Half-Life 2 @ E3 2004

If Valve are aware that they’re rapidly losing the goodwill of fans it wasn’t obvious at this year’s E3. As was the case last year all that could be seen of Half-Life 2 was a fifteen minute montage of video footage, which you had to queue for up to an hour to see. To make matters worse both Vivendi and ATi were both showing different footage, so the ordinary Joe Shmoe at the show would’ve been queuing for over two hours to see everything.

Of course, being press, we were able to sneak in straight away but Valve’s stubborn refusal to air condition their rooms, after all the complaints of the same last year, made the whole palaver a bit of a pain for everyone. Thankfully the quality, if not the quantity, of footage on show made up for everything and confirmed once again just how good the game is looking, irregardless of the run-around Valve are giving everyone at the moment (and before you ask the release date is still set as “late summer” and they wouldn’t be drawn on anything more specific than that).

Vivendi presents:

The presentation at Vivendi’s stand was the slightly longer of the two and started with what was apparently the intro to the game. Echoing the start of the original Half-Life Gordon Freeman arrives in the game world on a dilapidated train and you and he are quickly introduced to the run down, apparently totalitarian, City 17. Walking through a series of custom checkpoints the graphics are as widely impressive as you’d expect, although excellent sound and dialogue does almost as much to create a totally immersive atmosphere. After being taken into a back room by security guards, and being told to sit in a chair around which there are puddles of congealed blood, the clip blacks out to reveal an entirely different scene…

The next section of video was taken during a playtesting session with the apparently club handed tester almost crashing his heavily armed go-kart off the side of a cliff. Judicious use of the tractor beam gun saves things, but within moments he’s overwhelmed by a bunch of weird flying, and apparently indestructible, metal balls. An ambush by some Special Forces grunts just makes things worse until the tractor beam gun is whipped out again and our man the tester realises he can catch the balls and fling them at the soldiers. There’s also a good bit where an abandoned sofa is picked up and thrown to squish another grunt and by the time a strange looking disintegrator gun is whipped out you begin to feel that Gordon is just playing the bully.

Swamped

Next up is a short section on a swamp buggy as you zip around, funnily enough, a swamp with everything reflected beautifully in the highly realistic looking water. The next clip is even shorter as you’re introduced to Father Gregor, pastor of the zombie infested Ravenholm area. This appears to be the graveyard type area glimpsed in the most recent batch of screenshots and is likely to be the scariest part of the game, even though we got to see it for only a moment (although it does pop up again in ATi’s video).

Finally, we’re shown a familiar looking scene as the resistance fighters of “The Squad” try (rather unsuccessfully as it appears) to take out a couple of Striders in the mean streets of City 17). As good as it looks, with some great co-operative AI, there’s nothing here we haven’t seen before, except a strange sounding heat weapon employed by the Striders.

ATi presents:

Moving on to the ATi presentation things also start off with a scene setting exploration of the game world, as Gordon arrives in a rundown apartment building as gas mask wearing goons break into a building and arrest (or more likely kill, by the sound of it) those inside. This section brings to mind the movie Brazil and once that comparison clicks then it becomes clear that pretty much all of City 17, with its debris filled streets, downtrodden citizens and ultra surly police force owe much to Terry Gilliam’s Orwellian vision.

The second clip, like Vivendi’s, is also in a go-kart as you race around what looks like a half collapsed aqueduct, leading to a sea dock. As appears normal in the game you’re quickly accosted by soldiers, who start lobbing grenades at you from their higher vantage point. Gordon cleverly catches one with his tractor beam though and flings it back at its originator, with predictably gory results. Taking the initiative Gordon, or rather the playtester controlling him, then climbs up to the dock and uses a rocket launcher to blow up a guy taking pot shots from atop a crane. Said guy is sent pirouetting through the sky in one of the most impressive examples of the Havok engine yet seen. This impressive feat is then followed up by Gordon climbing up into the crane and using the electro-magnet on the end of it to pick up a giant ship container and dropping it on the remaining goons.

Gordon Bennett

After a quick sojourn with some friendly scientist types, which very effectively shows off the amazing lip synching and the great dialogue/voiceovers, it’s back for a slightly longer look at Ravenholm, the zombie infested wasteland from Vivendi’s clips. This part of the game is clearly far more horror based, bringing to mind The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the like, as you tour an abandoned set of wooden sheds festooned with body parts and dead victims. Picking up paint cans and flinging them at walls, to watch the paint spurt out proves to be of momentary amusement, until the zombies attacks and suddenly Gordon is pulling buzzsaw wheels out of the wall and flinging them around. He then resorts to throwing gas canisters at the crab-headed zombies, with predictable results. One of the best moments in either presentation, the way the fire spreads and the zombies stagger around screaming when on fire is at once scary and amusing.

The finale of ATi’s presentation is, disappointingly, a rerun of the City 17 Strider battle, with Gordon taking a slightly more proactive role by firing missiles at the giant tripods – again without any apparent effect.

By only showing another short set of video clips Half-Life 2’s second E3 showing was bound to be a disappointment, with nothing to astound as much as those first early glimpses last year. Of course the game still looks amazing, but other titles – most notably THQ’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – are catching up and the difference between Half-Life 2 and the competition is not as wide as it once was. Even so the fact that Valve are only showing gameplay clips now, as opposed to abstract tech demos, is certainly some evidence that the game is nearing completion. Although why they couldn’t have offered up some sort of playable demo, of a game that’s allegedly going to be finished in just a few short months, is a bit of a mystery.

Counter-Strike@Source

In actual fact there was one surprise to be had from the world of Valve this E3 and that came at the end of both presentations, with a clue as to what is being planned for the multiplayer options of Half-Life 2. In a not-so-subtle hint Valve showed of the Aztec level from Counter-Strike, but rendered using Half-Life 2’s Source engine. It was made clear that this was not Counter-Strike 2, but a sort of director’s cut of the original game.

Indeed, although the clarity of the graphics was excellent the rather simple architecture of the original made it clear that this was simply a stop-gap until the real next-generation Counter-Strike. Interestingly though Valve also indicated that the original Half-Life would be revamped in the same way, with the implication being that both would be bundled in with the final version of Half-Life 2, perhaps as a reward of sorts for making us all wait this long…