Half-Life 2

Ok my appointment was at 9 am, as soon as the show opened basically. When I got to the booth at 9:02 there was a huge crush of fans trying to get in line to see the movie. After throwing elbows like a Laker in a play off game, I got close enough to make contact with the PR rep. I presented my card, and a check mark went by name on his list. WE were informed there would be a slight delay as they readied the room. Meanwhile the horde around me was swelling. I got worried because the longer I stood there, more people were flooding into the huge South hall and from what I could tell, all of them were at the Half Life 2 booth. After a few more minutes of jostling, shoving and the temperature going up 5 degrees every minute from all the body heat, I came upon a great idea. Every publisher is handing out some sort of give away: T shirts, stickers, glow sticks etc. The usual trade show loot. I think some brave publisher needs to take the plunge and give E3 attendees something they really need: Deodorant.

If some booth babe was handing out stick of antiperspirant or even better, roaming around the floor, tackling the worst offenders and slathering them with several coasts of "Sure", I would buy multiple copies of anything they were putting out. Even if it was another Sims add-on.

"Hello, we have reason to believe someone stole all the HL2 coffee mugs."

I've seen you guys somewhere before, right?

Anyway, after about 15 minutes we were finally ushered into the theater. Two plasma screens separated by a podium split the room into two sections. Each section had 7 or 8 rows of chairs numbering 9 or so per row. I grabbed a chair right in front of the podium and started to settle in when I noticed my first shock of the morning. The man sitting at the podium was no other than Valve head honcho Gabe Newell. I was afraid he might somehow read my mind, find out who I worked for and then, realizing 2Lions was not present, decide I would do and promptly kick my ass, all the while yelling "Butter Boy eh??! Can butter do THIS???!!" (Again, for future reference and my own safety, I have never, NEVER once referred to Gabe Newell as Butter Boy.)

Soon my terror filled fantasy passed and I was left to wonder about the upcoming demo as the rest of the people found seats. I thought about how I was in a very similar theater last year giddy as a little girl while I waited for my first look at Half Life 2. I tried to compare and contrast the feelings I had then and the feelings I was experiencing now. My love affair with Half Life 2 has been a rollercoaster ride over the past 12 months. I came out of last year's demo with goose bumps and a desire to play the game so badly, that upon returning home, I went down to the local software shop and prepaid the ENTIRE amount for the game. Not five or 10 bucks but the whole amount. 52.35. American. I was so excited for September 30th; I wanted to do everything I could to make sure I was ready to go when the game actually shipped. We all know what happened then. The theft, the rumors, the accusations and worst of all, no damn game. Flash back to the present. I realize I was still interested in seeing the demo but I was a little jaded now. It's kind of like wanting to go out with some beautiful perfect woman who you have idolized for years. She finally agrees to go out with you and then at the last minute calls and tells you she can't go due to a death in the family. Yes it's sad. Yes it's beyond her control but damnit, what about our DATE??!!

So as I sat there feeling sorry for myself, rocking back and forth in my chair, quietly sobbing and singing 'My Heart Will Go On' to help ease the pain, the lights began to dim. Gabe welcomed us all and said he was excited to show us several parts of Half Life 2. He double clicked on the icon on his desktop and suddenly there was the lambda symbol with the 2 in the corner rotating around. The symbol dissolved to the title screen and Gabe launched the first demo ... or tried to anyway. As the title screen disappeared and the load screen popped up, the machine crashed. And crashed hard. The system began asking for a boot disk. After powering off the system and turning it back, the system was still convinced it had no hard drive. Now anyone that has ever worked a trade show knows, you can have everything perfectly configured, setup, trouble shot, tested, rechecked and ready to go and you will always find new bugs in the product or have it crash on you at just the wrong time: like when you have a room full of press and VIPs waiting to see your new game. Also, it's important to note that this was an Alienware rig. A nice fat, candy apple red rig that could have been mistaken as a dorm refrigerator were it not for the glowing eyed alien on the front and sides. Gabe moved out of the way as a tech was ushered in to swap out the box with another one. As we waited for the new system to be setup, Gabe told us that after the break in last year, they had moved all their code to encrypted external hard drives and as they were showing the demo yesterday, someone on their way out bumped the case and the external drive fell to the floor and promptly died. Following that nightmare, someone else (staff, not E3 attendee) decided it would be a good idea to cover all the vent holes on the demo machine. As a tribute to Alienware rigs and their sturdiness, the system plugged along for about 7 hours before finally giving up the ghost. Then Gabe asked if anyone had any questions. The first one (of course) was what was the ship date for Half Life 2. His response and I quote: "We are not good with dates. We try to avoid talking about dates."

Ok fair enough. He then wanted to know if anyone was in the World of Warcraft beta. A few of us raised our hands. He then wanted to know if anyone had seen Guild Wars (the new title from the Gods who are NCSoft). After getting a few responses from the crowd I gathered up my nerve and asked a question when the next lull in the conversation came up: "Did you play Far Cry?"

