Half-Life 2, the rumors that have been going on for the past week and I have been following it closely. They are not rumors, it is true that Half-Life 2 will be out by the end of this year, rejoice guys. Here are some points taken from Planet Hal-Life & CS Nation:
» Half-Life 2 is scheduled for a September 30th release. » Yes, you’re still Gordon Freeman, and yes, the story assumes you went to work for the G-Man. » Half-Life 2 takes place in a European city called “City 17.” » Headcrabs will be back! Although some of the Xen aliens will be your friends? » Barney is back. And so is Half-Life’s original writer, Marc Laidlaw. » While the new engine has all sorts of fancy features, it’s still designed to work on lower-end machines. Apparently a 700mhz processor and a video card capable of running DX6 is enough, although a 2ghz with a GeForce4 is recommended. » The girl in the promo art is named Alyx, a daughter of a scientist who factors into the story somehow. She’s not playable. » Scripted Sequences will be more interactive. » Half-Life 3 is planned, so expect another cliffhanger ending. »The eyes of players are dynamic, and accurately track objects in the real world, jumping to various objects of interest as well when nothing is happening. » Eyes also feature true reflections. » While a number of “Barney” security officers will be around, one main sidekick is planned. » Full facial animation, based off of muscle-movement studies, gives natural expressions as well as automatic lip-synching. » Fully realistic physics engine for fluid movement, falling, and collisions. » All players will no longer walk “through” corpses, but rather step on and over them. » Advanced fully dynamic particle system. » Vastly improved AI system with intelligent pathfinding, threat analysis, and multiple prioritized objectives. » Expected to be published by Activision.
Woke up in the afternoon. Bought lunch back from my house downstairs coffeeshop. It has been months since I ate the Wan Ton Mee there. Miss it. By the way, my house area got 2 coffeshops, 1 is famous for its Lor Mee and the other is for its Wan Ton Mee and Western Food. =D
Started studying for my MMAS at 3pm till about 6pm. Of course with breaks in between. I got short concentration power of only about an hour or 2. Touched little bit or IGRA only. Wrote down all the important codes in my book as it is a open book test. Took a short nap after that.
First lesson was IGRA revision lecture. Crap. The exams is on this Wednesday not Saturday. Clash with my MMAS exams. No choice, have to study harder. Luckily IGRA is open book test, so is still ok. More worried about MMAS exams. Sigh. Will start studying tomorrow, as I will study IGRA today.
Had my MMAS/MMAD 5 minutes interview. Nothing much just let teacher see your application and compared it with the storyboard.
Went to pray in the afternoon as exams is coming. Pray that I can recover quickly and get good grades in exams. Went to Bugis Junction for lunch. Wanted to eat Mos Burger, but end up eating Swensens because my parents hated fastfood. LOL
Came home, my uncle ask me to go Funan with him, he want to see digital camera. Went to Funan, instead of seeing for digital camera, he bought a HP iPAQ 1910 and bought for me a HP iPAQ 5450 with 128MB SD Memory. He bought that for me because he strike 4D first prize. LOL. So luckily. And he just struck the third prize not long ago. Thanks Uncle Raymond. =D
Think I just got a flu today, running nose and slight cough. But luckily no fever. The SARS outbreak is getting quite bad. Thanks to China who cover up the whole incident since it is first discovered last year.
Met Lian in the afternoon to watch Bullet Proof Monk. Didn’t saw any trailer on this film, only posters. But surprisingly, it is nice, even better than Johnny English.
Woke up in the afternoon today, feeling much better after a constant attack on the sore in my throat. LOL
Something is very wrong with my computer, everytime when I turn on my computer and it load windows, I only can see my desktop picture, nothing else. No start menu, no desktop icons. I only can access task manager to do things. Click here to see the screenshot. And the only solution to solve it is to End Task Explorer.exe and Run Explorer.exe again, then restart my computer, then everything will be back to normal. If I turn off and turn on my computer the same problem will occur.
Reached school at 9am to finish up my VB and passed it up before I went for my TBCM. Saw alot of VB assignments being done in the lab, most of them are very graphics intensive and I also noticed alot of people like to use comic/cartoon characters. LOL. Well some are really fantastic, some are just so-so. I hope no one come out with Multiplayer feature for the VB assignment. If not spoil market. LOL
Had TBCM interview today, was quite nervous, don’t know why, I think even the actual job interview will not be as nervous as this. LOL
Had IGRA interview. As usual, he was late for 15 minutes. Funny thing is that my interview only takes 5 minutes? Just show him what my program will do, and thats all. No question asked. He said that he believe that the assignment is done by me because there is no fanciful stuff like particles. LOL
Stayed back for a few hours to do my VB. Fixed some bugs here and there. Tomorrow is the deadline. Shall go school and do the adding of the winning music and burn it to CD. At home, don’t know why cannot add in ActiveX controls. Must do it in school. So troublesome. Hope nothing cocks up.
Lian came my house in the morning to do her DEAE assignment. Had lunch at Cineleisure foodcourt before meeting Klaus and gang to buy Jacky’s birthday present. Walked till my leg is “sour”. From Wisma Atria to Far East to Shaw to Ngee Ang City.
After everything, Lian and I had a light snack at Takashimya foodcourt, while the others went home. Came home look through my director file, realize that there are some very minor aesthetic bug here and there. Fixed all of them and improve on the quiz results. As expected the deadline for MMAD/MMAS assignment is extended to Monday, 21st April 2003, 10am.
Suppose to have IGRA interview at 9am in the morning, but lecturer was late for an hour and Lian coming my house later on. So I end up telling him I will book the interview timeslot on Wednesday. I think almost the whole class got interviewed except for me. And I saw one of my classmate’s screen saver. I was totally demoralize. The lecturer was shock too. Most pro people who uses particle system cannot answer the first question of the interview. Luckily mine is simple and I did not use it, although I understand it abit.
Met Lian at Tiong Bahru Plaza before coming home to watch The Returner. It is a Japanese action pack show. The effect was good. Proceed to Orchard later to buy Lian’s shoes from OG. Sat down at Mos Burger at Ngee Ang City after that before coming home.
