Half Life 2: The Lost Coast Review (PC)

Age Rating:

15+

What is it?

It’s a tech demo with bad guys from Half Life 2 (HL2) to keep you entertained whilst you’re gawping around the latest instalment in the line of free content from Valve.

Is it fun?

Err, yes, briefly.

[Or see a second opinion from Tikipod here]

Is it worth the money?

(Free! With pre-requisites)

Yes.
But you have to buy HL2 first (US$39.95 and requires a credit card), install Steam, play HL2, then download The Lost Coast and then you can start dribbling my friends, start dribbling indeed!

Why?

Its very, very, very pretty (HL2 was no munter in the first place!), short (15 minutes game time without the Valve commentary) and it will melt your PC.

Now unless you have won the lottery or spend thousands of pounds on your PC every year (i.e. have an ATI X800/850 or NVidia 6600GT gfx card), Steam will inform you that your system isn’t up to it. Ignore this warning (if you can – it’s a bit in-your-face), as it will run surprisingly well with all the eye candy turned on as the Valve 3D engine (aka Source) is pretty cool on all types of PC.

Gone are the days when it was the latest FPS from ID software running John Carmack’s PC-melting 3D engine that would make you look at your PC and think “Damn I wish I had lots more money to upgrade this thing”. Now Valve have stuck their collective hands up and said, “Look what we have written to destroy your PC!” Suppose we’ll just have to wait for them to make a game using HDR (High Dynamic Range). Oh wait, it’s called HL2: Aftermath (coming soon)

Nearly forgot. You can also turn on commentary “bubbles” from Valve employees and listen to them talk about HDR and creating The Lost Coast level. Nice, if you like that kind of thing. Listen once, turn off, go back to shooting the bad guys.

Oh, and don’t bother trying to cross the water to get to the pretty bridge as you get eaten by piranhas the moment you set foot in the lovely, shiny water. However, if you’re cunning enough, like me, and you do get to the other side you find out that actually they didn’t get round to finishing it! (see the last screenshot) Naughty Valve…

Links:

Steam Homepage

Screenshots:

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