Half Life 2 Goes Gold

AhabTheArab writes "IGN is reporting that Half Life 2 has gone gold. After months of speculation and delays, it is finally true this time."

What's it saying...

[acceber]

...when games where you shoot people (Half-Life) and games where you play God (The Sims) becomes one of the most important aspects for the lives of millions. Both of those games have gone gold.

Does it reflect our desires or the nature of humanity to any extent?

And soon, Vampire: Bloodlines

[PIPBoy3000]

For those who haven't heard, Vampire: Bloodlines [vampirebloodlines.com] is a vampire game done by Troika. It also uses the Half-Life 2 engine and looks to be a very interesting game. Reports are that Vampire should ship soon after Half-Life 2.

Well...

[The-Bus]

What if Half Life 2 became available to download in a week's time, before it hit stores? Would Valve still release it ahead of time? Better yet, would people download it from Steam or get it for free anyways?

Furthermore, I just want to take this moment and talk directly to developers and publishers who have worked so hard to get their games out just before this holiday season: Sucks to be you. This year is filled with some immense competition from a lot of sequels, especially in the console arena... Doom 3, Half Life 2, San Andreas, GT4, Halo 2, and I believe the newest Biohazard is coming out, as well as Metal Gear Solid, right?

That being said, I just bought HL2 "Bronze" (I couldn't see myself spending $90.00 just to get a hat and a soundtrack).

This story...

[sinner0423]

..is all speculation. This is yesterdays news, and hasn't involved an official PR by Valve or Vivendi. As much as I would like this to be true, there aren't any facts to substantiate it.

Between playing CS:Source and reading the steampowered.com forums, I'd be amazed that it will be available for a November release.

There are tons of bugs, exploits, and cheats going around any CS:Source (HL2 powered) servers. IMHO, it looks like they really rushed CS out the door, and it's pissed off a lot of steam subscribers. I should only hope with the official gold announcement comes a big patch to address the many issues they've already got.

Re:And soon, Vampire: Bloodlines

[selderrr]

I don't want to troll, but honestly, that game looks like shit. If this is supposed to show of the quality of the HL2 engine, well, I'm seriously disappointed.

Look at the screenshots : the player models are rather low-poly. Not realistic at all (look at elbow junctions for instance... ) Not much more accurate than Quake3. The environment is very very very rectangular. Quake2 would approach this level ! The lightning is very ordinary, with polygon edges showing everywhere.

If you compare this to Doom3, well the difference is HUGE... Can anyone else who has betatested confirm that this is HL2 quality ?

Is anyone else torn between...

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

...using Steam to get HL2 vs. buying it retail? If I recall correctly you can only get the package that includes the Source rework of HL1 via online purchase and I *really* want that, but I still don't like the idea of dropping $50 or so on a game and not getting anything physical to hang on to. I know it's old-fashioned, but I still like having a backup copy to hang on to just in case my drive dies or something.

Re:What the hell does "gone/going gold" mean?

[slasher guy]

From the Halo 2 Gold announcement (I'm not sure how accurate this is conserning pc games):
"Gone Gold" is a somewhat archaic expression, since the "gold discs" are actually digital tapes and eventually silver discs. But it certainly feels golden. This basically means that the game has been shipped to retail manufacture. Somewhere in the world, a gigantic DVD pressing factory has started making Xbox game discs with the utterly complete version of Halo 2. Maybe there IS a gold disc somewhere. Perhaps it's time for an epic quest!

My Steam just started re-downloading HL2

[CalTrumpet]

Yesterday, it had told me I had "100%" of the preload (Silver Pack), and now that dropped to 80% and its downloading again.

Perhaps this is a seed of the final changes. I wonder if Steam can do incremental patching of the other preloaded content. Seems likely now.

Re:What's it saying...

[gregorsamsa11]

That is one interpretation of the appeal of video games (shooters in specific), but I think you are overlooking the common desire to escape from daily life, to "pass the time". Games which are more challenging engage more of your consciousness, and thus provide more escape. For many, video games are and addiction. And, like all addictions, the dose administered must increase over time or it loses it's effect. This is why video games become progressively more complicated and extreme. They MUST, or else they will lose interest. This is analagous to the escalation of exploitation on "reality" TV shows. Each show seems to be more degrading to it's participants than the last. How long before an analogue of gladiators appears? But I digress...