New content from Valve!

http://pc.ign.com/articles/728/728107p1.html

Oh my god.

The Half-life 2 Ep2 content is incredible!!!!!!!

Is it just me, or was that collapsing house in the first one (Driving, Mini-Tripods and Big-Tripods is IGN's caption) completely triggered by the player?


And... The G-Man... his expression (better than ever?!!)... the shadows (was that real-time character->character shadows?!!!!)... the lighting... the destructible environments... the environments themselves... the hunters... MOSSMAN... Kleiner...
GAH!

I'd better upgrade this computer.

Mmm, reminds me to let Steam run - I've not run it for a few months - it will probably want to download a few Gig by now.

I might even buy Episode 2.

TF2 also looks incredible. I think this new content is better than the previous in-engine render, which is quite an achievement.

I doubt these videos will resemble the final product. Valve has a pretty well-established history of promising one thing and delivering another.

I didn't even bother with Episode 1, since people said it was about 4 hours long.

Not sure what exactly you are getting at here...

They released a lot of cool bits of scenes from HL2 that never made it into the final version, but that doesn't seem to happen with the episodes because they are developed over a relatively short amount of time.
In fact, that first shot of Ep1 with Dog digging the player out of rubble seems to look better in real-time on my computer than in the trailer which was released long before the game was released.

HL2 ep1 is about 5 hours long if you rush through it and don't bother with the commentary.
As I recall, that's about how long they said it was, since they are quite clear in saying that the games are episodic.

I actually haven't ever encountered Valve doing completely blatant bullshots and calling them real.
Just about every bit of media they release is from a test build of the game at some stage or another, and I think we can be sure that that scene with the GMan is, in fact, very similar to the scene with the GMan that we will see. (Though the camera stuff seems a bit odd, so it may have been an in-game render to fit the trailer better. Still, the shadows must have been enhanced for the real-time stuff because they make that scene come to life and without them it would not work).
The actual videos of TF2 look very much like that TF2 teaser released earlier, so my belief that that was completely fake and propped up by engine features that don't happen in real time has been quelled.
The animations aren't as convenient and there aren't guys hitting themselves on the head with shovels (of course), but other than that I think - as usual - the in-game footage they've shown looks better than the teaser.

4 pretty awsome hours, yes. :)

I was really expecting that Blue tenticle thing all the way through HL2. Every time I went near water, I was convinced that it must be here.

It didnt spoil the game that it wasnt ever there tho. The second time I played through it. I went looking for it.

And Hl2 Ep 1 is more than 4 Hours play. Cos Ive played it at least 4 times, so thats 16 hours.

Mind you I know people who wont play Max Payne 2, because a magazine said it was too short. (And I dont mean wont buy it, I mean wont play it), because they dont want to get into something that short.

Dont get HL2 Ep1 because you hate FPS, dont get it because you think Breem was right, dont get it because your computer is rubish, But dont not get it because its short.

Probably not...

Okay, watching in high-res, it's triggered by the strider.
Still a great example of their cinematic physics, though.

Okay, so I bought HL2 : E1 to try it out.

First area was the inside of the citadel. Lots of random BSP geometry and puzzles with the "powerballs". The level design looked about like a user-made mod. Very short, but I don't like this setting anyways, so I was glad to get out.

Second area was an underground parking garage. This had a lot of classic Half-Life gameplay, which I felt was a little lacking in Half-Life 2. The level design was very good, and it was a solid addition to the game. There were some interesting moments, and it was a lot better than Ravenholm. Maybe because everyone just shut up and let me shoot monsters in peace.

The third area was City 17. I felt like HL2 never really gave you a chance to go through the city much before you had to go into a sewer, air duct, or some other kind of tunnel. The cityscapes here were the largest so far ever seen in HL2, although they still stuck to the tunnel/large linear street design. I would have liked to have at least one intersection in the whole game where there are two streets to choose from, but it probably won't ever happen. Towards the end of the chapter, you end up in a hospital with some really nice soldier and zombie fighting. This is a pretty long chapter, and it plays well.

