Applications Affected by Bug #14762

1998. HALF-LIFE sends a shock through the game industry with its combination of pounding action and continuous, immersive storytelling. Valve's debut title wins more than 50 game-of-the-year awards on its way to being named "Best PC Game Ever" by PC Gamer, and launches a franchise with more than eight million retail units sold worldwide.

NOW. By taking the suspense, challenge and visceral charge of the original, and adding startling new realism and responsiveness, Half-Life 2 opens the door to a world where the player's presence affects everything around him, from the physical environment to the behaviors even the emotions of both friends and enemies The player again picks up the crowbar of research scientist Gordon Freeman, who finds himself on an alien-infested Earth being picked to the bone, its resources depleted, its populace dwindling. Freeman is thrust into the unenviable role of rescuing the world from the wrong he unleashed back at Black Mesa. And a lot of people he cares about are counting on him.

The intense, real-time gameplay of Half-Life 2 is made possible only by Source, Valve's new proprietary engine technology.

Source provides major enhancements in:

• Characters - Advanced facial animation system delivers the most sophisticated in-game characters ever seen. With 40 distinct facial "muscles," human characters convey the full array of human emotion, and respond to the player with fluidity and intelligence.
• Physics - From pebbles to water to 2-ton trucks respond as expected, as they obey the laws of mass, friction, gravity, and buoyancy.
• Graphics - Source's shader-based renderer, like the one used at Pixar to create movies such as Toy Story and Monster's, Inc., creates the most beautiful and realistic environments ever seen in a video game.
• AI - Neither friends nor enemies charge blindly into the fray. They can assess threats, navigate tricky terrain, and fashion weapons from whatever is at hand.

Note: Natively available for Linux.

Released in 2003, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne is a Film Noir-style 3rd-person action shooter. It is the sequel to Max Payne which pioneered bullet-time as a game element.

Max Payne is your typical hard-nosed detective, speaking with a generally flat tone and using many dark metaphors. His life is a mess. Attached to the NYPD, he has to deal with his lover being the main suspect in a murder case, and that's just the beginning.

The storyline is non-linear - you don't follow the game through in a direct chronological order. It can be confusing to begin with. As the game progresses, you find out more about Max's past and how he got into the mess he's in. The game is also full of distractions - you can talk to the people when you're in the police station, and even annoy some of them; there are TV programs that you can follow all the way through the game, including the Adventures of Captain Baseball Bat Boy.

The game feels like a movie of sorts - it's very well thought out, and there are things you can pick up on after you play it a few times. The story between chapters is revealed in a comic-book-like fashion. The graphics are simply incredible (at least that was my first impression) and it really gets the most out of even older cards. Max Payne 2 has probably the most efficient 3D graphics of any commercial game within the last 5 years. It also has advanced ragdoll physics, without the gore of Doom 3 which makes it both realistic and playable for even the (slightly) faint hearted.

I give Max Payne 2 my personal double thumbs up for well thought-out, engaging gameplay, with gruesomeness concentrated more in the dark storyline than the graphics.

Released in 2003, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne is a Film Noir-style 3rd-person action shooter. It is the sequel to Max Payne which pioneered bullet-time as a game element.

Max Payne is your typical hard-nosed detective, speaking with a generally flat tone and using many dark metaphors. His life is a mess. Attached to the NYPD, he has to deal with his lover being the main suspect in a murder case, and that's just the beginning.

The storyline is non-linear - you don't follow the game through in a direct chronological order. It can be confusing to begin with. As the game progresses, you find out more about Max's past and how he got into the mess he's in. The game is also full of distractions - you can talk to the people when you're in the police station, and even annoy some of them; there are TV programs that you can follow all the way through the game, including the Adventures of Captain Baseball Bat Boy.

The game feels like a movie of sorts - it's very well thought out, and there are things you can pick up on after you play it a few times. The story between chapters is revealed in a comic-book-like fashion. The graphics are simply incredible (at least that was my first impression) and it really gets the most out of even older cards. Max Payne 2 has probably the most efficient 3D graphics of any commercial game within the last 5 years. It also has advanced ragdoll physics, without the gore of Doom 3 which makes it both realistic and playable for even the (slightly) faint hearted.

I give Max Payne 2 my personal double thumbs up for well thought-out, engaging gameplay, with gruesomeness concentrated more in the dark storyline than the graphics.