Doesn’t Jonathon Chance work for a gaming news site? I mean, more directly than I do? Maybe he’ll know. (I don’t know any more than anyone else about release dates and stuff, because even when my editors know, they rarely share that stuff with freelancers).
I’ve been enjoying Tron 2.0 and Temple of Elemental Evil in the meantime. ToEE will keep me plenty busy for the next few weeks and I’ll switch between the two games for variety (and will hopefully rinse the foul taste of the game I played last week).
Ooh, has anyone seen that 600 MB technology video of HL2? It’s unbelievable. My jaw dropped the entire 30 minutes I watched it. Speaking of which, I think I’ll watch it again.
Half-life 2 looks great- but it ain’t coming out Sept 30th- the gone gold announcement would have to come out by now. Figure end of November when will see it-- just in time for X-mas.
Halo PC should be in stores soon- that should be great fun.
Just looked at Best Buy’s website. Half Life 2 is still listed as pre-order with an estimated ship date of Nov. 3 - Nov. 11. Sorry Muad’Dib. But if you really must spend money Halo is coming out for the PC at the end of this month. That may tide you over if you don’t have it for the Xbox already.
Store dates are never a useful guide to releases. They generally know no more than anyone else (often, less), and we don’t know what their system is for listing dates anyway. Some say Feburary, some October, some Sept. 30, some November. Obviously, if any of them are getting private information from Vivendi, they aren’t getting the SAME information.
Gold dates are also no longer two week prep-time affairs, though the lack of gold status by today is certainly troubling. They’ve apparently said that Steam is going to start taking pre-orders for HL2 a week or so before the release, so that they can pre-load parts of the game on people’s computers to save themselves from as huge a bandwidth cruch they expect to see on release.
Vivendi doesn’t have a say in when the game comes out. The guy in the article is clueless, even while trying to be high and mighty laughing down at all the peons. Vivendi is the game’s distributor, and no doubt has a contract (which almost certianly stipulates no early, steam-only release, as Valve has said no to that idea already), but it doesn’t own or control Valve, which is privately owned by the team itself. Vivendi can’t postpone the release.
Gabe said there WILL be a public gold announcement: from Valve. It hasn’t happened yet.
None of this helps us determine whether the game will out on the 30th (and, as I’ve said, be very worried at this point), but it does clear up some misconceptions.
[Full disclosure: I’m a mod and news poster at a Half-life 2 fan site]
If you’re looking for something to tide you over, try Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. It’s totally cool and totally free. Yes, free. A brand new game, free download. The single player team didn’t make their deadline, so rather than throw the multiplayer half in the trash they decided to release the multiplayer half for free. And it is really good.
So many conflicting rumors. Rumors of a recent trade show at which Valve said that HL2 would not make the 30th and would be trying for the holidays. Rumors also of stores having stock lists with suspiciously HL2 sounding names, due to arrive next week. Rumors that they will be saying SOMETHING on Tuesday (PST)
Apos while there wasn’t going to be a formal “gone gold” announcement with the massive amount of CD’s to be duped and shipped with word would get out quickly, especially with the scrutiny over the ship date. Valve is in a bit of a pickle- I don’t think the game and Steam (and multiplayer)-- are ready yet.
We waited this long, I can go another month. Get it right. As the old saying in the game industry goes- “its only late until it ships”.
I was really into the much rumored ATI 9800 XT & Halflife 2 bundle. I had my spending wallet out. But, given the fuzzy and contradictory information out there this is what I did.
Ordered Halo PC
Found a smoking deal on a full retail ATI Radeon 9800 Pro on Dell of all places. it was 10% off, plus a 30 dollar coupon off too, and free shipping. Sweet! Got charged tax though-- I will have to call on that.
Goodbye 64 meg Nvidia Geforce 4200! Anyone need a decent video card on the cheap?
I will pick up Halflife 2 when it is released- someone will have a deal on it.
Gabe said there would be: from Valve. It was Vivendi that downplayed the possibility of a public gold announcement.
The gonegold guy has gone crazy. It’s not clear what Vivendi has been telling people, because they are obviously saying different things to different people.
One way or another there will be a gold announcement. The fact that its the 23rd and we have not had it yet, combined with the contradictory information, and the Steam problems leads me to think November is the probable date. I don’t think they have one, other then shoot for the 30th and move it back as needed.
That being said, you will notice that pretty new ATI Radeon 9800 Pro will be delivered and installed by the 30th. Just in case.
Same here. Since I’m upgrading from a TNT2(!!!) and a computer that hasn’t been able to handle the last generation of fames, I don’t really even need HL2 to feel good about my purchase.
Ouch!! You will love all the eye candy your new machine can run.
My computer is a P4 2.53, with 768 of RDRAM, a 120 Gig Special Edition (8 meg buffer- speedy) hard drive Dell. Adding the Radeon 9800 Pro to it will hopefully let me run most to all of the eye candy on Half-Life 2. [starts drooling uncontrollably . . . ]
You’ve seen the new HDR video, right? Sweetness. I just hope we see it soon. If they don’t say something today, yea or nay on Sept. 30, people are going to go bonkers.
A friend of mine is using a TNT2 card from my old 450Mhz PIII (which I think I got about 5 years ago), and it serves him pretty well (I have upgraded a few times since then, have a GF4 Ti4400 and plan to upgrade soon).
