CS: Source Half-Life's Only Multiplayer

James DeSimas writes "Halflife2.net was able to get an exclusive interview with Chuck Osborn from PCGamer. In the interview he found out that Counter-Strike: Source is indeed the only Multiplayer for Half-Life 2." This comes on the heels of the news that PC Gamer will feature a special HL2 Review in its upcoming issue. Full Steam and Retail packaging details about the game are also available from many sources today as well.

CS Source

[mfh]

Halflife2.net was able to get an exclusive interview with Chuck Osborn from PCGamer

So what happens when a journalist interviews a journalist anyway? That's not good journalism, IMHO.

FTA:

* Standard Edition - includes HL2 and CS:Source. Ships on six CDs, in one of three box-art packages (Gordon, Alyx or the G-Man).
* Collector's Edition - includes Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life 1: Source, a Half-Life 2 T-shirt and a Prima book sampler. Ships on a single DVD.


First I would like to say that Vivendi Universal has pulled crap in the past [slashdot.org] related to shipping and hr practices, and other crap [slashdot.org], and other crap [slashdot.org], and that means it's an unstable publisher in my books.

We're not sure if Steam will have HL2 or not. It's up to Vivendi last I checked. We're not sure if CS Source will be considered part of the Vivendi distro or not either. Speculation upon speculation at this point, IMHO. Note that this was a PC Gamer guy who was interviewed by some other guy

Steam purchase offers more

[PIPBoy3000]

As the Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com] folks point out:

• Basic Steam purchase is $5 cheaper than retail
• There are more goodies in the Steam packaging
• Though HL2 can't be played until the retail version comes out, multiplayer can be played sooner.

Re:CS Source

[NotAnotherReboot]

It's not up to Vivendi to decide if Half-Life 2 will be on Steam.

Their current contract with Valve states that Valve has online distribution rights; the only catch is that Valve has to wait until it is available from Vivendi. Vivendi has up to 6 months to ship the game after Valve has supplied it to them. So, they can decide when it comes out on Steam (by delaying it themselves, which would be stupid considering how big holiday sales are).

What do you mean we're not sure if CS:Source will be part of the Vivendi distro? You just pasted the part about the two in-box versions including CS:Source.

How is this speculation? Gabe Newell from Valve delivered these details himself.

The PC Gamer guy didn't say anything earth-shattering, by the way; I don't even see why we're discussing his interview. The retail/Steam details are what are interesting.

Re:tf2

[JimmehAH]

Team Fortress 2 will be a separate game. It will not be included with the game (did you read the summary?) - you'll have to buy it separately. Team Fortress Classic will be ported to the new engine as a free mod though, I imagine.

Re:I know this is basically redundant whinging...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello :)

Commando from Sven Co-op here, we will be making Sven Co-op II for HL2 to fufill your co-op needs.

Where developers fail to deliver modders will provide ;)

Re:Steam packages, but how much???

[fresh27]

HL2 and HL1: Source are not finished yet, and Valve must wait until Vivendi declares them gold. However, CS:S is basically finished, because it's been in beta so long and all it needs are the new maps. When HL2 is released in stores, HL2 and HL1: Source will be unlocked on Steam.

Also, DoD:S isn't done yet, and probably won't be done this year, but you will get it in the future when it comes out. Valve kept it out of the store boxes because they needed to give an extra incentive so more people will buy from Steam, bypassing the publisher and getting Valve more money. Also, the game isn't finished so it's not possible to put DoD:S in the box.

Re:Only Multiplayer?

[JavaLord]

Valve didn't really have any multi-player in HL either

How does this stuff get modded up? The original Half life *DID* ship with multiplayer deathmatch. [gamefaqs.com] and it was pretty fun too.

CS Players

[Zorilla]

This shouldn't take as much of a surprise to the average Counterstrike player. I imagine the two most likely responses are:

CS Player #1: You could play deathmatch in Half-Life?

CS Player #2: I play this Counterstrike thing all the time, but what the heck is Half-Life? It didn't come on my Counterstrike CD I bought at CompUSA!

Re:I know this is basically redundant whinging...

[hollismb]

Well, at least on the Xbox, you've got Halo/Halo 2, and The Rainbow Six and Ghost Recons if you want co-op.

Re:Dammit.

[vhold]

Making death in the game be your -one- life for what is in essence one singular instance of reality is a feeling of heightened awareness and desire for survival you don't often get from standard respawning games. That downtime builds up the anticipation. It's also a good time to consume beer or BS with friends.

Reseting everything back to the starting point makes each instance of reality stand as being meaningful and potentially memorable as a whole. Definitely the best part of the whole thing is that you start with everybody back in the same spot, so when you play on public servers there is a certain amount of forced teamwork that is virtually impossible in games like Battlefield where everybody ends up scattered all over the entire map and the whole thing ends up feeling very disconnected.

The best way to play CS imo is on any 'rush' server where the time limit is around 3 minutes forcing the attacking team to blitz, many of the maps are balanced so well that this is actually an advantage to the attacking team where the natural tendency to be scared and hang back actually hurts them because they get picked off one at a time rather then just showing up in force.