Half-Life 2: Episode+One

Excellent review. I'm a huge fan of Half-Life, Blueshift being the only "episode" I haven't bothered with. However, I now find my spare time very limited. Reading this, I'm left with the impression that Ep1 is to HL2 what Opposing Force was to HL1 - short, but with plenty of action and still fleshing out the story.

The thought of more excellent HL action, without having to devote several weeks to late night/early morning gaming in order to reach the end is very tempting. In fact, when I get home tonight, I'm going to get this thing off Steam, then I'm going to crank up HL2 and play it through from the beginning.

I wonder if I'll have to go 2 months before my audio drivers will fix the lack of surround support, like I did with HL2

...so off I trotted and downloaded Ep1. After much anticipation, I cranked the game and ...

"your video driver is out of date"

God I hate PCs. Okee doke ... ati.com ...
Um, ATI's site is offline. <click> "continue"

"Launching HL2:Ep1..."

<window disappears>

"hl2.exe has encountered a problem..."

AAAARRRGHHHH! I hate PCs!

...

ATI site finally comes back online. Downloaded latest Catalyst drivers. Installed. Crashed mid-install. Restarted. Reinstalled. Restarted.

PCs are just great, aren't they?

"Launching HL2:Ep1..."

<window disappears>

"hl2.exe has encountered a problem..."

Double mega ultra AAAARRRGHHHH!

Did I mention how I hate PCs?


...oh, and guess what? HL2 doesn't work any more. FFS...

I got the "out of date video driver" message but couldn't be arsed with the huge Catalyst download so just ignored it - the game ran fine.

Laziness rules!

Well, I got HL2 and Lost Coast working last night, this time by going to the device drivers panel (via My Computer) and using Windows Update to find the latest driver.

With this, Ep1 no longer crashed with the "hl2.exe can generated errors". Nope, I get the menu, go through the whole Alyx/explosion intro, vortigaunts, MiB, etc, the "Undue Alarm" text pops up and fades out, but then I'm left with a view of the Citadel, but the GFX round the edge of screen are corrupt, I can move the mouse and bit a little movement on screen, but nothing else. As soon I go to the menu and try to select soemthing, the whole thing hangs.

:(

F**king Windows PCs and that f**king spit/glue/selotape system binding.

PS. Lost Coast crashed when I accidentally click the flashlight key, and - Moschops - 5.1 surround doesn't seem to work - I get something in the back two, but it's not what I'd expect. Poo bah.

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