Half Life 2 Review - PC Game Reviews

Half Life 2 Preview

But somewhere in the mist of success lingered an unanswered question. Where is Half Life 2?

Now after over 4 years the silence is broken and Valve has revealed that HL2 is on the verge of release. Yes believe it or not Half Life 2 is finally here and is ready to rumble by September 30.

However they haven't revealed many details about the story but they do have told that HL2 will feature a completely new engine called Source. This brand new engine will feature something called as 'material set' which in simpler words means that no only every object will look different but will have its own specific properties be it metal, wood or grass. Also whenever some object is carried around it appears to have real weight and mass. Hey don't worry about the machine required to play it coz valve revealed that the minimum requirements will be PIII 700 MHz with 128 MB RAM, so people who haven't upgraded their machines in recent time need not worry.

The game has massive 12 chapters each divided into smaller pieces (like the original HL) and according to the developers each chapter should take around 2 to 4 hours to complete making the total length more than some of the current first person shooters.

Valve also confirmed that this time the players wouldn't be visiting the planet Zen as in the original HL. Also the players will again play the role of Gordon Freeman and some popular characters from the original game will make a comeback among those characters will be the security guard Barney whom we last saw escape from Black Mesa in the end of Blue Shift (a semi popular mod for the original HL). About the weapons, the developers revealed that the weapons will be a mix bag of both alien and human technology and the crowbar will be back.

But the most impressive feature of the game will be the facial expressions of some characters. Every character will feature a series of facial expressions that are like never seen before in any game. For instance the eyes of a character will have a wet look creating lustre and will reflect the light source. Further during a conversation the model will have his eyes focussed on the player and will remain that way even if the player moves. The characters will also speak in a realistic way. Whenever a character will speak his mouth will move in a realistic way and you'll be able to see the facial muscles move as they speak.

Another feature is that Valve is not talking about the multiplayer. They mentioned that the game will feature a multiplayer support but didn't say anything else on this issue. Probably they will shell out more information later this summer.

As stated earlier, HL2 will ship by the end of September but Valve isn't finished with the content designing of the game. Since the fifth anniversary of HL falls on this November, Valve probably wants to extend the shipping date nonetheless we won't be surprised.

Genre - Action/Fist Person Shooter
Platform - PC
Developer - Valve Software
Publisher - VU Games
Release Date - September 30, 2003