>> Yeah, I read about this ages ago. I bet it won't be as cool as I'd hoped
>> though... Only one way to know. ;-)
>
> I have liked it so far. It's not just one of those "let's upgrade the
> original game with better models and textures". It has been, AFAIK,
> developed from scratch. It follows the original game quite faithfully,
> of course, but levels are often bigger and have more stuff in them, and
> many puzzles and sequences are completely different from the original
> (although the setting is usually the same).
>
> Oh, and the voice acting is new, and quite well done.

Having had a chance to actually play this properly now, I'm liking what 
I'm seeing.

(I didn't like that it took me almost half an hour to find a mirror 
which would actually let me download the game.)

It's based on the HL2:EP2 engine. It does that same thing the other HL2 
games do, with the menu floating over a scene from the game. The default 
graphics settings it picked were a tad lower than what my graphics card 
can actually handle. (It didn't pick the right image resolution for my 
LCD, and it also decided not to turn on AA, which my mighty nVidia 
GeForce GTX 260 easily handles.)

There's a rather obnoxious quantity of loading pauses during the iconic 
intro sequence. A lot of the environments look a bit less *ridiculously 
implausible* now. The environment sounds seem better too. On the other 
hand, there seems to be a lower density of "cool glowy things".

This carries over to the rest of the game. A lot of the empty box 
corridors now have windows into other areas, and the place seems more 
like a buzzing hive of activity than it did before. Basically the place 
looks less barren and more interesting. On the other hand, fewer lasers 
and stuff.

The footsteps on carpet sound is pretty cool. And the music isn't bad.

The voice acting is... Well, it's certainly decent. I'd suggest it isn't 
as good as the original, but honestly the original was recorded in such 
low quality that it's hard to say. I notice that there are /female/ 
scientists now. And while in the original game, the occasional guy would 
murmur "greetings", now the scientists seem to have a hell of a lot more 
to say. (Even if most of it just foreshadows "everything's about do go 
wrong", or is otherwise ironic.)

And then eventually I arrived at THAT room. You know the one. Ground 
zero. The place were it all went wrong.

I like that it doesn't have parts of the machine just /levitating/ now. 
It looks like a machine that could actually physically exist, and that 
an engineer might design. I like the way the room lighting changes when 
you switch it on. But shortly after that, the room starts to become 
drastically over-bright, and the lighting changes aren't nearly as 
effective. Given that this is arguably the single most important moment 
in the game, it could have been slightly more cinematic.

Some of the models, textures and sounds are brand-new. Some of them I 
clearly recognise from HL2. Some of the better voice clips sound like 
they were voiced by Harry Robins himself, heh. The dialogue certainly 
comes across as a little less wooden - no doubt thanks to the improved 
game engine.

There were a few glitches. When the zombies first show up, one chased a 
security guard into the lift shaft I just climbed up, and stood there 
apparently stuck in a loop with him attacking and the guard not 
returning fire. I walked off and left them to it, still unarmed. There's 
a /lot/ of zombies here, considering I have no weapon. (I like how you 
eventually find the crowbar wedged in a door.)

In the original game, you find the Glock just before you enter the area 
where the houndeyes hang out. But not here, apparently. There's still a 
dead security guard, but this time there's no dropped gun on the floor. 
It's quite hard to kill the houndeyes with only a crowbar; you tend to 
get fairly severely injured before you can finish them.

Eventually I did get a gun. But ammo seems to be /really/ scarce. For 
that matter, there are a few health stations around, but almost every 
single HEV charging station seems to be deactivated for some reason. I 
spent almost the whole game so far with 0% suit charge. (The levels seem 
to reward exploration though; there's a few power modules hidden around 
the place.)

Likewise, for a good portion of the game I've been finding an awful lot 
of magnum ammo considering I don't have the magnum yet. In one very 
annoying instance, I actually found the magnum, battled a little further 
on, and died. When the game reloaded, I forget to recollect the magnum, 
and by the time I realised it was too late. So I /still/ don't have the 
magnum!

I did eventually get the SMG and the shotgun though. A got as far as the 
Blast Pit, and then decided I just couldn't be dealing with my 
least-favourite room in the entire game this late at night with almost 
no ammo left for any weapon...

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