Classic review: Half-Life 2

[qubit]

I was nosing around the bit-tech website, when I came across this classic review of Half-Life 2 as one of the little side links.

Well, it's such a timeless, awesome game which I've actually completed three times, that I thought I'd share it here. Note the references to AGP cards. This so takes me back...

It has been a very long time coming, and there has been an endless amount of anticipation for one of the biggest games of the year - Half-Life 2 finally arrived on Tuesday 16th November. Many users had spent endless hours downloading the seven preload files so that they would be ready to play as soon as Valve flicked the electronic switch to signal the beginning of a new era in gaming. While Half-Life 2 has been heavily backed by ATI in the form of financial support, there have been many rumours going around to suggest that ATI would have a massive upper hand in this title, and essentially casting a massive shadow over NVIDIA's outstanding GeForce 6 series video cards.

This article is designed to cover the quality of game play experience using two sections of the title on the two vendor's AGP video cards. There have been many Half-Life 2 performance articles out there, and so far, all of them have used time demo's. Many sites reproduced ATI's numbers using their supplied time demo's, which will naturally favour ATI's strong points along with the possibilities of not resembling anything like real Half-Life 2 game play. Things aren't helped by the way that the video card market is heading at the moment, with ever-increasing use of very aggressive marketing tactics, so it would only be right to use custom sections of levels which we had complete control over, in order to provide you, the readers, with information that can be used "as-is" and will ultimately reflect real-world game play.

bit-tech.net

EDIT: Thanks to Spaceman Spiff below, for the awesome YouTube video showing off http://cinematicmod.com

[Jstn7477]

I forgot how fugly ATI CCC was back then lol. Still a great game to dust off and play through, expecially since it has achievements after being ported to Mac in May 2010.

[qubit]

Yeah, it ran well back then, but is now oh-so-smooth on today's hardware.

[Lazzer408]

Love the game. I always wished they made a high detail mod or re-released the game for new hardware. It had a photorealistic feel even with the graphics limitations at the time. I still have it installed. I was just serving a dedicated HL2DM (on a dedicated PC) recently until it broke for some reason I can't figure out. I love looking back at games and vintage hardware just so I don't forget how far we've come.

[Spaceman Spiff]

^ Have you not tried the Cinematic Mod from Fakefactory? It adds very nice music to the game as well, a lot of Hans Zimmer and Harry Gregson Williams scores.

Make sure to watch in HD!







I believe version 11 should be out before christmas.

Edit: Whoops! Version 11 is already out!! Awesome. Looks like Ill be playing HL2 again over xmas!!

[Liquid Cool]

I definitely loved the series. I'm still holding out hope that Half-Life 3 will make a showing some time soon, or at least before Gordon has to exchange his crobar for a cane.

Best,

Liquid Cool

[qubit]

Originally Posted by Spaceman Spiff

^ Have you not tried the Cinematic Mod from Fakefactory?

http://youtu.be/H1VBGIz-v-o



I believe version 11 should be out before christmas.

Awesome video. Brilliantly, professionally done with great music. OP updated.

http://cinematicmod.com/

[t77snapshot]

Haha wow, this is so sweeeet! Thanks for sharing qubit

NVIDIA's outstanding GeForce 6 series video cards

LOL. 6 Series?? I can't believe HL2 is now that old.. I'm gett'in old.

[Lazzer408]

Originally Posted by Spaceman Spiff

^ Have you not tried the Cinematic Mod from Fakefactory? It adds very nice music to the game as well, a lot of Hans Zimmer and Harry Gregson Williams scores.

Thanks. I'll have to go check it out. Give me a reason to play it again, as if I needed a reason.

This is one of those games that with good direction, great actors, and minimal CG, would make a great movie. You have experiments gone wrong, alien invasion, a hero, and large landscapes.

[xenocide]

Half-Life 2 is probably in my top five for favorites. I played through it like 3-4 times in the first couple months I owned it. It holds up VERY well too. I remember building my first computer just so HL2 would run better xD