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Graphics
splendor
Walking
around in City 17 as you begin is a joy. The
textures are sharp and very detailed and the environment
really sets the atmosphere.
The
setting is grim, police bashing down doors or checking people
on the street.
The whole feel is that of a ghetto with lots
of raids going down and checkpoints everywhere.
The
Source engine really shows off its graphics skills with
high quality textures and shader routnes.
The
walls and floors each have unique surface textures, sometimes
shining to reflect the surroundings, sometimes dull and
matt depending on the materials used, of course.
High-Dynamic
lighting makes the lighting even more realistic, both indoor
and outdoor. Water
reflections and refractions in some scenes are breathtaking.
Of
course, due to the action most of the time, you’ll find
yourself having little time to stop and smell the roses.
Half
Life 2 looks even more stunning, if you are equipped with
the latest graphics hardware. According
to the specifications of the Source engine, it boasts support
for DirectX 6 to DirectX 9 cards.
If
you would like some more (technical) detailed info about
the Source engine, you can find it here.
Sound
The
sound in the game is amazing. For those lucky
ones that have a 5.1 or 7.1 sounds system, the support is
terrific. It really helps set the atmosphere
even more, with 3D positiona audio creating distinct sounds
from different directions. This
immerses you even further in the game.
The
same story for graphics goes for sound support, the better
hardware you have the better Half Life 2 is going to sound.
Sounds
for explosions and gun fire are nicely sampled and well
chosen for the task. This,
combined with the graphics, really increases the gaming
experience.
Gravity
Half
life 2 uses Havok’s physics engine to implement gravitational
effects on any object.
The Havok engine has been used in Max Payne
2, Painkiller and Medal of Honor: Pacific assault.
This
physics engine makes it so that any object abides by the
laws of gravity. Vehicles
and people recoil when they fire or fall down realistically
when they get hit.
Valve
has made clever use of the physics engine for most of the
puzzles in the game.
Sometimes
you first have to solve a puzzle to get to the next section
or to move on in the game. You
can also pick up items such as barrels and crates and throw
them, kick them around and even knock them over.
Later
in the game you also get the gravity weapon, or is that
anti-gravity weapon? which can be used to turn any object
into a lethal projectile.
It’s
a lot of fun to fiddle and play around with.
Counterstrike: Source
Half
life comes in three flavors, bronze, silver and gold (Each
having their own pricing, it starts at about €50,-),
with aach
package having more or less software and goodies, but each
package has got Counterstrike: Source included.
Soon
after the first Half Life was released a multiplayer mod
came out for it called Counterstrike. This
multiplayer game caught on in a big way and was played by
a lot of people across the globe and soon everyone with
an internet connection or LAN based network was playing
it.
Valve
has wisely included an updated version of this massively
played game with Half Life2. It
now runs on the new Source engine with all the latest effects
and graphics, basically giving it a facelift.
Not
much has changed in Counterstrike and why should it? No-one
ever breaks a winning combination. The
same goes for Counterstrike: Source.
For
those who haven’t played it or do not know what Counterstrike
exactly is, the idea is simple. There
are 2 teams, the terrorists and the counter terrorists.
You
can decide which side you want to play and battle it out
with the opposite side. It
can be played over the internet or over a home or business
network. Each
round you win helps you gain money to buy more weapons and
other resources to win the next round.
Steam
The
game has to be activated with Steam. This
means that you have to have an internet connection to create
a new user in Steam and activate the game.
Steam
is Valve’s platform to distribute and activate their games
via internet. It
is something that caused a bit of an argument between Valve
and Vivendi Universal Games.
They
have worked it out and now you are able to buy either boxed
versions or download it through Steam.
Using
Steam you can buy and activate games, connect to game servers,
add your friends in your contact list making it easy to
find them online and it’s also a great way of keeping the
game up-to-date and free of bugs.
The
only small problem I had with Steam was that I installed
Steam prior to buying Half Life 2, so I installed it on
another partition than where my games are located.
A
problem there is that Half Life 2 installs where Steam is
installed and with that I ran out of disk space.
I
like my standard applications and games separated, just
like I like my potatoes and veggies separated.
Half
life 2 is activated with Steam and downloads some extra
files, installs them and then unlocks the game completely.
Activating
the game didn’t take too long, it just checks and registers
the CD-key online and then unlocks the files offline, which
did take a little longer than expected.
I
haven’t tested activating Half Life 2 over a dialup modem.
but I
can imagine it would take a little longer than for people
using DSL connections.
It
shouldn’t be too much of a problem, unless you actually
want to download the game with Steam. I
wouldn’t recommend doing that, for obvious reasons, those
being the sheer size of the game.
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