May 15th, 2011
By otto454z

Genre: First Person Shooter
System: PC and Xbox
Developer: Valve Software
Publisher: VU Games
Release Date: 4th Quarter 2011

News about Valve’s latest installment of the ever-popular Half-Life series, have been floating around for a long time now. Set to release sometime in Q4 of this year, after the being delayed multiple times, due to production issues, as well as a hacker supposedly using Outlook to steal valuable source code, the game looks to make a tremendous splash when it hits PC’s and Xbox’s by Christmas time.

Gamers reprise the role of Gordon Freeman, the research scientist from the Black Mesa Facility that they played as in the original Half-Life. Awakening in the humanily desolate, but heavily alien populated City 17, a small town in Eastern Europe, Gordon has no idea why he is, or how he got here. At the beginning of the game, players are forced to go Metal Gear-style, as they have no weapons, and must escape both mysterious patrols, rounding up the remaining human citizens, only to become involved with a militaristic faction intent on ridding the city of aliens by force.

One of the most anticipated features of the game is its open-ended-ness, both in terms of play and creating your own scenarios. Like the Half-Life games of the past, gamers may plan various, radically different strategies, which will lead them to their eventual goal of survival, whether it is to go in guns blazing, or sneaking past security checkpoints. The highly complex physics engine featured in the game will help make these varying strategies a success, allowing gamers to toss barrels, trashcans, cars, and various other objects at the life forms
trying to kill you.

Modders and designers are also rejoicing at the thought of Valve’s newly released lip sync technology that allows them to insert a wave and text file into one of the game’s subdirectories, which is then perfectly spoken and articulated (complete with facial expressions,) by the NPC’s. This makes the creation of story a breeze, since the majority of the time can now be focused on game’s content, instead of designing and synching speech with lip and facial movements.

Undoubtedly, one of the greatest features of the game is the new graphics engine, which utilizes heavy bump mapping, and photo-realistic textures to fully immerse gamers into the seemingly post-apocalyptic world. Excruciating attention has been paid to the most minute details, including realistic NPC animations, even if they are merely pedestrians on the street, as well as realistic fire and water effects, which will make it harder for gamers to distinguish between the physical space around them, and what is happening onscreen.

Barring any more production delays, Half-Life 2 looks to be on track, set to release just around Christmas time in late 2011. Many, however, have lost faith in any dates set forth by gaming companies, due to the constant pushback of gargantuan titles, such as this, and Halo 2. Let’s hope that the release of other next gen games, such as Far Cry, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl, and DOOM 3, will give Valveenough incentive to finish its game as soon as possible.