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From: Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: 1st HL2 game memories from 2004...
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2024 15:34:58 -0600
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On Sat, 16 Nov 2024 03:31:13 +0000, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, Ant
wrote: 

>Since HL2 will be/is 20 yrs. old and we're all getting nostalgia! Let's 
>talk about those days!
>
>IIRC during the first week of its release, I bought its retail from a 
>local Best Buy with a $10/10% sale or something back then. According to 
>my detailed https://zimage.com/~ant/antfarm/about/toys.html history, I 
>recently upgraded my Windows gaming PC with these parts: "... an AMD 
>Athlon 64 3200+ 2.2GHz 512KB Socket 754 single core CPU, ASUS K8V SE 
>Deluxe (VIA K8T800 Socket 754 ATX; VIA VT8237 South Bridge; Revision 2; 
>onboard sound disabled; onboard NIC not used/connected (using 3COM NIC 
>for network) and can't be disabled or else Promise Raid won't be 
>activate), a 3 fan HDD Peeze cooler, 1 GB of PC3200 Kingston RAM (CAS 
>3), and Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS." :) I think I also got 
>Windows XP OS too.
>
>Anyways, I remember playing this game over my Thanksgiving weekend. It 
>was amazing! Very smooth, pretty, and fun! I don't remember how long it 
>took me to finish it. It was a great sequel. Of course years later, 
>episodes 1 and 2 (The Orange Box -- will talk about that in three 
>years). I don't have and want a VR to play Alyx. :(
>
>What about the rest of you?

My first HL2 memory was Dan Adams' _second_ paragraph in his pc.ign.com
review:

>Before I really get into the review, you should know the background of 
>how this game was reviewed. Valve did not want to send out copies of 
>their game (for fairly obvious reasons) before it was released to the 
>public. In order to play the game, I, and several of my colleagues 
>throughout the industry, took a trip up to Seattle to visit Valve in 
>order to have some private time with the title. I was given a little 
>room to myself where I could close the door, turn off the lights, click 
>my little red slippers, and pretend that I was sitting at home. It worked 
>for the most part, largely because I was so engrossed with the game that 
>when I came out of my trance I often had to take a moment to get my 
>bearings. Obviously, Valve was happy to bring me into a controlled 
>environment for ideal playing conditions.

This is of course after the first paragraph, which gushed "[HL2 is] the
best single-player shooter ever released for the PC..." Yet strangely
claimed later in the same paragraph that "...[HL2] doesn't do anything
particularly new; it doesn't really innovate..."

Despite its touted physics and all the advertised eye candy. Hmm.

I thought, "That sounds like a conflict of interest." Reviewers,
apparently *all* of them, were being handled by Valve on their campus.
Ever been corporate handled? I have. Your objective opinions go out the
window, if you can even tell what is good information and what is spin. 

So I took "it doesn't really innovate" as the actual review.

I didn't download Steam for 7 years after HL2. I didn't buy Half Life 2
until 9 years ago for Black Mesa. I loved the _original_ Half-Life.

So my first memory of HL2 was, "Well, that's the absolute end of any
chance of independent reviews."

When Jeff Gerstmann was fired, some 3 years later*, for failing to give a
good review to a corporate partnership game, my opinion was sealed.

https://bit.ly/4fWpZmn

(The bookmark link on Wikipedia had problems with pasting. So bit.ly)

I thank Dan Adams for giving me the heads up.

-- 
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten
_____________________________________________________________________

* Jonah Falcon and I had quite the conversation about this. I even wrote
an article. Here's a paragraph:

>What we end up with is a thorough perception that the whole review 
>industry has been compromised by carrot-and-stick public relations 
>manipulation. There is a widespread belief, often unstated at the 
>publications themselves, that the materials for previews will suddenly 
>"dry up" if they give too harsh a review on a shipping product. You don't 
>bite the hand that feeds you, you can't. In an attempt to capture the 
>lowest common denominator to bring a large audience, these publications 
>have all but divorced themselves from what matters to the more discerning 
>audience. They are providing an entertainment product first, and critical 
>review second, a sort of *Nintendo Power* approach, but in the guise of 
>"independent" journalism. The perception is that there is no spoken policy 
>regarding these issues, just a tightening of the purse strings by overlarge 
>publishers when the playing field is not slightly tilted in their favor.