Half-Life 2 Interview Illuminates

As part of the continuing Half-Life 2 media blitz, GameSpy has an interview with Valve's Doug Lombardi about the much-heralded FPS sequel. This insightful interview has info on who'll be returning: "A few of your friends from Black Mesa are in Half-Life 2, and they are sort of immediately your allies; like some of the scientists and Barney the security guard character", as well as more on system requirements: "I think that Valve tries very hard to support as far back with system as we humanly can, and in this case we're going back to a Pentium II 800 with 128mb of RAM, but as get up to a Pentium 4 class you'll see better water and better effects." Meanwhile, the third direct-feed Half-Life 2 movie, 'Kleiner's Lab', is available via Steam, Gamers Hell, BitTorrent via GameTab, and most of the other usual online stockists.

Re:Wow!

[eggsome]

450mzh was the fastest/final Intel PII.

bit-torrent link for this one too up on gametab

[speedbacon]

http://www.gametab.com/files/torrents.php?fuse=55 [gametab.com]

Pentium II 800?

[Asprin]

"I think that Valve tries very hard to support as far back with system as we humanly can, and in this case we're going back to a Pentium II 800 with 128mb of RAM, but as get up to a Pentium 4 class you'll see better water and better effects."

Pentium II 800?

I thought they peaked at, like 450!

My old PC is worse than I thought.

Re:Backward compatibility

[NiceGeek]

I would think that the less punishing the system requirements, the more people will be able to play (and buy) the game. As the owner of a not-so-state of the art system (1.2 Duron, GeforceFX 5200), I'm glad that I'll be able to play.

Re:Backward compatibility

[Bobtree]

Exactally. Welcome to the PC game market reality.

Re:Backward compatibility

[realdpk]

I'm far less interested in the single player than I am in the engine and the tools it will come with to develop multiplayer mod/levels.

Re:Backward compatibility

[PainKilleR-CE]

The best multiplayer mapmakers, however, design their maps the same way the single player maps are designed, with careful planning and knowledge of how the game will be played. You do what you can to keep the player from seeing too much of the map at once (kills framerates on lower-end computers, especially once all of the players are in there), and to keep the flow moving through certain areas.

Usually the SP game can take much more advantage of the computer's capabilities in terms of level design, while t

Re:Backward compatibility

[Krypto420]

...Valve tries very hard to support as far back with system as we humanly can, and in this case we're going back to a Pentium II 800 with 128 of RAM, but as get up to a Pentium 4 class you'll see better water and better effects. For folks who want the ultimate experience, they'll want the latest ATI card, and the fastest processor available from AMD or Intel. The game engine is scalable. In other words, the better your computer/graphics card the better looking HL2 will be as the game engine will up the detail, textures, polycount, etc. I think it's a pretty neat concept and can't wait to see how it works out. I will be very irritated if my buddy's P2 looks as good as my XP 2800+ ;)

Re:Backward compatibility

[Nonki]

It is a neat concept, one that's been around since before Quake 1. Every FPS or graphics-heavy game has settings for model complexity, texture detail, resolution, anti-aliasing, etc. Do you play computer games?

Re:Backward compatibility

[Jahf]

Take a look at the movies that are coming out. They are not going back to the common denominator. The government guy movie is quite impressive, facial animations -and- resolution. It also gives a good contrast to the tech 5 years ago by showing the old version in the first shots.

Re:Backward compatibility

[Mike Hawk]

Wow, the parent got modded both insightful AND flamebait. I guess I'll have to consider that the highest possible compliment meaning I captured the discussion perfectly and two people had nothing to add other than completely agree and completely disagree. The flamebait is off base because I provided a concrete example of both the negative aspect of allowing slow PCs to continue on as well as a solution another game made. If you think I am paranoid, just watch the difference between an RtCW competition (n

Re:Backward compatibility

[Zathrus]

No, it means there was one stupid moderator and two who realized you're clueless.

