Half-Life Episode Two Details Unveiled

malware · Feb 8, 2007

Electronic Arts and Valve, today announced final information about Half-Life: Episode Two and Team Fortress 2, two of the most anticipated action games this year. Representing multiple platforms, the Black Box will ship for the PC and include Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2. The Orange Box will ship for the PC, PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system, and Xbox 360 videogame. It will include all the content of The Black Box, plus the original Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One. The Black Box and The Orange Box are targeted for release in Fall 2007. For more information, please visit http://www.steamgames.com.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

ktr · Feb 8, 2007

Yup...today it was announced that the game is pushed back from summer07 to fall...

kakazza · Feb 8, 2007

God, I am so waiting for Portal.

"There's a hole in the sky, through which things can fly"
Most bestestest sentence evar (in that trailer anyway).

1Strive · Feb 8, 2007

Did someone say EA!?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooo!!!
:banghead:

I hope EA is not really involved. What happened to Serria and STEAM?

Anything EA touches turns to CRAP. BF series, MOH series, C&C series, all started off good and turned to CRAP. Bad support and buggy games.

In short, I hate EA and their dominance over the PC game industry.

RELIC RAWKS! :respect:

Later,
SSgtSTRIVE

EastCoasthandle · Feb 8, 2007

I just don't like the sound of EA with anything from valve. It always start off as EA publishing...

Pinchy · Feb 8, 2007

Cant wait till these games come out

Misiowiec · Feb 8, 2007

Sorry but am I the only one who is not that excited about this? I mean, it takes Valve like a year between the HL Episodes but which time the industry has moved on. Personally I'm looking forward to new games, with new graphics, enemies and concepts. Bring on Crysis, STALKER, QuakeWars and a host of others!

Pinchy · Feb 8, 2007

You cant expect Valve to re-design their engine for every release.

I personally like it how it is; it has great gameplay, the graphics are good IMO & it can run on less powerful computers, so everyone can play. On top of that, its generally pretty cheap, around 30-35 AUD for the whole episode..you cant expect em to make a whole new engine for that

Random Murderer · Feb 8, 2007

oh, great, ea ruined hl2:ep2 as well. thanks ea.

C.Ash · Feb 8, 2007

What about Lost Coast?

C.Ash · Feb 8, 2007

Misiowiec said:
Sorry but am I the only one who is not that excited about this? I mean, it takes Valve like a year between the HL Episodes but which time the industry has moved on. Personally I'm looking forward to new games, with new graphics, enemies and concepts. Bring on Crysis, STALKER, QuakeWars and a host of others!

I agree. Episodes one, two and three make up Half Life 3 u can say, except that the episodes are around the same graphical level as Half Life 2.

Pinchy · Feb 8, 2007

C.Ash said:
What about Lost Coast?

What about it

?

C.Ash said:
I agree. Episodes one, two and three make up Half Life 3 u can say, except that the episodes are around the same graphical level as Half Life 2.

Just a question, what would you guys prefer; how it is now or new graphics (so a whole new engine) BUT with prices going up and creation time taking longer?

erocker · Feb 8, 2007

I will take EA over steam any day. Steam is the worst pile of shit ever. With EA I pay for a game and it works (even though sometimes it sucks), and with steam I can barely get my computer to connect with thier crappy servers. Steam is anti piracy, multi-marketing bull. So instead of buying anything that is on steam, I have to go find it legally or illegaly elswhere. :pimp:

Lazzer408 · Feb 8, 2007

I cant wait I cant wait I cant wait :respect:

I love HL2

Lazzer408 · Feb 8, 2007

erocker said:
I will take EA over steam any day. Steam is the worst pile of shit ever. With EA I pay for a game and it works (even though sometimes it sucks), and with steam I can barely get my computer to connect with thier crappy servers. Steam is anti piracy, multi-marketing bull. So instead of buying anything that is on steam, I have to go find it legally or illegaly elswhere.

Never had a problem with it.

C.Ash · Feb 8, 2007

Pinchy said:
What about it ?

Just a question, what would you guys prefer; how it is now or new graphics (so a whole new engine) BUT with prices going up and creation time taking longer?

