Yeah, sorry everyone, but the swine flu has really kicked my ass this week and I don’t think we’ll be able to record a “real” episode of the show until this coming week. I’d like to have certain people over for a show right now, but I can’t in good conscience ask them to come over and get plagued with what I got. So we’ll be officially re-starting the standard Game Club on Tuesday, RFM on Thursday schedule next week. For RFM, since we won’t have a main topic, I highly encourage all of you to write in to letters@eat-sleep-game.com, because we’re going to do an extended letters segment (more of a letters clearinghouse, really. -ed) hopefully with a special guest.
As for Game Club, we’re going to be doing the beloved Half-life 2 and its Episodes. For those who care to play along, we ask that you play through Ravenholm for the first show, complete the normal game for the second, and then play through each episode for the third and fourth weeks, respectively.
Here’s a link to Half-life 2 for those of you who don’t have the Orange Box yet (with a convenient link that also supports us).
Thanks!
Man, I’ve just been playing through the HL2 episodes again for the commentary track. What excellent timing.
Lol PS3?
Don’t die from the flu! I know it’s hard to do so but just in case!
If anyone needs the games, I have one of each to gift. MitchyD on Steam. Send me messages.
Could I snag a gift for HL2? I have both the episodes, but I played HL2 at my brother’s originally so I never picked it up. My steam id is baladec.
Interesting choice for Game Club. I’m excited. I love HL2.
Get well soon, Anthony! Chuff it out.
Slacker, get off your fat ass and start making the show
I hope you and everyone else affected by this recover quickly.
Yeah! Something to do while I’m recovering from Nerd Flu. Only I’ve coughed so hard that I actually popped a ligament in my chest and am now in incredible pain. I blame the incubator like heat at Gameworks
Thank god for hydrocodone and Therma Flu. Hope everyone there is feeling better soon!
Ouch. The same thing happened to me a number of years ago. I thought I broke a rib. I wish you a speedy recovery.
Thank you!
Get well soon, Anthony. Hear you all again in a few days.
Sweet. I never finished HL2 and will be happy to play the episodes again.
And I just lent my copy of OB to a friend a week ago.
Just to throw this out there, the PS3 version is the same game; it just doesn’t perform as well, and the load times are longer. As far as I know, it’s still one of the highest rated games on the platform. And they’re all cheap at Amazon (20 bucks!).
AWESOME,my favorite game of all time (almost) this gives me a reason to continue my current playthrough. get well soon anthony
Sweet, first Game Club I can do with you guys. Get well soon Anthony!
Glad those 3 are the only games I’ve never uninstalled (even though I have them on Steam) and at this rate it looks like they’ll be on my hard drive til it shits out on me.
Throwin this out there, till Monday, Civ 4 Vanilla is $5 on Direct2Drive due to their 5th anniversary.
Also interesting choice on half life… easily the most played out of all the game club games so far… I for one have finished it 3 or so times… might not play it again, but the commentary will be interesting.
Coincidentally, if you count the two episodes as one game, it’s in my top 5 games ever. And I dislike Half-life 2. Odd.
I don’t find it that weird. I thought Episode 2 was considerably better than the main HL2 game.
Yeah, but you hear a lot of complaints about Ep1, whereas I thought it was a huge step up. To each his own.
Yes!
A Game Club I’ll play a long with since I already own all those.
Sorry to hear you have the swine flu, Anthony.
Another comment, the homepage of Rebel FM now has one of those obnoxious Ebony online ads on it. Underneath the large “Play” button, it says “Unnoticeable Now!”
o_O
I’ve got an unused gift copy of Half-Life 2 for steam on my account if someone needs it… tadcalabash on steam.
I just got around to Episode 2 this summer and have been wanting an excuse to play through these again so I can listen to the commentary tracks. I’ve listened to a bit of Episode 1′s commentary and loved what I heard.
YES!! HL2 rocks my moobs!!
