Half-Life 2 exposed!

1998 is drawing to a close, and for the PC gaming world the year is about to go out with an incredibly large bang. Exploding onto the scene is Half-Life, the first game from developer Valve Software. It's a first-person shooter that's to completely change the face of the genre, moving the goal posts and taking the FPS experience to the next level.

A gripping storyline, immersive setting, clever scripted sequences and phenomenal AI turn Half-Life into a king over the coming weeks and months.

Such mass acclaim, incredible success and awesome gameplay inevitably fuels hopes and dreams of a sequel. Half-Life 2 rumour has done its fair share of door knocking over the last four and a half years, any mention of the mother of all sequels eagerly grabbed at by the huge number of fans of the original. And frustratingly, we've found the whispering smoke of speculation escaping between our frantically clutching fingers. Until now.

Simply stunning

Having been virtually silent in regard to its own projects for over four years, Valve Software is swaggering back onto the scene in some style. Half-Life 2, in development since the release of the original, is coming. Pinch yourself - this is no dream. Bear in mind that Valve is fully aware that it not only has to better Half-Life but has to trounce all other competition, and you can guarantee that the sequel will blow any expectations clean out the water. It's going to be amazing, like nothing we've seen before.

No prizes for guessing that players will be reprising the role of bespectacled, goatee-sporting scientist Gordon Freeman, the unlikely hero of the original. The sequel, offering around 40 hours of gameplay in singleplayer, takes place "some time" after the first title, Freeman leaving behind the confines of Black Mesa and indeed Xen, which won't be appearing this time around.

It's a fictional north central European city called City 17 that will play host to much of the action in Half-Life 2, the storyline taking events beyond the bustling metropolis, but Valve is remaining cagey about this aspect of the plot.

The developer's naming of the location is certainly intriguing. It's either selected a faceless identity to allow it to flex its poetic, creative fingers, or it might suggest something slightly more sinister. Are Cities 1 to 16 sites of experiments that have gone hideously wrong?

However the plot plays out, you can be sure of one thing: plenty of conflict with alien and human adversaries. "The alien invasion is on a far grander scale this time around," says Valve Software's director of marketing Doug Lombardi. "In Half-Life they were just sending in the scouts, so to speak. This time they're bringing in the big guns."

Despite the shroud of mystery surrounding weapons, shotguns seem a dead cert

The scope of events may have changed for the sequel, but Half-Life 2 will contain plenty of content that will be familiar to players of the original. Perhaps most notable in this respect are the game's key non-player characters, not simply because we've encountered some of them before, but also because of the incredible level of detail present in the animation and facial expressions of the main NPCs. We'll tell you more about the engine in a bit.

Integral to the Half-Life 2 storyline will be the sinister G-Man, engaging in Machiavellian antics once again, Dr. Eli Vance, the African-American scientist from Half-Life who's now been graced with an identity and details the events that have occurred in the transition from the first game to the second, his daughter Alyx who, brought up as an inventor and accompanied by sidekick robot Dog, will play the part of Gordon's main ally, and finally security guard Barney who numbers in the singular for the sequel.

It's likely that other key characters will be introduced as well; and bizarrely, Alien Slaves will number among your allies in Half-Life 2. It hasn't been made clear exactly what's going on there just yet. And anyone else wonder if Dr. Eli Vance will meet a rather sticky end at the beginning of the game, forcing Alyx and Gordon together?

So how about the Half-Life 2 engine then? Well, it's called Source and has been developed in-house at Valve Software, so no engine licensing to be seen here. Allowing for a combination of beautiful, spectacular open vistas and inner environments (just take a look at the screenshots), the technology boasts incredible physics and stunning character and facial animation of a like never seen before.

The physics system, which includes rag-doll properties for character models, realistically reacting objects and even realistic physical reactions from Gordon as he tries to make his way across debris, for example, has been cleverly incorporated to appear "natural".

Mod and map makers will see a lot of this sort of thing

Valve Software doesn't want to show off its technical prowess with pointless, unconnected effects, but rather blend Half-Life 2's physics system seamlessly with the gaming environment.

The character animation, which involves highly detailed facial expressions from the lead NPCs and amazing body movement and co-ordination, will present us with virtual yet unnervingly realistic people. Coupled with this is incredibly lifelike lip-synching, which makes clever use of WAV files. It has to be said that we've been waiting for this sort of detail to appear since the dawn of gaming. Valve Software is the developer to turn such a dream into reality.

While City 17's many citizens that go about their lives will all be unique - bar a number of variations on a model theme - they won't benefit from the depth of facial animation present in the main characters. They won't be delivering heavyweight lines, after all. However, expect immersion to go off the scale as the game draws out unexpected emotions and reactions.

