From everything I've read so far, they are really hyping Unreal II up bigtime. And while Glen Dahlgren was correct in some things he said about Half-Life, he failed to mention one of it's strongest points: no cutscenes. Half-Life never diverted the action away from the player's control. For me, that was a strong point for immersion.

Glen's right about HL's story being very thin. However, when the action is constant and consistant, you tend to forget about it.

I wonder how DX2, Thief3, DOOM3 and STALKER will play out later this year...

Alex
-----------
Spatial Fear
Director/Creative Designer
www.planetunreal.com/spatialfear/

"Best of all is the news that the game is on schedule and should be completely bug-free and ready to ship come January. In fact, just as we were going to press we received official confirmation that the game will in fact be finished within a few short weeks. Which means, hold your breath now... PC Zone will be bringing you a massive exclusive review of the game in our very next issue, on sale January 9. And if a true gamer's heart beats within you, that's very good news indeed."

That's intersting. The game will be finished within a "few short weeks" yet they will have an "exclusive review" of it in their magazine which will be on sale January 9th. Which means that the review had to be written of a non final store build which had to be done well in advance to make the print deadline of the magazine. Intersting...
This comment was edited on Jan 1, 15:57.

The game has been content complete since early December (you could probably find the news when they said they hit RC status). The downside with such a review is that they probably assume that there wont be bugs in the retail game [wich would be VERY surprising] and they won't use them in their review.
Still, the game seems amazing and will probably be one of the best game of 2003.

Which means that the review had to be written of a non final store build which had to be done well in advance to make the print deadline of the magazine. Intersting...

And don't forget that it's not finished according to the article, but some clueless f#*^& is saying it'll be "completely bug-free".

I think the bullshit meter just blew off the scale...

"...and should be completely bug-free..."


That may be the dumbest statement I've ever seen in any game preview.

Lets start a running pool. I pick at least 1 bug will appear before installer reaches 33% complete.

C&VG never struck me as anything other than a corporate shill anyway.

I can't wait to get this game. I hope it comes out before the 22nd! That's my birthday, not that I'll be getting presents at my age. But it sure would kick ass if we got this game on our hard drives this month.

-Tony!!!;)

Whoever the hell designs the C&VG webpage needs a serious lesson in usability.

Dark blue background, black text? Am I the only one who found that idiotic and unnecessarily hard to read?

The background's a similar color to Blue's News, but we've got white text here.

Dark blue background, black text?

Uhh, it's white text in IE and Mozilla for me, and probably everyone else.

#9, The text is white on a blue background in Phoenix on Win2000 as well. Perhaps there is something wrong on your end?

You guys better back the **** off HL. These pricks and their little diatribe against HL can kiss my ass.

HL story was and IS still awesome. It is BEYOND PATHETIC that anyone can start talking trash now about a game that STILL DEFINES what a great game is 5 YEARS LATER.

The only game out there that has approached HL in depth and greatness are the NOLF series. Not some puke-ass Unreal Rehash. The only reason they are even talking Shit about HL now is because it DEFINES what a great game is.

What UT2 is or will be regarded as will be decided by the gamers. Not some stupid prick asses tooting their own horn and talking trash about the single greatest FPS of all time.





Pentium 4 2.4B 533 FSB
I850EMD2
512mb 40ns Rdram
Radeon 9700pro 330/330
Win Xp
This comment was edited on Jan 1, 21:08.

@ the little boytroll who comes in to defend half life.


Dear littleboy-troll. crawl back under your rock, and stay there. Leave PC gaming to the rest of us, surface dwellers.

It is quite sad that you even attempted to stand up for a stale old washed out game that is HL. Please. Grow a dick.

-Sincerely.

Your Brain.

HL story was and IS still awesome

A scientific experiment opens up a portal to another dimension. Hostile Aliens pore through and all hell breaks loose. Wasn't this the story to Doom?

Half-Life's story was boring and unimaginative. What saved it, was the method in which the story was told and the level of immersion that resulted. Had Valve chosen to pull the player out of the game and tell the story through cutscenes, Half-Life would have just been another shooter albeit one with exceptional level design.

This comment was edited on Jan 1, 21:14.

what determines if this game will be good or not will depend on how it plays.

i will leave half-life alone, there are plenty of people to bash/praise it.

Ok, so Unreal 2 may, may be better than Half-Life. Here's the catch. Half-Life sipped with and is still pretty good at the multiplayer experiance, even though its all mods (they were free, wernt they?). It pisses me off that Legend gives us some crap about "optimising code for the single player experiance" and trying to get us to fork out the money for two games (UT2003 and UT2). Valve did it a while back with an old engine, you'd think the Unreal guys could do it now...

Mike

We arn't allowed to bash HL anymore... because it brought us Natural Selection. ^_^

I always found it bad taste to call a game good or bad based on how it compares to other games of the same type. If you want to bash something bash a feature or something in the game that has been copied, but each game as a whole seems to stand on their own, since no two are totaly a like. If you are so stuck in the past of gaming you won't be able to see past that image of what a game should/chould be like when it's different. Each new game should be a new experiance, and push gaming forwards not keep it trapped in it's past.

Seriously, would anybody be talking about Half Life anymore if it wasn't for the 10^99 mods that have come out for it, amongst them such minor things as Counterstrike?

The single player for Half Life was a lot of fun, but it was freakin' linear as hell (to the point where EVERY monster appeared at EXACTLY the same spot), and there have been a plethora of games (not necessarily FPS games) that have given you a greater game experience overall (Deus Ex anyone?).

So still hailing Half Life as "the greatest game ever" is kinda absurd in my opinion, simply looking at Half Life itself.
Calling it the greatest MULTIPLAYER "base" game is probably still justified. Natural Selection is absolutely awesome

Creston

Whether HL is the greatest of all time is debatable, however its strength has always been that the devs did a lot with a little; both in terms of drawing you in to a story that was not that original, and modding the Quake ONE engine into something totally new and providing great gameplay.

I could almost see Glen Dahlgren there, shifting from foot to foot getting annoyed as hell but trying not show it as his shiny new game was compared to 5 year old Half-Life, Ha Ha.

Hey Glen, Talent and Quality sells. Will Unreal2 still be talked about 5 years from now? We'll see.

This comment was edited on Jan 2, 03:56.

Why do game reviewers feel they have to compare every last game to Half Life? Practially every review has some nod to Half Life...

"Yeah, the Sims: Hot Date expansion is a great game, but it's not Half Life"

"The AI in Warcraft 3 isn't quite up to scratch compared to that of the awesome marines in Half Life"

"Deer Hunter is very much like Half Life in that you have a gun. And you shoot things."

OK, so I'm taking the michael, but the point stands. Not every game in the world has to have something in common with Half Life, nor does it owe something to Half Life. Not all games were inspired by Half Life. There were good games before Half Life, and there will be good games after Half Life. It's just tedious.

Half Life was a great game. It was indeed the way of telling the story that made it. It had a lot going for it. It's still quite good fun nowadays.

It's not the best game ever though.

What is the best game ever?

Still probably Mario 3 on the NES.