J3RK wrote:I'm playing through it again. I've got some souvenirs from the end of the game with me this time through. So fun. I did a little bit of cheating in the later portion of the game the first time through. (Don't have time to play the hard spots a million times over.) Now I'm cheating 100% on the second time through, and it is SSSSSOOOOO fun!!! Playing with all the toys instead of having to run from things while doing so. I'm going to try to build some Incredible Machine style Goldbergian devices! [TEE HEE HEE]
Do those souvenirs happen to include [spoil]the suped-up gravity gun[/spoil]?
And are you using a cheat code, or do you get them automatically 2nd time round?
It's not a regular cheat. There are a few ways you can do it. There is a savegame floating around that starts you on "A Red Letter Day" with [spoilbox]The Blue Grav Gun[/spoilbox] and there are a few other methods. Another way was to [spoilbox]Load a certain level where you have the gun, and then use the console to start an earlier map, but it didn't work for me. (Does work for others though.)[/spoilbox] I prefer the first method.
It's amazing fun to go through the rest of the game with "that thing" I'm already back up to the coastal highway level again. Weeeee!!! Best first person game since the System Shocks. I think the Shocks are still a little better than this, but not by a huge margin. They have a much different feel and depth to them, and are a whole lot scarier.
I've never played system shock, so I can't compare, but I've never played a game that's had everything so on-point as HL2. Story / gameplay / technology - It just all came together incredibly.
I've heard rumors that valve will release future "episodes" of HL2 on steam. Man, I hope they do!
[spoilbox]How frickin' incredible was the inside of that citadel!!! Goddamn that was one of the coolest levels i've seen in a game!
Also... what's your take on the ending? I was expecting some major boss at the end, but the lack of one really makes me think they'll do additional episodes... (Like we never get to really see that huge monster on the big monitor towards the end, and no explanation for why the Vortigaunts (xen alien dudes) are helping the rebels) I thought the ending was great. In fact I was totally satisfied with the end of the game. That scene with the G-man showing up was perfect....
[/spoilbox]
Wooo Hooo!!! I just beat it. Damn what a great game! Fun to come read all the spoilboxes too. Here's my own:
[spoilbox]Yes the super gravity gun is frandtabstic!! It would go very quickly with that from the beginning. I didn't think the game was all that difficult though. Where did you have to cheat? The only time I died multiple times was the part j.me was talking about (jail, 2nd time you set up the sentry guns). That part was pretty hard, but everything else was just the right amount of fun without frustration. The ending was particularly easy. How can you lose with that freakin gun?
The ending made no sense to me until I went and read that HL Saga Story Guide. The timeline there is awesome. The ant-lions are just wildlife from Xen that came through the portals (they talk about them in the faq). Did you see this easteregg]? I highly recommend reading the entire site. I can't wait for more in the story now!![/spoilbox]
I didn't NEED to start cheating at all. I just wanted to play straight through though without having to repeat parts. I still pretended I wasn't cheating, so I still snuck around, taking out the baddies one at a time etc. I don't get as much time to play anymore, so I would rather spend the time I do have on new sections rather than repeating anything. It was more speculative, than an actual difficulty based decision. I started cheating right around the coastal highway level. (Just before the [spoilbox]Antlion area...[/spoilbox] )
Speaking of the coastal highway...
[spoilbox]It took me close to an hour to find that DAMN battery up on the windmill![/spoilbox]
Who does valve think they are placing equipment like that?
Also, did anyone notice any kind of a performance hit on any part of the coastal highway? There was a time when I was pulling a good 2fps for about 2 miles on the highway...and it sucked.
Nope, no slowdowns like that. In VERY busy scenes, I'd occasionally see some drops below sync, and occasionally a little of that on the boat level, but nothing serious, or even remotely unplayable. When I turn it up to 1280 though, I start seeing a little chop. Still well over 30-40FPS though. In 1024 it hardly ever drops below sync. I run with everything maxed, and full reflections. I turn anisotropic to 4x and turn off AA completely.
I didn't have that problem at all. The only time I really lagged [spoil]was at the ending during the explosion[/spoil] and just gnereal slowness with load times. Overall I am more than happy with the way my PC handled the game.
Strange. I'm running close to sync through out the whole game in 1024 mode with most of the options maxed out as well, but that one time in the game on that two mile stretch, the graphics got so choppy I swear it came close to shutting my computer down. Something was definitly going wrong...and I supsect it was Rylands fault. Oh well, I'm passed it now.
Yes, silver or gold will have it, or if you really don't want to use Steam, you can buy the collector's edition, but it's like $80 or something stupid like that. I don't know if it's available yet either.
So, it took me three years, but today, today I have finally beaten Half life 2! I didn't feel worthy of playing Episode 1 and 2 without actually finishing HL2. Bring on Episode 1!
So fun. I did a little bit of cheating in the later portion of the game the first time through. (Don't have time to play the hard spots a million times over.) Now I'm cheating 100% on the second time through, and it is SSSSSOOOOO fun!!! Playing with all the toys instead of having to run from things while doing so. I'm going to try to build some Incredible Machine style Goldbergian devices! [TEE HEE HEE]