I just started playing it again recently and, wouldn’t you know it, I stopped playing at the beginning of the ravenholme level so I only have to play it to be caught up.
Gravity penis!!
Fuck leprechauns and H2N2!!
I know people have asked for KOTOR before for Game Club, and one of the reasons cited for not doing it was availability. I don’t know if anyone has pointed it out yet but KOTOR is now available on Steam, standard price of $9.99. Any chance of seeing it in the future?
Um… You guys do know that the link is for the PS3 version, right? Is that the only version that provides you a cut. If so, I’m sorry. If not, link the 360 version!
Don’t get me wrong, love my PS3, but Valve games are PC only for me (as are most shooters).
Amazon only has one page per title if it’s on multiple platforms. Just under the pricing is a “Choose your platform” box, just click what you want there.
It can’t go head to head with the PC version but I have to say the ps3 onange box is still a totally rad experience.
Well it’s difficult to advocate the purchase of a physical disk when Steam is the best thing ever.
Awesome. I’ve played through Half Life 2 but neither of the episodes, despite owning the Orange Box on both PC and 360.
Sweet, looks like i’ll be dusting off the orange box.
I’ve started playing and I’m in the Route Kanal chapter and it reminded me of something that you don’t see very much in First Person Shooters anymore. Underwater segments.
In real life, I am terrified of being underwater. When my wife and I take our kids to the pool and I just stay in the shallow end and my hair is still dry when we leave because I can’t stand being underwater. Just standing there in four foot deep water barely up to my chest and my feet on the ground makes me nervous. In third person games it doesn’t bother me at all but being underwater in an FPS sets it off just as badly as real life.
The first time I can remember this affecting me is the first two Quake games and the trend of having an obligatory underwater segment seems to have died off.
Anyone else glad to see them gone?
What about bioshock? It technically takes place underwater
True, but your character was never actually submerged in water (after the first minute or two following the plane crash) so it never really bugged me.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooo! I just shot my download limit wad for this month and it doesn’t roll over until next week. Curse you limited Australian broadband. Oh well, looks like I might be poop socking this Wednesday night (since I’d really rather have it on steam than pick up a physical copy)
Could you take your rig to a friend’s house? A lame pain in the ass but at least you could play…
That’s not a bad idea. Might see if I can get a mate to back up his copy, restore to my machine (using his steam) then activate mine. Thank you for reminding me that’s what I’ve done in the past
You don’t have to do anything that complicated, just copy the game data over directly, then when you run steam and tell it to “download” it’ll see the data already there.
This is how I move steam games across my various machines.
Thank you both, I am now loaded and ready to play… See you in a few hours.
What about “HL2″ for game club or “The Thing”! Get well soon, Anthony!
I hate to point this out, but they did pick HL2 for Game Club – so get playing!
oh, i misread, but anyway I already beat the game on PS3 and it was awesome! I would gladly play it again!
If anyone needs a PC copy of HL2 PM GodEmperorBubba on steam.
Guess I’ll finally get around to playing EP1.
Oh nice I was wondering if I should play through all the HL games again recently. Thanks for giving me a good excuse RFM
Damn it, l just packed it away cause l’m hoping to move house in the next month or 2. Oh well, l’m gonna have to bust open that box and fish it out, this’ll be the first Game Club game l’ll actually be playing along with (others l’d already played or did’nt have much interest), even if its the PS3 version
Hey Anthony look at the bright side, at least you’ll have antibody’s for the swine flu. I wouldn’t mind some. What doesn’t kill you makes you ,eehhr, a little stronger.
Why don’t you talk about the hygiene of most gamers. Some of the PAX photo’s had me horrified, the shit-stain-across-the-floor story from GFW Radio was especially horrible.
And the fact that you confessed you pee while you take a shower.
How about giving some general tips. A lot of people could use the advice.
Now, it’s a known fact that Urine is a healthy and sanitary way to reduce fungal infection and other diseases of the feet.
