Been awhile since I’ve gushed on Half-Life 2 and Steam, but I need some fellow gamers to gawk with.
It’s aA little more than two months until this game hits the streets, and I am psyched. I’ve learned a great deal more about the engine and the game directly from Valve (who are more than hapy to answer questions), and it has all served to get me more excited. Cables that sway in the wind. A complete rigid physics model. NPC acting, complete with gestures and facial expressions. And the thoughtful attention to gameplay that Valve’s proven as their strength in the past.
They are also launching a new initiative for broadband users called Steam, which is designed to not only let you buy and then download the game for play on any computer (with your passcode), but also keep everything up to date constantly, automatically downloading updates and new content whenever it’s available.
Essentially, what Valve is promising are constant updates to the program via Steam which not only include bug fixes, but updates of the engine and content for new technology like 6.1 sound and high-definition textures and poly models. It’s everything that the mod era promised and more.
Right now, they are testing the system by releasing a sequence of direct feed movies straight from the old e3 build of the engine releasing them over Steam, one every two days or so. Even without AA on, they are stunning demonstrations of how far PC graphics and physics simulations have come.
The only downside I’ve seen is that their engine, Source, seems to have hardware problems with FSAA due to DX9’s problem with supporting the feature in a multitexture environment. Essentially, it means that only ATI cards more powerful than the 9500 will be capable of supporting AA to get rid of the jaggies at low resolutions.