HL2, 2 years late, more rain
I was talking to Charlie about my new system and he asked if I tried out any games on it. I only had installed WoW but that is not a graphical powerhouse of a game. I mentioned about Half Life 2 which I still had in the box from Christmas, Christmas 2004! Yes I got that game the same time I got WoW. I opened WoW before I opened HL2 and as a result HL2 has sat on my computer desk, unopened for over 19 months 🙂
Well anyway, Charlie said that would give me a real peek into the power of my new rig so last night I loaded it up. Wow, Valve has made it as much of a pain in the ass as possible to get the damn game up and running. First you go through installing the 5 cd’s which includes installing Steam, an annoying front end that constantly runs in your system tray, that is required to play the game. So after dumping 5 cd’s worth of data I figure I am ready to play, right? Wrong. You launch the icon and it brings up a Steam login screen, even if you just want to play single player, you have to create this online account. Once the account is created, great, now I am ready to play? No. Once you login to steam you have to activate the key that is on the first cd jacket. Whew, ok, ok, now I am activated, can I play yet? Nope. Now it has to unecrypt the files that are already installed on your hard drive (which takes a looong time) JC, ok can I play the f’in game now? NO! Steam also is nice enough to connect to the internet without asking you and downloading all the latest versions of the game files which even with a screaming broadband connection, takes a long ass time. So after more than an hour of prep, I finally get to play the damn game. A big thumbs down to Valve for not using common sense with their install procedure.
Well it only took me a few minutes in the game to forgive them for the shitty install process. I checked the graphic settings it selected for me and they were all set to high. I was blown away with the game. The realism is startling, the in-game physics are amazing, the detail of the characters is incredible, and the game is 2 years old! Since I have been exclusively enveloped in the cartoonish graphics of World of Warcraft for the last couple years I had forgotten how realistic FPS graphics can be. As I wandered through the game I was constantly aware of how incredibly realistic my surroundings were. I had my headphones on so the immersion was pretty complete. I could feel my blood pressure rising as I turned a corner and stepped into a firefight with multiple bad guys. The act of disposing of enemies in the game is taken to a new level as well. If I am off with my aim and am pumping the guy with bullets in his legs or chest he will not die nearly as quick as a well placed head shot. It rewards accuracy as opposed to older games where you could shoot a guy in the big toe or the face and have the same result.
I reluctantly drug myself away from the game after only maybe an hour and a half. It is just OUTSTANDING. I was surprised that while I was in the game my CPU temp app popped up an alert. Playing the game raised the temperature of my processor roughly 20 degrees, wow. I turned the alert off. I’m sure most of my cpu gaming time at home will be inside HL2 until I finish it. I heard the ending is disappointing so I will just have to enjoy the ride up to that point.
We got another 2 inches of rain yesterday. When I got home I was treated to a huge beautiful rainbow down our street that I snapped a few pics of with my Treo.
The rainbow was pretty, the sight of more standing water was not. The pic above gives a good look at our new front yard pond. There is a story in today’s paper about all the rain and how it has caused the worst flooding in our area since 1995. Since Ernesto, our area has seen as much as 20 inches of rain and at the minimum 10-14 inches. If they hadn’t sprayed for mosquitos we would be eaten alive right about now.