What do u mean "What about Lost Coast"? Its amazing..

And No, ur wrong. Half Life 3 would take as much time as the three episodes put together, so it would be about the same ammount of time for the same ammount of content.
And it also wouldnt cost more than the three episodes together - it would cost LESS.

vrdublu · Feb 8, 2007

erocker said:
I will take EA over steam any day. Steam is the worst pile of shit ever. With EA I pay for a game and it works (even though sometimes it sucks), and with steam I can barely get my computer to connect with thier crappy servers. Steam is anti piracy, multi-marketing bull. So instead of buying anything that is on steam, I have to go find it legally or illegaly elswhere.

Well you're in luck, cause this is a computer forum, don't hesitate to ask us on how we could all help you put together a decent enough computer so that you too can enjoy HL2, btw step (1) get high speed internet cheap ars. heheeh.

evil bill · Feb 8, 2007

Apparently Valve are working on making the Source code Multi-threaded following the higher than expected adoption of Multi-Core CPUs - I guess this has been taking up their time.

ktr · Feb 8, 2007

EA published valve games since hl2...and all of the games were great. all ea is doing is making the cd's putting it in a box, send it to retail and markets the game. but i did read about ea and valve are working together on porting the game to consoles...and from what i have read, this is the thing that is causing the delay.

InfDamarvel · Feb 8, 2007

erocker said:
I will take EA over steam any day. Steam is the worst pile of shit ever. With EA I pay for a game and it works (even though sometimes it sucks), and with steam I can barely get my computer to connect with thier crappy servers. Steam is anti piracy, multi-marketing bull. So instead of buying anything that is on steam, I have to go find it legally or illegaly elswhere.

With steam I never need a disc to play a game and I can play it anywhere. In fact about me and 2 other friends all share the same steam account. Once 1 person buys a game we get to play it lol.

freaksavior · Feb 8, 2007

YEA i'm gonna buy it for my xbox 360

i want to play Portal, that looks awsome!

WarEagleAU · Feb 8, 2007

Alls I can say is, if they keep pushing it back, its gonna be a bad ass game when it does come out.

ktr · Feb 8, 2007

WarEagleAU said:
Alls I can say is, if they keep pushing it back, its gonna be a bad ass game when it does come out.

of course

i cant wait for TF2!

Pinchy · Feb 9, 2007

C.Ash said:
What do u mean "What about Lost Coast"? Its amazing..

And No, ur wrong. Half Life 3 would take as much time as the three episodes put together, so it would be about the same ammount of time for the same ammount of content.
And it also wouldnt cost more than the three episodes together - it would cost LESS.

About lost coast: i wasnt sure whether you were refering to the graphics or its requirements. I agree, it looks mighty great.

About the episodes: I wasnt refering to HL3, i was trying to say "imagine they created a whole new graphics engine for the episodes". If that was the case, each episode would cost 3 times as much and an engine takes a hell of a long time to code

Lazzer408 · Feb 9, 2007

Pinchy said:
About lost coast: i wasnt sure whether you were refering to the graphics or its requirements. I agree, it looks mighty great.

About the episodes: I wasnt refering to HL3, i was trying to say "imagine they created a whole new graphics engine for the episodes". If that was the case, each episode would cost 3 times as much and an engine takes a hell of a long time to code

That reminds me of Duke Nukeem Forever. lol. Ever wonder why they call it forever?
I imagine it's very difficult for the game developers to predict where the hardware industry will lead. If I started designing a game from scratch, bassed on todays technologies, and then in a year or two the industry takes a leap forward, I would feel my final product would be labled "visually disappointing" because it didn't make use of the latest and greatest hardware to it's full potential. I have learned to accept this and I don't judge a game by it's screenshots on the box when I go browsing games at Walmart.

I give them the benifit of the doubt. Halflife2 is a good example. Although some aspects of the game are visually stunning, when it gets down to the nitty gritty and you look closely at things, there's very little bump mapping. They used textures that look like there bump mapped. The explosive barrles for example. Alot of things in that game look like they spent alot of time on them and other things, like the trees, look like total crap. Almost like they ran out of time. HL2 made my jaw drop at first but halfway thru it started to feel old like they could have done much much better with the graphics but I still love it. :rockout:

On a side note. Has anyone seen some of the maps people are creating for the old Quake 3 engine? Holy %$@# they look good! I'd buy it now if it was on the shelf.

