This game, so far, has really exceeded my expectations. After having a traffic nightmare to deal with in order to get my disc (yes I bought the disc and am pretty happy about it, got 2 tshirts to boot, and they aren't that bad as some have said.),
I joyfully played for 4 hours and now I'm suffering for it. The graphics are great, the controls feel so responsive, I love the gun and the zoom. When you first walk outside a huge smile just popped onto my face. Everything just looked amazing, except for the grass which is pulling a Duke3D trick. Incredible atmosphere too. I can't wait to get back to play more, as this is now going to take up all my spare time.

I'm at Ravenholm right now, what an awesome level. I love the gravity gun!

Weird because i tried that prob 15-20 times (i hit the imaginary wall).. then the other way and no problems first time? oh well, i'm past it. are you sure the tanks didnt blast the hole first? anyway, its easy that way

Yeah, I blew up both gun trucks, managed to get the boat under the pier, then ran around under there. I blew the hole in the container and went. "oohhhh, that would have been much easier."

Figured it out last night. When I installed Windows XP service pack 2 months ago; it locked up my computer and didn't load. I gave up on it and figured it didn't load and things would be fine. I did notice that my start up times after that were much longer though I didn't put it together. I bought Doom3 even though I knew it wouldn't play on my machine but knew I would get a better computer some time and just wanted to give it a try. Needless to say it wouldn't install and I figured it was due to the fact my computer wasn't up to min requirements. Then last night, HL2 wouldn't install b/c of an error with windows installer. I looked around on the net to reinstall it (windows installer) but couldn't find it. Spent $40 on bugdoctor b/c free scan showed 40 errors on my machine (it didn’t fix my installer error) and windows update wouldn't work b/c it also was giving me an error message. After a lot of searching around the net for my specific problem, I finally decided to uninstall windows service pack 2. This took a while and then I had to reinstall a number of my drivers and by then it was midnight. The good thing was that it fixed my windows installer problem and I was able to install the game (bought collectors edition). As others have said, it took forever to install along with the steam authorization and it was nearing 2 AM (Had to be up by 5:30 for work). Of course it said that my video card drivers were old and should get new ones but since it was so late, I thought I would skip this and see what would happen. It got about 30 seconds in and then locked up. I then got the new driver but didn't try to play b/c I didn't want to wait for the reboot (and the fact that if the game worked I would not have been able to stop playing). I hope I will have some time today to give it a go. I may need to cut back the extras and resolution but expect to have it up and running soon. I can't wait. Glad to hear most think it lived up to the hype.

Yeah, I didn't even make it to this weekend before I bought it. I went with the Silver package over Steam. Hopefully I won't be disappointed with what Steam brings to the table.

i was putting the extra 8 digits at the end of the key on there and getting invalid key.. Found out online that those last 8 digits are NOT part of the key.. so watch out grrrr

Looks like I am out of luck unless they release a patch that fixes my issue. First of all, the game locked up about 30 seconds into the G Man speech. After some searching, looks like this is a common problem. A few people could get by this by going to the console and starting at the train station. I was able to play for a little minute or so but then it locked up again. I am guessing that my RAM is part of the problem (256) but othe issue is that even though I have the most recent drivers for my video card (NVIDIA GeForce4 420 Go) it still comes up when I start the game that my drivers are out of date. Oh well, will hopefully have a new computer by Jan. 2005 if I can wait that long.

Geforce 420 Go? that would be your problem Probably locks up on the G-Man speech because it uses shaders and stuff your card doesn't have.

Shows what I know. My PC was bought when HL came out and so the only thing that had a chance of playing HL2 was my laptop which has a the Geforce 420 Go. I guess I am out of luck unless someone has some ideas for me.

What direct x version are you using? Look under Options->Graphics->Advanced. I don't know what direct x version your card supports but maybe changing that setting to a lower version would help.

Anyone happen to unlock this with a dial-up connection? I'm curious as to how long it took.

I want to pick this up, but seeing as broadband users are runig into timeout issues and whatnot, I would imagine it would be worse for those of us on dial-up.

Loving it, loving it...

Of course I suck at games, and play them my own way, which would seem torturously slow to most people, reloading every few minutes to improve on what I did for the last 200 feet, taking every step dozens of times... Always treating action games like stealth games...

After my four hours of gameplay, I have been awarded with my first pistol!

Man with that style, the citizens of City 17 are probably thinking Gordon has a major case of OCD.

The Water Hazard level was one of the top 3 levels of all time, IMO. Amazing.

I've been playing for the last couple of hours and loving it. I forgot just how much performance Valve can squeeze out of a machine. I remember being amazed at how well the original half-life ran on my already outdated PC back in 98. I was even more amazed with this one. To make room for this one I unistalled MOH-Pacific Assult, and the contrast is shocking. HL2 looks and plays much better.

I usually play like adamblast. Stealthy, even when I'm not suppose to be. But the storyline of HL2 has me running around so much I don't even care that I'm running and gunning, which I usually don't enjoy as much.

do u guys think my system:
athlon xp 1800+ (1.5ghz)
512mb pc2100 RAM
currently Geforce 4 ti4200

would run hl 2 decently? i tried to play far cry and it was playable but crapped itself in some sections

i am thinking of getting 6600 gt so i can play hl2

I have a similiar setup:

1.66Ghz XP
same memory
ATI 8500

It runs very well. I have had a few audio/video stutters, but only just after an area load, not during firefights or heavy action, and the area loads take a little longer than I would like, but the game is definitely playable (at 800x600). Much better than when I played FarCry. I'm sure it would look better on a DX9 card, but it still looks pretty amazing.

800x600?

augh

Just finished the game. Man that was fun! Awesome game from beginning to end!! I'd say the endgame is much improved over the original's. I'll definately play through this one again at some point. Right now I'm going to start on Metroid Prime 2 though.

yeah, the end was a little odd. I was a bit indifferent about it when it happened, but after a while of thinking it over. I liked how they ended it.

2400+ Athlon XP
512MB RAM (a bit faster than yours, but can't remember how fast right now)
GeForce 4 Ti4400

Looks fine at 1024x768 - I don't get all the effects, but most of the cool stuff does show. I'll have to play through this again once I upgrade my rig. Your biggest weakness right now is that cpu actually... but it should play fine.

I also have tried playing this on a Dell server

Win2000 pro
1.5ghz P4
512MB Ram
GeForce 2 gts

Plays okay, but wouldn't want to go through the entire game on it.