TnS|Supremo
20-05-2004, 00:38
11 May 04 It's hard to believe that it's been a year since Half-Life 2 was announced, but finally, after months of silence from developer Valve after part of the game was stolen by opportunist hackers late last year, we've been invited back to Seattle to play the latest version of the game. You may well have got sick of waiting for HL2 to appear - perhaps the release of Far Cry has satiated your lust for a ground-breaking shooter. But as you're about to find out, there's just as much reason to be excited now as there was 12 months ago.
Before we start though, if you haven't been following the Half-Life 2 saga, you might like to refresh your memory about what we already know about the game. After all, it's been a long time since any new facts have been available, so if that's you, why not head off to the 'Beginners Start Here' panel on page 35 and swot up before you dive into the new stuff below.
But if you can't wait to jump straight in, why not join me now at Valve's offices, along with the company's managing director Gabe Newell and director of marketing Doug Lombardi as we glean the latest info and playtest the game first-hand. Excited? Me too.
TOURING CITY 17
"We're going to let you play through three levels," begins Doug. "This first one's about 15 minutes into the game, and will give you some classic Half-Life gameplay, where we'll try and scare you and give you a good look at City 17." The hard disk chatter ceases and the level fills the screen. We're in.
I'm standing in a large hallway. On the far side of the enclosure hangs an enormous screen, from which gazes a kindly yet slightly sinister male face. I pause, hoping to garner some vital information before I rush out of the inviting doorway to my left and into the bustling courtyard beyond. This man seems to be providing some kind of information service. I listen intently.
He's reading from a letter in which the author is outlining his concerns about a lack of human freedom. "Don't worry," begins his reply. "You're being treated like this for your own good. You're not ready to make your own decisions yet. But soon you will be free to do as you please."
Confused, I scan the room and spy gas mask-wearing guards blocking every doorway bar one. "Do not be afraid," continues the amplified voice, as I approach one of the guards. Before I'm even a metre away, his gun is out of its holster and pointing at my head. "Move away!" booms his bellowed warning, causing me to reel back and run for the doorway, his torrent of threats still assaulting my eardrums.
Gabe interjects. "As a character, the last thing you remember is having a conversation with the G-Man. Now it's ten years later and all sorts of things have happened. But you don't know what happened to that time or even what side you're on. As you're about to find out, everyone seems to know more about you than you do."
UNFAMILIAR FACES
The sunlight makes me blink violently as my eyes focus on the new vista before me. All around, people walk with bowed heads, dressed in matching white clothes as circular drones buzz around the square, and more gas mask-clad guards stand around menacingly, ever watchful. "Hey, don't I know you?" comes a question from a passing pedestrian. "Haven't I seen you somewhere before?" asks another. Gabe was right: how do these people know who I am?
A commotion at the far side of the courtyard from behind a partially closed door distracts my attention. I can't quite see in properly, but it looks as though some of the town's denizens are being brutalised by guards. The sentry shoos me away with a wave of his stun-baton and I reluctantly move on.
In the distance, a 90ft Strider (a giant three-legged war machine) stalks by. I turn to a woman standing next to me and attempt to engage her in conversation. "Quiet, they may hear us," she threatens, hurriedly moving away. But my attention is snapped away by an electric drone that appears as if from nowhere and begins photographing me. Something tells me this isn't the local paparazzi.
CITY SUBTEXT
Finally, I round a corner and enter a playground, where I push the realistic swings and rock the lifelike see-saws. "I was the last guy to play in that playground," comes the sad lamentation of a young man nearby. He's right, no children play here. The stark reality of this early level is clear. There's no joy in this city, just a sense of terror and oppression.
"At the start of the game, you're trying to reconnect with your friends," begins Gabe, as the level ends. "You find out that some of them are still alive. You don't know why you're there or what agenda the G-Man has for you, but later on you learn a lot more about the G-Man and who he really is. You'll have a relationship with him that follows logically from the conversation that you had at the end of Half-Life."
