I finally got around to downloading steam and re-installing half life 2. (It’s installing as I type). My plan is to, once
i’ve beaten HL2’s story mode (again), buy HL2: ep.1, and play that. this leads me to a question:
is it worth buying? I’m slightly short on money, and I’d rather not waste it.
Also, does anyone here (still) play HL2 deathmatch?
Thirdly: does anyone know when ep.2 (possibly along with portal?) will be released?
[edit] also, there’s another game released over steam, called Shadowgrounds. Has anyone played this, and is it good?
hek yea it is
i have the ep.1 its worth the money lol
I just beat Ep 1. For 20 bucks, you get about what you’d expect It’s about a fourth as long as HL2. It was pretty fun, and I really can’t wait for EP2.
It has other perks over the original HL2 as well. Nicer graphics for one. The characters emote a lot more, and the HDRI lighting makes everything real purdy.
The other really neat thing is the commentary option. If you turn it on you’ll find balloons throughout the game that once you activate, have voice over commentary just like you’d find in a DVD. It’s really pretty interesting.
Anyways, I’d go for it. Its worth 20 bucks.
Oh, and I believe EP2 is being released first quarter of 2007.
My friend just makes stuff, and messes around with the physics engine/mapping. It’s pretty cool, I’d get it for that, if I could.
okay, thanks for the input, I’ve decided to buy it. The improved graphics probably won’t affect me (dern laptop with it’s integrated video card), but just the opportunity to play some more HL2 is enough. $20 isn’t that bad, either, even if that’s still two weeks of pay on my paper rout (I really need a real job).
Portal alone is worth the cash. That game is pretty much the only reason why I still have my windows partition.
How I wish that valve would make a Linux steam port :mad:
[Stupid Q Deleted]
Och, Ep2/Portal releases in Q1 '07.
Don’t you mean Havok? Steam is just the app that registers the apps online. Havok is the physics engine Half-Life uses. You need both of course but I’d say the physics engine would be harder to port. It might be coming though. Havok’s been ported to Mac recently so it’s on one unix system at least and I suspect that will open the door for more unix systems. Whether or not HL2 etc are coming remains to be seen.
I’m just in the middle of playing HL2 via Crossover. It doesn’t look as good what with Crossover only supporting DirectX 7 but it’s the physics engine and story that’s interesting anyway.
I can’t be bothered dual booting Windows just for games but some of my friends are getting more intrigued by the idea. I keep telling them I won’t install it until they clone their drive to a backup because as soon as there’s a problem, I’ll get an earful.
No. When I said “steam” I meant the register app + the entire game base it offers. So I’m also talking about the engine (both physics and game) along with Valve SDK support.
Pretty much everything that Valve games need to function.
Havok is the half-life 1 engine, the HL2 engine is called Source (hence, counter-strike Source, and such)
I don’t think the folks behind the Havok physics engine would be happy about that.
Havok usually refers to a physics simulation system found in countless products. Havok can be found in 3ds MAX along with various games (Including Half-Life 2, but not Half-Life 1).
In addition to physics, Havok as a company also create crowd simulation tools as well.
The original Half-Life 1 ‘engine’ was a revamped and revisited version of the Quake engine. (In so far as I am aware.)
okay, so I was wrong. I admit it. retreats into the corner to mope
hl1 was indeed based on the quake engine which is openGL, making it possible to be ported to linux, although that didn’t happen.
Source based games (CSS/HL2/EP1/EP2) is based on the Direct3D 9/10 API and havok physics library and therefore is Windows only.
I think it will be released near christmas
i would get that game the say it comes out, protal will be a sick strategy game