Ok, now what happened next is not really clear. I could be completely wrong here but I swear, he looked at me, and then looked away without saying anything at all. I choose to think that he just did not hear my question. Which is perfectly possible. I was about 4 feet away in the front row so it is very possible he just did not hear it. Regardless, I did not find out if he had a chance to look at the game at all.

After a few more minutes of tweaking by the tech (of the computer), the demo launched and Gabe was ready to guide us through Half Life 2. The scene we saw started again with a close up shot of the G Man's head. He was asking Gordon to wake up as there was a lot of work to be done. As he was speaking, the Source engine was cycling through a number of different lighting tricks and tips. When it entered black and white, it was clear again how powerful the Source engine really is. I could see wrinkles, bead stubble and pores on his face. I felt a twinge of the old excitement. Gabe explained that the game starts with Gordon arriving at City 17 and that this sequence was similar to the tram ride from the first game. It gives the players a chance to interact with the NPCs and their surroundings, and to get a feeling for what this new world is like. It's also a nice way to show off the environment. As we exited the train into the station we noticed large fences topped with razor wire and guards wearing gas masks at strategic points around the station. We began moving though the fencing towards the twists and turns to a customs-like area. As we navigated the twists and turns, we saw guards harassing others as they tried to get luggage or move through to the next area. A large video screen suspended near the ceiling, broadcasted a message from a figure that was talking about his being chosen to act as a governor and a go-between for the human and "our benefactors". Nice. Once we reached the entry point to the next area, a camera swiveled towards us and a short alarm sounded. One of the gas masked soldiers came over and grunted that we needed to follow him. A side door opened and we proceeded down a hallway. Passing a door in the hall, we could see in through a slot that was open and hear a person proclaiming his innocence. As we watched, another of these grunting soldiers in the room noticed us watching and came and slid the slot closed. The soldier who was leading us, grunted to us again and we turned to see that he had stopped a few feet ahead and had opened another door to a room similar to the one we were looking in on. As we approached the doorway and peered inside, we saw an interrogation chair that had blood stains around it. Things were not starting out well for Gordon. The screen faded to black and Gabe explained the next demo was a physics demo. A dune buggy was cruising up a narrow mountain road when something that looked like a soccer ball made of spike with glowing blue energy coursing along between them jumped up from the earth and attached themselves to the front of the buggy. The car swerved to the edge of the road and tipped half way off the road; only the wheel on the left side stopped the car from going over. We got out of the buggy, unslung a gun and promptly shot the glowing balls off the car and over the edge. Then, using the energy gun we saw last year, maneuvered and shot the buggy back onto the road so we could continue. Demonstrating the physics even further it then switched to a combat scene, with some more of those grunting, gas masked soldiers. Combat was taking place in and around some huts with boxes, a sofa and our dune buggy. As we bobbed and weaved trying to avoid their fire, we fired off our guns at them and finally, used the grav gun to pick up the car and crush a solider with it. Very cool stuff.

Next he showed us a demo that highlighted how the Source engine could lend itself to a wide variety of vehicles. We climbed into a hovercraft and began zooming over sand, rocks and small pools of water. No sooner were we moving then an attack helicopter came over the horizon and we began trading shots at each other. The scene was frantic as we bounced around trying to target and drive at the same time. After a few intense minutes of this the screen faded to black and we were introduced to Father Gregory. He is a character in the game who is tasked with leading us to another location. The area we have to pass through is populated with Fast Zombies. When we saw one a few moments later it became clear how they got their name. Half rotted corpses that still had what looked to be head crabs attached to them came scampering and pouring over the hill as we tried to get rid of them. We were able to get a few but ultimately we were overwhelmed. It was terrifying to see how quickly they moved.

As the screen faded out I thought we were done, but Gabe had one more surprise for us. He told us that all of the original Half Life content had been ported into the new Source engine, and it would be included with Half Life 2. This includes the original Half Life game, Day of Defeat, and Counter Strike among others. Then he showed us what Source Counter Strike looked like. The map he was using was DE_aztec. As we swooped into the scene it was clear that the water now had real depth to it and was muddy in some areas but it was not until the terrorists came around the corner that the real changes were apparent. As the counter terrorists opened fire on them, water flew up as bullets cut a path towards their targets. Immediately a huge fire fight erupted and the counter terrorists were left for dead. The terrorists moved on toward the bombing site and we watched as the bomb was brought out and armed. The skin changes look great. Much more fluid animations, a huge jump in detail and as we switched perspective to the counter terrorists, a grenade was thrown that sent barrels and terrorists flying. It looked great. And for the huge finish we were rewarded with a view down the sniper scope as he took out the final bad guy in a soft read mist.

Very, very nice. I was pumped and ready for the game again. Then the lights came up, we were thanked for our time and ushered out the back. I was happy I had gotten to the see the demos. It helped to rekindle some of my excitement for the game and I am looking forward to whenever it finally gets here.