It’s like nature’s hydrogen peroxide!
Don’t forget how it nullifies Jellyfish stings.
I thought the whole point of game club was to play unappreciated games. Half-life 2 is one of the most critically acclaimed games ever. Pretty much everyone has played it. Great game, but there were better choices out there.
I feel like it was a good choice for post death-plague game club. I would rather see an easy to organize ringer than something new that is last minute and under planned.
The point of Game Club is to play a game together and talk about it. It is frequently an opportunity to play a game that may have been overlooked, but it isn’t the first time we’ve played a well received, successful game. Bully comes to mind. Half Life 2 was my idea, because I haven’t heard a podcast devote as much time to its entirety discussion-wise as we will.
Ya Bully was well received, but that was a game that a lot of people dismissed because they thought it was a kid’s GTA. Like I said HL2 is one of the best games ever, I’d just rather play a game that deserves some more attention.
I like the choice of HalfLife2 for the discussion that will occur. In my opinion, the best one of these gameclub series’ was the Hitman one, as each player’s experience was significantly different, while the worst was probably RC (although there is the distinct possibility my dislike for star wars and the second campaign of that game got in the way of my judgement). With HL, there is a lot to talk of in terms of quality, after all, it is considered one of the best games of all time, and comparing the 3 parts is fun.
ahh half-life 2, I have a rather bittersweet relationship with this game
after playing through portal on the orange box back in 2007 I thought “wow this is what I’ve been missing as a Nintendo fanboy” so after seeing non-stop praise for all half-life games I tried it and my first impressions where not so hot..
being someone who played the king Kong game and bioshock I was well aware of first person storytelling but half-life felt somewhat dated because I felt like I had no idea what was going on at all and maybe its because I never played HL1 but still, I thought the game was really slow-paced in the begining and the puzzles felt less like a challenge and more like a tech demo and the boat section felt so long.
but as I continued to play it it grew on me the puzzles as tech-demoish as they are added some variety that other shooters lacked for me, and the story began to make sense once I thought “I’m the main character” and for me the game all went uphill once I found that magnum and Ravenholm was like my favorite level(I can’t believe people are scared shitless by headcrabs) and the cars in both episode two and Hl2 controlled excellently imo
the episodes both one and two fixed all of my previous problems because every section never dragged on too long.
Great choice for a game club, especially if you can score an interview with someone from Valve for your forth episode. It would also be nice to have a fifth week devoted to a few of the better mods. I just finished playing through Minerva: Metastasis and Research and Development, and in many aspects they were better than the original. Some of the puzzles and the chopper car in R&D were sheer genius.
Damn. I was hoping for The Thing…But yay Half Life.
Get Well Soon.
I think I may actually play along with this game club. I played Gun like RIGHT before you guys announced you were playing it, so that doesn’t really count. I played the HL2 games at the beginning of the summer, but I might whip through them again!
Back when Doom 3 and Half-life 2 were released, I was a huge id fanboy. I put about $3,000 into building a new computer for Doom 3. I bought the game on the day of its release, and I really enjoyed the experience. Months later, I decided to give Half-life 2 a go. It blew Doom 3 out of the water for me. Now I have switched camps.
I have played through everything except Episode 2. I’m at the section where you have to driver around and fire the exploding things into the striders. I didn’t really have enough health to complete it or the patience to load from an earlier save. I’m anxious to start from the very beginning and try it again.
That part is pretty much the end of Episode 2, actually, there’s only a short segment after that that’s primarily story driven.
Each of the buildings in that last area has a set of shelves loaded with Medkits and ammo inside it. It would be pretty hard to run low on health unless you completely missed them, or maybe allowed the striders to destroy the buildings.
Wow this was a suprise game as I thought game club was for under-valued games, But I love HL2 and will be playing along as always I’m really interesed about Tyler’s view as this will be proberbly his first time playing a HL game Get well soon Antony!!
