I had a crack at converting a segment of FakeFactory's Cinematic Mod. Hopefully someone will play this despite its obvious filesize issue. Notes: Think it took about 3 weeks to fix everything up and get it ready. A lot of the textures have been reduced to 512s from 1024s and 2048s. That had to be done otherwise you would be looking at something multiple times bigger.
Optimised the best I could, though I'm a novice. Lots of nodraw, removing unseeen places and funcoccluders to hide props. It originally had a lot more rocks. They looked good but it made it difficult to bunny without hitting one and stopping dead or flying up in the air.
They were a nightmare for framerate as well (unless you have a modern computer and I don't). So I've removed a lot of them and for the remaining ones sorta made my own crude collision models with player clip boxes and an invisible tool texture on the top so that props can lie on them without sinking through. Apparently that'll cut up more vis leafs but that's the best idea I could come up with. I decided against making the red van a propphysicsoverride and kept it static because when you pushed it, it wouldn't play well with the surrounding rocks and it broke the sense of things. Similar thing with the bus - I strangely died a few times after pushing it so kept it static. The red van doesn't make a metal sound when you hit it. I couldn't get the CM detail grass to work and it really did my head in so I had to stop.
Eventually used some stock grass. And I have no idea how to do the particle effects when you shoot the cars like in CM or the custom bullet decals, so theyre not there either.
But I did add my own thing to it and took the oil drum skins from HL2: Survivor and combined them into one model. They don't actually function any differently, but I like the purple one especially.
Although they're not great quality. Make sure you have 'rocclusion 1' on to boost the fps (I get 10-20+ frames in certain areas) and (optional) 'matcolorcorrection 1', 'matbumpmap 1' (makes the vehicle textures stand out) and HDR. If you have an issue with cubemaps not looking right, lanuch the game in matdxlevel 90. If I use level 95, some are too shiny (including the crossbow.) 29MB unpacked and 212MB packed (uncompressed). 87MB compressed with 7zip. There you go.
Thanks to Juergen Vierheilig/FakeFactory for permission to reuse the content.
Its literally advertised as a 'graphics enhancement' on its own website. If there was a disclaimer on the download saying 'this is a cliche wacky trash b-movie hollywoodish mod' then i think a lot of people would have less issue with it, but its being presented as a totally serious graphics enhancement meant to enhance the game; instead it just ruins any mood and atmosphere the game already had with out of place textures, posters and details thay dont fit thematically or logically, and really creepy sex stuff op, if you see dildos and shit as 'minor nitpicks' then id hate to see what you think an actual problem is.
Long time no see, eh? I want to replay Half-Life 2 with some mod/flavor to enhance the experience, but I also want to keep it as close to vanilla as possible.
Fakefactory
i.e. Some stay away from complete 'remakes' such as some versions of Cinematic Mod. But few non-radical gameplay additions. or graphical improvements won't hurt. Can you help me?. I didn't pay attention to modding scene for some time so I'm not aware of what's on the plate.
If you want to recommend some mod or version/flavor of Cinematic Mod or SMOD that's not on the list - please comment and I'll add it. I'd want to stay away from non-canon weapons and NPCs, and radical gameplay changes. Optional ones such as bullet-time, kick or ironsights are fine, because I just can avoid using them. Also, feel free to just discuss any HL2 story mods in general.
The sky churns with deadly energy. Looming above, the stricken Citadel claws into the heavens, its tip crackling with transdimensional discharges. The stage is set. Lights, camera—wait, hold everything. I almost forgot to switch on the Cinematic Mod which adds a bevy of high-quality textures, shadows, and a film-style lighting filter to the works.
Now I'm Director Freeman. The Cinematic Mod has been around since 2005, but updates continue rolling out regularly, with the most recent 12.1 patch releasing last month. Installing the meaty 30GB(!) mod results in a slew of immediately visible differences: high-resolution skins for everything (yes, everything, including character models for Alyx Vance, Barney, and others), dynamic shadows, and flared lighting seemingly ripped straight from a Mass Effect nightclub. The potpourri of post-production punch 'gives the HL2 trilogy a more stressed, darker, and uncomfortable look,' according to the mod's website. It's essentially Half-Life 2's version of the popular ENBSeries add-ons, and the Cinematic Mod needs some hefty hardware.
You'll want at least a quad-core processor and 4GB of RAM for the suite of color adjustments and shader smoothing. You'll get to find out what really lurks within the GMan's pockmarks.
