I think that’s a terribly funny thing to say in a thread about Half Life 2.
Doom 3. They only said “it’ll be ready when it’s done” until they actually gave the release date.
Bungie never said so. 'Twas individual retailers that guessed with no official word from the developer.
Another big-timer that made its release date…
Demos nowadays easily run into the many hundreds of megabytes, and are falling out of vogue. Doom 3’s demo wasn’t released until after the game was. I guess you could say that Counterstrike: Source is HL2’s demo…
I have doubts about the Dec. 6th date, but they’re working very hard to get that game out the door very soon for the holidays.
Not just zombies, but you get to go outside! (Granted, I only got about a third of the way through Half-Life before I got irreparably stuck without a valid savegame fallback; maybe there are lots of outdoor levels elsewhere).
The thing that’s got me the most excited about Half-Life 2 is it looks like there’s some real concept design going on there, what with the jumping zombies and the War Of The Worlds type monsters on British-looking streets and all. The first game was cool just on the basis of its presentation; when you get right down to it, it was basically DOOM but told a million times better. This one looks like they actually came up with some new ideas on top of all the new technology that everybody’s talking about. I’m stoked.
Now I just have to get a better video card. And a new processor. And some more memory.
Oh yeah, there were some pretty extensive outdoor levels. The dam, for instance, and the entire sequence where you’re being hounded by the helicopter (and the disgustingly sweet conclusion to that sequence… heh heh heh, ka-BOOM!). The satellite, the various skirmishes with marines…
It was a pretty epic game. I hope the sequel delivers expectations.
The outside parts of Half-Life were the best – Surface Tension was an incredible sequence.
I’d say you should go back and replay it but apparantly Half-life 2 is shipping with a version of Half-Life 1 redone with the new engine.
I don’t remember Valve ever announcing an actual release date. I just remember speculation that it would be out around September. My point being that they don’t usually give a hard date unless they are almost done and sure they can deliver. The Halo 2 release of Nov. 9th was the only announcement Bungie made and they delivered. The retailers were the ones claiming it would be out early 2004 - except if you watch the making of DVD, you can see that the game was nowhere near finished at that point.
Ah, who cares. Bring on the head crabs.
I wonder if there will be more annoying jumping puzzles. Does anyone even like that kind of thing? They tend to suck me right out of the game.
The reason it’s funny is they gave a hard date – Sept 30, 2003. And were adamant that they were going to meet it, almost up to the date when it was announced it wouldn’t be coming out. Now, it’s a year later and not surprisingly we’re all just a teensy bit skeptical the same thing won’t happen again.
Ah, ok. I had never heard that, but then I was still on my FPS hating kick and I wasn’t paying much attention to the hype around the new game. I didn’t even pick up the original Half-Life until early this year. Enjoyed it quite a bit (except for the jumping), but the graphics were pretty dated by then. All I heard about the new one was Fall 2003.
I think Neverwinter Nights was another one that dropped the ball - I think I waited 3 years for that game to finally come out… and what a disappointing day that was. So far the XBOX games I’ve wanted have been delivered as promised, but then they are probably easier to program since they have fixed hardware requirements.
Right now, the rumors are already running wild about Halo 3. I suspect you’ll be able to pre-order it from Amazon.com in another week or so. (This is where I’d normally insert a winking smily except that they did practically the same thing for Halo 2.)
For those who have not been following the game since its initial announcement, its public history is almost defined by two incidents:
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The game’s unveiling at E3 was accompanied by the bold proclamation of a September 30 2003 ship date, which was subsequently confirmed over and over again until a delay was announced exactly one week before it was supposed to ship. That lack of communication (and actual deception) until the last second has been a source of endless controversy and is widely regarded as one of the poorest public relations decisions in recent history.
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Valve’s network was compromised shortly afterward (well, it had perhaps been compromised for some time but the discovery was made shortly after Sept. 30) and the source code to the game as well as an early playable build were stolen and released on the internet.
So therein lies the background for any jokes or comments you might hear about slipped dates and security mishaps.
Gamespot has a great writeup (long but interesting read IMHO) covering many of the events of the last year from an insider’s point of view. They got recent interviews with several of the key players at Valve.
Halo what ? Oh, must be for one of those console systems that I will never buy no matter what…
Half-Life 2 looks so great! I bought it over Steam because I really like the idea of buying from the developer (I hope direct online purchasing picks up – great way to get a game in the language you want no matter where you live in the world, without paying @#$%ing huge shipping fees).
Anyway, within the next 48 hours, I’ll finally get to play the game! Half-Life 2 fever will be my new bane of productivity!
I too am a PC chauvinist, but don’t knock some of the console games. Halo 1 and 2 and the GTA series are reasons enough to own a PS2 and a XBOX.
I too eagerly await Half Life 2. In my opinion, Half Life was was one of the finest, if not the very finest, single-player FPS ever made. The stock multiplayer sorta sucked, but once you get Day of Defeat or CS, you have probably the best ‘core’ game ever made. HL2 has a lot to live up to, but it can’t be worse than Doom3…
Oh, you’re one of those people. 
A great game is a great game no matter what it’s on. At one time I owned a PS2, a Nintendo 64, XBOX, and my gaming PC. I gave the PS2 and Nintendo away to a friend. I’ve found that the people who vehemently hate consoles are the ones who like to link 50,000 action items to one hotkey, speed up their mouse, and otherwise “cheat”. Can’t do that on a console.
(I’m just yanking your chain, btw.) 
Very true. And wow that article sure is a great find! (wink wink, nudge nudge in the direction of the OP).
You people already know this, but Halo was initially demoed on a Mac (MacWorld 1999 IIRC) It was realesed on the Mac only 5 years later…
Interesting stoty. Marathon (an early Bungie game) was delayed (towards the end they claimed it was delayed due to box problems) Anyhow, one person said something like this:
I will not believe it has been released when they say it has
I will not believe it when I get shipping confirmation for my pre-order
I will not believe it when the box shows up on my door
I will not believe it when there is a Marathon box inside the brown box
I will not believe it when there are Marathon CDs inside the Box
I will not believe it when the program appears to install
When the game is actually running on my machine only then will I believe.
I’m not super-hyped about HL2, but I feel something like thisabout the release date. Only when it is actually will I beleive it has been released.
Brian
I know what you mean. I won’t believe that Half-Life 2 is finally out until I see the boxes on the shelf in Best Buy.
When I was in the store today, I did notice that they had shelf space cleared off, right next to Doom 3. I’m taking that as a good omen.
Heh heh! Yep, I appreciate the chain-yanking. Yeah, sure I sound snobbish…
You’re right, in a way… I do like to cheat, but with certain games (Unreal, Doom 2, any Ultima game, Half-Life 1 and expansions, and certainly HL2) I don’t until I’ve played through, legit, at least once or twice.
Actually, I don’t hate or snub consoles, so much as simply not see the point when my computer plays games very well, plus I can upgrade my computer…
Also, to get a console, I’d also have to get a TV! (I watch TV at various friends’ places when they invite me over.)
Anyway, back on topic, looks like some stores are already selling HL2 – but if you buy it, you can’t play it.
Once Valve activates the “authentaction servers”, everyone can play. However, Vivendi may still try something stupid to stop the Steam users
Except that the series you’ve mentioned eventually came to the PC and were much better on it…
Actually, I used to own and enjoy an N64, but frankly my TV sucks so I just upgrade my computer instead and wait 6 months longer for my games.
The game is definitely done. Slashdot did a story about a guy who got called by a retailer to come pick his copy up. He took pictures of the box and discs, etc and posted them.