I am pretty sure I wasn't the only one who woke to the crushing news. The thread on Reddit tells me I am not alone. The long awaited Half-Life 2 Episode 3 has made its way into the world in a post by one its lead writers Marc Laidlaw who left Valve last year. This has been a particular thorn in the side of gaming for a long time and while this isn't the official end of the game, it sure feels like it.
Half-Life among the mods that came off of the engine was what defined steam. In fact, Steam originally came out in the beta stage of 1.6. I personally have cold memories of the start of it. There were cries of having to have an account to play a game you already bought, fear of online only that would come to be realized later, and when games were made available the viability of having only a digital copy of the game. Now it is the cornerstone of most PC gamers. In fact, I hardly own any solid copies of games anymore, mostly because there is no need to.
Half-Life 2 and Team-Fortress 2 re-affirmed this use of Steam for me and many others. It was no longer just a place where I held a few games but where I wanted to consolidate all of my games. This is still the case to this day but now everyone is trying to make their own clients because of Steam and Blizzard's success and the fact Steam cost a lot to publish through.
It seems that Half-Life 2 was a victim of its own success by creating such a hype around Steam that Steam took over the vision of Valve. No longer were the ground breaking games of Portal and Half-Life on the top of the to do list but managing the monolith that Steam had become.
It has been said that there was just too much hype around Episode 3 in the first place. That the game could not live up to expectation. I think this is a terrible argument because that has never hurt any studio before. Halo, for instance, didn't innovate that much overs several of their early titles. The graphics became a little sharper but nothing beyond flying was too revolutionary between the titles. It did enough to keep going but what compelled a lot of us was the story. A story that fainted over time because they stopped seeming to care but it's the story that would have kept us fans of Episode 3. Maybe it would not have received the outstanding review of the previous titles but I think most of us would have been just fine with some touched up graphics and some closure.
While Half-Life 2 brought unrivaled success, that success spelled out its eventual doom. Now instead of having Gordon take us on the last of his compelling adventure, we will have a small manuscript of what would have happened. What could have happened. It's a little heart breaking to know it's not happening.
Half-Life among the mods that came off of the engine was what defined steam. In fact, Steam originally came out in the beta stage of 1.6. I personally have cold memories of the start of it. There were cries of having to have an account to play a game you already bought, fear of online only that would come to be realized later, and when games were made available the viability of having only a digital copy of the game. Now it is the cornerstone of most PC gamers. In fact, I hardly own any solid copies of games anymore, mostly because there is no need to.
Half-Life 2 and Team-Fortress 2 re-affirmed this use of Steam for me and many others. It was no longer just a place where I held a few games but where I wanted to consolidate all of my games. This is still the case to this day but now everyone is trying to make their own clients because of Steam and Blizzard's success and the fact Steam cost a lot to publish through.
It seems that Half-Life 2 was a victim of its own success by creating such a hype around Steam that Steam took over the vision of Valve. No longer were the ground breaking games of Portal and Half-Life on the top of the to do list but managing the monolith that Steam had become.
It has been said that there was just too much hype around Episode 3 in the first place. That the game could not live up to expectation. I think this is a terrible argument because that has never hurt any studio before. Halo, for instance, didn't innovate that much overs several of their early titles. The graphics became a little sharper but nothing beyond flying was too revolutionary between the titles. It did enough to keep going but what compelled a lot of us was the story. A story that fainted over time because they stopped seeming to care but it's the story that would have kept us fans of Episode 3. Maybe it would not have received the outstanding review of the previous titles but I think most of us would have been just fine with some touched up graphics and some closure.
While Half-Life 2 brought unrivaled success, that success spelled out its eventual doom. Now instead of having Gordon take us on the last of his compelling adventure, we will have a small manuscript of what would have happened. What could have happened. It's a little heart breaking to know it's not happening.
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