Sounds rather impressive, doesn't it? But wait: we have yet to inform you about Half-Life 2's AI. Speak to players of Half-Life about artificial intelligence and they'll probably start babbling about the marines. These enemies were, in a word awesome, running for cover, lobbing grenades onto your position and barking orders at each other through communication links.

They still stand out as one of the best examples of the use of AI in a game. Guess what? AI in the sequel will be better. Or perhaps far superior would be a more apt phrase.

"We're taking the old AI system from Half-Life and adding some things to make it more intense and real, so that is has more layers and dimensions," explains Lombardi. Enemies will now be able to navigate complex surfaces and doggedly hound you to their or your own grave, they'll target opposition posing the greatest threat and react accordingly, and they'll also react realistically to their general surroundings and use the environment to their advantage.

Half-Life 2's environments are incredible

In short, there'll be no hiding, highly intelligent, unpredictable enemy behaviour also interestingly doing away with the litter of scripted sequences found in the original outing.

Valve is being cagey as far as Half-Life 2's weapons are concerned, but a combination of real-world firepower, R&D tech gadgetry and alien death-dealers is surely on the cards. The developer has, however, been quite open about the game's 50-plus enemies (an impressive number) we'll be facing, presenting us with a combination of familiar and new faces.

Bullsquids and Headcrabs (there's a whole family of these) will be showing their ugly mugs again, along with the Zombies, the Headcrab-human symbiotic monsters, and the ceiling-hugging Barnacles - they of the long, sticky tongue and sharp teeth.

Accompanying this motley crew are Half-Life's marine replacements, the gas mask-clad police, Antlions, and the bigger, tougher Antlion Guards, which bear a resemblance to the alien cannon fodder in Starship Troopers, plus a number of deadly biomechanical foes.

And the 90-foot tall Strider, a three-legged alien bedecked with awesome firepower and looking like something from War of the Worlds, simply kicks ass. Quite literally.

50-plus enemies means that what's been revealed is only touching the surface. Rest assured that boss characters are bound to feature.

As with weapons, Half-Life 2's multiplayer component is currently being kept in the closet. Deathmatch? Capture the Flag? We've even read wild speculation that multiplayer will come via the free release of Valve's long-awaited team-based game Team Fortress 2, shortly after Half-Life 2 arrives.

We just don't know. However, it's a dead cert that the mod community will go ballistic when the sequel appears. Not surprisingly, Valve Software has had mod and map makers constantly in mind during the course of HL2 development.

So now your much the wiser about what Half-Life 2 has in store, what's the game actually like to play? We spoke to Martin "Jammy Git" Korda from PC Zone magazine, one of the select few who has actually played Valve Software's sequel. He had this to say:

"I've never been so nervous, or as excited about playing a game. I looked around [in the game], to find I was standing on a basic but sturdy wooden bridge spanning the gap over a river, whose shimmering water lapped serenely against the wooden beams.

"Suddenly, tranquillity gave way to panic, as two hideous, faceless zombies came shambling towards me. As they approached, one of them picked up a barrel and threw it at me. Instinctively I fired, the power of the shotgun shell sending the barrel back at its attacker and making it reel in pain.

"But the second zombie was still advancing. One well-placed shot to the head sent it flying off the bridge, coming to rest facedown in the water where it bobbed with the tide. But there was no time to celebrate. The other zombie had recovered and was once again advancing, intent on ripping out my lungs and using them as bagpipes.

"And then, an idea. Aiming at the bridge just in front of my assailant, I fired. Shards of wood flew into the air just as the zombie stepped into the now gaping hole, flailing wildly as it sunk into the water, helpless as I finished it off. Even in that one short minute, the combination of many of the elements that Valve has incorporated into its game had come together in one sublime whole".

Excited now? You should be.

Drawing to a close, we feel it only right to leave some of the final words to Valve Software's managing director Gabe Newell:

"We found ourselves with an interesting opportunity. Given the sales and critical reception of the product [Half-Life], and the online and mod community that's developed around it, we had a rare opportunity with Half-Life 2, a chance to shoot for the moon so to speak.

"We've already spent twice as much time on HL2 than we did on Half-Life, with a much larger team and much more understanding about going about creating an FPS."

Reading between the lines of Gabe Newell's comment, it's obvious that Half-Life 2 is not just a dream game for us gamers, it's also a dream game for Valve Software. Delivered up on September 30 this year - please don't slip - the sequel is destined to change the world of gaming forever.

For more in-depth Half-Life 2 information, hands-on impressions and exclusive screenshots, pick up a copy of PC Zone magazine - the only UK mag to have actually played the game - on sale now.

Stuart Bishop