Head over to the mod's website for more info. The Half-Life 2 Cinematic Mod has been around forever, and in that time has proven fairly divisive. Sure, it adds some lovely effects to the game, but it also makes so many changes that some feel it loses a little of Valve's original vision for City 17 and its surrounding countryside. The 'improved' character models are a particular bone of contention. I could never get past the latter, with almost everyone in the mod, but if all you care about are environmental effects and the crusade to make a game that's nearly ten years old look brand new, you might want to watch the new video below and see how far the mod has progressed since its inception back in 2005. If you can meet its surprisingly hefty specs (at least for the full range of effects, considering the game's age), you can download the mod below.
Half Life 2 Cinematic Mod Crack Download
Official Site, via. Query your cortical data node and you'll recall NeoTokyo was chosen along with 20 other titles for Steam Greenlight's second round of approvals back in October. The mod itself has been around for much longer, originally appearing in simple deathmatch form for Unreal Tournament 2004. Four years later it transitioned to the Source engine, where it languished without updates-until today, when developer Studio Radi-8 released a fresh version out of nowhere (which is apparently becoming a thing now), adding eight new maps and higher-quality weapon models. The modes: deathmatch and Capture the Ghost (the latter, in a tip of the hat to NeoTokyo's inspiration from dystopian sci-fi anime classics such as Ghost in the Shell and Akira, replaces the flag with an android torso). The classes: Recon, Assault, and Support. Each brings special vision modes such as motion-tracking and infrared, and with the exception of the Support role, everyone can cloak for a short duration.
Before each round, you select your primary weapon from an armory that grows as you gain rank from kills and victories. Think cyberpunk Counter-Strike. It's quite the fun setup. The maps stick to the cyberpunk theme of dense city blocks, military installations, and industrial decay, with plenty of near-future gadgetry and set pieces of glowing computer interfaces and multi-legged tanks with scary-sounding Japanese names. Server selection is rather sparse at the moment, but it should hopefully jump up as word of the update spreads.
You and your fellow operatives can get in the action by downloading NeoTokyo from its official website. Someday, Valve will eventually run out of wonderful features to pack into its mega-gaming-hub Steam. Let's hope it's a long way off, because we'll all be busy poring over the user-written manuals, walkthroughs, and tips for our various games in the newly launched Steam Guides section of Steam's Community area. Anyone can create and submit a guide for the game of their choice by clicking the new Guide tab on a game's Community Hub page. You can pretty up your words with images and embedded YouTube videos as well, and the guides also appear upon Steam's overlay whenever you're running a program. I can finally whip up my 'How to avoid tigers' guide I've been planning for Far Cry 3 quickly and easily.
Head over to the Steam Guides page to take a look at the over 1,000 guides already created. The hurricane of savings that's swirled over PC gaming in the past few years has been tremendous. Deep discounts seem to pop up weekly on digital stores like Amazon, GOG.com, and Steam. But should the ubiquity of sales fundamentally change our buying habits? In this Face Off debate, Logan argues that waiting for a sales gets you get a more refined product at a cheaper price.
But Evan thinks that waiting too long denies you the best-possible experience, especially in multiplayer games. Jump over to the next page for more opinions from the PC Gamer community, and make your own arguments in the comments. Debate team captains: it’s your time to shine. Hanging on to your cash for a while—a few months, a year, or whenever you’ve caught up with that backlog that’s been building up—buys you a game that’s had its bugs squashed, costs far less on sale, and probably even runs better on your machine. Remind me what the downside is again?
Evan: We play games to have great experiences, right? In most cases those experiences diminish in value over time. Technology ages. Stories are spoiled. Sequels outdo their predecessors. I’m not advocating against the ridiculous sales we’ve seen in recent years, but looking back, being needlessly frugal would've denied me some of my most precious gaming experiences.
Playing Left 4 Dead every night after work in October ‘08 with my friends was so special because we were mutually discovering the game together. I can’t put a price tag on that. Logan: OK, let’s be clear here: I don’t think buying games at launch is a bad thing. You can bet your pet headcrab that I won’t be waiting for Half-Life 3 to hit the discount bin. What I’m saying is that with a little patience (and, sure, some deft spoiler-dodging), you get a better experience at a far lower price. Sure, you miss out on being a part of the conversation when a game launches. Like how pissed off people were about the save-corrupting bugs in The Walking Dead series, which to the best of my knowledge were fixed by the time you could buy the entire season during the Steam Winter Sale for half-price at $12.50!
Evan: Oh, whatever. If you wait until a game is bugless, you’ll be waiting forever. The Walking Dead was more than playable at launch—we gave it a 90.
