Half Life 2 Preview

Half Life provided PC gamers with their GoldenEye. Not just a game, but an experience, you've seen games in the genre before, but none as good as these, nothing else did or has come close to sticking in people's minds for years after like these two games, representing the pinnacle of first person shooters on PCs and Consoles. Halo fans may argue, but come back in a few years and we'll take this up with you...<br><br>In an example to the rest of the industry Valve are showing us how to do things. Make an amazing game using proprietary technology, sacrifice as little as possible in the pursuit of gaming excellent. Release it, shake up the genre, watch the sales rise and rise, then don't rush out a sequel.<br><br>Instead you develop your own game engine from the ground up - Half Life 2's is called Source - and do this all in complete secrecy then blow people away in the same way that your first title did.<br><br>Well done Valve, you have made us sick with jealousy. In our post-work theoretical discussions about game engines we here at TVG have been discussing the potential for modeling objects with properties. After all physics is just a set of mathematical rules, and surely if you input enough equations into a game engine you can simulate to a relatively high level, and consistently, real-world reactions. If you have every object in the game behaving as you would expect it to then immediately the world becomes solid, real and believable, you in one deft stroke up the degree of immersion in a game quite considerably.<br><br>This is one of the things that Valve have done, wood shatters like wood, sounds like wood and floats like wood. Physical properties are given to every object in the game, this affects friction, weight, density, even the sound properties. We could spend ages describing how barrels bob around realistically, how walls explode just like they would, how shooting supporting struts causes bridges to fall as they do in real life. Hopefully you're getting the picture, if you see something in the game that is in the real world, do something to it and it'll probably do what you think, unless the designers have decided to mess with your head. Watch clips of the game in motion, it just takes physical interaction in a game to a whole new level. <br><br>It's not just the inanimate objects that have been made disturbingly real, Valve have, as you would expect, upped the ante considerably for realistic characters in a videogame. It's not that Valve are using stupidly high polygon models, but it's about the animation, the acting and the subtle use of technology in the areas that matter.<br><br>One of our favorite things, and again we've discussed this ourselves, wondering why people haven't done this before in games, is the use of muscles in faces. By having muscle structures in characters faces and doing a lot of research into facial expressions, and making things dynamic, Valve have managed to create some amazing results. Human beings are not as complicated as you may think, there's only around 40 or so facial expressions we use, unless you're Jim Carrey, and Valve only have about 25 max in Half Life 2. The realism comes from the way characters raise eyebrows inquisitively, the brows furrow when they're confused, or the casual way they'll look over their shoulder to speak to you as they get on with something. <br><br>Valve have synchronised the muscles to sounds meaning that they have the characters faces respond in real time to sound files of speech - again the human voice box can only do a limited number of sounds and if you research enough you can see what shapes you need to make for each sound. This means that artists don't have to animate every speech sample and you can have your characters speak in any language and it will look correct. Imagine this online, characters lips syncing to your voice...<br><br>We'll just mention the eyes, because Valve are obviously chuffed at what they've done. If you've ever spent a lot of time looking into the eyes of a lover you'll have noticed that they're interesting things, and in videogames developers often don't spend enough time getting them realistic. Because eyes are so important in our day to day dealings with other people, windows of the soul and all that, we can easily tell - subconsciously- whether they look right or not. Valve have applied shader effects to their characters eyes giving them a realistic reflection, and linked with all of the muscles in the face, eyebrows and that, they look amazing. You can now try to judge characters, well character, by looking at their eyes and how that makes you feel. Very subtle, but we feel that this could be very interesting from a game design point of view, and it looks damn good as well.<br><br>Technology doesn't make a game alone, but good technology gives you creative freedom. Also this is an industry that pushes back the boundaries of what is possible. We do get the feeling that videogames, whether people realise it or not, are instrumental in pushing back the boundaries of what is possible with technology, getting people au fait with high technology and getting it out there. Witness how Sony Computer Entertainment has, in our opinion, taken over Sony, and is helping drive them as a company. <br><br>We also feel that online gaming, the internet, and all other sorts of technology we all take for granted is useful for making the world seem smaller. Kids get used to having games from Asia, America, Europe, working together to fight evil, both sexes, all races and no borders. People from all over the world have shared the same experiences - well not perhaps the Japanese with first person shooters. But you get what we're getting at, games ain't evil, they bring us together and make the world seem smaller, perhaps that's why they get scapegoated for social problems that the 'real' media and politicians can't deal with because it means looking under too many stones. <br><br>Back to Half Life 2.<br><br>The game is set some time after the events at the Black Mesa facility and, initially at least, take place in a non-specific Eastern European location. Some classical European architecture, with a bit of surviving Communist style architecture and the odd futuristic building provide some interesting situations. The developers cite, Prague, Budapest and Amsterdam as influences.<br><br>From our travels in Eastern Europe, limited but interesting, we're looking forward to the setting - there's some lovely scenery over there, historic and relatively modern. Perhaps it's also cunning nod to an expanding market as well, when we were in Belgrade recently we happened to notice a large number of people in the Internet cafes playing network Counterstrike for instance...<br><br>Valve are being understandably coy with the plot, and quite frankly we want to discover this for ourselves, locked up in a dark room for a few days has never seemed more appealing...<br><br>Besides Gordon Freeman it seems that Alyx, the sassy looking young lady, who the daughter of one of the scientists at the Black Mesa facility, will be as an important part of the story as the bespecled scientist. We wonder whether you'll end up controlling her at some point... She is obviously on your side, we are interested to see whether Gordon has a relationship with her that extends beyond covering each other and killing alien types, all that adrenaline from combat pumping around their bodies must find a release surely...<br><br>Whilst it's clear that characters such as Alyx are on your side there will be a lot of instances where the motivations of individuals are harder to discern. Just like in real-life it's often hard to tell who is on which side, and sometimes the lines between sides themselves become rather blurred. This will be clear early on when some of the alien species from Half Life appear on your side this time, and some of them can be given commands, so you get a little pack of cool insect creatures following you around and doing your bidding. With the formidable artificial intelligence of the Source engine, this seems to be implemented a lot better than in other titles.<br><br>There are numerous little set pieces that make great use of the advanced A.I. Routines as well as the physics, think Home Alone, but bigger, better and a bit more deadly... There will be vehicles and from what we've seen it looks like the engine could be used for a good racing game. There will be sections that require cunning use of traps built into the scenery, there will be times that you need to work alone, times you need to work as a team, be stealthy, be a sniper, good driver or just a damn good fighter. You'll have to be on the ball the whole time as there is rarely a place that is safe, and things can come from anywhere.<br><br>Valve are being very coy about revealing many more plot details or gameplay features, understandable, they want people to be surprised when they play this game, and we're sure they will be, and we want to be as well!<br><br>One thing they're not shy on is user-developed content. The first game has a great online following and a large mod community, this summer Valve will be training up people to allow a load of user designed content to be available when the game is released. There will be tools shipping with the game to let people design their own mods for the game. <br><br>We get the feeling that this will be huge - don't have to be a rocket scientist, or even Black Mesa scientist, to work that one out...<br><br>This is going to mark the real start of the next generation of videogames, giving us a taste of the future, it's seems to be very sweet indeed, we hope this gives you a better idea of why this game is so important, and why everyone is getting so excited about it.