Tell me when a game actually is in stores on its release date...now THAT would be news!

you mean on their ORIGINAL release date....all games EVENTUALLY make it out on their release date...its just that the release date was revised umpteen million times.

WOW. Official word from Valve. UNTHINKABLE!

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22

Please tell me that no one is ACTUALLY surprised by this bit of "news."

Tell me when a game actually is in stores on its release date...now THAT would be news!

Counter Strike did not make Half Life classic. Half Life was already a classic, Counter Strike was just a very popular online mod for a classic game.

Counter Strike rapidly became a painful experience due to all the lamers and the cheating.

On a LAN it's still quite fun, but it's not what made HL a classic.

The xbox version is to be finished and released before the PC version.


...LMFAO! I would love to see those reactions.

I bet this has more to do with the sudden delay than anything else. Valve probably considers the game "done" (hence their recent comments that the delay was untrue), but Vivendi is really concerned that it won't run well on the majority of systems out there.

Uh, Valve has been saying since the beginning the the minimum system requirements are a 700 MHZ CPU with a DirectX 6 (maybe 7?) video card. It won't look anywhere near as good as on a better system, but it will run at an acceptable frame rate.

But then again, with this last-minute delay, maybe Valve wasn't trustworthy about the requirements either.

Anyway, check out Planethalflife.com , they just posted a mini-editorial suggesting that the delay is just due to developmental causes (i.e. the game isn't done) rather than some outside force causing Valve to delay it. Seems reasonable.

Re 132:

I'm sure it's a content delay. It takes a long time to build textures, monsters, maps, and the like with graphic engines like this.

Valve claims the game will run on an 800Mhz w/ a TnT2. Granted, we all know this is a load iof hogwash, but we can humor them I guess.

The truth is, with Valve's "GREAT SCALEABILITY," we'll find that in truth it runs slower than DOOM3, an engine with a more advanced lighting system, better texture affects, and support for everything else that Valve talks about when they're refering to themselves as God.

What made Half-Life? A good game. What made it a classic? Counter-Strike. Who developed Counter-Strike? Not Valve. Valve has only 1 complete game under their belt. They're not genius. You don't get to genius status until you've released atleast 5 games, which Valve will never do because Greg Newell will run the company into the ground with greed and STEAM.

a) I just bought a 9800 Pro
b) Valve knew they weren't going to make the 30th before I bought my card, which means they could've let me know
c) Valve was so proud when they announced Half-Life 2 with a release date that was not just before DOOM3's, but WAY before DOOM3's. How could such a confident company miss such a wonderful release date? Could it be arogance? No...
d) jackmh is right, HL2 will be very buggy. You can count on it. And the funniest part? It will require the latest, buggiest drivers from Ati!

Maybe they should change the name of the game to Double-Buggy.

Unless their "holiday release" means "presidents' day, 2006" it's not that much of a delay. I hope they're using the extra time to optimize the nVidia render paths. I'd hate to think my brand new card can only run it at 30fps.

Valve missed a deadline? *gasp* Valve has never hit a deadline...ever. Team Fortress 2 anyone? But this isn't what makes me laugh, it's that even when they DO release it it will probably A) Not work at all [See Steam] or B) Take at least 1-2 years of patching before it is decent (See Half-life 1) and even then the only reason it's still around is a community based mod that knew how to make something fun and not "Geewhiz" [See counter-strike].

-Jack

If you watched the E3 movie, you could see that HL2 was choking in some scenes, and it was running on a 9800Pro P4 3.2GHz

I bet this has more to do with the sudden delay than anything else. Valve probably considers the game "done" (hence their recent comments that the delay was untrue), but Vivendi is really concerned that it won't run well on the majority of systems out there. Perhaps they want better performance scaling added. Maybe they counted on code optimizations that didn't end up helping much. The Nvidia flap is another problem, especially considering all the Nvidia card owners out there. Maybe Nvidia is having trouble with their Det50 Optimizations. Or perhaps Vivendi figures that people will upgrade their systems during the holiday season, which is the best time to release a resource-hungry game like this.

Man, you'd think you guys had nothing better to do with your time.

But you have time to visit a gaming enthusiast website and make posts? Don't you have something better to do, like walk your dog or go on a date? Geez, what a nerd!!!

Well, it was said with some measure of irony, but the point is that there are bigger things to worry about than a game being delayed, and surely people can find something else to do with their time. So maybe I meant nothing *else* to do with their time rather than anything better.

In other news, I'm kinda glad the game is slipping as I need all the money I can get to pay for the engagement ring I'm buying. A winnar is me.

Man, you'd think you guys had nothing better to do with your time.

But you have time to visit a gaming enthusiast website and make posts? Don't you have something better to do, like walk your dog or go on a date? Geez, what a nerd!!!

This comment was edited on Sep 24, 13:03.

People are less mad that it's delayed than in the manner which it was handled by Valve. Saying "on schedule", "release date unchanged" "remains sept. 30" and then going quiet about a week ago, and now the date is "pushed bacK to an unknown date" a week before.

Unless their building burned down, they probably suspected it would be delayed some time ago. And what's more, they still haven't released an OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE. It's all emails from vps and stuff. I know they like to be weird, but can't they have a website like everyone else, and post their own information?

Well, to add another voice to the thousands... I told you so.

More specifically, I told my college housemate from last year so. He was sure it would be released on time. Never mind...

I don't understand how you guys are all so cross. Games get delayed. It happens. Within reason, who cares? You can live for 3 months without HL2. Hell, you can live 3 years without any games. Sure, DNF takes things to extremes, but does anyone really care any more?

HL2 will be out soon. Just chill out and replay something old or buy something from the bargain bin to keep you occupied.

Man, you'd think you guys had nothing better to do with your time.

Hahahahaha to all who upgraded for a game.

If you watched the E3 movie, you could see that HL2 was choking in some scenes, and it was running on a 9800Pro P4 3.2GHz. Just like when Q3 came out, there will not be machines fast enough to run this game at enjoyable (much less competitive), frames rate when all the eye candy is turned on, for some time after the release. I couldn't max out Q3 until over a year after the release date. This game will be the same, and Doom3 will be worse.

This comment was edited on Sep 24, 12:44.

Well maybe this is actually good news...at least for my bank account...because to play this game properly would require me to buy a new processor, more RAM, new video card, new motherboard... and while I'm at it I should get a new mouse, monitor, case, power supply, mouse pad, and a higher paying job... all just to play this game.

My 2 GHz Athlon with 512 MB of RAM and a GF4 4400 seemed like a fairly hot machine until I read the requirements for HL2. At some point, trying to keep up with the latest and greatest becomes a little rediculous...

LOL @ Valve.

Gamemag1: We heard it was delayed?
Valve: No

Gamemag2: There were rumours of the HL2 delay floating around.
Valve: They are all false

Gamemag3: Vivendi announced the HL2 delay, can you confirm?
Valve: They dont have nay idea what they are talking about

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1884&p=13

We are at an interesting point in PC gaming history, as DX9 titles are released the way we look at performance will change considerably. Unfortunately we are not able to bring you performance numbers based on titles such as Half-Life 2 just yet, but come September 30th the release of the benchmarking demo will allow us to do just that. Until then, we're left with our usual DX7/DX8 benchmarking titles to show off:

Well the HL2 tech demo will be released september 30 according to people like anand from anandtech.

This will at least give us, the end users, something to play with in the meantime. Until then I have homeworld 2 to keep me company. Its on sale for $40 at bestbuy this week and there is a $5 coupon with purchase of a gamers BB giftcard to bring the total purchase price to $34.99 = tax for HW2