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Welcome to our newly designed
website created by our very own Yorick.
There's been a big reshuffle and lots of
new content added so check it all out! |
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Viewing Category: HL2: Episode 2
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Laidlaw: Half-Life 2’s Alyx Works Because ‘She Gives You Back Emotion’
Posted @ 12:49 PM, November 2 2009, By: DigiQ8 In HL2: Episode 1, HL2: Episode 2, Half-Life 2
Gamasutra had an interview with Laidlaw and fellow Valve writer Erik Wolpaw. Laidlaw made some comments on Gordon Freeman's development as a lead character and how it has more to do with his external interactions rather than internal mechanisms.
So we were trying to do a thing where it wasn't about one guy who is saving the world heroically for his own reasons, You're doing it with your allies and friends. It's part of a larger effort. It's not just Gordon Freeman against the universe. It's Gordon Freeman as part of this group.
He mentioned that Alyx's actions sly smiles, concerned expressions, compliments gives Gordon Freeman an air of importance.
She gives back to you emotion, which is the only way we can tell the internal story of Gordon Freeman -- by the way the other characters treat him. So by having the characters like you and be glad to see you, you think, 'Oh, I'm an important person in this world.' Alyx was a great way of affirming that, and the things that are perilous to Alyx are going to be things that you care about.
Read the full interview here.
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Chet Faliszek on Valve and Left 4 Dead
Posted @ 3:21 PM, August 19 2009, By: Evo In HL2: Episode 2, Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Portal, Steam, Team Fortress 2
Valve's Chet Faliszek has opened up about Valve and Left 4 Dead and more to Jim Rossignol in Jim's Ragdoll Metaphysics column on Offworld. Before you start asking, no Chet doesn't have any Episode 3 news. However he does have some other interesting things to say: The Orange Box was weird. It reminded me of 8-bit era game packs. Three Games In One! That seems really unusual in the contemporary market. Did it seem unusual now? Did it seem totally logical to create a three-game pack like that? It still seems weird, now that I think about it.
Faliszek: Well, at the start Portal wasn't mature enough for us to be sure that we should do it like that, and Team Fortress 2 has had plenty of false starts. It kind of formed as we developed the games. There was no "this is how we do it" from the get-go, instead we're a company that can experiment and yeah, it's a throw-back to earlier eras, those ways of doing things. We experiment, and it pays off. You can find this in-depth interview here.
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Halflife2.net Review the Novint Falcon
Posted @ 1:52 PM, July 21 2009, By: Hectic Glenn In HL2: Episode 2, Halflife2.net, Left 4 Dead
In the not too distant past, Valve added a sneaky update for most of their Source games: Adding support for the Novint Falcon. The falcon is a haptic controller replacing your mouse of joystick to give you a real hands on feel for games. Our very own Pi Mu Rho managed to get hold of one and has written a full in depth review of his experience. ...then I used the Gravity Gun. This, to me, was the most impressive feature. With every object you pick up, you can actually feel the weight of it. Light objects have barely any effect, but if you pick up something heavy - a large rock, for example - and the Falcon pushes constantly down, requiring actual physical effort on your part to hold it steady. Be sure to read the review and check out 2 videos of Pi playing Episode 2 and Left 4 Dead with the Falcon. Novint Falcon Review.   
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Research and Development
Posted @ 4:39 PM, July 20 2009, By: Evo In HL2: Episode 2, Mods
Research and Development is a recent mod developed by mbortolino which is described as being a puzzle-centric mod for Half-Life 2: Episode Two featuring an unarmed player but plenty of violent mayhem.It seems to be pretty popular as I have spotted a few of my Steam friends playing it already. It is also getting some good reactions from people on ModDB with a 9.4 average rating. There is also a piece about the mod on Rock, Paper, Shotgun. If you want to check it out head here and see what it is all about. You will need Episode 2 installed to play it.
