[PeachE]

Originally posted by Rictor
a few months? Try a few days, a week or two tops. Every cracker in the world will be all over this one, if nothing else but for the fame and kudos. They already cracked Counterstrike: Source, so the only real problem is Valve unlocking the game, which they will do shortly.

i meant an official patch from valve. after the heat dies down and the buying frenzy stops, i'm sure they'll release an update that gets rid of the activation requirement.

i expect a hack available within 3 hours.

[Rictor]

hey, just a quick question for you guys. How long did it take you to fully preload all the content, what sort of connection are you using and how much space does it take up?

I ask because I'm about to start preloading and just need a rough estimate of the time/space required.

[Rictor]

Get ready folks. Within a week, Valve will become one of the most powerful economies on Earth, join the G8, speculate against the dollar, cause a worldwide economic collapse and then proceed to rule the world for a hundred year under the bulbous tyranny of Gabe Newell and his sons.

Nerds, geeks and fanboys, arise, for your hour has come!

[Ford Prefect]

Maybe that means that wars will be fought via Counter-Strike instead of with real people.

[Rictor]

The Koreans will murder us all!

w0rL|> w4r tHr33
The US gets 0wned on de_dust, wins de_aztec against a joint Russian-Syrian force and is finally forced to retreat on cs_office against the terrorists, only to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by dominating cs_havana against the Peruvians and finally emerging victorious as the CTs take de_inferno by 8:2.

[FireCrack]

I want my box TYVM

[Ransom]

I would get steam and preload it, but I want the box. Boxes are nice. You can put them under other boxes and they get squashed and then you're all sad cause your box was squashed but by then you don't care about the game anymore so you laugh at it but the turtle doesn't like that so he eats you and then you're in his stomach and then God burns your soul.

[Petrarch of the VBB]

I wanted a box, but then I realised that
Early release of CS:S and SDK > Box
And went with Steam

[Make]

If I hear just one more word about Half-Life 2, I will SCREAM!!

[Ransom]

Why will you scream if you hear one more word about HALF LIFE 2?

[Make]

My friend hasnt talked about anything else for many, many days. Eeeek!

[Ransom]

Cogito ergo sum... that's Latin for... 'I think, therefore I am?', isn't it?

Oh, and...

[Make]

Originally posted by Ransom Arceihn
Cogito ergo sum... that's Latin for... 'I think, therefore I am?', isn't it?

Correct.

[Martinus]

[color=66ff00]I'm in two minds about Steam; on one hand you've got the game makers taking power away from the publishers; the people who force game writers to crank out the n-th version of Lara Croft or yet another FIFA football game.

On the other hand this could turn into the biggest flop ever, not because of the quality of the game but because Valve are pulling a microsoft on us all. Microsoft claim that the windows XP activation helps the consumer, it does anything but. Half life isn't such a big issue but I'm sure if little Joe gets a copy of Half life for chrimbo and then realises that he can't play it because it needs to be 'activated' that you'll get a lot of dissapointment, a lot of angry parents and a lot of returns.

Valve got where they are partly due to supporting the gamers, now I can't help but feel that they're stiffing the gamers. Software copying will always happen, it's part of the nature of infinitely copy-able, near zero cost media. They should work like the smarter companies; you buy a copy of the game and if you register it then you get added value; more missions or models.

That's incentive and that cuts down copying.
[/color]

[aldo_14]

I don't object to online activation per se - it's possible it was necessary after the leak - but i do object to needing to install steam to do so.

[Blaise Russel]

*has HL2*

[Slasher]

I watched someone play it for three hours after activation and it looked pretty fun.  Potential Spoliers Follow

The physics are nicely integrated into the game, even into simple tasks.  During the trainstation intro a combine guard knocks a soda can down with his baton simply so he can order you to put it in the trash.  Before Water Hazard you encounter lots of barnacles in the sewers; their tongues seem to pick up just about anything now: people, wood debris, explosive barrels.  It was really cool seeing it in action because my friend got a barrel rolling towards a cluster of the things, got the barrel flaming, and then not one but several barnacle latched on to it and pulled it up.  A few seconds later they all got wiped out.

We left off just after we got the gravity gun at Black Mesa East.  Shooting around boxes and crap was fun.  Barney had a funny comment or two in the beginning too ("Yeah Gordon, you threw a switch.  Glad to see that MIT doctorate is paying off.")

[Gloriano]

Well i did buy HL2 and i enjoy playing it but still i think Halo2 is better.

[PeachE]

shouldn't you be out stealing art or something?

anyway, HL2 is amazing. and the graphcis are the best i've ever seen in a game. even on my little pos, it looks like a champ. and it's fun to finally have enemies that do more than just run and charge at you (or in H2's case, occasionally hide behind an obstacle).

and ragdoll physics are the f*cking own!!!

[Fury]

HL2 sure is pretty good game. I've been playing it today for many hours, at times I played Nexus though which is another good game.

Anyway, I don't actually have anything to complain about HL2, the game does darn well what it is supposed to do. If you like the genre, I seriously doubt HL2 will let you down.

By the way, HL2 even works on Intel Extreme Graphics which is pretty damn good feat in itself. And no, I don't have the card but I tested it on a centrino laptop.