***shivers***
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And Halo!!! Still Halo 2 eludes the PC and yet number 3 is in progress! Grr I hope what with it being made with Vista in mind it's still XP compatable.
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Hate to disapoint you but: Halo 2 gamers face Vista upgrade

Looks like a case of the OS not being enough incentive for people to upgrade so MS have to resort to making their games exclusive to Vista in the hope people will upgrade. I doubt many will do it simply because of a several year old first-gen Xbox game.

You feel that other developers will support XP for the time being to make sure sales are strong (a large majority of the market is still on XP, so XP compatible will allow them to sell more games). Vista is still too buggy for the mainstream. I've had 20-30 BSOD's on it so far and that's with barely anything installed on it either software or hardware wise and just during normal usage.
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The instability is one of the reasons I've not upgraded to Vista yet. I always like to wait until the first service pack is out for any new OS before I take the plunge.

Also it seems more developers are starting to state their upcoming games will be Vista only, which I think isn't a good move yet as I cannot see enough of the market switching to Vista until at least this December before enough will be using the OS to make an impact on the XP userbase.

As for Halo 2, I bought it on release for the original Xbox, and while it was a good and enjoyable game back then, it does show its age now compared to newer titles on the PC and the newer consoles, as well as newer PS2 games even looking better! It won't have stood the test of time if and when it finally gets a launch on the PC unless Microsoft have been spending all of this extra time updating the game engine.
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Normally, that's what I do too, but in this case I needed a new desktop at short notice so I had to get a pre-built one, which had Vista on it.
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Hello all,

In case you are interested, I found this article yesterday.
Warning, it does have some plot spoilers.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...62955&site=pcg

Also, some of you might have heard that the 'Black Box' edition of half Life 2 Episode 2 has been cancelled.
I pretty much assume that the Orange Box edition will be sold at the full price of a game, why did Valve pull such a stunt?

Its pretty obvious that a lot of the Half Life fans already have half Life 2 and Half Life 2 Episode 1, and now they have to pay again for a full game while the marketing gimmick was that the independent episodes would be cheaper.
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Did Valve ever actually say that each episode would be cheaper? I'm not sure they did.

Also I don't get what the problem is with having to pay a full game price if an episode is full length in content and size. Just because it is an episode doesn't mean it has to be a cut down shorter release. For me an episode denotes that the release is a continuation of the original HL2, rather than a complete sequel which calling it HL3 would suggest.
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Hello Harrison,

In the magazines they sold the idea that the 'Episodes' would be quicker developed and would not be as expensive as a full game.

What I simply don't like is that I have to pay for a full package, the one game I want to play and the two games I already have.

I think you are mistaken regarding the idea that the episodes have the length of the original Half Life 2, rather you should see Episode 1 as a third of Half Life 2's length.

Again this was done so that the Episodes could be released faster onto the market.
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Sorry I didn't make that completely clear. I know episode 1 was shorter as I've played it, but that did cost less that a full game. I was speaking in terms of the concept of episodes in gaming in general, not just half life. I personally don't see why releases called episodes need to be shorter, with less development time and a lower cost if they contain as much content as the original release.

You could look at Episodes as being another name for Expansions. Something we have long seen being released for video games, with the original HalfLife seeing quite a few of its own expansions that extended the game from different viewpoints.

It is true that the original concept of episodic game releases was to take what would normally be a single full game release and instead release it in chunks, allowing for shorter development time per episode and cheaper prices per episode. Sam and Max is a good example of this in action. In marketing terms this idea is very desirable as it allows for regular revenue through regular releases and when added together the cost of all of the episodes will end up being more than if the game had been released as a single game. But equally Sam and Max is also a good example of why it doesn't work. Shorter development time and a much cheaper episode price means the content can suffer badly and you can end up with episodes that are not worth bothering with.

Valve realised that the original episode idea wasn't going to work based on the grand ideas they have for the HL2 universe, so have instead extended the development time of episode 2 and are making it a much larger expansion.

I do agree that it isn't right if the only way to purchase episode 2 is to buy it bundled with the original game and first episode. But surely it can be purchased via steam like the first one? Using this method it should prove much cheaper to purchase.

But if that does prove to be the only way to purchase it you always have an alternative. Fly the Jolly Roger!
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