How do you feel about Half-Life 2 Episode One?

I think the main thing about Ep1 is it gives Valve a chance to manage their IP a bit more sensibly. The HL universe stays in people's minds rather than just disappearing for years. Valve get a chance to create content and put it out very quicky instead of taking years and then having to update the engine because it's become superceded in the market. It leverages Steam to give them more revenue.

I think this last thing is what I find disappointing. Even though Valve make a lot more money, none of that saving gets passed on to the customer. It was supposed to be one of the benefits of direct delivery - cut out the middle man, give Valve a lot more cash, and in return for not having a disc or box, the customer got his game a bit more cheaply.

In fact (as has been pointed out) the price for the game has actually gone up. Yes, its a very polished game, yes it's a AAA title, but even so, compared to other quality AAA titles, it's still short for what you pay for. It's about 60 percent of the price of a AAA title bought mail-order, but offers IMO a lot less than 60 percent of the enjoyment/quantity or however you want to judge that mysterious "fun factor" that is so important.

So Ep 1 is great for Valve in how they produce games, and in particular how they make money from the work they do, but I'm not so sure it's so great for the gamer. I think quality episodic content delivered over the internet can be a great idea and work really well - I just don't see why the gamer should pay more for the privilege of making life easy for the developer.

 

Ive had a Audigy Z2 gamer for HL2, and a X-Fi now, and Ive never had any audio popping, cracking, or stuttering. Ive used several video cards, motherboards, and CPU's as well.

 

Not true for me. It's ~33% of the price at worst with the $17 pre-order price.

Aren't 'tripple A' games closer to $50 than $30 on release in America, assuming your American?

 

Not for a 4 hour game. And it's $17.95.

 

Nah, a lot of $50 games are 10 hours or less though, which comes out the same per-hour price as 4 hours for $20.

 

I'm in the UK, and I'm just taking the basic £17.99 from Play.com for a triple-A release (like HL2) compared to the approx £12 for Episode 1 bought via Steam and taking advantage of favourable exchange rates.

Maybe that says more about how cheaply you can get full games in the UK if you shop around. I distinctly remember that HL2 was cheaper to buy from Play.com and get the boxed DVD than to buy from Steam.

 

Is that price from release? That's MUCH MUCH MUCH cheaper than any other place, and such a release price makes no sense at all unles play.com was selling at a loss.

 

Yes, that was release, probably a preorder of a few days. Play gets some tax advantages being based in Jersey, and are often very cheap. I think they do it to attract massive orders and get big upfront discounts. They are often £17.99 on big new titles. Here's the HL2 page. Looks like they've dropped the price on Ep1 too.

I doubt they sell at a loss, they probably get volume discounts on top of their dealer discount, plus they are an internet only warehousing outfit based in a favourable tax location. They sell a lot of units. For instance, they gave me a discount voucher for UT2k4 even after the £17.99 price because they delivered it a few days late as Atari had shorted them 80,000 copies on release day. That's a lot of moolah, even if it's discounted.

 

Wow, those are very impressive prices.

 

I always check Play.com for games, DVDs, books etc especially on single items, as they are often cheaper (don't charge for P&P either). If etailers can offer physical discs at these kind of prices striaght to your door, even the advantageous UK/US exchange rate doesn't always give Steam a big or obvious win on the pricing.

 

Being bored as hell, I was actually gonna go buy episode 1 just now so that I could have some stupid game to play and shoot some stupid badguys in the face a la Jack Thompson, and then steam stole one of my IE windows instead of opening a new one to display an ad, and then it started downloading an auto-update while hogging my CPU to 100% and right then I remembered why I hate HATE that fucking steaming pile of crap!

Fuck that, I'm not buying any of that shit any more. Valve can all go screw themselves, learn to program god dammit.

 

Tsk. It's a shame such a thing still happens to some people. I'm glad I don't have that kind of issue with steam on my end; however, I noticed usage tends to be higher when one of the steam windows, the game browser particularly, is open. Reducing visibility to the tray icon consequently keeps usage at its lowest even when it's doing something.

