As for the physics/gravity.. They did some really cool stuff, but it's way from perfect. I've been having a tendency to be caught in between objects without being able to jump or grab it. In some of the tunnels I'm guessing it's sluge on the floor and it feels very awkward when you walk on it. You kind glide through it at a really slow pace, and it inhibits your jumping. I found it to be extremely annoying. Also the boat's controls suck so I would imagine the buggy being the same way. Also, if I throw a TV at someone, I expect them to fall and not get up. Instead it bounces off?

Gameplay so far is tight. The AI is pretty crafty. I have to actually use tactics instead of running in guns blazing. The puzzles I encounted so far were bad either.
I'm sure it'll only prove more challenging as I progress.

One major gripe, what the hell is with the long loading time to just load the game. I'm almost waiting for 4 mintues between the Steam authentication and the loading screen before the main menu. C'mon, I'm not playing from the CD-ROM. Doom at least started quick and made you wait in misery when the map loads. HL2 makes you wait for both. Maybe they should of ditched the idea of rendering the city and models in the main menu. I'll have to find an option to disable that. It was cool the first time, now it's annoying.

quote:

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Originally posted by mynameisxanthan:
No spoilers plz

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OMG GORDON FREEMAN SAVES THE DAY /SPOILER

quote:

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Originally posted by Acid:
OMG GORDON FREEMAN SAVES THE DAY /SPOILER

or something. maybe he dies in the end.

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I flipped my hydrofoil *gets slaughtered*

[ 11-19-2004: Message edited by: Flux ]

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The load times are irritating though, especially on the boat levels where it seems you're loading every 20 seconds for parts of it.

quote:

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Originally posted by Serengeti:
Seriously though, why do games even have to load past the initial startup anymore? WoW doesn't... you wouldn't think that a streaming "load as you move" algorithm would be too hard to implement...

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You have no idea how hard game programming is. Just because one game does it doesn't mean it's easy and can be done for every game. But I do agree about the long load times. They are irritating and actually somewhat long.

[ 11-19-2004: Message edited by: Flux ]

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1. I get done with MOHPA

2. Finish upgrading my box to run it properly. Hell, MOHPA is gagging it. I shudder to think what HL2 will do ...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Flux:
You have no idea how hard game programming is. Just because one game does it doesn't mean it's easy and can be done for every game. But I do agree about the long load times. They are irritating and actually somewhat long.

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You're right, I don't know how hard it is.

Now about the loading while you play the game... think what it would do for gameplay... video lag or non smooth frame rates. I think WoW gets around this because their textures aren't nearly as complex/detailed and as large as HL2.

Now, if the game capped itself at 40 FPS and used the additional FPS once over a potential 50, used to load the next part of the game... it would probably work out and be unnoticable by the user.

I bet it could be done with some good programming

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Doom3 is by far technically better. It looks a hell of a lot better and runs a hell of a lot better than HL2. Of course there are differences in settings between the two on my machine (HL2 can handle a little more high detail settings than D3) but D3 still is the clear winner (technically).

Now, when I finally stopped being a pussy and played through Doom3, I was immersed. I got sucked into the gameplay and enjoyed it til the end with no regrets (well one, the usual one with id: the story line [or lack of]). So far with HL2, I'm definetely enjoying the story-line. No complaints against the gameplay either (except for the air boat, I didn't really care for it -- especially with all the loading). There can't be a final verdict on that until I finish it though.

Technically, Doom3 is definetely the champ. It leaped many more bounds than HL2 (IMO of course, I'm sure other peoples opinions differ depending on their preferences). The lighting is top noch, the models looks sweet and smooth movement. The maps were well designed. And although the textures themselves were low res, all the bump mapping and specular mapping, etc just brought them to life.

HL2 looks very dull. You'll see whole hallways with the same grey texture without even a crack in the wall or a hole to just give it some character. Just the occasional poster on the wall. The lighting is archaic. Sure you got a nice open environments, but everything looks bland. Many ppl say D3 can't render and environment like that but they'll see when Quake4 comes out.

You didn't mention what's running your sound which could also be a significant bottleneck. Try turning down sound settings to see if that helps the choppiness. Other than that, I would just start with a RAM upgrade. Then afterwards determine if you need a new video card (but then again, if you could afford it, who wouldn't want a new video card).

I will definetly upgrade RAM...it's just too easy and affordable now not to get a gig of it.