Nem GTA3 hanem GT3
-
#819
E3 2003: HANDS-ON WITH HALF-LIFE 2!
Hold tight for a closer look at one of the hottest action titles in the universe! More amazing screens inside!
12:03 At E3 yesterday we were lucky enough to get up close and personal with one of the biggest games on the planet, as Valve took us through its masterpiece-in-the-making, Half-Life 2, heading to PC and Xbox. And the good news is it's everything you could have hoped for, and much, much more.
Before the action kicked off, the thing that impressed us most was the quite mesmerising level of detail that's gone into creating the characters that Gordon Freeman meets during the course of his groundbreaking adventure.
As opposed to the flat-faced characters seen in the first game, the people you encounter along the way, such as the G-Man and Alyx, are so convincing you'd almost swear they were real. We certainly did. Nothing we can print, mind.
Each of the characters has more than 40 muscles in their face, allowing them to convey a range of emotions such as anger, fear, uncertainty and joy. This complex muscle structure also allows for realistic-looking movements as the characters speak, their lips synching perfectly with the dialogue.
Screenshots of the characters are all well and good, but until you see them moving you can't really appreciate how special they are. We can honestly say we've never seen anything like this in a videogame before.
But the character's faces aren't just for show. Instead, as you speak to other people and learn more about them, you quickly form emotional attachments as if they were real friends, making you all the more keen to protect them in dicey situations.
When it comes to the action itself, the physics of the game world is truly breathtaking. Everything you see reacts exactly as it would in the real world, and in a seaside location we were amazed to see wooden bridges splitting and splintering when we shot them, the broken fragments then bobbing gently on the surface of the water when they fell into the sea below.
Everything from metal barrels and wooden crates to discarded mattresses and fresh watermelons reacted just as they would in the real world, and when a drinks machine was shot by accident when opening fire on a zombie, cans of Coke spilled onto the ground around us. It's so real you almost want to lick the screen.
This ability to interact with the scenery in such a convincing manner plays a major part in the gameplay. In one level we experienced, one of the first in the game, we were short on ammunition when we encountered a group of ravenous zombies. Instead of legging it and hoping to outrun the disgusting creatures, we were able to duck into a building and push a table in front of the door, keeping the zombies at bay as we made our escape through the
back door.
Later in the level we found ourselves on a high platform, with a group of enemy soldiers on the streets below. In an effort to conserve bullets we were able to shoot a series of chains supporting a huge iron girder, which then swung across the courtyard below, flattening the goons on the ground.
When reinforcements arrived, we were then able to throw a grenade that dislodged a pile of heavy metal crates, which fell into the courtyard, crushing the soldiers in a satisfyingly gory pulp.
We were also able to see the game's incredible AI in action when we skipped to a level that saw Freeman and a ragtag group of human allies battling aliens in a war-torn city.
As we made our way along a narrow cobbled street, with alien troops raining down fire from the rooftops, the human fighters laid down covering fire to protect Freeman and took defensive positions, making it feel as if we were fighting with real people, not computer controlled drones.
Another level we managed to play saw Freeman making his way through an abandoned warehouse, with a nifty new weapon up his sleeve. The smoking grenades, as yet unnamed by the developers, are actually a special kind of pheromone-based bait that can lure the Starship Trooper-like Antlion from the ground below to attack any targets in the vicinity.
We threw the grenades into a cluster of enemy troops, and were delighted to see them being torn apart by the Antlions before we made our escape through a narrow tunnel.
As with the original Half-Life, the monsters in the sequel are beautifully designed and incredibly imaginative. Aside from the slobbering zombies and creepy Antlions, the towering, War Of The Worlds-style Striders are some of the best looking enemies we've ever seen in a PC game. As we ran for cover we saw a Strider impaling a human fighter on one of its spindly legs, then comically shaking off the bloody corpse. Astounding.
The final level we played saw Freeman hopping behind the wheel of a dune buggy and burning down a narrow mountain road as he tried to outrun an alien ship flying behind him. When our path was blocked by a pile of burning cars we then took shelter behind the buggy and used a laser-guided rocked launcher to blast the ship out of the sky, but were horrified to see the alien vessel skidding down the road towards us when it finally hit the deck.
Although we were only able to play a tiny section of Half-Life 2, we're now convinced that it's one of the best games of E3 and one of the best PC titles ever conceived. The rule book has been rewritten.