Processor	Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 VID: 1.2125
Motherboard	GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3P rev.2.0
Cooling	Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme + Noctua NF-S12 Fan
Memory	4x1 GB PQI DDR2 PC2-6400
Video Card(s)	Colorful iGame Radeon HD 4890 1 GB GDDR5
Storage	2x 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 32 MB RAID0
Display(s)	BenQ G2400W 24-inch WideScreen LCD
Case	Cooler Master COSMOS RC-1000 (sold), Cooler Master HAF-932 (delivered)
Audio Device(s)	Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic + Logitech Z-5500 Digital THX
Power Supply	Chieftec CFT-1000G-DF 1kW
Software	Laptop: Lenovo 3000 N200 C2DT2310/3GB/120GB/GF7300/15.4"/Razer

System Name	Back in Black
Processor	AMD Opteron 180 @ 2.6GHz (Dual Core)
Motherboard	Asus A8N-SLI Premium
Cooling	All Antec Case Fans (3-speed and Quiet as they come.)
Memory	2GB DDR440MHz (Corsair XMS LED Series) 1GB x2 [Dual-Channel]
Video Card(s)	8800GTS G92 512mb (eVGA-745/1000) 9474 in 3Dmark06 at Defaults.
Storage	2 WD 74GB Raptors in RAID Zero for Vista. WD 250GB for XP and Storage
Display(s)	Acer 22' widescreen. 1680x1050 res / 5ms
Case	Antec Black Server Chassis / Logitec G7 Wireless-Laser Mouse
Audio Device(s)	X-Fi Music w/ 5.1 Surround Sound Headphones
Power Supply	Antec 500Watt ATX2.0 Modular
Software	Vista Ultimate (64-bit) / Playing: Crysis in DX9 on XP @ 1680x1050 High with 30FPS
Benchmark Scores	Over 9k in 3DMark06! That's better than 80% of all systems tested and logged according to 3Dmark's s

System Name	MY PC
Processor	E8400 @ 3.80Ghz > Q9650 3.60Ghz
Motherboard	Maximus Formula
Cooling	D5, 7/16" ID Tubing, Maze4 with Fuzion CPU WB
Memory	XMS 8500C5D @ 1066MHz
Video Card(s)	HD 2900 XT 858/900 to 4870 to 5870 (Keep Vreg area clean)
Storage	2
Display(s)	24"
Case	P180
Audio Device(s)	X-fi Plantinum
Power Supply	Silencer 750
Software	XP Pro SP3 to Windows 7
Benchmark Scores	This varies from one driver to another.

System Name	UltraPC
Processor	E8500 Core 2 Duo, 1333Mhz FSB, 3.16Ghz @ 4.5GHz (got into Windows @ 4.75GHz)
Motherboard	ASUS P5Q-e
Cooling	CPU Cooler - TT V14 Pro, 2x120mm CM Blue LED fans, 1x90mm CM Blue LED fan
Memory	G.Skill Pi 4GB (2x2GB) Dual Channel DDR2 PC8000 (1000MHz), 5-5-5-15
Video Card(s)	Sapphire HD4850 512mb with ASUS EAH4850 BIOS
Storage	2x 500GB Seagate 7200.12 Raid 0
Display(s)	Acer AL1912, 19" LCD screen
Case	Thermaltake Soprano Black ATX case
Audio Device(s)	Onboard 7.1, Speakers - 5 + Sub + Monitor speakers
Power Supply	Thermaltake 850W Toughpower Cable Management - Quad (2x18A and 2x30A) 12V rails
Software	Win 7 Pro x64, MSN, CS:Source, etc etc

