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Half-Life 2: Aftermath

M

Mooreberg

is sharpening a shovel and digging a ditch
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=58579

The news most of us have been waiting for has finally been confirmed: Valve is readying the first expansion pack for the unanimously acclaimed Half-Life 2. Provisionally titled 'Aftermath', the new adventures of Gordon Freeman and his able sidekick Alyx is tentatively scheduled for a 'summer' release, according to PC Gamer UK, which scooped the world with its cover feature on the hotly anticipated game in its May issue, out today.
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Hopefully other websites are getting screens or media soon.
 
whoa, the expansion will actually feature Freeman and Alyx as well as advancing the storyline? That's a new direction for Valve. Will be interesting to see what happened in City 17.
 
Doom_Bringer said:
I hope it's free for people who got the bronze/sliver/gold packages.
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Little to 0 chances.
Name me one free XP for a big FPS game.

Resurrection of Evil, United Offensive, Team Arena (:lol), Battle Out Of Hell etc. aren't free after all.

EDIT: DAMN your edits Doom_Bringer!
Maybe it will be free for the GOLD guys.
 
I at least hope a lot of the stuff you see in the "Raising The Bar" book is completed and worked into this. There were a lot of cool environment and enemy designs that got dropped during development.
 
Borys said:
Little to 0 chances.
Name me one free XP for a big FPS game.

Resurrection of Evil, United Offensive, Team Arena (:lol), Battle Out Of Hell etc. aren't free after all.
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Half Life 2 felt like a rip-off to me. $60 for an incomplete game, it better be free!
 
It'll be $30-$40 dollars. But for Steam owners I hope the price isn't over $29.99. I think $30 should be the limit for expansion game prices.

Sans the loading Half Life 2 is an awesome experience.

I like forward to seeing how it continues.


But then I prefer Half Life 2 to that Battlefield trash any day of the week. :P
 
bah, this just proves that sierra rushed them to release an unfinished game, with a crap ending to the market to cash in.

and they are charging for it too? rediculous! i wont support additional content that should have been in the game from the get go.










:P
 
op_ivy said:
bah, this just proves that sierra rushed them to release an unfinished game, with a crap ending to the market to cash in.

and they are charging for it too? rediculous! i wont support additional content that should have been in the game from the get go.

:P
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LMAO. Sierra had nothing to do with the HL2 release.

It was something called CHRISTMAS.
 
Borys said:
Little to 0 chances.
Name me one free XP for a big FPS game.
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Well, the Editor's Choice Edition expansion pack for Unreal Tournament 2004 was free. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory was supposed to be an expansion pack, but was eventually released as a free standalone game.
 
op_ivy said:
bah, this just proves that sierra rushed them to release an unfinished game, with a crap ending to the market to cash in.

and they are charging for it too? rediculous! i wont support additional content that should have been in the game from the get go.
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We're talking about Half-Life 2 here, not Halo 2. Sierra didn't even publish Halo 2! Geez!
 
I've been thinkening. If valve goes bankrupt and the world becomes a warez free place, will noone be able to play HL2? :P
 
-jinx- said:
Well, the Editor's Choice Edition expansion pack for Unreal Tournament 2004 was free. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory was supposed to be an expansion pack, but was eventually released as a free standalone game.
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That's kinda stretching, isn't it?

Sure, VALVe could release it for free but they want to make some more dough. I just can't see them doing it another way. Maybe 3 to 4 maps and one gametype (as HL2: DM) but not the whole expansion.

$30 or bust VALVe. I won't pay more.
 
I'd pay $50 for it as long as it's about the same length as Half Life 2 and they gave us TFC Source and Opposing Forces Source with it.
 
I enjoyed HL2, thought it was a fun FPS, and the Gravgun was cool. (So cool, Id is making one for their expansion), but the story was kind of lacking imho. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't fully told either, and the ending was almost, not quite, but almost as anti-climactic as Halo 2.

I'm not sure I'll pick up this expansion. I'll have to find out more first. If it tells what happened in City 17 after HL2, are we rewarding Valve for not giving us the payoff in the game itself, by buying the expansion pack?
 
-jinx- said:
Look, you asked for examples, and I gave you two. I have no interest in debating what constitutes an "expansion pack."
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No need to be so offensive right away, -jinx-. :(
 
Here's a quote I got off of halflife2.net which seems to have more info than I've seen from other places:

Eurogamer.net is reporting that Valve has officially announced the first expansion pack for Half-Life 2, called Half-Life 2: Aftermath (acting as a provisional title only). While you will not be playing as Alyx as previously thought, a lot of focus will be put on Alyx's character during the events of the game.

