Half-Life 2 Preview

From Gordon's Perspective

As much attention as Half-Life 2's cinematic aspirations are bound to inspire, the game promises plenty of pure action.

Half-Life certainly wasn't the first game of its kind. Many other 3D first-person shooters, such as id Software's Quake, had long since popularized the genre for fans of single-player and multiplayer action. What Half-Life did was refine and in some ways redefine the genre's formula, bringing it to its current high standards. Half-Life is still the high-water mark as first-person shooters go, because it was the first game to present, as Newell aptly put it, "a seamless string of surprising events." The object of the game wasn't just to reach the other end of every level. The gameplay wasn't about finding color-coded keys to match color-coded doors. The object was survival. And the gameplay was exceedingly intense, thanks to the game's excellent audio, special effects, enemy design, and artificial intelligence. In Half-Life, players became Gordon Freeman, a scientist who happened to be in the right place at the wrong time. The game's opening act is as memorable as they come: Freeman inadvertently triggers a dimensional rift, causing terrible alien creatures to pour into the Black Mesa research center--and causing government black-ops agents to come after both the creatures and any human witnesses. Fortunately for Freeman, he gets his hands on the HEV system, a powerful and high-tech environment suit that enables him to overcome incredible odds, shooting his way past hordes of aliens and commandos and eventually warping to the aliens' home turf and hitting them where it counts.

Half-Life 2 will be a traditional sequel insofar as it continues the storyline established in the original game and reintroduces many familiar characters. So in short, Half-Life 2 will be fundamentally similar to the original, both thematically and in terms of gameplay. It's going to look much better, take place in bigger and more-detailed environments, and feature a stronger cast of characters. Players will reprise the role of Gordon Freeman. In the sequel, as in the original, players will see everything through Freeman's eyes and will never be taken out of his persona. And, as in the original, Freeman will never say a word--it will be up to players to play every bit of the character's role.

The huge strider can be seen stomping around City 17, the European city where the new game takes place.

According to Newell, Half-Life 2 is going to fulfill the original game's potential as a medium for first-person storytelling, as that game merely "scratched the surface." In other words, though the original Half-Life was praised for its ability to immerse players in the dangerous world of the game, the sequel promises to do an even better job of it. At the same time, it seems wise of the designers to not go out of their way to alter the parts of Half-Life's formula that worked well. We thrilled to being in the middle of an alien invasion. We grew tense at the realization that our actions in the world of the game had real consequences, such as when, early on, pressing an elevator call button caused an elevator full of scientists to come crashing down, killing them all. Half-Life 2 will rekindle these feelings, and more. Newell often referred to Valve's intention to make Half-Life 2 an "emotional" experience--the designers want to make Half-Life 2 players empathize with the game's main character.

Essentially, Valve hopes that Half-Life 2 will be exactly the sequel that the original game's legions of fans want it to be. As such, it has a familiar cast and a familiar setting--though that's not to say it's about all the same people having it out in Black Mesa again. Next we'll tell you more about the setting and some of the new characters--both friendly and unfriendly--in Half-Life 2.