 

You use IEand you're complaining about bad software

 

i had 1 crash to desktop.

i noticed recycled content (sounds, "hey over here"), maps look 'familiar' (not surprising, same locale)...not a real problem for me, other than how come it took so long to 'cobble' this together?

it seems a few details showed a slight reduction in production values. for instance, the inventory (select weapon) now times out for some reason. before it just stayed there till you selected a weapon.

not sure if this is due to my spectacular rig, but i zipped up ladders almost instantaneously, rather than climbing at the normal rate.

still i LOVED the energy ball billiard puzzles (NICE job)! and other aspects of gameplay like the heli/rocket battle. not too difficult, a good level for me.

i've played about 4 hours over the weekend (sunday). not sure how close i am to finish. at the point where you're supposed to escort people to the train station. (?? anyone know how far along that is?). i screw around alot (looking for options, exploits, swag, etc) so 3-5 hours probably isn't accurate for me (18-20 hours for sin episode)

i think they added TOO much 'human' to dog. and alyx treating it like a dog is a bit much. however she did also say some amusing things (i can't remember at this point, but i chuckled a little)

mostly i ignored her (she gets in the way some). i prefer gordon alone. i get an odd feeling when i think they devs are trying to get me to care about pixel people. i'd prefer my 'affection' come from my experiences with the char, not some overture made to me in game.

i also had a feeling (with screwing around included) im moving forward faster than normal (some areas there just isn't any real screwing around options)

 

Assuming you are just starting that section, I'd say there's only an hour left unless you keep dying and having to replay over and over.

 

thanks. well then, i guess this 'episode' isn't as interesting as the Sin offering.

i'd prefer $20 bites at this quality though, than $50 games of the ilk shooters i've experienced in the past year or so. (psychotoxic, gun, et al)

 

I dunno. Yes, it's very dense, and a lot of people have used that to excuse the short length, but I'm not sure that's all there should be to a game. In the same way that books set the scene before leading up to exciting sections, FPS games traditionally are more than just about constant action. I think I miss some of the slower parts of FPS games such as Chrome, Chaser, Unreal, Jedi Acadamy or Far Cry where you are actually travelling, exploring, adventuring, just getting the flavour of the game world and spinning the story out.

For instance, infiltrating a submarine base in a snowy blizzard, sniping the enemy mercenary bases from a distance, or travelling the Martian railway system is a slower, more considered way of progressing the story.

Episode 1 seems to be just a load of set pieces piled in on top of each other. It's all action movie, and less of the sci-fi story telling that Valve did with HL2 that worked so well. There's no sense of lonliness or desolation, just running and gunning all the way through. Ep1 just feels more on rails and confined than HL2.

That's not to say the Ep1 isn't a polished, accomplished piece of work, but it's a different kind of product from HL2. I feel like I've read an exciting short story instead of the first part of a genuinely impressive book that's going to make me think about it deeply (or at all) or created an immersive world for me to lose myself in. Maybe the shortness of the game has actually damaged the immersiveness of the story. Maybe in some ways Ep1 is more Painkiller than HL2, especially given the scripted nature of the set pieces when the game has the player always reacting to those continuous set pieces.

Maybe I would look at it differently if I had all three episode to play at once. Or maybe if I could shoot while using the zoom of a weapon.

 

i agree completely. i think you're onto something there. i get the same impression, now that you mention it. it seems to have retreated towards shooter from explore, discover, exploit, shoot (ie more linear/limited than say HL1)

few repetitive 'tricks' (i didn't mind this time around, but would get tedious if in every episode)...ferry people to train x4...different 'waves' to opposition each time. (at least not identical).

 

i amend my vote. this game is NOT worth $20.

this game took me 5(ish) hours to complete. and that INCLUDES screwing around. there just weren't many 'secrets' or exploit opportunities.

i would NOT pay $20 for something like this again. even though it had decent production values, it was streamlined. so you're NOT getting a miniature HL2. your getting a shortened, shrunk, simplified, all the fluff without the 'stuff' miniature HL2. 'looks' like HL2. only the obvious possibilities are possible. hell Metastasus mod was better than this 'episode', and it was FREE.

 

I'm liking it so far. It's like watching the HBO show Entourage. Good stuff, but the wait is killer.

I understand why some people would want some more elements of exploring and discovery.

However - when one remembers that the main goal of this "chapter" of the game is to get out of the city before it explodes. Using that time to explore the city, or to have coffee with Gordon Frohman in Ravenholm, doesn't seem like that great an idea.

It wouldn't fit this part of the story to offer such gameplay elements.

I'm guessing they offer some of that stuff in the next episodes, where it would make more sense story wise. It's a safe assumption that they'll be returning to Black Mesa at some point, but along the way there are many possiblities.

We'll see what they offer in the next parts.

Oh - and that Bow and Arrow weapon is in this game too, if you do want to zoom with a weapon.