I ask Gabe the significance of basing City 17 in Eastern Europe. "When we were thinking about the setting and about the conflict between humans and aliens and you and the other human antagonist, we thought that Eastern Europe would make an interesting setting. It signifies the collisions between the old and the new."It seemed evocative to us with its old and new architecture and the positives and negatives associated with the transformations from socialist to capitalist economies. We hope that people will get that. To us, the region is an interesting metaphor, and we hope it helps the player, either consciously or not, to understand some of what we want them to think about while they're playing."
I press Gabe to tell me a little more about the game's other locations. "Half-Life 2 won't only be set in City 17. You won't be leaving the planet though, or going to Xen, but we'll be bringing pieces of Xen to earth. A lot of the gameplay will take place either in City 17, or in the areas between City 17 and certain other destinations." And what of this human antagonist that he mentioned earlier? "We wanted the antagonist to be interesting, someone who was reasonable. Most bad guys in games are usually really stupid; they're the thing with the most ammo or the heaviest armour. We wanted to create a plausible opponent, and for you to beat them because you're a better scientist than they are."
CHARACTER BUILDING
Yet no quality story is complete without the protagonist growing in some way too, becoming a better or different person by the plot's climax. Will we see Gordon take this journey? "Gordon must become what a heroic scientist should be. But in order to be heroic, there are certain things that he's going to need to do. So yes, there will be a transformation that he's going to go through." Will the antagonist be the G-Man? Perhaps it'll be Dr Breen - which Doug informs me is the name of the man on the giant TV screen. Perhaps someone we haven't even seen yet?
As we already know, the female inventor Alyx is another major player in Half-Life 2, so I ask Gabe to elaborate on her background a little more. "Her father is one of the few people who's survived from Black Mesa, and Alyx represents the hybrid between the old and the new. She helps you understand about the changes in the world, which have also affected her and what it means to live in this world. She's got lots of connections to the past, but she's much more aggressive and revolutionary than her parents were. She's going to help you go from being a loner to a champion. She'll also help you understand who all the new characters are."
TOMB RAIDERS
Time to experience more of the game. This time, it's a night-time level, a mad dash through an alien-infested graveyard with a gung-ho orthodox monk called Father Grigory. It's a somewhat simplistic level to say the least, and feels more like a training mission than one of the stunning set pieces we've witnessed in previous demonstrations. Wave after wave of zombies shamble towards us, as the mad monk and I hurtle through the level. Conveniently placed saw blades allow me to make full use of the all-new Manipulator weapon - with which you can pick up and propel almost any object in the game.
The blades fly through the air and scythe off the zombies' hideous noggins, as we stumble across some even more conveniently placed exploding barrels. I fire at them and a bone-bending shockwave rocks me back as I watch dismembered enemies fly across the cemetery like rag dolls in a hurricane, their still twitching bodies engulfed in flames. Other zombies walk over their fallen comrades and ignite as they pass, flailing wildly from pain and kindling more of their companions.
I wheel around suddenly and come face to Head Crab with four zombies. Instinctively I reel back, pumping the shotgun trigger but firing ineffectually over their heads. Seeing my predicament, Grigory dives in front of me and dishes out some punishment, saving me from almost certain death."In some levels, we've put obvious things like those saw blades in on purpose, so that people can easily work out and learn what they can do with the Manipulator," reassures Doug.
LENGTH DOES COUNT
Which leads us nicely onto the game's physics system, which is promising to furbish you with a wealth of new gameplay possibilities never before seen in a shooter, and ensure that Half-Life 2 will be anything but short-lived. In fact, Gabe and Doug believe that HL2 could well prove to be twice the length of its predecessor thanks to the depth offered by the Source engine's revolutionary new abilities.
"We've seen so many different types of playing styles. Some people want to explore and try everything, especially with the new physics system, while others just want to charge through the game as fast as possible. We've actually found that we've had greater problems with the more experienced players, who don't seem to be able to grasp the fact that everything in the game is a physical object," says Doug.
Gabe picks up the thread. "You can learn from the AI though, so you may see them doing something you didn't know you could do and then use that later on to your advantage. Now if you see a dumpster, you can pick it up and throw it at the enemy if you want to. Also, the enemies are a lot smarter and more entertaining than in Half-Life. They can think about physics and use them purposefully. This means they can move objects to get somewhere new, or try and hurt you by causing physical chain reactions with the scenery."
