I am getting the feeling that HL2 is in bad shape. No playable demo at E3? That is sad, sad, sad.

Arrr, that would be a pity! I''m really holding thumbs that GSC can pull this off as an A+ title.

The graphics are certainly there (very amazing how bleak and desolate it looks - scary stuff ), but I''m a bit worried about the AI. I''ve read all the Q&A''s with the team and what they want to do seems just a tad over-ambitious to me. I''m still hoping they can get it right though. I''m also curious about the sound. Hopefully they''ll have an engine that does good sound localisation and ""spatiality"" (reverbs, echos, etc).

I''m growing increasingly irritated with Valve. It now seems to be a pretty sure bet that they willfully mislead the public about what HL2 can do and how far along it is. And that just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth after the whole ""we''re not hyping it up years before release!"" statement.

Still hoping it turns out for the best though... (seriously, who wouldn''t?)

Crash to desktop.

Well, the conclusion of the article is that this ""fiasko visit"" didn''t justify a cover story. They''re wondering what Valve wanted to accomplish by inviting the mags. If it was their intention to convince them that the game is more ''finished'' than the general speculation indicated, they rather proved the the opposite. (Gamestar was one of the mags publicly doubted that the hack was the sole reason for the delay.)

You know, call me crazy, but this could be what happened.

They get hacked. They find this out, so they start releasing information to the press. Because if they don''t some guy will have the code out there already. Then they give a bogus release date, knowing good and well that at some point they''ll be able to say ""Oh noes! We got hacked! Well, we gotta push the date back!"" Then that''s what they do. Then zombie Lincoln attacks.

I find this totally plausible.

Not sure, I didn''t get my invite in time so I couldn''t tell you.

You can read right?

Don''t pay then.

See above.

If that is what you want to do. Now if you want to play at a casual pace it is about a 35 to 40 hour game. Sounds like a value to me.

He enjoys it, let him have his fun!

For those of you still interested in the game, read the scanned article here:

Scan in this thread

Are you 100% sure that if your a subscriber when TF2 gets released you dont get the ability to download the full version of TF2? Futhermore if you then choose to stop subscribing to Steam that your full copy of TF2 continues to work just like the full copy of HL2 you got?

Or are you speculating?

Okay Captain Sassy , I was just asking to see if you could tell from the article. The Gamestar guys were so unimpressed, why were these guys so impressed? I was just curious.

Let me clairfy. What specifically were they talking about when they said ""most advanced physics""? Interactibility isn''t a word, which further helped to confuse me

I wasn''t attacking you, just clarifying. You don''t get TF2 for free, you get TF2 as a part of your Steam subscription. It''s like saying if you pay $40 a month for a subscription to cable, you get cable for free!

Again, I was just pointing out a flaw I saw in the system. This is like responding to a bad review with, ""Well, don''t buy the game then!""

That''s great for you. I wasn''t saying it wasn''t a bargain. I was saying it''s sort of iffy to claim it''s twice as long as HL, then qualify that by saying it''s mainly due to people playing with the physics. HL can be twice as long as HL if I spend half my time playing with the phyiscs instead of playing, which I actually did in HL because the physics were so great.

Actually Steam subscriptions are here now and we do know how they work. Read their Subscriber Agreement

What''s the point of a subscription if you can sign up for a month and then quit, having a perpetual license to play all their games?

I never said I wasn''t interested in this game. I''m probably going to buy it like everyone else. I''m also not going to blindly accept information from a preview that was given on the condition it be a front page article.

Well, my theory was half joking. I mean zombie Lincoln doesn''t attack anyone, he''s a peaceful zombie that loves flowers. However, my theory also didn''t need them to get anything from purposely misleading customers about the release date. They were doing it because they had to beat the hacker to dishing out the inside info. Then they had an excuse to develop for another year. I really don''t put much stock in the theory myself, just a random thought.

Again, see my response to Certis.

Still, it doesn''t make sense to let people sign up for one month at $9.95 and get TF2, then allow them to stop subscribing and still play the game. They''ve said several times this is not the way it''s going to work.

Well, a $39.99 download verison would be more appealing, especially if I can back it up to a CD. But we were talking about the subscriptions. Frankly, if I can back it up to a CD I''d be hard pressed to buy a real boxed version.

Just fyi Pyro, I was joking with you and not really trying to be a jerk, even though it sounded like it.

Last night I redownloaded the Direct X 9.0 effects trailer and I was simply amazed. Cith 17 just feels alive and has a nice gritty look. I am ready to buy it.

Personally, I''m always willing to give developers the benefit of the doubt.

There''s this sort of weird developer/customer relationship timeline I see played out over and over again on the ''net - (company X) gains some publicity, releases a good game and becomes the BEST EVAR!, soon after, they do something that fails to live up to the standards expected of the BEST EVAR! and BEST EVAR! is quickly supplanted by EVIL! -- see Ion Storm Austin, Valve, Firaxis, 3D Realms etc. etc. etc. The thing is, after 9 and a bit years in the industry, I have yet to work at either a company fitting the BEST EVAR! ''enlightened palace of design'' paradigm or at any place that could really be considered EVIL! (and yes, I do work at EA ). At best, it''s a gross simplification, at worst, completely unfair to the company in question.

Most developers are just that...developers. They are companies that make games. People work there. Relatively normal people. These are not top secret societies, with weird handshakes and anal probing, but places of business, where people turn up, do their job and then go home to their sorely neglected loved ones.

Of course, developers do often make poor decisions, and it can be crushing when one you held to such a high standard just does that (a good example, at least for me as a gamer, would be the Civilization III: Play the World debacle). Still, I don''t think it''s fair to immediately begin castigating a developer for making such a poor decision - who knows what the internal situation that caused such a decision to be made was? Who knows who is actually responsible? For all we know, it could be a publisher, a stockholder, an outside investor. Hell, it could actually BE the developers fault, but it''s a complicated industry, and few things are nearly as simple as they appear.

All I''m saying is...give ''em the benefit of the doubt. I know I do.