Processor	Intel C2D E6400 @ 3.0Ghz
Motherboard	Gigabyte DS3 rev 3.3
Cooling	Zalman CNPS9500, VF900-CU etc
Memory	GeIL 4Gb PC6400
Video Card(s)	XFX 7900GT Extreme Ed
Storage	WD 250Gb & 500Gb SATA
Display(s)	Dell Ultrasharp 2407WFP 24" rev A04
Case	CoolerMaster Praetorian 732 Black
Audio Device(s)	Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic
Power Supply	Corsair HX 520W Modular
Software	Vista Ultimate x64 etc

Half-Life Episode Two Details Unveiled

malware

New Member

ktr

kakazza

New Member

1Strive

New Member

EastCoasthandle

New Member

Pinchy

Misiowiec

New Member

Pinchy

Random Murderer

The Anti-Midas

C.Ash

C.Ash

Pinchy

erocker

*

Lazzer408

Lazzer408

C.Ash

vrdublu

New Member

evil bill

New Member

ktr

InfDamarvel

freaksavior

To infinity ... and beyond!

WarEagleAU

Bird of Prey

ktr

Pinchy

Lazzer408

System Name	TOO MUCH RADIATOR! \| The TV Box a.k.a. The Shoebox
Processor	Core i7 4930K @ 4.5GHz \| Core i5 6600K @ 4.5GHz
Motherboard	Asus X79 Rampage IV Extreme \| Asus Z170i Pro Gaming
Cooling	Custom water on CPU and GPU, dual 360mm radiators \| Corsair H80i
Memory	4x 8GB G.Skill TridentX DDR3-1600 \| 2x 4GB G.Skill RipJaws 4 DDR4-3000
Video Card(s)	Sapphire AMD R9 295x2 \| PowerColor AMD HD7970
Storage	Samsung SSD 830 256GB, various others \| 2x 1TB Seagate Barracudas in RAID1
Display(s)	Dell U2713HM 2560x1440 IPS \| Panasonic TC-L32E5 1080p IPS TV
Case	Thermaltake Suppressor F51 (stripped down to hold two radiators) \| Cooler Master Elite 130
Audio Device(s)	RM-DAC -> Xiang Sheng 708b -> Sennheiser HD650 \| HDMI sound device on 7970
Power Supply	LEPA G1600-MA 1600W \| Corsair CX750M 750W
Software	Win 10 64
Benchmark Scores	over 9000 BungholioMarks, "Bitchin' Fast"

Processor	Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 2.13Ghz 4MB @ 4.26Ghz
Motherboard	Asus P5N32E 680i SLi LGA775
Cooling	Scythe Infinity 120mm @ 1,200 RPM \| Arctic Cooling 3x 120mm @ 1,000 RPM
Memory	Corsair Dominator 2GB CL 4-3-4-12 DDR2-800 (PC2-6400) @ DDR2-1066 (PC2-8500)
Video Card(s)	ATI Radeon X2800XTX @ 900/1350 w/HR-03 Plus
Storage	Western Digital 150GB 16MB Raptor 10,000 RPM \| Western Digital 2x 250GB (RAID0) 8MB Cavier SE
Display(s)	Dell 2407WFP HD LCD Widescreen 1200p
Case	Antec 900 w/modded top 200mm @ 800RPM
Audio Device(s)	Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic
Power Supply	Thermaltake ToughPower 750w 60A
Software	Windows XP SP2 Gold Edition

Processor	AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard	ASUS TUF x670e
Cooling	EK AIO 360. Phantek T30 fans.
Memory	32GB G.Skill 6000Mhz
Video Card(s)	Asus RTX 4090
Storage	WD m.2
Display(s)	LG C2 Evo OLED 42"
Case	Lian Li PC 011 Dynamic Evo
Audio Device(s)	Topping E70 DAC, SMSL SP200 Headphone Amp.
Power Supply	FSP Hydro Ti PRO 1000W
Mouse	Razer Basilisk V3 Pro
Keyboard	Tester84
Software	Windows 11

Processor	i7 2600k@4.6ghz
Motherboard	MSI z68ma-ed55
Cooling	Silentx Extreem 120mm
Memory	2x4gb XMS 7-8-7-20 1600
Video Card(s)	HD6870
Storage	2x128gb Kingston Hyper-X (Raid0), 2x750gb RE3 (RAID1), 2x750gb RE3 (RAID1)
Display(s)	Soyo 24", Gateway 22"
Case	Fractal Design Arc Mini 6x120mm fans.
Audio Device(s)	Onboard
Power Supply	Zalman 750w
Software	Windows 7