Having seen a basic demonstration of working with a team-mate in the graveyard level, I ask Gabe about HL2's AI mechanics, especially in regards to some of the larger battles we've seen in the past between Gordon and allied AI troops and the alien invaders. "There's a lot of information available to the AI, like where they're looking, what their health is and what they're in proximity to. We've spent a long time looking at the AI players' motions and tried to have them generate the kind of ideas and reactions that are consistent with yours. So if you're moving towards something, the AI will assume you have an intention. If you're trying to get into an elevator while under fire, the AI will try and do something sensible around those actions, like covering you, so that you feel that you're still driving the action. There are also some specific commands you can issue to the AI. You can play the whole game without using this system, but if you like more direct control of the people around you during combat, it's
HERE TO BE USED."
WHO'S A CLEVER BOY?
But will we see the same kind of individuality and autonomy as we did from the bots in Valve's other recent project, Condition Zero, who, depending on their psychological makeup, would follow your orders to varying degrees?
"Sure," chimes Gabe. "They'll argue with you too. So if you tell someone to go and defend a certain area, they can turn around to you and say that they don't want to, as there could be a lot of risk associated with that action. They'll wait till you're not looking and then go off and do their own thing."
And so we move on to the final level of the day, one that may have a ring of familiarity if you've seen all of the Half-Life 2 movies we've run on our discs over the past year. "In this third level, we're actually using the new technology to drive new types of gameplay," explains Doug as I dive in.
There's a buggy right next to me with a mounted machine gun, and the nearest thing of interest - a dry dock - is a long way off. Smoothly, I slide into the vehicle and accelerate across the bumpy terrain, the frail car bucking like a wild bull beneath me. I fight for control, barely avoiding a spin as I round a corner only to embarrassingly wade straight into a lake. The engine cuts out. I've lost the buggy for sure and a long trek lies ahead of me. "Why don't you try getting out and giving it a little push with your Manipulator?" says Doug with a hint of amusement. He's not wrong. Using the Manipulator's alternate fire button, I start shunting the car out of the water, get back on board and resume my uncomfortable journey.
SUCK IT UP
At the dock, I use a crane with an enormous magnet attached to suck up the increasingly abused vehicle and plop it onto the pier, only to alert several very pissed off guards with the commotion. They waste no time trying to mince me with their machine guns. I return the compliment, ducking behind crates as they pin me down with a hail of lead. Diving out, I bear down on two of them. They disperse and flock for shelter with startling realism, firing wildly as they run, but one falls as a volley from my MP5 connects with his back and bows his spine. The other one soon follows suit, crumpling to the floor with a thud.
Jumping back into the car, I accelerate through a storage shelter towards a ramp leading to a huge window. Images of a heroic escape fill my mind, a majestic exit of splintered glass and a flight through the air to safety. Instead, I lose control again, decelerating pathetically and coming to a halt with half of the car teetering on the outside of the building, while the back wobbles awkwardly within. Back and forth it goes, each dip forward more precarious than the next, until at last the nose begins its slow motion-like plummet to the earth. Great! I'm upside down. Now where did I put that Manipulator?
ROCK 'N' ROLL
I get going again. In the foreground, circular metallic objects begin rolling towards me. "Roller Mines," exclaims Doug gleefully. A burst of machine-gun fire sends one pinging backwards like a bowling ball and bouncing against the road barrier; the others I seem to avoid. However, one's attached itself to the car and is now draining it of energy. Again, I come to a halt and shoot the mine off, only for it to resume its incessant charge over and over again. Then, an idea. Switching to the Manipulator, I suck the mine up and cast it over the ravine at the edge of the road, watching as it drops into the sea below.
I race over hills and obstacles, slowly mastering the amazingly lifelike vehicle physics which prove even more authentic than those featured in Far Cry. Just as I think I'm safe, a storm of bullets kicks up a maelstrom of dust and a hovercraft fills my view.
