First thoughts on Half-Life 2:

  1. Man am I glad I finally upgraded my computer.
  2. More importantly, I'm glad I upgraded my computer a couple months ago, so that I had time to freshen-up my FPS skills.
  3. The graphics, although amazing, don't really represent any giant leap forward. I'm still interested in trying the game out on a lower-powered machine (my new laptop, perhaps), since that may demonstrate the flexibility of the engine. But when you compare it to Doom 3 and Far Cry, they're visually all very comparable.
  4. The physics engine on the other hand is far better done than I was expecting. It's so amazingly pervasive. My single complaint is that you can't use the gravity gun (even the 'push' mode) on corpses.
  5. I'm three or four hours in (past Ravenholm, driving down the coast in a dune buggy), and I'm not 100% clear on what the story is. What the hell am I doing? I mean, I know my current task, which I won't expand on for fears of spoilering, but I don't know the whole point of what I'm doing in Half-Life-land.
  6. On the other hand, that doesn't keep it from being a ridiculously fun game.

I have other thoughts, but they aren't important. This game is great. Steam worked perfectly. I wonder when the first mods will start coming out..