Half-Life 2 - Aftermath 467
Eurogamer.com has word that the expected expansion pack for Half-Life 2 is already in the works. Reporting on information gleaned from PC Gamer UK, the site has learned that the expansion will be entitled 'Aftermath' and is currently slated for a summer release. Aftermath will deal with the fallout from the events at the close of the PC title as the residents of City 17 make for the hills in an attempt to get to safety. Alyx Vance, heroine and robot wrangler, will play a larger role in the expansion, but the article doesn't give specific details on what exactly her relationship to you as the player will be. From the article: "The reason we're able to do this, and why it's so exciting is because of Steam. If we were doing this without Steam we'd have to put it in a box, we'd have to start figuring out shelf space over a year beforehand. You'd see it six years from now..."
The big question? (Score:5, Interesting)
No its not... (Score:3, Interesting)
The real reason Valve decided to release HL2 expansion packs is because it has the name "Half Life" preceding it. And if Valve had decided to release it six years later, there would be no interest, atleast not nearly anywhere as it is right now, and they would have to infact "fight" for shelf life. Right now, retailers would love to offer shelf space for a product, that they know will sell half a million copies, especially for a game which left us all hanging.
In six years, a lot of things can happen. Valve wouldnt be so stupid to wait six years.
Re:Letting Steam Off (Score:3, Interesting)
Preferred distribution (Score:2, Interesting)
And when they want to stop support for a game, they can just yank it. That's bad for you, but good for them. I mean they're really only selling "licenses" to the game anyway, right?
Re:Letting Steam Off (Score:2, Interesting)
Even if Valve dosn't release a patch for Steam, someone will. I doubt that the warez copies of Half Life 2 try to connect to the internet, so it dosn't strike me as unlikely that someone will make a patch that eliminates steam's need to 'phone home'.
Exactly. (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not so against online distribution in general, but I don't see it necessary to install this extra chunk of software on my machine that then connects to the net for the duration of my playtime.
Oh yeah; paranoia. Sorry about that, but I guess thousands of other peices of similar softare designed to monitor end-user behavior wouldn't be a good enough reason to fear this change. It doesn't matter that the developers have a goldmine worth of interest in pursing a path like that themselves, considering all the potential consumer research data and advertising possibilities once they have an established user base of apathetic and willing targets.
So, for people who are okay with Steam:
Why would Valve lie to you about these things? Take a look at the last several decades of the master-slave relationship between production of goods and consumers; the ads that fill your television, your web browsers, your news paper and your drive to work. Companies are greedy. They will not stop there when they can pipe it onto your desktop.
Wasn't the lack of physical distribution supposed to lower the price of this game? Why was it the same price when purchased online? Why did you ignore that fact and buy it anyways?
Because you are all tools.
Re:Letting Steam Off (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally I think Steam is a nice system for getting games, keeping them up to date and the like, but this sort of thing does have the "What if Valve go up the spout / decide to screw you." sort of thing.
Re:This means she lived? (Score:3, Interesting)
As for surviving the explosion - if the G-Man can muck about with time for Gordon, I wouldn't be surprised if he were to carefully remove Alyx from the vicinity of the blast as well, even if it's just back to ground-level. The Citadel's quite big, after all - in this 'ere Hammer, Combine_Citadel001.mdl is 8430 units high, and each unit corresponds to 16 inches for a skybox model, so 3.5km could help a bit...
Although I'd definitely run away, very quickly. The thought of accidentally giving a wasps' nest a good kick springs to mind - and the article suggests that some previously-unfought enemies might appear too.
It's a mixed bag (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Letting Steam Off (Score:5, Interesting)
You are solidly in the minority on this though. When polled, the vast majority of gamers say that they would rather download their games, and pay a little less, than get a boxed version, and pay a little more.
In fact, many people would rather download their games, even if they didn't have to pay a little less, just to skip a trip to the store. To those people, downloading + paying less is a double-win situation.
Issue... (Score:2, Interesting)
Only to be thrust into a ridiculous scene where you must shoot dozens of combine/aliens to progress (this happened a LOT more during the second half of HL2, culminating in the ironically unconclusive conclusion), compared with the very short scripted scenes in HL1 with the soldiers (which actually made me hope for more action!).
If Aftermath could somehow integrate the more "old school" system of HL1, and perhaps even introducing alternate routes throughout the game, which generally happens little in FPS's, then it could be an expansion worth having. If its just new uber-aliens and C&C Renegade-like combat then it will be of less value.
In short, games shouldn't have to rely on action which, while expensive/time consuming to create, ultimately leaves dissapointment in part of the audience. (Please don't mistake this for a troll, its just a reterospective opinion.)
Re:Hopefully she stays out of the way (Score:4, Interesting)
I recently finished replaying HL2 with my ultra-cack-handed increased-difficulty tweaks. Somehow, that section of the game became way better. Instead of hundreds of squadmates excusing themselves as I tried pushing past them in narrow corridors, everything became
Other things improved too, and I got to see bits of the game I didn't know existed, and saw battles how they were presumably meant to occur. The strider battles became awesomely awesome, for a start, with holes being blown in walls of buildings I thought were invulnerable, etc.
My theory is that HL2 was playtested on people not so familiar with FPS games - for instance, Combine soldiers do take cover and flank the player, but on standard difficulty settings a decent FPS player is likely to have shot them dead beforehand. Bump up the difficulty, and
I'd release my 'fixed' difficulty settings mod (basically just a tweaked skill.cfg) but I'm sure there are more numbers in the game DLL that can be 'adjusted'. But I ain't got no Windows C++ compiler - anyone want to help?
Re:No thanks. (Score:4, Interesting)
In Descent you flew a robot ship through tunnels and mines. There was no gravity and you could rotate on every axis. It was extremely easy to get disoriented in the game, see there wasn't really any true up or down. I never had a problem with space oriented games that used this type of control, but I guess it had something to do with the enclosed spaces.
I never threw up but I do recall bouts of nausea. I remember one head to head match I was playing over direct modem connection with a friend. After a particularly hairy match he just had to stop and go lie down, being on the verge of puking.
Wanting a little more (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This could all be resolved.... (Score:5, Interesting)
So yes, you can play in offline mode. For a while. But eventually you have to be connected to the Internet to play the game.
Re:Letting Steam Off (Score:2, Interesting)
Citation please? And show me that it's a truly random sample?