Half-Life 2: Episode One Interview

"...And then Half-Life 2 was about how he was using you. Half-Life 3 [a.k.a. Episodes One to Three] is about the relationship.."

I dont know why, but the fact that they're reffering to the episodic releases as HL3 kinda bothers me. Maybe its because I feel HL3 (the real one) should be this monolithic thing, this whole new package of technology like HL2 was over HL1....hrm...maybe I'm just getting old. :/

Most interesting was how they said a couple tech demos may come out this year. 2 more lost coast type projects? i'm excited.

In reference to video game movies:

Eurogamer: Do you make a point of watching them just to see how bad they can be?

Gabe Newell: Yes [longest sigh ever]. I have to put on my professional 'I'm doing this for the company' hat, not the 'I'm a movie go-er whose soul is going to be crushed by another unbelievably crappy game adaptation' one.

Heh...so true. Bravo to Valve for having the integrity to hold out for a decent Half-Life movie.

Also, kinda surprised to hear that Valve tracks small details like what weapons we're using in the game. Does this mean that you know how many teammate npcs I've killed with the grav gun and 50gal barrels? 'Cause those were all accidents, you know...

Something that came out of the interview (and has been mentioned a few times) that I'm not clear on: This new "Ultra mode"... is it just automatically applied when you pick "high" shader details, or what? I can't see anything other than "low" or "high" in the Video -> Advanced menu.

I've got a Radeon X800 Pro (SM2.0b-class card), and a P4-2.4GHz (not that this should be relevant) - am I getting "Ultra" quality, or am I missing something here? Is it only for SM3 cards? Is there a way to force it on or off, to see the difference?

I know some of the Valve guys post on the Shack, so it would be nice to get a bit more detail on this. Ep1 certainly looks nicer than HL2, but if there's anything I can do to give it more of teh shiney, I'd love to know... I'm not exactly struggling for framerate at the moment!

Here's my interview question: why haven't you guys fixed the audio stuttering problem yet? :(

OMG Steam is monitoring us!

Another one by Newell:

What we've been trying to do is think about what sort of strategy to follow, so if you look back at Half-Life 1

You might want to strategize the planning a little bit, Gabe. If this is the suppose to be the start to HL3, you didn't start off nearly as well as HL2, and not much better than a fan mod.

Oh I loved this quote by Gabe Newell:

With Half-Life 2 we spent a lot of time thinking about this post-Combine world, what happens to it, and looking at the Eastern European art direction; the sensibility of it was really adding to that.

Sounds more like they just tossed a dart at the world atlas and hit something favorable. The East Euro design was cool, but hell, with that reasoning, why not go with a Hong Kong or just plain stay in the Americas?

I'll buy episode 2 if they promise to not use the flashlight at all. I got really sick of spending a good 30 minutes of the game in the dark. :(

I love their approach. I don't love everyting they do as a comapany but their basic tech philosophies are very positive and bold. and they know how to make a damn good game.

Episode 1 seems like a really good fan mod. I mean I bought it of course cuz it's HL2, and even a mediocre episode of Half Life 2 is fricking sweet, but I dunno, I was just expecting more. So I guess you could say I'm disappointed.

hahaha funny time to bash sony

Eurogamer: Any thoughts on doing a 360 version?

Doug Lombardi: We've announced that we're doing development work on the engine for the 360, but key titles and whatnot are all speculation. I saw a cover for an official PlayStation magazine that said we'd announced a PlayStation 3 version - that was interesting! We see a lot of that stuff...