Half Life II Episode I(Impressions)

[InnocentBystander]

Valve wrote all the stories for the HL add-ons. They most definately own Sheppard.

I wasn't sure, because Gearbox Software made OpFor; though it turns out they made Blue Shift as well, and there were no problems with Valve using him in HL2.

I don't think he's he same Barney. I was always under the impression that this Barney was either the first one you meet, being resuscitated by the scientist; or maybe the who you meet shooting zombies.

Or wait; what about the Barney you meet at the teleporter, actually that's likely him. Though he could be the same one you met earlier…

[Alyeska]

Valve wrote all the stories for the HL add-ons. They most definately own Sheppard.

I wasn't sure, because Gearbox Software made OpFor; though it turns out they made Blue Shift as well, and there were no problems with Valve using him in HL2.

Gearbox made OpFor, but the story was written by Valve. Same with Blue Shift. Valve has held its cards very close. Unlike other companies, Valve never let any publisher get ownership rights on its games. I seriously doubt Valve would give Gearbox ownership rights either.

[Alyeska]

Valve wrote all the stories for the HL add-ons. They most definately own Sheppard.

I wasn't sure, because Gearbox Software made OpFor; though it turns out they made Blue Shift as well, and there were no problems with Valve using him in HL2.

I don't think he's he same Barney. I was always under the impression that this Barney was either the first one you meet, being resuscitated by the scientist; or maybe the who you meet shooting zombies.

Or wait; what about the Barney you meet at the teleporter, actually that's likely him. Though he could be the same one you met earlier…

Its the same Barney. The beer joke was used for comedic affect. And its certainly not the teleporter dude. Sheppard gets into the teleporter chamber just as Gordon jumps through. That security guard is dead.

[InnocentBystander]

Hrm, I forgot about that.

I still think it's the Barney at the top of the elevator shooting the zombies.

[Ford Prefect]

I don't think you ever actually meet the 'real' Barney in Half-Life. You just hear him banging on a door on the tram ride.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

People willingly pay $50 for 8-9 hours of game play. A lot of shooters are that short. Very few actualy go beyond 12 hours.

Getting 5 hours of game play for $20 is not a bad deal.

Like I said in the post before yours, it's not just a matter of gameplay hours per dollar. A new game is a new experience, while an episode isn't. Also, very few PC games retail for $50 these days. It's more like $35-45, and a game with 8 or 9 hours of gameplay tends to be more replayable than the episodic content we've seen thus far. Plus the mod and multiplayer issue, as InnocentBystander pointed out. It all adds up to the fact that episodic content is nothing more than an attempt to get consumers to pay more for less, and I think it will be relegated to the history books before the decade is out.

[Shogoki]

While i think $20 is just a little bit too much, it manages to be barely on my limit for such a short expansion, and i couldn't help buying it, i just couldnt, im weak.

But, it's not really a bad idea, if they just drop a few dollars off the price it will sell like crazy, i mean, say they drop it from $20 to $15, with that price i wouldn't have doubted it a second, and that alone would push a lot of the people on the fence to buy it without regrets.

[Hotfoot]

In the defense of the episode content, this is just the first showing. They're still experimenting with a lot of things, including the schedules involved. I intend to write up some constructive criticism and send it off to Gabe Newell to help focus the process, because it is an interesting concept and deserves a fair shot. Will the prices go down? I hope so. Ideally, they'll focus on making new content quickly, and in the process come up with a system that allows more casual modders to whip up a FPS based game with relative ease using the HL2 engine.

In the commentary, they mentioned allowed writers to have more and more access to setting up conditional dialog and such. While the specifics aren't there, it would be nice to see it expanded on by another dev team or a group of intrepid modders.

Anyway, I'm rambling. It's entirely possible that as they keep doing this, they'll refine the process and make longer content or the same content for less.

[Mr Bean]

True enough, however it should be noted that while it does cost twenty hours, based on my personal playtime it works out to around $4.20 cents per hour of gameplay. Each of those hours(Minus the first one) was jam packed with kickass sequences(Abit heavy scripted sequencs)

And compared to most else thigs(Such as movies say, or concerts) $4,20 an hour is pretty cheap. I know I have to spend $6 an hour for most DVD's I buy. (If I bought any anyway)

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

In the defense of the episode content, this is just the first showing. They're still experimenting with a lot of things, including the schedules involved. I intend to write up some constructive criticism and send it off to Gabe Newell to help focus the process, because it is an interesting concept and deserves a fair shot. Will the prices go down? I hope so. Ideally, they'll focus on making new content quickly, and in the process come up with a system that allows more casual modders to whip up a FPS based game with relative ease using the HL2 engine.

