Half-Life 2 Episode 1

What’s pretty obvious here is you have prejudged the situation and decided to be a buthead about the game regardless of what anyone else says or any evidence to the contrary.

Premier Xbox 360 games are selling for $69.99 and last about 12-16 hours.

HL2 episodes are $19.99 last between 4-6 hours for a total of 12-18 Hours for $59.97

Both are Content and Technology heavy.

You simply do not have a leg to stand on.

 

Console Talk is the next forum down. But if you really want to compare apples to oranges, I've got over 92 hours played in Oblivion, and I still haven't finished the main quest or joined the fighters and mages guilds. And those are not empty hours of sitting staring at the landscape, either (well, maybe one hour of it is).

 

Just checked best buy and the only game that was $69.99 was Oblivion because it was a collector's edition. The rest of the games were about evenly split between $40, $50 and $60. On newegg the average price is $55 with some as low as $38.

 

This Episode is great, in all aspects, GFX, gameplay & leveldesign and the plot too.
The HDR is beautifull, but fades away just a bit too fast. If this engine had real time lighting it would be totally the dope

 

Is anyone else getting the dreaded Audio Stutter? Weird thing is HL2 runs great on my system (6800gt, 2gig ram, A64 3500+) and I never encountered stuttering problems, but Ep 1 is having issues for me. Im still early in the game but it popped up twice already. Once when an alarm was going off in the Citadel, and then later on when you escape on the train. The entire train ride is a total slide show as the audio keeps skipping in and out. Seems to be related to repeated sound effects somehow. Otherwise it runs great. Gah, so frustrating. All my drivers updated, defragged etc. etc.

So are there any fixes going around for this? I tried searching on the Steam forums but that place is a mess.

 

Well Valve's excellent commentary/director's cut features does offer one more reason to go the game again after you've completed it. That added an extra couple of hours to the game for me.

Interesting argument, however you missed one important aspect of episode content: you get new content sooner and more often.

Getting new episodes in a 3-5 month cycle, as much quicker than getting an entire games in 3-5 year cycles.

That's essentially what you're paying for.

It's quite similar to the difference between watching tv show on a weekly basis, or waiting a year to buy that season on dvd. You pay more over the course of a year in costs (cable/satellite subscription) and time (tv commercials) to watch serialized tv shows, but you get the content quicker and more often.

 

See I would rather wait those 3-5 years and have it all at once. EP2 isn't supposed to come out until December and EP3 December of next year, so those aren't exactly short waiting times for such short playtime.

 

Truth, I feel the same way.

I want HL3 damnit, not HL2.1, 2.2 and 2.3. If they do plan to release a full Half Life sequel after all this episodical bullshit, then i'm a happy camper. If not, I seriously hate Valve. Episodic gaming is a double edged sword, and frankly, both edges are cutting my ass right now.

 

It felt like another chapter of HL2 lol. It was over for me in about 4 hours. I am so utterly sick of games that model corridors. I thought it was not all that great of a "chapter", or whatever, IMO.

It was semi-nifty to have a NPC with a decent firing rate/damage. Without that the game would have been utterly forgettable (hey! almost like HL2 itself was!)

 

- HL2:EP1 costs $20.
- HL2:EP1 is 4 hours long (average).
- HL2:EP1 is part of one of a three part series.
- HL2:EP1 is not forced onto you in anyway, you dont have to play it till you want to.
- You can wait for all three episodes to come out.
- Once all three are all you can play them right in a row.
- You're total price would be about $50~$60.
- You're total time would be about 12~15 of gameplay (using the first one as an average).

Knowing these facts we can come to the logical conclusions:

- You get a full game sliced in three parts, priced at 1/3 (using normal retail price of new big title games).

- You can wait till all three episodes are out till you play. Therefore playing them in a row and playing one full game. Paying the price for a full game. Getting the gameplay time of a full game.

With this knowledge at hand I've come to the conclusion that episodic games are great. They provide those who want the game parts sooner to have it, those who want to play one big ride can simply wait like they normal would.

What the heck is the problem then?

 

They are the first major game studio to be doing episodic content, so I had no illusions of everything working out smoothly from day one. This process will clearly be refined, and the time between episodes will be cut down.

When Steam first came out it didn't work perfectly off the bat either. Most things of this nature don't.

If you watch any of the director's cut stuff, you will find out why this episode in particular took longer than expected. It wasn't just "take old content and old engine, and add non-playable player in the game."

The main thing I like about the director's commentary is that they talk about game design decisions. The first time you played the game and were were stuck in some puzzle, you probably wondered at some point "why on earth is this setup like that?"

With the director's commentary, you hear and see that stuff. You can be invincible while in director's mode, so there's no worries about dying, just exploring and seeing what exactly you spent your $20 on.

It's way better than just some random art samples thrown in, or the unlockeable junk most games have.

Skrying already said what I was planning to: you now have more choice. Those who want to wait 3-5 years, can still do so. Those who don't, now have a choice too.

Episodical content is available in every other medium, and while some will always prefer games to be made and sold the way they always have been, it's in the best interest of the industry to have this option, and to have a company like Valve who can afford to do it.

 

I didn't buy it and also won't. I'm not that inclined to play more of the same old, even if it's very well done.

 

the problem is the episode was NOT a 1/3 shorter version of (new content) HL2. in HL2, there were far more 'screwing around' opportunities. this game might provide 4 hours of gameplay, it might take 4 hours to RUSH through the first 1/3 of HL2, but i spent A LOT more time messing around and exploring in HL2 (mostly fruitless, but possible).

bottom line (IMO) this game is not 1/3 of a full price AAA title. it's shorter AND simplified (fewer alternatives)...more like a 'B' level shooter.

 

I want to play the magical games you've been playing in the FPS world. Because I havent come across some shooter in a very good while. HL2 was a short roam, its very easy to beat in a very quick time on the hardest of difficulty levels, yet you want to call it worth its full value?

To me it sounds like you wanted EP1 to be the Oblivion of FPS, that certainly wasnt going to happen, and HL2 wasnt that either.

 

Actually the screwing around opportunities tended to be only in the first two thirds of HL2. Mostly it was done to establish mood and a sense of the global changes that had occured in the intervening ten to twenty years since the first game. Once you hit inside Nova Prospekt HL2 is very much a linear forced path shooter. It was done deliberately to give you tightly scripted encounters to provide the game climax. Given that EP1 has to cover how Alxy and Gordon escape the portal reactor explosion, the subsequent destruction of the Citadel and the whole rapid escape from the city then it too is firmly aimed at providing fast paced scripted encounters.

Once we get back outside City 17 into the countryside I expect the opportunity to explore a bit and be a little more creative in play will return where it fits the story being told.

No I don't agree, it fits perfectly in tone with the final segments of the game and provided a fair bit of evidence towards where the story is going to go next. Namely the deployment of the new technologies that the resistance has been developing to try and fend off the combine counter-attack.

 

i don't know from tone i guess. Im not chiefly interested in the plotline i don't think. that's more like an "also" part of most games for me. i think i, sort of, make up my own 'story' in games. while people talk to me, i might be jumping around breaking stuff. if im allowed (as in hl2).

games are so much more interactive than a story is. guess that's why i've learned to like RPG's more (even though im not really into the hack and slash dragon/magician thing). more indicitive of what a game can be (far superior to a story). game devs should never put 'story'ahead of game. if they want to do that, they should just make a movie and make all our choices for us. i want MY input to MATTER (or lack of 'proper' input, etc)