game validated even for SP for whatever reason.

quote: Not a big deal though, you can rest assured that I will be playing this Tues, ASAP.

Unless their servers suffer from a catastrophic meltdown when millions like you log in to decrypt their game.

	15-11-2004 03:48									#9
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Well, there are other ways to get a game to play. I'm sure someone will crack it also, but I'm not worried about a catastrophic meltdown .

Valve's Steam service seems both really nice and really awful at the same time. On the one hand, being able to get a game straight off the internet w/o dealing with those morons at the store is nice, but on the other hand with as much as I take apart and rebuild my computer I would feel much safer having a hard copy of the game. And then there's Vivendi sitting there the whole time trying to **** things up.

	15-11-2004 04:48									#10
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

So does this mean that even if you have a store-bought version you still have to validate it online?
Ugghh.
If that's the case I'll stay well away from it.

Now Vampire: Bloodlines otoh, ...

	15-11-2004 19:38									#11
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Jumping too High can kill you.
A Lesson well learnt.

The only Reason for HL2 would be DoD or Natural Selection, but
MP is outta the Question right now for me.

So. When ist Bloodlines out?

	16-11-2004 06:36									#12
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

quote: When ist Bloodlines out?

It should be out by now.

	16-11-2004 06:47									#13
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Gamespot review of HL2

	16-11-2004 07:49									#14
	Put an end to popups!

You can really only blame Best Buy for not being able to play the game. They aren't supposed to be selling it early.

	16-11-2004 08:32									#15
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

quote: Originally posted by dudemanjack You can really only blame Best Buy for not being able to play the game. They aren't supposed to be selling it early.

No, this isn't how it works. Retail companies have brokent the street date many times in the past; however, when they do this they must pay the company a fine or something or other (I forget exactly how it works). I have seen game stores break the street date and sell games in advance on several occasions. It's not that uncommon. Best Buy forfeits a portion of their profits to be able to sell the game early (in hopes of generating more revenue this way).

Vivendi is the problem here, no one else.

	17-11-2004 01:52									#16
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

well I've played for about 45 minutes and I have to say I'm underimpressed. It took a half hour before I got to shoot anything. The game looks amazing, but is slow moving so far. I've only gotten to use the 9mm pistol against civil defense guys, but the action looks good. I can't wait to get some real weapons. I'd say this is about the same as Doom3; although you can pick up stuff and throw it around, so that's cool.

	17-11-2004 02:34									#17
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

This game isn't even comparable to Doom3. That's like comparing a Benz to a Yugo. Well, maybe Doom3 isn't that bad, how 'bout a Kia.

At the beginning of the game, I picked up a doll and put it on one end of a see-saw. I then stacked up some bricks and jumped onto the other end lauching the doll in the air . That's cool.

The graphics are superb, the sound is amazing. Every type of material had the correct sound associated with it. Bricks sound like bricks, metal sounds like metal, etc. I'm gonna get back to playing now...

	17-11-2004 02:53									#18
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Steam is SUCH a ****ing piece of ****.

This is the LAST time I buy a PC game, honestly.

I've had the game installed now for an hour. It took me half an hour before I could even create a Steam account, and even then it was glitchy -- it said it couldn't create my account, but at the same time said Congratulations, my account was created...

I then try to log in (for the past half-hour now), and the connection constantly times out and won't let me on.

	17-11-2004 03:30									#19
	Increase the size of your Attachments

I'm getting the same damn problems.

	17-11-2004 03:46									#20
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

That sucks guys. I haven't had any problems at all yet (crosses fingers). It is pretty freakin' awesome when you get to play, but it is kind of weird having to load up steam to launch the game. I don't even get a start menu shortcut or anything. It's weird.

	17-11-2004 04:25									#21
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Eeeep! Forgive my ignorance, what is this steam?

	17-11-2004 04:29									#22
	Remove this text

Well, I'm installing it right now, but from what I hear, I'm unfortunately not planning on being able to play it for a while due to Steam

Sounds like an amazing game with a terrible registration implimentation. With any luck, at least this will teach other companies not to ever do this again.

	17-11-2004 08:01									#23
	Increase Your PM Length

This is ****ing ridiculous.

Here we are, 7 hours after I installed the game, and I've finally been able to create an account and log in.

Only, now I can't launch the frickin game. "This game is currently unavailable. Please try again at another time."

For **** sakes, ALL I WANT TO DO IS PLAY THE SINGLE PLAYER GAME.

This should not have to have ANYTHING to do with your ****ing overloaded, shittyass STEAM servers. I've unlocked the game, even.

PC games are really starting to piss me off.

	17-11-2004 08:11									#24
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Well perhaps you should blame pirates and hackers who have forced game companies to use systems like this.

If people stopped stealing games, these sort of security measures wouldn't be necessary.

	17-11-2004 08:18									#25
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

The beauty of it is I stole this game, I'd be playing right now with the cracked version.

The people getting screwed are the paying customers. They'll drive more people to piracy if they screw us around like this.

	17-11-2004 09:36									#26
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Ahhhhh, the charms of PC gaming... I just got Halo 2, I popped it in my Xbox and, guess what, it worked! That said, I'm pretty sure Asher will pardon Valve everything when he actually starts playing the game. HL2 looks like a lota fun!

	17-11-2004 09:48									#27
	Increase the size of your Attachments

I got in the game now. It looks pretty.

Unfortunately the sound is "choppy". Sound effects randomly loop about half a dozen times, especially during dialog...



No wonder console gaming is burying PC gaming.

	17-11-2004 09:59									#28
	Increase Your PM Length

Played it for a couple hours. Very nice looking, especially the facial models. And extraordinarly cool physics, which can exploited pretty intuitively.

Most of my sound problems (albeit not all of them) went away when I toned down the texture detail to medium.

	17-11-2004 13:47									#29
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar I think your only seeing what you want to see

You really have no idea what you're talking about here Tass. My install didn't even come with a CD.

-----------------------------------------

Asher, I have noticed the sound choppiness once or twice also. It happened a few times at the beginning of the game, but I haven't had it happen again. It's just the game loading part of an area as far as I can tell.

I just got to Ravensomethingorother City. This game is the first game I have played in a very long time that has made me say HOLY ****!

spoiler(highlight to read): The boss helicopter just before you reach Black Mesa East is crazy. It drops something like 50 bombs at once. The robot dog at Black Mesa East is kickass also.

Aside from the fact that Steam sucks, this game has to be game of the year on any platform, unquestionably.

	17-11-2004 13:49									#30
	Get a bigger avatar today!

quote: No wonder console gaming is burying PC gaming.

You and I both know that this is because one, consoles are cheaper, and two, the average person is not competent enough to use a computer properly.