Half Life 2 Episode 2 Due Out October 9th

Shacknews reports that Half-Life 2 Episode 2 is finally, finally, due out on the 9th of October. The game will release for the PC, 360, and PS3, and will be joined by Team Fortress 2 and the FPS/Puzzler Portal. "Today's news follows rumors originating last month that the PlayStation 3 versions of the games would be delayed into 2008. Valve's Doug Lombardi noted to Shacknews that development has been progressing well on all three platforms. Electronic Arts is distributing the games at retail as a package entitled Half-Life 2: The Orange Box, which also includes the original Half-Life 2 and last year's Half-Life 2: Episode One. It will sell for $49.99 on PC and $59.99 on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Previously, the company intended to sell a slimmer package, The Black Box, which would not include Half-Life 2 or Half-Life 2: Episode One, but those plans were cancelled last month. It is expected that Steam customers will retain the option to purchase only the newly-released games."

Team Fortress 2

[Cowclops]

I'm psyched about Team Fortress 2. All the exploiting retards (yes, bunnyhopping is an exploit, you CAN'T tell me an absurd speed acceleration "trick" that requires you to jump around like an idiot was intentionally designed into the game) will continue to exploit in their ancient version of TFC, while I can play a non-exploiting round of TF in TF2. If you want to be good at an FPS, be good by aiming more accurately and having quicker reflexes than your enemies, and in TF's case, mastering each class. Don't beat up on everybody by practicing an ancient (it dates back to quake 1) physics bug that pretty much can't be fixed without breaking the game or coming up with a new game engine.

After all, just because it makes the game more fun for you doesn't mean it makes it more fun for everyone else who is playing. And just because it takes practice to exploit doesn't mean its still the "proper" way of playing the game. Sure, athletes that take steroids still have to work on their strength and skills... but its still not fair to the people who understand that steroids/exploiting makes the game into an unfun excercise.

Re:Team Fortress 2

[Ford Prefect]

Bunny hopping is not an exploit. Learn to hit someone.

If it's not an exploit, why did it (and all the grenade-jumping) get removed?

I really like the pace of TF2 - it's not hugely fast, and I got the impression that winning is more through acting as a team, out-thinking your opponents, and making worthwhile moves, not just fast ones.

In the middle of a big fire-fight it's still fast-paced and pretty vicious combat - there just aren't players skipping past all that, bunny-hopping along at some ridiculous multiples of the speed of light...

*yawn*?

[lawaetf1]

I love Half Life, Half Life 2, Half Life 2 - Episode One... but I have to take issue with a year and a half delay between one episode and the next. Calling it "episode two" does not make it episodic play in the sense that there is much real-life experiential continuity between the two. It has been so long now that I've somewhat forgotten how EP1 ended. Something about Alex getting killed (or was that from the preview of ep2?) and a train leaving and everything blowing up? I recall Valve saying they were developing the episodes concurrently but at $50/game and a 16 months inbetween, one may as well call them HL3 and HL4. Worse, the games are not "full" games in that they can be reasonably finished in 12-15 hours.

What made HL great is the more the story line than the software. It should not take over a year to write a new chapter and devise some new maps. If you want to create a true episodic experience, release new versions every 6-8 months with incremental improvements.

Reading this post I feel like comic book shop guy in the Simpsons. There is not an emoticon to describe how I am feeling!!

Re:*yawn*?

[CryogenicKeen]

In this Interview :

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=65 345 [eurogamer.net]

Gabe essentially says that what we are playing now (Episodes 1, 2 and 3) IS Half-Life 3.

"Probably a better name for it [Half-Life 2: Episode One] would have been Half Life 3: Episode One, but these three are what we're doing as our way of taking the next step forward, but Half-Life 2 was the name we used," said Newell.

And yes I too would love, oh love so much for the game to be out tomarrow or yesterday. But when I look back on how much I so badly wanted Half-Life 2 and when it came out I was personally very satisfied. Sure at the end I was like WHAT thats it I want more! But isn't that the goal of any artist/game maker/music maker/tv producer? For the consumer to like your product so much that they just can't wait until next weeks episode? I really, really, really also want Episode 2 to come out today. Its easy for me to self delude myself sometimes because I live 5 miles away from Valve head office its hard for me to even fathom that the game I and people all over the world want is 5 miles away form me.

But wouldn't you rather it take a little bit longer just so they get things right? Just so the game isn't hurried out the door with major bugs, flaws and loss of content because they felt so pressured from their fans to just hurry the game up and gold it? Sure they may have made a mistake on making it episodic and sure they are way off on their estimates. But I would personally take waiting 1.5 years for 1/3 of a game then waiting another 5 years for 20 hours of game play. But maybe thats just me.