Offline whilst moving

1. I won’t have any internet at home for the next few days whilst I sort out the phone line business in the place we’re moving to. I can feel withdrawal symptoms just thinking about it. Erch.

2. In the meantime, this is the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever seen!

HL2: Second Impressions

1. It kicks arse.

2. No doubt about it, it really was worth the wait. It’s certainly one of the best games I’ve played this year (the other being Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic). But….

3. It was probably too much to hope for, but I was expecting a world that was more dynamic than what Half Life 2 offers. The gravity gun is great fun, and being able to pick up objects adds a new dimension to the game, but why can I only pick up barrels and grates? Why not bodies? Or small bits of rubble? Why can’t I use the gravity gun to push a bunch of zombies into each other? Why can’t pick up one enemy and throw them into another? The gravity gun was supposedly used for heavy lifting, and it seems strange that it would only pick up some items, not all of them. And now that I can use crates to build structures I can climb on, why can’t I go over any wall and have a look at the map from different perspectives? The game artificially prohibits you from climbing onto certain places, and not because it’s unreachable, but it’s just blocked. Everythime it happens I’m reminded that I’m playing a game, not being Gordon Freeman. It’s bloody annoying.

4. The pace of the game is a little slow as well, and it doesn’t seem all that long. I’ve yet to finish the game, but having made it into Nova Prospekt it only feels like I’ve completed half the game, where in fact it’s more like two thirds. And this far into the game there are still no answers from the original Half Life — where has Freeman been? How long has it been since Black Mesa? Why are there aliens working for the resistance? Who is the Combine? Why can I only carry 30 rounds of shotgun shells?

5. The outstanding element in the original was the strong story that goes with the action. So far, the action seems slower and the plot’s on shaky ground, and I’m finding it difficult to judge it for what it is, rather than what it could’ve (should’ve?) been. But, maybe I’m just jumping the gun, I’ll save my final verdict for when I finish the game.

HL2: First Thoughts

1. It’s pretty, even on my crappy $94 video card (Radeon 9550 SE). The water refraction is awesome, I can’t wait to see it in all it’s glory on a 9800 or similar. Character models are nicely constructed, good textures, but graphics wise it doesn’t have that “sheen” that Doom 3 has. The physics engine is fucking awesome — everything in the demo and more! You can pick up most items in the game, and it’s very handy to pick up a nearby crate or barrel to use as a shield. It is a little inconsistent, you can pick up boxes and crates and the like, but not corpses. Not quite as free to play with stuff as Valve had made it out to be.

2. Can’t comment on the story yet, only been a couple hours, but it moves with the same pace as Half Life, the action comes in concentrated packs with enough time in between to have a look around. There’s an awesome set of levels where the player gets to drive an airboat around, making jumps and all sorts of crazy shit.

3. In short, I’m enjoying myself :)

4. To illustrate how pretty the game is even with my cheap ass hardware, check out the screenies below:

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Half Life 2 Unlocked!

Half Life 2 is go!

1. I’ll see you all next week.

World On Fire

1. This is very cool — Sarah McLachlan, rather than spending $150,000 on a music video for her song World on Fire, instead donated $150,000 to various charities around the world. She then made the video for $15, featuring her in a room with a guitar playing the song. What’s so cool then? The video also features graphics explaining the cost of making a video, and how much that money could help in third world countries. It’s fantastic, you’d never know what was coming if you were just watching TV, and it’s totally absorbing. The song’s pretty good too.

2. On the theme of World on Fire, every so often I check in to the blog of Kevin Sites, an embedded journalist in Iraq. He is proof that embedded journos can stay neutral, but he can also provide the raw emotion and the feel of the soldiers, the place and it’s people. It can be funny, tragic or frightening, often within sight of each other. In this post he writes about the the U.S. push into Falluja, and it’s gripping stuff — you feel involved in a way many other newspaper reports don’t. It’s well worth the read.

How can 59,054,087 people be so dumb?

<img src=”http://blog.fibrowalls.com/content/0411_dubya.jpg” alt=”Four more years of Dubya” width=”399 height=”524″ />

1. Dunno, but Britain’s Daily Mirror provides a funny take!

Fanmail!

1. I love getting fanmail. This one is from Russ, regarding my previous post about Video iPods (where I referred to him as a tool):

From: Russell Beattie [russ@russellbeattie.com] To: shoutback@fibrowalls.com Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 13:44:53 -0800 Subject: Tool?

Blow me, you Apple Zealot.

Russ

2. Yes, Russ, you are a tool. Not only that, but you’re of the blunt and useless variety.

3. Not only did Mr Beattie not answer (or even try to) any of the points I raised, he automatically (knee jerk reflex for those who have not seen the light?) accused me of Apple Zealotry. An Apple Zealot I may be, but at least I can recognise a dumb idea when I see one.