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Lombardi: “We chose the wrong word in ‘episode’”
Posted @ 3:52 PM, October 3 2008, By: DigiQ8 In HL2: Episode 1, HL2: Episode 2, HL2: Episode 3
Valve's Doug Lombardi has admitted that Valve may chose the wrong word 'Episode' for the Half Life 2 run of games.
"The notion of the word 'episode' conjures up this idea of television where you get something new every week. And people say 'we thought that episodic meant we were going to get something new every six months or every year',
I think a lot of folks in the games industry saw the same problem that we did with Half Life 2 in that making a 20-hour game with rich graphics, story etc. is a really expensive proposition both in time and money.
And some have started making games about the same length as Episode II, but they haven't changed what they call it, and they haven't change the price.
In a way you're charging people $50 but they're only getting $18 worth out of it - that's not necessarily the best way to go. But if you look at something like Portal, it's a five hour game and although I haven't done a qualified study, the number of people I've spoken to that finished the game feels like a much higher percent.
Stay tuned for the full interview on the weekend on CVG.com.
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Games From The Orange Box Flying Solo
Posted @ 12:30 PM, March 13 2008, By: Hectic Glenn In HL2: Episode 2, Portal, Team Fortress 2
As already reported, from the 9th-11th April we will be seeing the games which made the Orange Box the success it was, released as individual retail games. The pricing scheme will be as follows - Portal - $19.99 USD
- Team Fortress 2 - $29.99 USD
- Half-life 2 Episode Pack (inc both episodes plus HL2 Deathmatch) - $29.99 USD
It's also important to point out the last in the list there still supports the 'gift' features, so if you already own one of those episodes or deathmatch you may gift it to a friend. Also all three packages include support for Steamworks achievements, automatic updates and more, and do not require Half-Life 2 to play. Also a reminder, to buy the Orange Box with all these titles together the current price on Steam is $49.95 USD (so a good saving if you want more than 1 of the above packages). Doug Lombardi says... With the flexibility of having different pricing and packaging options via Steam, we were able to test the market viability of the individual products. The results show an overwhelming demand for these stand-alone offerings as well as The Orange Box. This gives us tremendous confidence as we bring gamers more ways to get these titles at retail
New Box Art below:
Episode 2
Portal
Team Fortress 2 (Nice...that's more like it)
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Individual Oranges hit retail April 9th
Posted @ 12:44 PM, March 6 2008, By: DigiQ8 In HL2: Episode 1, HL2: Episode 2, Portal, Team Fortress 2
For those who thinks the Orange Box a bad deal because they already have Half-Life 2 and Episode One, Valve has confirmed to Joystiq that the individually boxed Orange Box PC games are due to hit physical shelves on April 9th.
Valve has yet to officially announce pricing details, but retailers currently list Portal at $19.99,Team Fortress 2 and The Half-Life 2 Episodes Pack at $29.99 each.
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Episode Two Fans Are a Bunch of Crybabies
Posted @ 4:54 AM, February 9 2008, By: Munro In HL2: Episode 2
According to Valve at least.
CVG has posted an
article after speaking to them. Apparently the Half-Life 2: Episode Two's
emotional final scene was powerful enough to cause fans to shed a tear.
"Quite a few fans wrote to say that we broke the blubbering barrier. They wept",
Half-Life story scribe Marc Laidlaw has revealed to PC Zone magazine.
There is a bit more to read in the article but it does contain spoilers. If you
haven't played the ending yet I don't recommend you view it!
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Valve – Still figuring out Episode 3
Posted @ 5:46 AM, February 7 2008, By: Evo In HL2: Episode 2, HL2: Episode 3
A new feature from PC Zone has David Speyrer and Doug Lombardi talking in-depth on Episode 2 and Spreyrer talks a bit about Episode 3 and how they still don't exactly know the plan for it. "We don't know entirely what's happening in the next episode, but we're gonna figure it out!" laughed Speyrer.
"There are always things we want to do that we can't because of the constraints of either the story or the arc we've laid out for the gameplay - or just time. So we shelve them and carry on. Ideas fly around here quite a bit, so we have this huge laundry list of things to try for the next thing..." This is a very good read, so head here for the whole article.
