Half-Life 2 E3 2004 Preshow Hands-On Impressions
We actually played it. For 15 minutes. And just wait until you see how much we have to say about those 15 minutes.
Half-Life 2 needs no introduction. At a recent pre-E3 event hosted by Vivendi Universal, we finally had the opportunity to get our hands on an early version of Valve's upcoming sequel and play through a couple of different sequences that revealed aspects of the story as well as elements of the gameplay. In short, our verdict based on our 15 minutes with the game is that we have no verdict at this time--sorry. There are still too many questions up in the air. But we're certainly still intrigued, and in many ways, now more so than ever. Who wouldn't be by such a game, and such a strange course of events surrounding a game, as this?
After Half-Life 2 missed its projected, widely publicized September release date, and despite the unfortunate reality of how part of the game's source code was stolen, we left last year's E3 with many questions. Many of the set-pieces in last year's E3 movie were certainly impressive, but were they representative of actual gameplay? And now that several excellent, high-profile first-person shooters have beaten Half-Life 2 out the gate--specifically, Unreal Tournament 2004, Far Cry, Painkiller, and Battlefield Vietnam--Valve's game is suddenly faced with some extremely fierce competition and has to live up to even higher standards and expectations.
But we know from the case of the first Half-Life that anything is possible and that we should expect only the unexpected. At any rate, the situation now is as follows: In March of this year, Half-Life 2 finally went alpha, which means that the game's content has been assembled and is now undergoing extensive testing. The game is currently slated for tentative release this summer, but understandably, there isn't a more-specific date to look forward to. At Vivendi's preshow event, a Valve representative candidly admitted that the source code theft last year contributed to the game's lateness, but now the team is back pushing full steam ahead, revitalized by the alpha milestone, and is excited to be able to play through the game from start to finish. Now the team can concentrate on giving Half-Life 2 that all-important layer of polish it's going to need to make a strong impression, according to Valve anyway.
So what, exactly, did we get to play? We got to play through a couple of different sequences, one of which was a story-driven, largely noninteractive expository sequence near the beginning of the game and the other of which was an action sequence involving action both on foot and behind the wheel of a nitro-equipped buggy (the one shown off at last year's E3). We can say that the initial sequence, though there was no real gameplay to it apart from just walking through an environment, was more impressive; it demonstrated to us that Valve still has a knack for creating dramatic, suspenseful sequences that can be exciting even without any kind of real action happening onscreen. That's as impressive of a feat as ever.
As for the action sequence, it seemed reminiscent of the original Half-Life, with one exception: the drivable buggy. Then again, drivable vehicles are no longer anything new for a first-person shooter. As a matter of fact, the implementation of the buggy rather reminded us of the buggy-driving sequences in this year's outstanding Far Cry. The buggy is limited to driving on a narrow ravine, on one side of which is a cliff face without any kind of guardrail to prevent you from careening off of it. To make matters worse, sticky mines keep appearing along the road, latching onto the buggy and disrupting its steering, making that fatal drop much more likely. We died here several times and noted that at least Half-Life 2 seems to retain its predecessor's brief loading times.
Something about the action that caught us off guard was that most of the weapons in Gordon's arsenal this time around seem virtually identical those of the original game, right on down to the sounds they make and their alternate firing modes. Specifically, while Half-Life's crowbar, pistol, revolver, submachine gun, shotgun, rocket launcher, and crossbow all received an obligatory face-lift for the sequel, each of these functions pretty much exactly as it did in the original game. Granted, a gun is a gun, though it was surprising to see that at this point, the new game's weapons seemed so similar to those of the original game--though perhaps there's more tweaking to be done, and more audio left to be added. Of further note, while we observed in one of last year's E3 videos that Gordon needed to drop his submachine gun so that he could pick up a rocket launcher, in the demo we played, we could hoist all the weapons simultaneously as in Half-Life.
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- VU Games
- Valve Software
- Sci-Fi First-Person...
- Release: Nov 16, 2004 »
- ESRB: Mature
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