Half-Life 2 Targeted for Summer Release 414
Gudlyf writes "According to CNN Money, Valve's director of marketing Doug Lombardi announced that the company is 'currently targeting this summer for the completion of Half-Life 2'. From the article: 'Valve does not plan to reveal any additional information until the time surrounding the E3 trade show, where the game will once again be shown this year. E3 will be held in Los Angeles May 12-14.'" The game was delayed following a previously covered code leak, and the article also notes: "Arkane Studios, an independent French developer that created the critically-acclaimed role-playing game 'Arx Fatalis,' has licensed [Half-Life 2's Source engine] for a forthcoming title [as has Troika's Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines]."
Linux version? (Score:5, Interesting)
I would buy it, if it was out for Linux.
CB
Word. (Score:2, Interesting)
Or was the leak just a nice excuse for the clueless managers who wanted
game shipped around the Christmas shopping spree?
E3 (Score:2, Interesting)
The queue for Halflife was crazy, stretching around the booth and back again. Vampire on the other hand had hardly anyone interested in it. Knowing it was the same engine, I got about an hour with the guys, going wherever I wanted in the game, getting every last question I could think of answered - while the people who queued for twice as long for the H2 demo got a fraction of that.
Re:Time to upgrade (Score:1, Interesting)
Good for Half Life 2, now when will Thief 3 [thief3.com] be released?!
Delay reasons... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Delay reasons... (Score:3, Interesting)
But, hey, this is just speculation. For all I know they did leave their network wide open and they did have a hacker and the release of code wasn't a nice teaser for the final game.
Hopefully they won't now have a FIRE and have to push the release date back to next Christmas when they will be forced to push it back after a nuclear accident at Black Mesa Lab...
The nature of such games (Score:2, Interesting)
So, like any sequel, it's to be determined if they're riding on the value earned by the original half-life name. This, to me, raises the repeated issue of the nature of first-person gaming improvements. For me (and prolly for most ppl here), the fun of HL1 was in plot solo-play elements, well-done net play, and a decent 3D experience Note I said "decent", not outstanding--we enjoy games ultimately because of non-graphical related quality. We've all played Zelda in the original Nintendo--it was incredibly done. How much "better" would HL1 or Zelda be with twice the graphical quality? I'd argue not much. The real innovations are in anything but graphics. How about Starcraft? Anyone here thing WC3 is a major leap over Starcraft (other than basic visual/GUI/resolution improvements)?
I guess I'm just saying that in the realm of professional games, non-graphical innovations are what make the game. These modern game companies have a real challenge ahead of them.
The REAL Conspiracy theories (Score:3, Interesting)
1.) The game is waiting longer, so the video card prices will drop lower. Same with CPU prices really.
2.) There are too many bugs anyways, so they need time to fix it.
3.) They need to test how mods fit into the out-of-the-box engine.
4.) They don't want it available in Christmas 2003, cause a million deals later, this will have this game selling for $29.99 by Christmas day.
5.) Directx9a and 9b caused a lot of confusion in 2003. Not the best time to launch a game that tests the water.
Cheating timeline (Score:5, Interesting)
You should be aware though... (Score:3, Interesting)
This one is "the game that liscensed the Thief title". It's not being produced by the guys at Looking Glass studios, because Looking Glass no longer exists. Don't expect it to have anything to do with the other Thief games.
Re:You should be aware though... (Score:3, Interesting)
That said, as another poster pointed out, Ion Storm just put out Deus Ex: Invisible War, which sadly forced me to remove Warren from my list of deity-like, infallible designers. Thief 3 will be running on the *exact* same engine as DX:IW (in fact, there are more than a few references to it in the DX:IW ini files). While it's possible it may improve between now and release, the engine is only slightly above average in image quality, and dog poor in frame rate. The absolute best rigs out there are doing well to get 35fps at 1280x1024.
This would be bad enough, but texture quality is horrible, maps are small and filled with load points, and the overall gameplay was simplified so that everything could be done on the limited number of buttons available on a gamepad. While I wish it were different, given how tightly interwoven DX:IW and Thief 3 have been in development, I'm afraid that it'll probably be more of the same.
Re:OK (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Time to upgrade (Score:3, Interesting)
Niiiiiiiice.... not.
Re:Linux version? (Score:2, Interesting)