The flamebait is onbase because you don't know what you're talking about. Just because someone is running a P3-800 doesn't mean everyone else is going to be scaled back to their level of detail. The game will adapt to whatever settings you want... if you're doing multiplayer then the admin may enforce some options (I'd imagine they'll enable this in HL2 MP since it's already in HL), and then those who can't handle that level o

Re:Backward compatibility

[Mike Hawk]

Clearly sir, you are the one who does not know of what we are discussing. No, everyone is not AUTOMATICALLY scaled to the lowest PC's LOD. That is not what I am claiming. If you had ever played in a gaming league, however, you would know that this is what happens. Everyone trys to turn off all the settings. I wouldn't have had to go into more detail, but you are clearly ignorant of this side of gaming. What you IMAGINE will happen is all well and good, but I live in reality. I appreciate the quality

Re:Backward compatibility

[Teddeh]

"They will have the settings so low that fog and grass and trees and rain and whatever else will disappear, leaving anyone with a system powerful enough to handle these things at a disadvantage.

I don't think it'll be like that. I think it'll be more of a draw distance/texture quality/texture effects/particle FX/water FX tradeoff. Getting rid of landscape objects/environment effects client-side would be bloody stupid. Every player would just turn off the eye candy to gain an advantage.

"an admin can lim

Hype for Half-Life 1?

[czion3]

Did Valve hype Half-Life 1 this much I can't remember? Anyone else thing Half-Life is the best game of all time(monkey island comes close)?

Re:Hype for Half-Life 1?

[lidocaineus]

Can someone explain this to me? I liked Half-Life when it came out, played some CS, but what always places HL at the top of people's greatest games list? It seems like a great FPS: really nice AI (especially for the time) and a story progression that occurred 'in place', but those two things somehow vaulted it over *everything*?

That, and the fact that it still used some overdone FPS stereotypes at the time makes me wonder why games like the Thief series, Deus Ex, and System Shock 1/2 have never had such

Re:Hype for Half-Life 1?

[Jad LaFields]

Well, all those other games you mention came out after Half-Life (except System Shock 1), and in some ways were influenced by HL.

It's no surprise that HL was big when it came out, it was astounding, AI like no other game, graphics that beat pretty much all but Unreal, a fairly realistic gameworld (much less fantasy than Unreal, Quake, et al), the story, the pacing. But why is it still considered so great today?

Because it does everything right. By now, nothing is a standout, graphics are clearly dated, AI in someways has been done better, there are far more realistic games, more innovative playstyles. But Half-Life still offers one of the most complete package of not-top-line but really great "components" in one incredibly polished and well-designed game.

I loved Deus Ex, it had a better story and more depth to the gameplay, but was less immersive with cutscenes that "took you out of the action". I only played a demo of Thief, and I really liked the gameplay, but I didn't feel like I could play an entire game of just sneaking around. Half-Life had its sneaking parts, its puzzle parts, its run-and-gun. I played a demo of SS2, got stuck on a stupid piece of equipment, had to play the first half of the level again (I forgot to save), and enjoyed it, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. From the reviews, I hear there are no other people in the game, but that they "talk" to you through logs, which sounds somewhat uninteresting to me.

And lastly, I've still NEVER seen a game that comes even CLOSE to the level design and the monster design of HL. The head crabs are truly ingenious.

Wow, I haven't played the single player game in years, but just right now I shuddered, remembering about the sound they make. Now that's a good game. =)

Oh yeah and about the "normalcy" of Gordon... I really didn't catch all that much "pushing" of that angle at all, but you might have read different previews than me. I felt that they pulled off their real intention perfectly: to really not even have the character "Gordon Freeman", but to have YOU, there, and just happening to be called Gordon... it worked for me... I still imagine I can take down an entire squadron of highly trained Marines =)

System Shock 2

[johannesg]

SS2 is easily the scariest game I've ever played. One of the elements that helps produce that fear is the sense of being alone, the last human survivor on that once-proud outpost of humanity, surrounded by the twisted shapes of your former fellow crew members. So, the log system works well - you are not supposed to make contact with other humans.