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Orange Box – Separated
Posted @ 4:07 PM, February 1 2008, By: Evo In HL2: Episode 2, Portal, Team Fortress 2
In a recent conference call to investors, EA announced plans to bring the three parts of the Orange Box to retail separately on the PC before the end of March. This means that any of you who don't own Portal already have no more excuses not to! Although no prices have been set, expect them to follow Steam rates. Portal $19.95, TF2 $29.95 and HL2 Ep2 $29.95. Videogamer.com
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The Orange Box OST is Available Now
Posted @ 1:47 PM, December 22 2007, By: DigiQ8 In HL2: Episode 2
The Orange Box OST is now Available on Valve's Store, Featuring 19 original compositions, the musical odyssey spans every shade of Orange: the troop-rallying anthems of Team Fortress 2, the textural soundworlds of Half-Life 2: Episodes One and Two; and the atmospheric electronica from Portal's test chambers.
Also as a bonus, this release includes 2 versions of the "Still Alive" track, the in-game version and Coulton’s vocal mix, an exclusive track unavailable anywhere else. You can get your own version now at The Valve Store for $9.95. The digital version is headed to iTunes, Napster, eMusic, Amazon MP3 and other digital music services in the coming weeks.
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NEXT-GEN’S Best 30 Games of 2007
Posted @ 11:32 AM, December 18 2007, By: DigiQ8 In HL2: Episode 1, HL2: Episode 2, Half-Life 2, Portal, Team Fortress 2
The Orange Box got the fourth place in Next-gen's best 30 games of 2007, says that it's one of the best deals in gaming history.
We’re kind of glad that Valve and EA decided to put all of these great games in one package, not only because it’s likely the best deal in gaming right now, but also so we have an excuse to wedge all of these top-tier games into one slot. Everyone knows that 2004’s Half-Life 2 is one of the best examples of the FPS genre, and 2006’s Episode One was icing on the cake. New, though, is the raucous Team Fortress 2, with its comically gory style and gameplay that expertly adheres to the playing style of virtually anyone. And then there’s Portal, a mind-bending game that took the portal mechanics used in 2006’s Prey to entirely new levels. And Half-Life 2: Episode Two is the best entry into the saga yet. We’re not sure how this package could possibly be any better outside of including a free functional Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device with every purchase.
You can find the whole list on next-gen.biz.
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Kotaku’s Impressions of PS3 Orange Box
Posted @ 3:59 PM, November 29 2007, By: DigiQ8 In HL2: Episode 2
Kotaku has posted their Impressions for the PS3 version of The Orange Box, it's a less harsh preview than 1Up's. It looks like the game do have some issues but it still plays quite well.
Now that all that frame rate and lighting nonsense is out of the way, how does The Orange Box play? Quite well, actually. As a big fan of the Half-Life series, I'm willing to forgive the odd quibble, but wouldn't want anything to interfere with my experience. Episode Two, so far, has been great fun, exploring a handful of new mechanics and adding interesting set pieces to the series. Using the SIXAXIS for control works quite well, even if I'm not totally in tune with the default controller mapping. Normally, I play my Valve games on the PC, as I have already done with Half-Life 2: Episode One, Portal and Team Fortress 2, but I found the console version to be just as enjoyable.
You can read the the first preview here. expect the second volume tomorrow.
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Episode Two Demo On XBL Tomorrow
Posted @ 5:33 PM, November 21 2007, By: DigiQ8 In HL2: Episode 2
The first public demo for The Orange Box is targeted for release on Xbox 360 tomorrow, November 22. The demo is dedicated to Half-Life 2: Episode Two, The latest installment in the Half-Life 2 series.
The Orange Box is coming for the PlayStation 3 this December, Including Half-Life 2: Episode Two, the second installment in the Half-Life 2 episodic trilogy; Team Fortress 2, the sequel to the game that put class-based, multiplayer team warfare on the map; and Portal, the game that blends puzzles, first person action, and adventure gaming to produce an experience like no other.
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