Processor	i7 3930K @ 4.2Ghz 1.26V :)
Motherboard	Asus Sabertooth X79
Cooling	WC Galore
Memory	16Gb Kingston 2133
Video Card(s)	Dual GTX 580 SLI Watercooled
Storage	OCZ Vertex 3 SSD/Raid 0 + 2x WD Black 640/Raid 0
Display(s)	Asus 27" @ 1920 x 1080
Case	Corsair 800D
Audio Device(s)	On Board High Def. Sennheiser PC360
Power Supply	Seasonic 850W
Software	W7 Ultimate 64 Bit

System Name	Main Rig \| Second Rig
Processor	Intel Core 2 Duo Wolfdale E8200 @ 3.2Ghz \| Pentium 4 530J 3.0Ghz
Motherboard	ASUS P5KC @ 1,600Mhz FSB \| Asus P5P800
Cooling	Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro \| Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
Memory	OCZ 4GB DDR2-800 (2x2GB) 5-4-4-15 \| Corsair 1GB XMS DDR-400 (2 x 512MB)
Video Card(s)	MSI NX8800GT 512MB Pre-OCd @ 660/950 \| Powercolor X850 Pro 256MB AGP
Storage	500GB WD Caviar SATA300 \| Hitachi Deckstar 80GB SATA
Display(s)	LG 22" W2252TQ
Case	Antec 900 \| ATX Window case
Audio Device(s)	Onboard High Definition Audio \| Soundblaster Audigy SE
Power Supply	Hiper 730W HPU-5M730-SE \| Tagan 480W
Software	Vista 64-bit SP1 \| Windows 7 32-bit RC1

System Name	ZeroUptime \| M.A.S.S / MM1
Processor	Xeon 2659 v3 / Xeon 2683 v4 / ARM A14
Motherboard	Asus X99-E-10G WS / ASRock x99 usb 3.1 / Apple
Cooling	NZXT Kraken / Noctua NH-L12 / Apple
Memory	16Gb DDR4 / 32Gb DDR4 / 16GB HBLM
Video Card(s)	Powercooler ATI vega 64 / GT 7300 / ARM
Storage	Samsung 970 512 Evo NVMe / A lot. / 256 + 512 External TB3
Display(s)	Acer Predator X34 / Headless / Acer X34 Non predator
Case	NZXT H630 \|Rosewill 8bay 4u server chasiss / MMM1
Audio Device(s)	Onboard / Onboard / Onboard
Power Supply	Corais HX850 \| Corsair TX750 / Internal 250w
Mouse	g502 proteus core / Headless / g502 proteus core
Keyboard	Corsair K95 Cherry Blue / Headless / K65 Cherry Red
Software	Windows 10 / ESXI / Big Sur 11.2.2

System Name	Pandemic 2020
Processor	AMD Ryzen 5 "Gen 2" 2600X
Motherboard	AsRock X470 Killer Promontory
Cooling	CoolerMaster 240 RGB Master Cooler (Newegg Eggxpert)
Memory	32 GB Geil EVO Portenza DDR4 3200 MHz
Video Card(s)	ASUS Radeon RX 580 DirectX 12 DUAL-RX580-O8G 8GB 256-Bit GDDR5 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video C
Storage	WD 250 M.2, Corsair P500 M.2, OCZ Trion 500, WD Black 1TB, Assorted others.
Display(s)	ASUS MG24UQ Gaming Monitor - 23.6" 4K UHD (3840x2160) , IPS, Adaptive Sync, DisplayWidget
Case	Fractal Define R6 C
Audio Device(s)	Realtek 5.1 Onboard
Power Supply	Corsair RMX 850 Platinum PSU (Newegg Eggxpert)
Mouse	Razer Death Adder
Keyboard	Corsair K95 Mechanical & Corsair K65 Wired, Wireless, Bluetooth)
Software	Windows 10 Pro x64