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Just got Counter Strike Source beta.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 11
Date: August 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Well i got it yesterday and after 5 hours of play I can say the Half Life 2 Multiplayer is amazing. Counter strike, but with amazing graphics, fluidity and physics. There are now barrels at the CT spawn point on de_dust and you can knock them over and use them for cover, the smoke grenades actually work now etc. it's just amazing. However I was most amazed by the fact that the game works fine on my pc which is running a P4 1.8 GHz CPU, 256 RAM (took a while to load into the ram as everything else had to be put into vram) and a Geforce 3 ti200 GPU!! So those of you worrying about hardware, DON'T just use valves tester on their website, I got 45 FPS which is perfectly reasonable. Can't wait for the final version now.

Steam leaves me cold

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 11
Date: January 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Half-life 2 seemed to have the potential to be a fair game, but then I found I was doomed to be in the grips of the "Steam" company and no amount of effort made it possible for me to play the game without at least starting on line. This is a suck system. Next, I started running into software glitches. For one thing, the tunnel entrance to get the airboat to the final helicopter battle shows itself open to the player on foot, but solidly locked closed to the airboat, and you cannot survive on the other side without the airboat, hence, the game is terminally flawed. You CAN'T progress. After paying top dollar for what was supposed to be a good game, I am pissed as hell at having bought a piece of junk that won't play. It has crap controls anyway. Save your money. This is a rip-off.

Great game ruined by Steam interference

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 11
Date: June 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The game is top notch--no complaints there. My gripe is dealing with Steam. Yeah it took a long time to download (several hours) and register with Steam. All was fine for many months until I foolishly let Steam update it's files while I tried to start the game while still connected to the Internet (I just do single player, no multi for me). The Steam update (which I suspect I didn't have to have) totally screwed up my game. It won't let me play now. I can't access the game at all. I've tried a myriad a way to figure out this puzzle. Be cautious of this game unless you are a total geekmeister. I do OK, but I'm no geekmeister. After numerous emails and FAQ searches with Steam, I gave up and haven't played since my ability to do so was STOLEN by Steam--which really means a Steaming pile of poo!

Excessive gore ruins the fun for me

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 15
Date: January 03, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I really enjoyed the original Half-Life game, and was very excited about the sequel. I recently upgraded my PC, got a top of the line video card, and couldn't wait to try out the new engine. Luckily, I waited till the demo came out, and ran that first. There are two chapters in the demo. The first is chapter one, where you (as Gordon Freeman) arrive at City 17 on a train. You wander around a nearly deserted train station, and see some very impressive graphics and digital actors. They still look pretty polygonal, but they are a lot more realistic than anything else out there. Facial expressions, the whole bit. They ain't Gollum, but still, very impressive.

There's a very eerie feeling in the train station. The emotional impact is quite strong. Something horribly wrong has happened, and you are in some kind of relocation station. A PR film runs over and over telling you that this is one of the few remaining cities... Remaining after what? you wonder.

As a big science fiction fan, I was immediately drawn in. After encountering a bud from the first HL, I manage to escape the station, and find myself in an open plaza. This plaza was just amazing in its photorealism. You can almost tell what time it is just from the lighting and atmosphere--it is that real. Soon, though, the chapter ends as you enter a building.

The other chapter in the demo is chapter 6. Now you are much further in to the story, you've got a gun, and it's dark. There are some very impressive crows in a yard, flapping and cawing. Wow. (Sounds dull, but you have to see it. So real!) But there are also...lots of body parts and blood strewn around. Corpses of people who seem to have died in extreme agony. Skin ripped off their bones. A torso cut in half, hanging from a tree.

At this point, I lost interest in the game. This video world I have entered has convinced me quite solidly of its reality, and now I am presented with some very realistic, believable, stomach-turning horror. I had no wish to be here any longer. I could not feel anything but pity for the poor souls lying dead around me. I did not feel that killing anything that moved was going to help anyone. I shut down the game and deleted it off my system.

If you've gotten this far in my review, you may be surprised to know I like shooters. I just completed Thief 3. Wonderful game. You rely on your cunning and skill. However, it did bother me a bit that it's "me against the world" in Thief. Can't trust anybody, and there's no remorse when you have to kill somebody to achieve a goal. What I liked about Thief more was its "adventure" side, more than its shooter side.

I'm intrigued by the MMOG phenomenon, though I haven't tried any of them. But I'm intrigued by the idea that people (strangers, no less) get together in these games and cooperate to accomplish a goal. And they enjoy exploring vast video worlds.

I think eventually we'll see an adventure game (like Myst) that is as highly rendered as HL2, allowing the interaction Myst currently lacks. It will be gorgeous to look at, convincing in its reality, and it will have an interactive storyline (with you as the protagonist) that involves more than simply making your way through a maze (such as a building complex, yawn) filled with zombies and monsters. You can see the interest in such a game based on the success of "The Longest Journey", the Sims, and the Myst series and its clones.

When I want to play, I want to pretend I can save the world, sure. But not by shooting everything in sight. The encouraging thing about playing this demo was that it showed the potential video games have now. I'm looking forward to the day a developer with imagination takes this technology the next step forward.

Disappointing

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 19
Date: November 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Just another run n'gun, Valve failed to fullfill their promises when it comes to a groundbreaking game. Pretty much everything that has been done in this game has been done before.
Not fun at all.