I stamp on the turbo and accelerate off, scenery flying by faster than my brain can register it, jumping over a ravine and narrowly missing a metal gate where more guards open fire, only to be cut down by my vehicle's mounted weapon. With that, the level ends, an exhilarating ride - although I'm left somewhat disappointed that only two of the weapons available to me, the Manipulator and a hugely powerful alien machine gun, seem to have been added to the Half-Life arsenal. Apart from these, the hardware at your disposal seems much the same as before.
SPECCED UP
So what's the deal with the machine specs I ask, now the gaming fun has finished? Is the minimum spec still going to be a PIII 733 as promised 12 months ago? "We're probably going to push that to a 1GHz processor with 128MB RAM and a DX7 or DX6 level 3D card - we're not sure which yet," comes Doug's reply. "We'll be pointing people towards running 256MB RAM and an ATI 9600, 9600XT, 9800 or 9800XT 3D card for optimal performance. Once you get over a 1.2GHz processor, the improvement that you'll see will be negligible, so long as you have all of those other pieces in play."
It's been almost seven months since we were assured Half-Life 2 would hit the shelves, a date which was compromised not only by the theft of an early version of the game (see 'Plugging The Leaks' on page 38), but also unforeseen programming complications. So when can we finally expect to get our anxious, clammy mitts on a finished copy? "We're targeting this summer for completion. We're hopeful we'll be able to declare a date at E3 in May," says Doug.
BETTER THAN REAL LIFE?
With Half-Life 2 so close to completion, and with the likes of Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life 3 to look forward to (see 'Looking Forward', above), the future is surely bright for a company that's constantly striving to roll back the barriers in an attempt to take the FPS genre to all-new heights.
On the evidence we've experienced first hand, Valve seems well on course to achieving its goals of providing an unparalleled cinematic shooting experience, one that's threatening to not only knock A-List top dog shooter Far Cry off its perch, but potentially blow it away. And in just a few short months time, you'll be able to find out for yourself if Valve has pulled it off.
BEGINNERS START HERE
We've already given you all the basics on Half-Life 2 and we've got so much that's new to talk about, we don't want to rehash too much of the old. However, if you want to know - and because we're nice - we'll sum up briefly what's been before right here in this little box. As with the original, you once again play as Gordon Freeman, the ginger speccy scientist from Black Mesa, who's allied here with a female inventor called Alyx - daughter of Dr Eli Vance from Half-Life. Featuring one of the most incredible physics systems ever devised, every object in HL2 can be manipulated. AI will react to your actions, rather than being driven by scripts and each character features realistic musculature to make them look and move like real people. Also, each one can convincingly deliver facial emotions - 35 in all - and lip-syncing is perfect thanks to cutting-edge new technology. The story will be set in Eastern Europe in a place called City 17 and sees alien forces coming to Earth in far greater numbers than in Half-Life, with 50 different enemy types promised.
A HEAD OF STEAM
For the past two years, Valve has been working on an online system of software delivery called Steam, which also acts as a games server for its multiplayer games. It's been long suggested that you'll be able to buy HL2 via Steam, as well as from your local retailer, something that Gabe Newell confirmed on our visit. However, with Steam subscribers promised exclusive new content for HL2 for their $9.99 (5.50) monthly fee, I asked what you could expect to get for your money? "We've spent so much time building this engine, meaning we can now easily build more games and new creatures," begins Gabe. "Our hope is that some people will be getting this new content from a subscription basis, while others will be buying á la carte over Steam or in retail stores. Some of the content will be continuations of HL2 - like Alyx's back-story - and new multiplayer games. Of course, we're also creating Team Fortress 2 (see 'Looking Forward' on page 41), and Steam subscribers would automatically get it as part of their subscription."
WHY DON'T YOU?...
Perhaps Valve just didn't show me many of the new weapons, but from what I saw it would appear that Half-Life 2's arsenal of weaponry is uncannily similar to the original. Apart from the Manipulator and a meaty alien machine gun, there's a rocket launcher, pistol, MP5, shotgun, colt, various grenades and of course, a crowbar. But why not inject some more crazy alien or prototype human weapons into the mix to give the game even more punch than it's already promising? If they already exist Valve, ignore me. If not, is there still time to get them in?
