For those of you who have been drooling in anticipation, Tuesday the 16th is officially Half-life 2 sick day. Just thought I would fire you a heads up that I may not be available on this particular day as I am one of those HL2 geeks

Was a big video/PC gamer myself until Planetside entered the picture, and now it's about all I play (just something so much more satisfying about shooting hundreds of real people behind the avatars, than the usual easy to beat AI's ), so I completely understand your addiction, enjoy your sick-day Denny, I for one have no problem if you decide to take a day off from us forum trolls .

P.S. For those of you who don't know what Planetside is, it is a Sony MMPFPS (sort of a FPS although unlike any before) real time game played worldwide on three servers. You choose from one of three empires and join into the melee, where thousands of people everyday fight massive futuristic battles for control of the many continents, and caves of auraxis. Where you can pilot or gun (or just catch a lift in) one of five aircraft, dozens of land vehicles, or one of the new giant mechs (and they've added seven new vehicles since I originally started playing, for free). It is also a Pay-for-Play online game, something that until Planetside I highly disagreed with (but I was bored with most of the games out there so I broke down and began paying). It is also a high requirement game that has a habit of being a bit buggy, so try it at your own risk. I still say it's the best video game ever (OK, so I lie, that falls on Resident Evil 2, which I played before RE 1 and with a couple of my friends (and my younger sister the scream queen), and it was better than any horror or thriller movie I had ever seen, seriously, people were putting down the remote and saying they couldn't keep going, you know how hard it is to get most people to voluntarily put down the remote to let others have a turn ).

Try Battlefield 1942, with the Desert Combat mod, on a good Punkbuster server... I had high hopes for Planetside but it just couldn't hold my interest with it's long downtimes between fights and difficulty forming groups, but BF1942/DC is faster paced and less frustrating for me.

Actually I was a big fan of Desert Combat but then I found "Joint Ops". Thats been my game of choice over the past few months. 150 player games Yahoo!!!

Just got Halo2 last night....wow!

Never played the first Halo, but have been playing Crimson Skies alot on my XB lately, the Live free trial is a great bonus as well...

Hmmm HaloWorks sets....

Was seriously disappointed by the Graphix I saw in Battlefield 1942 . Don't know when you played Planetside last but the game keeps changing, if you were on when it was continents, it's changed to planets, there were meteor storms, and earthquakes recently, and they've begun to include medals for certain things (have the Exploration medal for one of my avatars), Oshur suffered massive destruction and has now become the Battle Islands (4 new combat zones), and the game just keeps changing, probably what I like the best. I've tried alot of FPS and I really like the firing system that Planetside uses, it requires skill rather than the usual point and click firing that most FPS use, I use sniper the most and have become exceptionally good at leading my targets to get the kill. The "Cone of Fire" rule developed by PS has even improved upon my current futuristic combat in the Rifts Earth, Heroes & Robotech RolePlaying Systems, giving me ideas to further improve on the combat rules that my players use (believe it or not ).

The only other PC games out there that have recently caught my eye are HomeWorld 2 (Played HW1 and loved the fleet combat, was exceptionally good at using salvage corvettes to build my fleet, most of my ships had once been the ones assaulting me and by the last mission I had six heavy cruisers and eight carriers, on top of a massive fleet of ships-of-the-line, so many that for the last eight levels I had too many ships to build more, yet my fleet kept growing, heh , pulled that one on a LAN game with a friend and won hands down), and a new game that I don't know the name of but is another MMP online game (not sure if Pay-for-Play) that is based in a SuperHero type setting where you can invent powers and create characters you want, supposedly.

Joint Ops mod for the original Unreal Tournament or a different one?

@Denny what is you Joint Ops Name - Look for Lord_Wormwood in the international zone
(I will hunt you down!!!!!!)

Last night I played JO forr the first time in a month and a half and the patch upgrade is so sexy!!

Have pre-ordered HL-2 and am waiting - but the cool fact is I'll if before you guys - Sydney is a nicer side of the planet


Lord Abaddon of Wormwood

Ooooooh...JOINT OPS...Typhoon Rising. Duh. :p

It's all about Tribes and Day of Defeat. Or at least it was. Wouldn't know any more, now that I'm in Korea and have a crummy internet connection.

Actually, the DX9 thing is just a guess. I have a GF4 card, so, shrug. The vast majority of the reflection tricks work (I think the coolest bit of "realism" I've seen in a game EVER was early in HL2 when you're in the raided apartment building -- you can see grime in the reflections of the hardwood, fantastic). All I know is that changing the "water reflection type" setting doesn't have any visible effect.

As for the physics...doesn't the source engine just use Karma physics, like D3 did? I haven't noticed any major differences in the actual realism of the physics model, Valve just DID a lot more with it.

HL2 definitely has the best outdoor environments I've ever seen. Heh. It's quite a game. It also has about the most engaging characters and acting I've ever seen. My only real complaint is the terrible load times...the thing SLUGS along sometimes.

I've discovered City of Heroes... With the ability to play almost any kind of super you can imagine, I have no life... or so says my wife. It's a real balancing act staying married and taking care of my COH fix.

Sylvar the Addicted One