If you guys want a good topic for next week, discuss some music you guys have been listening to. There hasn’t been a Rebel FM Music section (for a lack of a better word) in ages, and it seems like it might be a good idea if you don’t receive any better topics.
Fat Penis.
You want a good album, go out and purchase Mos Def’s The Ecstatic (immediately).
Half Life 2! Probably the only game that I will play 4 times and still like… (Next to that one is GRAW2 for some strange reason..)
Get better soon man! Can’t wait for the next REBELFM!
Was just wondering what your opinion was on that odd little extra level that was the Lost Coast. It introduced HDR, as well as the commentary system utilized in the Episodes. It just makes me think more games should have a stress tester. Actually I think all games should have those, and also developer consoles for cheats. Valve has spoiled me, and I HAVE to see my FPS up in the corner (cl_showfps 1). Wish Unreal games gave access to the consoles.
Hate to ask a question that’s prolly been asked a billion times, but is there a specific email address for the Game Club if we want to chat you guys up about a specific section of the game?
Anyway, this game, and my new tv, made me get back into a few other games last night. Dipped back into Zeno Clash, The Maw, and might just boot up The Witcher for a minute (not throwing out suggestions for future iterations of GC at all).
Peace
This is my first play through of HL2, as in 2004 I was in a gaming slump and I don’t think I played much beside Doom 3 and Metroid Prime 2 that year. So I’m coming into this experience with a lot of very high expectations, since I have heard for the last five years that this game is absolute perfection and does everything short of cure cancer.
However, what can I say in praise of it that hasn’t already been repeat a thousand times? And how can I criticize it without stepping all over someone’s sacred cow?
I’ve played through Ravenholm (on the 360), and so far I am ambivalent. Valve does a great job of slowly introducing a living, breathing world that feel much larger than what is just around the player. I also very much appreciate that there are not pre-rendered cut scenes, it helps greatly with the sense of immersion.
The boat section indeed felt like it lasted forever, and I had several issues with the physics. One was at the part where you drive your boat up into the warehouse, and then use a wheel to drop it down. When I lowered my boat it sprung straight back up through the hole, hit the roof, and then tumbled end over end back down. Luckily it landed right side up and I was able to continue.
The second time was after the (very satisfying) helicopter battle, where you open the gate on the dam and use the tree branches as a ramp to jump through. I wasn’t lined up quite right and hit the edge – but instead of dropping down to try again, I ended up bouncing all around the area like a ping-pong ball.
Ravenholm itself was a lot of fun, and I had a good time using the gravity gun and the environment against the zombies. The game did show it’s age a little bit here, as it appears every resident of the city just happened to be wearing the exact same outfit when the head crabs attacked!
That thing with the boat shooting up to the roof happened for me too, only it didn’t tumble as it fell. It just fell straight down, rightside up.
Also in that section while running from a helicopter I managed to make a jump off some boxes over a fence I don’t think I was supposed to make it over. I went a good 10 minutes of wondering around empty buildings until I made it back to where I was when I jumped the fence, coming the wrong way, when suddenly I was jumped from behind by soldiers that had spawned where I just was. I then went back through and all the soldiers were where they were supposed to be.
I’ve had similar physics wackiness during several play-throughs. I guess it’s just one of those things you eventually accept as a part of the engine. Unfortunately, the boat isn’t the only vehicle section that lasts a little too long.
Did you play the original Half-Life? I think part of the excitement was just due to the return of Dr. Freeman and his iconic crowbar. In any case, I think that as long as you stick to it, the end of Episode 2 will have you clamoring for more.
This is hard for me to admit – but I *watched* my husband play through the first one
Remember being very impressed at the time and being happy to have a computer that could run it.
Maybe this just got by me but does anyone know how far were supposed to play for thos week?
To the mines (through Ravenholm)
man, the second vol. of this game club is going to be massive.
The coast, Nova Prospekt, the streets, and the Citadel? did they forget how much stuff there is?
