Genre: First Person Action/Shooter
Developer: Valve
E3 has come and gone but not without one of the most anticipated games of the year making a huge splash. The sequel to the smash hit and best selling game Half-Life, Half-Life 2 won awards for the Best PC Game, Best Action Game, and Best of E3 2003. That's almost equivalent to an Oscars sweep in the Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay categories, and all this before one copy has made it to store shelves.
That is no mistake however, marketers love having the opportunity to plaster video games boxes with the awards their games have won to promote & increase sales, but with Half-Life 2 my bet is that it won’t need that extra help to boost any sales.
Half-Life 2 had been in the early stages of development since the original Half-Life was released back in 1998. Valve has been very secretive about it up until very recently, critics and gamers got an excellent look at last month’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, in Los Angeles.
Here’s a quick list of some of the features and game-play characteristics that Half-Life 2 will have when it is released later this year.
- Once again you’ll play the role of the crowbar wielding Gordon Freeman.
- Unlike Half-Life, Half-Life 2 uses an original, all new Valve designed game engine
- 12 game chapters that are broken up into many smaller subchapters or missions.
- Available weapons will be both human and alien technology.
- A Half-Life 2 SDK for developers will be released prior to the game being released. So look out for all the mods that are sure to spawn from this. Do I hear Day of Defeat 2??
- As of now, Half-Life 2 will be released exclusively to the PC, console versions are possible but there are no release details available.
- There are no two character faces that are alike in the game.
Unfortunately more detailed game-play information isn’t available, one can only hope that the sequel wows as many people as the original Half-Life did 5 years ago. From the looks of the screenshots and video it’s has already made some jaws drop. Make sure to download the official E3 teaser trailer and view some of the exciting screen shots.