After finally playing this game, I'm quite disappointed.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: December 31, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Well, I've played through Half Life 1 many times, including the expansions. It wasn't until recently, however, that I had a system capable of really running Half Life 2 in all its glory so it was exciting to finally pick up this title. But, it wasn't really what I was expecting to be honest. While I could play Half Life 1 for long sittings no problem, it was hard for me to even go over an hour before getting bored with Half Life 2. I believe it's the combination of the painfully slow and uninteresting story, along with the monotonous play. It just wasn't as "fun" to me as the first title.

Pros:

1. The graphics are truly out of this world. Now that I've played both Doom 3 and this game, I can't really even see where there was an argument over which game had the better graphics. This game is beautiful and there is so much detail in the world.

2. Voice acting is very good.

3. Level design is pretty good for the most part and original. Also, the driving levels were pretty fun.

Cons

1. The story is the first thing that comes to my mind. You just get thrown in some city without any real explanation as to why, and then start fighting your way through it. It's completely bare bones with no real explanation as to what's going on and why. Also, the characters in this game are just nobodys from the first game that all of a sudden have a huge role. There is no character development on their part, they basically just keep telling you where to go and what to fight next. I could care less about these people, because throughout the whole game they remain people that just tell me what to do next.

2. The weapon selection, besides the gravity gun, is very boring and basic. I was looking forward to a nice new set of weapons, along with some of the old, but Half Life 1 was better in my opinion, especially Opposing Force.

3. Just the same enemies over and over and over again. Combine Combine Combine, and the variety of different combine is next to nothing. There are a few aliens back again, but not many.

4. There is just something missing, and I can't pinpoint it, but it's there. Something that keeps me interested and that connects me to a game and it's world. Maybe it's the fact that the bad guys aren't presented in a way to make me dislike them, or the good guys aren't presented in a way to make me like them, or maybe it's the monotony. Not sure, but it's there.

REGISTRATION NIGHTMARE

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: August 02, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I spent hours,...hours trying to acivate this game, shutting of software, virus control, firewalls deleting programs, all to no avail. could not activate the game. What a drag, I keep reading that the game is great, but this corporate, headless, inconsiderate, inhuman, non responsive entity wont let me play the game. so the game is probably good if you could activate, but good luck if you buy a used game. Beware if you buy a used game .The first owners have probably pirated the game and you are going to be stuck with a inoperable piece of software. Good luck!

Graphics

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 8
Date: November 16, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Now to all you people who keep saying Doom 3 has better graphics? GIVE ME A BREAK. Doom is consistently dark and the rendered normal maps are tiring. It's like looking at marshmallows all day... or should I say night because the game is dark dark dark. Doom 3 is afraid to inject lighting into it's game because the normal mapping breaks down somewhat.

Half Life 2 is stunning visually. I work in the industry as an artist and I have to say it's polished to a fine mirror shine. The environments are lit with beautiful lighting and the lighting actually enhances the levels as you play gradually getting darker as you move into key moments of the game. Now that is using all aspects of a graphics engine for gameplay... with that said... look at all the eye-candy pouring out of the video card I used (Radeon 9800 Pro) real-time world reflections and super looking specular highlights and bump mapping.

Second to none. It plays like the old Half Life with some nice new features. Physics are a key element of game play as well. Valve made some nice integration in that respect.

Get it. I'm glad it's not on a console.

Great ! BUTwith problems

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 05, 2005
Author: Amazon User

this game is the top of the list of great games out there, however, Valve should use another format than STEAM (the online set-up program). All who buy this Half Life 2 will need to log in to steam to be able to use the game. And steam has problems that will disallusion most players. Ie. you must log in using your internet system. For most this means having an IE connection all the while you play the game even though they say you can go off line and play. not true! But that aside the game is truly top notch..

probably 10 actually

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 46
Date: October 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

In the 25min high def video i saw, my jaw dropped and i had to pick up the pieces one by one. As the mysterious G-man says at the end of it : "Well, well, Mr. Freeman, isn't it just like...ooold times?"
This phrase, for some reason, is the one that told me most :" this game is gonna kick major ass." I think that Half-life is probably the greatest pc game ever made, even maybe the best game ever made.
So these "old times" are such a great memory that this sentence pretty much sums up how good hl2 is gonna be.I mean, the graphics for one, are so advanced it's going to take a long time for competitors to even broach that level. (except maybe for doom 3 devellopers, their graphics rip too) But the most impressive thing in hl2 is the physics engine. The way the player can intereact with teh environment is simply awe-inspiring. For exemple, when you see a guy take out a futuristic-orange-glowing-electromagnetic gun, and use it to levitate a wall radiator in front of them as a sheild, and tehn hurl it at the enemy like a massive wreck ball, you say to yourself: "This, is COOL."( for lack of better word, because there is no possible good description of the feeling you get at that time)
I sincerely hope that it will not have the same fate as other recent sequels, like jak 2, which tried to add some to their very good first opus, thus making it confusing, rough and left a feeling of unfinished in the gamers mouth. I hope that hlf life 2, will be not only a good looking game, but a good playing game as well. But since valve has pretty much turned out only great games, i trust them for this one.
"And we thought Black Mesa was bad..."

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