6:47 AM, Nov 17, 2004
Half-Life 2
I went and picked this game up yesterday, and I am blown away. The game has the best graphics, gameplay, and AI I have ever seen. The story is also excellent, with the game beginning in a semi-post-apocalyptic city, though it's still supposed to be contemporary. Everything about the game is amazing. There were several parts in which I just dropped my jaw, and didn't pick it up again until I stopped playing.
My only problem with the whole affair is that I bought the CDs, and really wish I hadn't. You can buy the game over the developer's own game launch software, called
Steam, for less than the price of the CDs, and doing so sets it so you don't have to keep the CD in the drive to even play the game. Steam handles all the authorization and authentication, so there's no reason that you should have to keep the CD in the drive. It indicates to me a material difference of opinion between Valve, the developer, and Vivendi, the CD publisher.
Anyway, I will be reinstalling the game, using Steam.