In the commentary, they mentioned allowed writers to have more and more access to setting up conditional dialog and such. While the specifics aren't there, it would be nice to see it expanded on by another dev team or a group of intrepid modders.

Anyway, I'm rambling. It's entirely possible that as they keep doing this, they'll refine the process and make longer content or the same content for less.

I know it's early in the showing, and I know I'm going out on a limb here. But I make the prediction nonetheless. Feel free to rub it in my face if episodic content is going strong is a couple of years.

[Hotfoot]

And it may well flop, and you would be vidicated. I think it's rather nebulous at this point, and I think the true indicators will be when SiN:E2-3 and HL2:E2-3 hit the net. If those fall flat, we'll know that the concept just isn't ready for prime time yet.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

I'm basing it mostly on the fact that it's June 2006 and HL2 came out in Nov 2004. That's a 19 month production cycle. At this rate, Ep 2 will be out in Jan 2008, at which time the Source engine won't exactly wow anyone. Basically, it's not really an episode at all. It's an expansion pack, which is certainly nothing new. We still haven't actually seen episodic content, and won't until the production cycles get a whole lot shorter. I'm still not convinced that this is ever going to happen, and I'm starting to think that an "episode" is in fact nothing more than an expansion pack with a small amount of content.

[Alyeska]

That is not how long production is going to work. Valve has already stated Episode 2 is under development and should be released by years end.

Anyway, Valve has said they intend only 3 episodes in total to Half-Life 2. They don't want to bog down production of Half-Life 3 by doing years upon years of episodes. And there still remains the posibility of add-ons which take place in other characters perspectives.

[Shogoki]

Just finished it.

I must say i was quite impressed, I pretty much couldn't stop playing once i started. The pace was just perfect and the action continuous. I guess it really was a bit short, but having played it i dont really regret the price now, it's kindda expensive, but not like a rip off, but like a dinner in a fancy restaurant, you plan ahead of time, order, and have a wonderful time eating and drinking, and then comes the bill, and you notice how the dishes were smallish, but you still go again next week. Only here the bill comes first, i guess that's going to be the major flaw of this design, they need to lower it just a bit. They should probably just drop the physical version to save those costs and lower the price of the online version.

Technically speaking, the download went without a hinch, it was the first time i downloaded a game from steam, i must say i expected a much bigger fuss, it downloaded @ full speed in my connection and was done in about 4 hours or so, didn't crash once.

[Shogoki]

At this rate, Ep 2 will be out in Jan 2008, at which time the Source engine won't exactly wow anyone.

Episode 2 has been announced for Chrismas 2006, and Episode 3 sometime in 2007, im pretty sure they spent a lot of time working on steam and porting the game to the Xbox , i read the made a fantastic job of it.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Yeah, and Episode 1 missed its announced date by over a year. Half-Life 2 did as well. In fact, so did the first Half-Life. Valve is known for delivering fantastic games, but they're not known for doing so in a timely fashion.

[Pezzoni]

Why is steam so shitty? I have a 2.5Mbit connection, and yet am downloading at a whopping.... 17kB/s!

Grr.

[Sharp-kun]

Very enjoyable. I didn't really mind the price, given that I enjoyed HL2, and wanted more.

[Atavarius]

I've just finished replaying through with the Commentary on, and its actually quite interesting. The content gives you insight as to how some of the levels are designed. Its also fills you in on some of the tricks that the devs use. Quite interesting.


Also all you ever needed to know about Barney Calhoun.

[Zac Naloen]

You know, i've encountered a problem in that i can't download this through, just tells me page is unavailable.

Is this a US only thing at the moment?

[Pezzoni]

I just finished it. Very enjoyable (some sections were very reminiscant of Black Messa), but the plot didn't really seem to go all that far, unfortunately. I also can't get at the Episode 2 trailer: Steam just crashes

[Sharp-kun]

I also can't get at the Episode 2 trailer: Steam just crashes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1BNqwX4 ... f-life%202

[Pezzoni]

Thankyou

[Faram]

Short and just when you got the nice guns it was over.

I do not like it and I do not think that I will buy episode 2.

Half the game was tutorials for stuff that I used way back in HL 1

[Admiral Valdemar]

Having just watched that end trailer and thinking about going through the game with commentary on, does anyone have any known facts on the direction the next two episodes will be going in?