Half Life 2 - Lost Coast
Tonight Valve unexpectedly (well, for me anyways) released Lost Coast, a free addon for Half Life 2. It’s only about fifteen to twenty minutes long but it’s meant to be a showcase for the Source engine and the new HDR lighting system and it certaintly serves it’s purpose - it’s gorgeous. The game gave me warnings when I tried to run on my system, but it turned out that with everything maxed out (including 2X anti-aliasing) it ran quite well:
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
thom said,
October 28, 2005 @ 11:45 am
wow, thats really beautiful.
derek said,
October 28, 2005 @ 2:42 pm
Yeah, I’m going to try it this weekend. Hopefully I won’t get bit by the stutter bug as HL2 has been unplayable for the last month and half.
We’ll have to see! Nice pics though.
Luke said,
October 28, 2005 @ 3:24 pm
You’re talking about the old man, right Thom?
D: Sucks about your luck. The only time I had stuttering was when a game demo I tried stealth-installed Starforce. Other than that I’ve had a pretty good overall experience with Steam & Source.
Ron said,
October 28, 2005 @ 6:16 pm
That’s some impressive scenery.
Also, out of curiosity, what’s ‘Starforce’?
Luke said,
October 29, 2005 @ 12:29 pm
Starforce is probably the worst implementation of a copy-protection system that exists. It installs a bunch of hidden device drivers to monitor all sorts of shit, watchs for virtual CD/DVD mounting tools, checksums the games you’re playing and all sorts of weird shit. Oh and since it’s device drivers, it means of course that the Starforce-”protected” game can only be played and installed as Administrator (par for the course on Windows though).
Check it out on Wikipedia, I’m sure they’ve got a better explanation.
Anyways for some reason some publishers insist on putting this shit in their *demos*. Remember when demos were actually redistributable and you could upload them to your local BBS and what not? Yeah. I thought that was the fucking point of the demo. Starforcing a demo is probably one of the most retarded things a publisher can do.
Ron said,
October 29, 2005 @ 6:14 pm
Wow, that is retarded. It’s not enough that video gaming is a 13B$ a year industry, but they just have to go after that extra little bit. Or rather they feel the need to shut down those people that don’t have that extra cash to kick in for a game that may or may not be any good. And copy-protecting a demo, while I can see reasons for it (ensuring that it makes it to end users unaltered), still seems a lot over the top.
Matt said,
October 30, 2005 @ 3:18 am
you know what else is retarded!?!?! Drinking Yogurt.. just call it milk!!
ps. I suppose the game looks fun.. :P