The Final Hours of Half-Life 2 45
IvyMike writes "Gamespot just published a 25-page article titled The Final Hours of Half-Life 2. It has inside details of the missed September 30th, 2003 ship date, the source-code leak, and hints at future projects from Valve." Relatedly, kraemer writes "Valve has said publicly they would unlock Half Life2 before the November 16th street date if stores start selling it early. Well, Stores are selling it early. In an attempt to show Valve whats going on Shacknews is having a contest to come up with verifiable proof."
The finer points of the Final Hours (Score:3, Interesting)
This article was quite good, considering its 25 page length. The most notable highlights being some of what we didn't know but guessed at: Yes, Gabe was 'lying' to us with all of the "September 30th release date" bruhaha - the game was far from complete, as many people figured out when they were still adding features in early 2004 (some figured the delay was in large part due to anonymous hacker).
Even more interesting still: post-release content - the "ATI" levels (heavily misleading name, but whatever) which are eye-candy filled to stress out video cards, and other small episodes that will be released from the viewpoint of Alyx. Still no word on TF2, aside from a vague statement we'll get it at some point.
I will never buy another product from valve (Score:1, Interesting)
Valve themselves have said that Steam would not be required to play Half-Life 1 or 2 online, however, once they realized that no one would voluntarily install Steam, they made it a requirement to play the games online (Valve does not run any of the servers, which are operated by fans of the games.)
I encourage you to join me in boycotting Valve products, although I expect most people are so anxious to enjoy the (admittedly well crafted, if it's anything like the first) game, they would sell their grandmothers into slavery.
I was at bestbuy 3 hours ago.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Half Life 2 was all over the shelves, normal and collector's editions.
oops. Well, Bestbuy is big enough to make valve their bitch.