I saw five or so chapters in the "New game" menu, so I was expecting to be about 2/3 through at this point. But it was over.

I don't know what happened to the team of artists designed the levels in Half-Life 1, because this appears as though it is the work of one lone designer. Playing HL1 was a month-long enterprise, sometimes several months. Why can't Valve put the same effort into the sequel? Quit with the scripted sequences and different gameplay, and just give me a large area infested with zombies. I'd much rather play a long level where no one talks to me, than go through a conversation with some character so I can perform some special task (other than killing stuff).

Maybe I'll just open up Hammer, make a few big streets, fill them with enemies, then play it.

Hehe, yah, HL1 was great.

It seems that 40 hour games are a thing of the past :(

If you want an FPS that is just pure killing, pick-up Painkiller (PC version) if you haven't yet, awesome little game.....some of the later level designs are freaking gorgeous in their scape/scale/detail, some of the biggest areas I've seen in an FPS ever....all packed with a good 200+ monsters.

Regardin HL2:EP2, I just want to explore those vast outdoor areas..., never got to see those kind of lanscapes in the original game, but on the other hand....I want to play Portal more >.>, oh all the modding possibilities....

I can't wait until HL2EP2 is out so I can use the new outdoor props for my mod.

That building being smashed looks so nice, but I wonder just how scripted it is...

Man, that Team Fortress is awesome!
It even has the Wilhelm Scream (made back in the 50s) - http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2761036

I wonder if that collapsing bridge is physics or pre-animated vertices.
Anyhoo, looks like I'll be buying that too.

The collapsing bridge is physics.
One thing that they are doing in this episode that's a vast enhancement from the past is "cinematic physics".

For the collapsing bridge, they set it up as a physics object (presumably with a bunch of seems set in place, and the girders are probably jointed physics objects) and get it to collapse on queue.
This way, the scene can be very complicated, has few flaws from human error (anyone else notice that ugly chunk of debris passing through another in the end cutscene of Halo which happens every single time?), it can react to player interaction (very important, since players interacting with cutscenes is very possible in Half-Life games), and it looks cool :)
Animated vertices, on the other hand, would be complicated and time-consuming.

TF2 is amazing!! I never laughed so hard since I played Giants: Citizen Kabuto.

I really enjoyed watch the scout run past everyone, pull out a billyclub, and bonked one the other guys it ran past. Great stuff.

Jason

@Lead,

Maybe your right, but in the first section, Dog shaking its head no and Alex's "Talk about Random" made my day.

God, the dialogue and interactions were so cheesy and bad...I must have purged them from my memory. The first part of the game made me embarrassed to be playing it. No one else was there, I just felt like I was watching a cartoon.

"Alyx is waiting for you...you lucky dog, you." (Cringe) I was waiting for Barney to say "Go get her, tiger!"

Maybe I will just design a modular city block and post it, and let different people build their own block of a city, then put them together to make one big map. I was playing around with the editor, and had 30 enemies fighting in a large area with no slowdown, so I think the engine can handle quite a bit more than they let it. I felt like I never really got to see City 17 anyways.

Woof, woof. I'm a pretty good dog - and I bet she is too. Let's go dogging.

I really must buy this and satisfy my urges.

Have you seen the other videos released by now?
Just watched part 3 of them... http://www.gamershell.com/download_15391.shtml

They seem to be mostly re-releases of the old content, but in a more official manner.

I could be mistaken, though. (IGN often does stupid things).

All this stuff isn't as impressive as the original HL2 was but it's still good enough compared to most of the rest. And their sound engineering is so damn superb - bahhhh!

Josh ... what's your problem with all that's nice, colorful, and imaginative? I'm guessing you're talking about HL2 ... but the cut scenes were the best in a game to date. Why knock 'em? Just because they actually had some semblance of humanity, character, color, and fun?

@Mr. Picklesworth
I guess he means you? As i didn't understand what he's taking about...

Team Fortress 2 is probably the coolest thing that I have ever seen.

The art looks great to me. More interesting than the new UT...