That is not to say there aren't any - there are at least two other survivors (of which you catch a brief glimpse when they escape the ship using an escape pod) an

Re:System Shock 2

[Jad LaFields]

I've always known that I never really gave SS2 a fair chance and so I kinda half talked out my ass during that part of the post, hoping you wouldn't notice. =)

I agree that the log idea actually could be really cool, and the truth be told the best parts of HL were when the only humans around were ones trying to kill you. Especially if they barely seemed to be human at all (those ninja assassin women).

Anyway, this almost makes me want to try to go pick up a copy of SS2, but with HL2 and DIII and DX2 coming

Re:System Shock 2

[johannesg]

System Shock 3 is unfortunately rather unlikely, since apparently the rights to the game are split over so many different parties. If that's true, it is a major shame because SS2 is crying for a sequel with modern graphics. Hell, I'd buy a remake (using the Doom 3 engine, perhaps) in a second.

Re:System Shock 2

[AllUsernamesAreGone]

"the company which made SS2 (Looking Glass?)"

Irrational Games, a splinter group from Looking Glass Studios, were the main developers but they used the Dark Engine technology from LGS and had engine/audio help from LGS.

most of the members of the company went and formed another one and are currently working on Thief III...

Nope. A lot of the old team have been taken on by Ion Storm Austin (which was going before LGS was shut down) who have the rights to develop T3 from Eidos.

Re:Hype for Half-Life 1?

[gorgon_123]

While I don't think H-L 1 was the best game ever, a quick trip over to Gamespy tells us that there are currently 84,320 people playing Half Life, with BF1942 in second place with a paltry 8,440. Link to those live stats [gamespy.com].

Re:Hype for Half-Life 1?

[PainKilleR-CE]

Did Valve hype Half-Life 1 this much I can't remember?

I'm not sure if it was Valve that hyped it so much, or that it just had so much hype, but HL was extremely hyped up. It was on magazine covers something like 2 years before it came out. There were videos displaying the 'cool never-before seen' special effects straight out of old platform games (ie sliding on water and/or ice, breaking through floors, etc). We saw about 1/4 of the scripted sequences before the game even came out, and watched the whole

Just found the current Doom3 specs estimate

[Mike Hawk]

Gamespy [3dactionplanet.com] reports JC himself has stated these are the target min specs for Doom3 for comparision.

1GHz CPU
256MB RAM
GF1 or Radeon 7xxx series card

No mention of the minimum card for HL2, though they do shamelessly plug ATI in general. Sell out, with me oh yeah...

All just for comparison.

Re:Just found the current Doom3 specs estimate

[PainKilleR-CE]

Yeah, considering that Valve has screwed users of both cards at one point or another, with one update that messed up the player textures on nVidia cards (some percentage of the time) which they blamed on nVidia's drivers for about a year and a half, and another update which completely did not work on ATI cards, and needed a patch for the patch.

Not to mention how many changes they had to make to the game to keep ATI users from cheating, even inadvertently, since the cards really liked rendering the walls in

Re:Just found the current Doom3 specs estimate

[junkgrep]

There is a very good reason for them to push ATI (though to say they've been plugging it is downright silly: they were at the ATI booth at e3, big deal): only ATI cards have any chance of working with FSAA at the moment in HL2.

.exe? I don't think so

[realdpk]

Is there a BitTorrent for the file in any other format?

Other movies

[TheOnlyCoolTim]

If this is the third movie, does anyone have links to the first two?

Tim

Re:Other movies

[erasmus_]

If you go ahead and install Steam, they're on there (use link from article above). Really easy to use and you don't have to wait in queues while being advertised to. Perfect.