The conversations I had with friends about that game (and Mass Effect, and Far Cry 3, and XCOM) are worth so much more to me than $12—it’s a lesser game without that. I think you’re overstating the impact that launch issues actually have. Other than Diablo III and, I don’t know, Sword of the Stars II last year, when were games unacceptably broken at launch? If I was picking up Diablo III now—assuming I could actually twist a friend’s arm to reroll a new character—that pristine experience of grinding our first dungeons together and feeling caught up in something new together would be gone. Beyond that, I think we should be mindful that our purchases have a real and actual impact on developers. Last year, Rockstar Vancouver, Big Huge, Black Hole, 38 Studios and Paragon Studios closed. Great games don’t exist unless we support them.
Logan: You’re being hysterical. It’s not just about bugs and launch issues. It’s about enjoying a smoother ride overall, and getting stuff like new features and levels to boot! Evan: Listen, all I’m asking you to consider is this: How many indie developers’ malnourished babies are you personally responsible for? Logan: I am not a baby malnourisher.
I don’t want to deprive developers of handsome profits. In fact, I wish I had a leaf blower that blew cash into their windows. It’s just that I—like most gamers—have a limited budget. Buying games at a discount means that I can buy more games. And feed more babies. Look, developers who don’t want to discount their games simply won’t do so.
But most do put their games on sale because, ultimately, it makes them more money. Evan: My imaginary leaf blower also shoots money.
Waiting months to buy something isn’t universally the best budget decision if you’re passionate about a game. It’s actually becoming more prevalent for pre-orders to provide incentives or actual savings over the retail price. In the case of free-to-play games like MechWarrior Online and Tribes: Ascend, putting money down before release got me extra in-game currency, extra content, and immediate access. Multi-copy packs are also usually a great deal—in Borderlands 2’s case, you could get four copies for the price of three at launch, something that’s much harder to do after release. Logan: Oh, yeah, pre-order bonuses can be great deals too, and the Borderlands 2 promotion was a pretty smart way to get cheapskates like me to pony up before launch. But these are exceptions to a general rule of thumb that’s indisputable: if you can wait it out, you’ll almost always get a better product for less money. Any way that you legitimately purchase a game is supporting the developer.
If you insist that supporting a developer means paying more than you have to, then I think that what you’re talking about is a contribution, or charity. Evan: Waiting for patches might give you a less buggy game, but I don’t think you’ll necessarily get a better experience, which is what you’re paying for. Sure, EA made Battlefield 1942 free last year, but replaying it years removed from its popularity wasn’t fun for me at all.
Moreso than film or books, games age. Hopping into Battlefield 3 now—just 14 months after release—and you’d miss out on the volcano of enthusiasm, shared discovery, and level playing field in the metagame that existed at launch. There’s always going to be several games a year where I’m going to want to be there on day one. If you wait four or five months—about as long as it typically takes to shed 25% off something on Steam—or longer, you’ll have missed out on that. Logan: But remember, games acquire new fans when they’re discounted or go free-to-play.
Solution: make new friends. Evan: Or we could get everyone we know to wait six months to buy a game.
For more opinions on PC gaming, follow Logan, Evan, and PC Gamer on Twitter. On the next page: more opinions from the community. For more perspectives, we've poured out some of your thoughts from the bucket of opinion known as Twitter below.
@pcgamer It depends on if they're $60 triple A titles for me. $60 is too much for most games, especially after last year's disappointments.— Coalton Ross (@Coalton) January 14, 2013 @pcgamer If you're a fan of the game, the series, the studio, etc.then yes, it's your job as a fan to positively reinforce great work.— Kevin Robertson (@krobulous) January 14, 2013 @pcgamer To anyone who has any sort of budgeting they should never buy on release date. Waiting for a sale is the only way.— Ryan Melanson (@RyePunk) January 14, 2013 @pcgamer established franchises or series yes (elder scrolls), New and unproven games wait for more info and reviews.— Now Hiring Henchmen (@HiringHenchmen) January 15, 2013 @pcgamer It's definitely difficult to see the game you paid $60 for be repackaged with extras for the same or lower price. 'Return to Ravenholm,' aka 'Half-Life 2: Episode 4,' was a episode set in the spooky abandoned town. It's been canceled for a few years now, but we've gotten a better look at the game that could have been thanks to some new concept art and animation tests. It was in development at developer Arkane Studios around 2006, but was ultimately scrapped. Revealed the new shots, with 's Craig Pearson confirming their authenticity.