PLUGGING THE LEAKS
"It was a little bit hard to know how to react," begins Gabe melancholically. "The idea of having something that you're not entirely done with thrown out to the world is pretty traumatic and the morale of the team was terrible after it happened. We'd invested so much time and ten times the budget of Half-Life to build this game, only to have a load of people have their first experience of it through this unfinished random release. Some parts of the game had to be re-written as a result. We had to go back and look at our network protocols for multiplayer games and mods, and make sure we didn't leave any holes that people could exploit." But was the leak the main reason behind the game's delay? "No, the fundamental reason was because we underestimated the amount of work left to do and how long it was going to take, especially when the team were so demoralised after the leak." And what's still left to do on the game? "Tuning, tuning and more tuning," comes Gabe's reply. If that's truly the case, then summer's looking like a fairly realistic target.
SEATTLE, THE HOME OF GRUNGE AND MODDERS
As reported a year ago, Valve plans to hold a weekend-long modding workshop near its offices in Seattle before the game ships, in order to give the mod-making community a head start. "We're looking at holding this in either April or June in the Hyatt (a hotel next to Valve's offices). Our development team will come in and give demos to show people how to create animations and levels, and go through all the tools included in the first release of the Software Development Kit (SDK). It's free, and we'll even be showing people how to create custom shaders for the Source engine and custom multiplayer mods," says Doug. "We'll put out a press release nearer the time." When the mods are made, we'll then choose the best ones to put on Steam for distribution," adds Gabe. "Then the development team of that mod can decide whether they want to charge people for it." And does Valve have any plans to hold a similar course in Europe? "Not prior to ship, but maybe after. Perhaps around ECTS time in the autumn." We'll keep you posted.
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
During our visit, I got to spend some time with HL2's facial animator Bill Van Buren, who explained how Valve is tackling the problem of making its game as cinematic as a film. "It's really easy when you do a predefined cinematic to have very high production values, because you know where the camera and characters are going to be. In HL2 though, because you can roam around each room and the AI is designed to react dynamically to your actions, you never know where the player is going to be during a key scene. So we have to have something good ready, no matter what the player does. We've managed to find a balance between something that's really intentional from the level designers and the animators - such as a line of dialogue from a key character - but which continues to look good," says Bill. Aptly demonstrating this was a scene where Alyx, Dr Kleiner and an unnamed character in full body armour discuss the dangers of having Gordon in their lab. Bill moved Gordon around the room, and all three of the supporting characters adapt perfectly, turning to Gordon at the right times and making the scene look as convincing as any pre-defined cinematic could. "Each character's animations are blended into their postures so they can deliver lines and actions convincingly and logically wherever the player is," continues Bill. You could be about to see a shooter that genuinely feels like a movie.
LOOKING FORWARD
Valve is working furiously to meet its deadlines, but Gabe is already planning ahead. "We're still working on Team Fortress 2," he reveals, talking about the sequel to the much-loved class-based online shooter. "When we first showed it, it was on the Half-Life tech, and the Half-Life team was already halfway down the road to building the HL2 technology. So when the TF team saw what the new engine was capable of, they decided they wanted to use it too. The problem then was, how do we talk about TF2 without talking about HL2? We kind of screwed ourselves there, so we decided to say nothing more on it till we announced HL2." And what are the chances of us seeing a Half-Life 3? "We've got a lot of thoughts about the universe and things that we can do. We love the design challenges too. We'd like to do other stuff as well, but we'll definitely be doing a third Half-Life game. There are a lot of cool things left to do in this style of game and this universe." What's more, from the sound of things we won't have to wait another five or six years for it either. "Part of what we're doing is trying to build things which haven't existed before. But now that they're there, we can continue the process with smaller steps. We've got a lot of things that we can do with the new technology that we haven't done yet, as opposed to the technology for HL. When that game shipped, we decided that there were all of these new things that needed to be built. Now all of these things have been built, we really need to use them. I think what we'll do next is go off with these new tools and try to set ourselves a whole lot of new challenges."
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