Here's an excerpt from the short interview with Robin Harper and Marc Laidlaw of Valve:

As for where Aftermath is set, and the timeline, it's very much a logical continuation from where Half-Life 2 left off, as Laidlaw explains: "[Aftermath] deals with the events and issues set in motion during Half-Life 2. You've done critical damage to the Citadel. The whole place is going to go up, taking out City 17 and what's in its immediate radius. You and Alyx are leading the flight from the city getting up close and personal with some of the creatures and sights from the end of the game." Interestingly, the assumption that you continue to play as Gordon isn't justified anywhere in the text; it's possible - and perhaps more likely given the game's ending - that you play as someone else instead.

According to PC Gamer UK (who are running a story on the expansion pack in the newest issue), the game is due out in the summer. Exicting times!
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no "FUCK YOU VALVE FOR CHARGING PEOPLE FOR WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN THE GAME IN THE FIRST PLACE!" posts?
 
Joe said:
no "FUCK YOU VALVE FOR CHARGING PEOPLE FOR WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN THE GAME IN THE FIRST PLACE!" posts?
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Fuck You valve for charging people what should have been in the game in the first place. But un-fuck you for being kickass and having a kickass game with a potentially kickass-er expansion. sorry, i tried :(
 
Doom_Bringer said:
Half Life 2 felt like a rip-off to me. $60 for an incomplete game, it better be free!
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I'm guessing you never played HL1, because HL2's ending was very consistant with how the original ended.
 
Drexon said:
I've been thinkening. If valve goes bankrupt and the world becomes a warez free place, will noone be able to play HL2? :P
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They said if that looks like it ever happens they will make it possible to play HL2 without Steam.
 
I dont get the "oh this should have been included" whining. Its very presumptuous of those people to think that they know what "should" have been.
 
Eric-GCA said:
I dont get the "oh this should have been included" whining. Its very presumptuous of those people to think that they know what "should" have been.
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I know personally I am more upset at not what "should have been in", but the stuff they took out that was looking really cool... The frigate level mainly, and more importantly, all of the enemy types that are missing. Hopefully this expansion actually does include the things seen during the end level, and other things. what happened to having all of the old aliens? We still have headcrabs and barnacles all over the place, but no houndeyes, snarks, the spitting things or anything else. If there was one fault with HL2 i would say it's with the lack of enemies. We got 3 head crabs, 3 zombies, 3 combines, the barnacles, and i guess the striders and hellicopters.
 
Surely you wont play as gordon in this expansion...didnt he get taken away at the end of the game? (Im not spoiler tagging it, it came out last year ffs).

And Alyx survived? Me thinks Barney is the most likely playable character.


Anyway i hope it has the same production values HL2 had (minus the soundtrack, hope its much better in that regard) so many expansions completely forgo the story element. At least with the way HL2 does things it shouldnt be that complicated.
 
ImNotLikeThem said:
what happened to having all of the old aliens? We still have headcrabs and barnacles all over the place, but no houndeyes, snarks, the spitting things or anything else. If there was one fault with HL2 i would say it's with the lack of enemies. We got 3 head crabs, 3 zombies, 3 combines, the barnacles, and i guess the striders and hellicopters.
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Did you read the Eurogamer article? This was in there:

And unlike in the original, creatures that were barred from the confines of City 17 have now found a new home unfettered by the barriers that kept them at bay previously.
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I'd be surprised if you play as Barney. Maybe as a different undercover Combine soldier?
 
I noticed this from IGN:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/602/602749p1.html

This expansion pack release may be steam only!

It also sounds as though the expansion pack may be distributed through Steam rather than through Vivendi, their current publisher, because of the time-consuming mastering, duplication, and distribution. "The reason we're able to do this, and the reason it's so exciting, is because of Steam," Valve designer Robin Harper says in the PC Gamer article. "If we're doing this without Steam, we'd have to put it in a box. We'd have to start figuring out shelf space over a year beforehand."
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That'd be cool. I know I was in the minority when I said that Steam worked perfectly find for me with no problems occuring, and I was playing Half Life 2 the moment it was unlocked.

I cant wait to do the same with the expansion.
 
Yeah I didn't have any problems getting HL2 to run on steam either.

Speaking a steam, in the update tonight it mentioned next week we'll get a sneak peak at the expansion! :D
 
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