According to Valve's Marc Laidlaw, the project had been canceled because the defining qualities of Ravenholm (headcrabs and zombies) were feeling 'played out,' and the game's placement in the timeline of the other episodes was a 'creative constraint.' But if you're curious to see the small bits remaining of the project, check out the video below. For years now, there have been rumors and reports of a now-cancelled Half-Life 2 episode called Half-Life 2: Return to Ravenholm. The project, an overview of which can be found, was to be a collaboration between Valve and Dishonored-makers Arkane, and would, presumably, take players back to the creepy, zombie-infested village of Ravenholm. The existence and cancellation of Return to Ravenholm was in January of last year. The folks at ValveTime have from the long-cancelled project.
They've compiled them into the video above, as well. For clarity's sake: These screens are old, and no one has any reason to think the project has been un-cancelled or anything like that. Seeing as how the images come from an unconfirmed (by us) source and the game apparently never got very far into development, I'd suggest taking them with a grain of salt.
I've reached out to both Arkane and Valve to ask about their authenticity, and will update if I hear back. It wouldn't be an article about Half-Life unless I closed with some sort of Half-Life 3 joke, so no, you know what? This one time I'm not gonna do it. ValveTime, thanks Glenn. The Half-Life 2 Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator Replica will go on sale in April, but they're going to be pretty tough to get hold of. Joystiq have noticed a sales page on Think Geek offering NECA's 1:1 model for $150.
Best Half Life 2 Mods
There will only be 5000 sold worldwide. Once they sell out, 'they're gone forever!'
The two foot gun features 'orange LEDs, 2 handles, 2 triggers, 4 unique sounds from the game.' You'll find a list of pre-order links here on the NECA pre-order page. I think I prefer their Portal gun, but sadly that's flown out of stock. All that's left is a little note saying that the entire batch went in less than half an hour. There's more merch on the NECA site, and you can get a closer look at the Gravity Gun replica in this photograph right here. Contrary to popular belief, the anticipated Oculus Rift virtual reality headset doesn't run on pixie dust and elf tears.
Like all hardware, it needs software drivers. And while its 20-year-old creator, Palmer Luckey, focuses on manufacturing more developer kits to meet the exceedingly high demand, enthusiastic 3D fans are already planning homebrewed custom drivers. One such project is CyberReality's Vireio Perception which extends Rift 3D support to first-person greats such as Portal 2, Skyrim, Mirror's Edge, and Left 4 Dead.
As CyberReality describes it, Vireio (or Virtual Reality Input Output, but we like how the shorthand name sounds like an enemy boss) can 'pre-warp the image to match the Oculus Rift optics, handle custom aspect-ratios (needed for the Rift's strange 8:10 screen), and utilize full 3D head-tracking.' As we describe it: Whoa. The drivers work with nine games so far: Left 4 Dead, Half-Life 2, Portal 2, Skyrim, Mirror's Edge, AaAaAA!!!, Unreal Tournament 3, Dear Esther, and DiRT 2. CyberReality plans to add additional games in the future after spending more time with the kit.
If all goes well, the possibilities are enormous: Think of revisiting classics such as Thief or Deus Ex with full head-tracking vision. Oh, yes, this is exciting. Thanks, PCGamesN. Black Mesa's overhaul of Gordon Freeman's educational field trip is a lovingly crafted tribute to the FPS classic, but it's still not entirely done. Although the team is working on the concluding Xen areas, certain earlier parts took cuts to stay on schedule. A notable example is the Surface Tension chapter which abruptly cuts off after a one-man assault on the dam section. Luckily, one gamer took it upon himself to design and restore missing levels with the Surface Tension Uncut mod.
Modder TextFAMGUY1's three levels cover Surface Tension's second half, including a tangle with a tank, flying alien manta ray things, and a lot more zappy noises. Like the majority of Black Mesa, the mod's level design incorporates new buildings and altered layouts while keeping the core pacing right on track with the 1998 original. It's unknown if the Black Mesa team will go back at some point and release official updates to the shortened levels, but TextFAMGUY1's effort is here now, so head to Mod DB to download it, and keep an eye out for more of TextFAMGUY1's work—he's planning a retouch of the On a Rail chapter next.
I just purchased and installed Half Life 2 and have run into a problem that looks the same. I'm at about the 20 game hour mark in Anti Citizen level d3c1706b when HL2.EXE either hangs or just exits with the following Windows error event: Source: Application Hang Event ID: 1002 Description: The program hl2.exe version 0.0.0.0 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed.
I have installed steam on 3 different systems and it results in the same issue at the same point.