Just finished thru Ravenholm… I’ve gotta agree tho, that I remember being overwhelmed with how much more game there is the first time I played thru… the second ‘half’ of the game is going to be a slog.
I don’t remember the loads being so often either, but jeez… guess that’s my one real complaint. The constant loads bog down longer segments like the boat section and make them seem even looooonger. I also got stuck on a point in Ravenholm where I kept getting turned around, and there was a zack respawn, so I had to finish Ravenholm waaay low on supplies. I seem to get lost easily in games.
I hope Valve gets dynamic loading into their games, but not having any of the UT3 texture pop-in/long-ass elevator rides is nice.
(then again, PC load times are maybe 15sec at most, I don’t want to know 360/PS3s time)
I’m playing 360 (although I own the Orange Box on PC as well) and the load times aren’t that bad. I’ve got it installed on my hard drive though and that probably helps.
It’s not just that the loading times in HL2 were extraordinarily long, we were used to that length back when the game came out.
Playing through again, I’m surprised at their placement. Some of the loading screens so far happen during high tension moments rather than inbetween action, which makes them much more noticeable and frustrating.
i have a second copy if anyone needs one, steam name Macxd.
My initial impression upon installing half life 2 again was disappointment. Why does the game look like i never played it before? Why is the resolution so crappy? Where’s my steam cloud support? I have hopes of one day being able to install this game on a new PC and just messing around with the super gun in the citadel for fun, without having to play through the whole thing to get there (or storing save game files, either.)
Anyway, the game is still the fun half life 2 I remember. Still looks nice, if a little weirdly out of date by todays standards. I love how this game manages to always bust out something different for you to do, from the barehanded running in the beginning, to the boat section, to the pure fun of throwing giant saw blades around in Ravenholm. I love saw blades, i always try to carry one as far as possible every time i find one, until i lose it with a bad shot. Unlimited ammo, one shot kill weapon as long as i can keep finding where the shot went? Yes please!
As some have already said, i think the problem with the game is that it at times does feel like a tech demo, specifically several tech demos stuck together. Look, we can be fun without shooting. Look we can to the FPS thing too! Look, real physics leads to puzzles. Look vehicles! Vehicles with weapons! Boss Fight! Story time! Giant Robots! Extreme physics fun! Horror flick action!
It seems like the team was just given a direction to doing something interesting with the engine, just to see what they could do. But, then everyone was so happy with there particular baby’s that they couldn’t throw anything out! Unfortunately this made the game a bit too direction less at times, specially when some sections go on just a bit too long.
I’m glad you’re doing Half Life 2. I already played it, so I can just listen along and enjoy. I need a break, I’ve been putting off Dead Space for too long (I bought it when it came out). So now’s my time for some Dead Space. I just finished Heavenly Sword today…and that really sucked some joy out of Game Club. Actually, it was the one two punch of Republic Commando and Heavenly Sword. I thought both games were really dull. Heavenly Sword is the first game though where I loved the cut scenes and story, but hated the actual game. I’d give it a 6 out of 10 or so.
Oddly, I kinda hate action games in general (or at least DMC, Ninja Gaiden and Afro Samurai, still waiting for God of War repackaging) but I found Heavenly sword to be pretty fun. Maybe it’s because I love the twing twang. Gotta agree on Republic commando. A lot of that game (by which I mean all of that game) was frustrating corridor shooting (although I did quit halfway through Chp2)
Oh man I JUST replayed all these like two weeks ago. Wish I would’ve waited, but, eh, not a big deal.
Not sure you can make a segment out of it but i’d like to hear arthur geek out for a bit on the steps he goes through making the game club videos. It would be cool to hear about how he chooses the music as well since it always fit the visulas perfectly.
sorry, I ment visuals.
No Lost Coast love? It’s more than just a tech demo y’know.
Yeah, it’s a tech demo with a commentary feature!
