Half-Life 2 Preview

A geeky crowbar-wielding scientist with a goatee - that's one way to describe one of the most popular lead characters in the gaming history. Unless you've been on a remote tropical island for the past year (preferably fighting Trigents and mercs), you should know that some sicko pinched the Source code, the engine powering Half-Life 2. As a result, VU Games and Valve Software were forced to postpone the game's launch. (Yeah, that MUST be the reason why. Riiight. - Ed) It's been well over seven months since the unfortunate incident took place and in all that time we've had nothing better to do than rant about Gabe Newell and his plead to the Roman Catholic church to add another March to the calendar (preferably around December) so that Half-Life 2 can come out when he said it would.

Welcome to the neighborhood, Gordon!

"I’ve been swimming in raw sewage. I love it!"

Movies and pics from the game were released on a few occasions, but since last year's E3 and ECTS things were kept pretty quiet on the whole issue. Recently, however, some new info surfaced and as always we're prepared to give you the scoop on it. By the way, this update doesn't delve much into the game's long list of features which were discussed on many occasions in the past several months (For an in-depth look at the game's promising traits and the technology behind it, check out this article; for our hands-on impressions, head over this way.

Before we dig into HL 2, we'd like to express our sincerest thanks to Crytek for dishing out Far Cry, a game that no doubt satisfied our hunger for innovative first-person shooters while we were waiting for Valve to wrap things up on their project. Far Cry is basically an action-packed shooter that has it all. Both Valve and id now have to make up for lost ground and attempt to exceed Far Cry with their games: Half-Life 2 and Doom 3.

Believe me when I say that when it comes to story-telling, Half-Life 2 is a whole new ballgame. After all, pretty much any gamer out there should already be familiar with the story about Gordon Freeman and is dying to find out more about him and the mysterious G-Man.

The story in Half-Life 2 takes place a decade after the events in the original. Gordon begins his journey unaware of what has transpired in all that time. The last thing he remembers is a conversation he had with the G-Man. Pretty soon Gordon realizes that practically everyone he meets along the way knows more about him than he does. Many things have occurred and the world is a good deal different from the way Gordon remembers it. Plus, he doesn't know who to trust and whose side he is fighting on. Apparently, a lot has been going on in the past ten years and although he feels he has very little to do with the major events that are shaping his world, he'll soon learn that he plays an extremely important part in a place where gigantic three-legged killing machines called Striders roam the streets and people never feel safe. Later on, Gordon also learns that some of his friends are still alive, so one of his first goals will be to locate them. Alyx, an attractive female character and one of Gordon's side-kicks, will be there to clarify a few facts for him. Things may seem confusing at first, but later on you'll realize some of the people you're fighting against are actually trying to help you. And, this time around Gordon even encounters certain aliens who are on his side. At any rate, in last year's coverage, we mentioned that the story and whole experience is significantly lengthier than before. Now we've learned that the game could very well be twice as long as the original Half-Life.

It looks as though they came up with quite a good concept to continue the storyline from where it ended in the original. Amongst other issues, many have speculated about the identity of the main villain. Everyone's liable to assume, of course, that the G-Man is the bad guy, given his mysterious background and dark and sinister appearance. Still, there's no way of telling that for sure. Lately, as it happens, we were lead to believe that a certain Dr. Breen could be the ultimate baddie who appears to have some important role in all of this. As for the G-Man, you'll be happy to know that, unlike the previous game, Half-Life 2 unveils more regarding the background of this character.

Valve also has an increased number of enemies that were thrown in since the last game. Next to Striders, soldiers in protective suits, ant lions, zombies (which you already no doubt know about), gamers will also get to fight against dangerous assassin robots which we know very little about at this time, (Dangerous assassin robots - WOOHOO! - Ed) since the development team is keen on keeping details about them under wraps for now.

In any case, Half-Life 2 provides a wide selection of firearms to keep all these baddies at bay. For one, you'll be able to use the Manipulator for tossing various objects around and hurling them at enemies (more on that weapon further on).

Enemy AI was tweaked to an amazing degree, allowing foes to make the most out of the surroundings. This means that if players see an opponent pulling an elaborate stunt like using different objects to nail you or influence the environment, they'll be able to learn from their actions and do the same to them later on in the game. It's a rather creative way of allowing players to use artificial intelligence to their advantage. Another notable effort by the development team is allowing Gordon's companions to behave in line with the player's actions instead of just relying on a series of scripted routines. For example, when you do head off into the fray an AI-controlled character will cover you, but if you change your mind and head straight into a building or something, your teammate will assume a position to provide suppressive fire in what way seems best.

There will be plenty of ways to see the perfected Havok physics engine in action. We all remember how effectively physics can be used in the game from the last year's demonstration at the E3. Explosions influence everything on the screen from enemies to objects in the background, as well as Gordon himself. That way if you set off a bunch of explosive barrels any foe close by will fly up into the air, whereas your character will be flung backwards or sideways depending on his position in relation to the detonation. Also, when monsters walk across the burning bodies of their fallen buddies, they'll immediately catch fire themselves.