[Geekery] Half Life 2 ate my weekend (Deliberately vague and spoiler free)
Have spent some quality time[1] over the last few days playing Half Life 2. It's a very good game. The plot throughout the bulk of the game is engaging. The new physics enjoy is an absolute *joy* to play with. There are a couple of sections (both involving travel by vehicle) that go on a bit too long, but even so, these sections are still entertaining for the first hour. The ending is not as satisfying as it could be, but that follows immediately on the heels of a rampage with the most fun weapon I have ever used in a computer game.
Having also spent some time reading some forums for the game (Many, many unannounced spoilers) it seems like a lot of people have had trouble with the game, however. Lots of people having initial difficulty registering the game[2] and people having issues with a couple of bugs. There were also people getting stuck at various points in the game where the solution to a puzzle was incongruously obscure.
For example, there is a section where you have to activate an event by using a particular piece of scenery. Now, for any person who is used to this sort of game, you know exactly what you are looking for. More over, after a very small amount of searching, you find exactly the kind of place that you would expect to find it. Only, Valve in their infinite wisdom placed it in such a position that you could only see it if you where stood in one specific, entirely unintuitive place. Many people had trouble with this part. It confused me for only 10 minutes, but some people searched for up to an hour.
Later on in the game, I too got stuck on an even more obscure puzzle (you had to find one particular object out of hundreds of objects in the area, and this one was very well hidden) and had to find help on the forums myself after searching in vain for nearly an hour. Fortunately there were lots of people stuck at this point, so the answer was already there.
Still, there are only three such places that have cropped up regularly - not bad when there must be a hundred or so such puzzles in the game.
Mostly it was just great fun, and it had a little bit of something for everyone. Of particular note are the final section, with *that* weapon, and the incredibly atmospheric and scary Ravensholm. Even though my computer is severely under-powered[3] compared to most serious gamers, it was very, very pretty, even with most of the graphics options turned right down. Sure, I had to deal with annoyingly long map load times, and entities[4] often didn't appear on the screen until you were within 6 feet of them, but it worked well enough for it not to affect the gameplay.
Anyway, I think I have devoted enough time to this game already. Time to let it go... for now.
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[1] Far too much time. I finished the game at around 10am this morning having played straight through from getting home at 2am.
[2] As an anti-piracy measure, the game's creators Valve require you to register the game online before the game can be played. Under the massive strain of thousands upon thousands of people all trying to register at once, the authentication servers ground to a stand still.
[3] AMD 1600+XP, 512Mb SDRAM(!), GeForce 2 MX 400(!!!) - Better systems probably cost less than £250 new now.
[4] Objects that you can pick up and move around and generally interact with. Enemies, friends, buildings, power ups, etc. where all visible at much greater distances.
Having also spent some time reading some forums for the game (Many, many unannounced spoilers) it seems like a lot of people have had trouble with the game, however. Lots of people having initial difficulty registering the game[2] and people having issues with a couple of bugs. There were also people getting stuck at various points in the game where the solution to a puzzle was incongruously obscure.
For example, there is a section where you have to activate an event by using a particular piece of scenery. Now, for any person who is used to this sort of game, you know exactly what you are looking for. More over, after a very small amount of searching, you find exactly the kind of place that you would expect to find it. Only, Valve in their infinite wisdom placed it in such a position that you could only see it if you where stood in one specific, entirely unintuitive place. Many people had trouble with this part. It confused me for only 10 minutes, but some people searched for up to an hour.
Later on in the game, I too got stuck on an even more obscure puzzle (you had to find one particular object out of hundreds of objects in the area, and this one was very well hidden) and had to find help on the forums myself after searching in vain for nearly an hour. Fortunately there were lots of people stuck at this point, so the answer was already there.
Still, there are only three such places that have cropped up regularly - not bad when there must be a hundred or so such puzzles in the game.
Mostly it was just great fun, and it had a little bit of something for everyone. Of particular note are the final section, with *that* weapon, and the incredibly atmospheric and scary Ravensholm. Even though my computer is severely under-powered[3] compared to most serious gamers, it was very, very pretty, even with most of the graphics options turned right down. Sure, I had to deal with annoyingly long map load times, and entities[4] often didn't appear on the screen until you were within 6 feet of them, but it worked well enough for it not to affect the gameplay.
Anyway, I think I have devoted enough time to this game already. Time to let it go... for now.
-----
[1] Far too much time. I finished the game at around 10am this morning having played straight through from getting home at 2am.
[2] As an anti-piracy measure, the game's creators Valve require you to register the game online before the game can be played. Under the massive strain of thousands upon thousands of people all trying to register at once, the authentication servers ground to a stand still.
[3] AMD 1600+XP, 512Mb SDRAM(!), GeForce 2 MX 400(!!!) - Better systems probably cost less than £250 new now.
[4] Objects that you can pick up and move around and generally interact with. Enemies, friends, buildings, power ups, etc. where all visible at much greater distances.