Half Life 2 just never gets old, I swear. From the opening “interrogation” scene (I still love throwing shit at the combines in the train station and running from them as they try to whack me with their stun sticks) to the water buggy helicopter evasion filled with close calls, to the tense horror action of Ravenholm this game just offers up so much variety.
One minute you’re solving simple physics-based puzzles, the next you’re frantically smashing manhacks with the crowbar while avoiding lunging headcrabs. The agonized screams of the zombies still creeps me out.
By far my favorite thing about HL2 is how the story is all told in-game and you never leave the perspective of Gordon Freeman. The game never takes the reigns out of your hands giving you freedom to either stand around and pay attention to what the other characters are doing and saying, or wandering around the highly detailed environments checking out all the hard work that went into this game.
HL2 is definitely showing its age though. The controls feel floaty overall like every surface you walk on is coated with a layer of grease. It never bothered me in the past, but after playing more modern shooters with tight controls the slippery feeling of HL2 sticks out like a sore thumb. Also the fact that you can’t look down your gun sights takes some getting used to, in a genre where being able to do this is now industry standard. Still though, Half Life 2 is and will forever be a masterpiece in immersion, pacing and most importantly great game design.
The screams when you set them on fire are the best!
I don’t even need to play the game anymore, it’s all imprinted in my brain.. I started playing Half Life 2 a couple of months back, I just started playing episode 2. I play it on occasion. But lately I’ve been playing Batman a lot more, I don’t know what it is about that game but it feels so good to be a batman. And I don’t even read any comics!
Noted that it’s my 4th playthrough of the Half life 2 games. I’m a vet.
It’s probably my 4th or 5th playthrough of the original HL2. I’ve only played episode 1 once and episode 2 once. Ep1 is meh. Ep2 is awesome.
I have a gift pass (full game) for both Half Life 2 and Episode 1 (you will have to buy Episode 2 yourself). Reply with your Steam name and I’ll try to hook you up.
Also this game rocks.
Could you please hook me up with HL2? My Steam user name is TurboPubx-16. Thank you! (I was already gifted Episode 1.)
Sure no problem. You need to accept my friend request (Steam ID – j0rb) so I can gift it (you can apparently only send gifts to friends).
If anyone needs Episode 1 hit me up (j0rb) on Steam.
A great shooter this Ravenholm’s atmosphere is spine-chilling and Gregori is my favorite character from halflife
What an odd coincidence. I just splurged on the outlandish Novint Falcon. I’ll be playing along with full haptic feedback.
awsome choice!
i just picked up bioshock and orange box to start my back log of games i havent played and was wondering which i should tear into first.
You should tear into HL2 because, well, it’s better than Bioshock and it’s for game club!
Both excellent games though. Bioshock is more of a first person looter. You’ll understand when you start playing. Don’t forget to play Portal!
When I first saw that the game was going to be HL2 I was a little disappointed. I bought the title when it was first released years ago and while the first few minutes were enjoyable to me the experience ended pretty badly, resulting in me never getting any further than Ravenholm.
Upon playing it for Game Club I have to say I’m very happy it was selected. It turns out that there were a couple reasons I didn’t enjoy this game back in the day. The first being that my computer back then wasn’t up to snuff so it looked like crap and was choppy to play even on the lowest settings. The second was that I just wasn’t very good at playing shooters on a PC back then, I had always been a console guy.
This time around with a nice rig and years of FPS experience with a keyboard and mouse I’m doing much better and as a result enjoying it. Ravenholm while still spooky was not an overly terrifying thing to play, now when things jumped out at me from nowhere I could just level them with a well placed bullet.
Loving Game Club. Looking forward to hearing the discussion.
Been meaning to replay HL2 for a long time – thanks for the excuse! Oddly I’ve only ever been through the main game once, although I’ve replayed the episodes a couple of times. I always seem to get distracted by newer games.
Something I never noticed before – hurling paint cans with the gravity gun paints things. Then again, I just did a major upgrade to my PC so maybe it doesn’t happen on low spec machines.