



Half-Life

Half-Life is a first-person shooter being developed by Valve Software. Valve will be using the Quake\Quake 2 graphics engine for this game, and expect to release it in November of 1997. Sierra On-Line will be the exclusive publisher and distributor of Half-Life. The story behind Half-Life is a twist on a now familiar theme: You've been assigned to a top-secret experiment at a decommissioned missile base. The band of crafty scientists there have made a startling discovery -- a cross-dimensional portal. Through the portal, you can get a glimpse at an alternate universe populated by fascinating beings. Here's where a fateful "stupid decision" comes in. In an attempt to get a little more information about this unique other world, you try to break through by generating a sharp power spike via old nuclear warheads left behind at the base. Well, apparently something on the other side wanted in as well. You and your two co-workers are about to come face-to-tentacle with the monstrous creatures from the other dimension.



Now the former missile base is overflowing with unusual and very annoyed other-dimensional creatures. Your challenge is to eradicate these devious beings before they kill you and make their way out of the base to go kill others. Sounds like standard stuff, but here come some interesting twists. First, the CIA is sending out a squad of "Cleaners" to shut down the missile base, kill everyone inside, and cover up the whole messy affair. Oh, and then there is the matter of the government operatives planting explosives around the base. Perhaps they aren't aware of the nuclear warheads scattered around, or then again, maybe they are just stupid. If you don't stop the operatives, the explosives could trigger a nuclear blast big enough to destroy the entire Western United States. No pressure, though.

Here are some recent screenshots:

Although this game is building on the Quake\Quake 2 engine, Half-Life will introduce several revolutionary ideas and effects. One important feature is "skeletal animation," which is described in this press release posted before E3: The Half-Life demo will also feature monsters created with Valve's proprietary skeletal animation system. This system gives game characters the most fluid and complex motion seen in a first-person action game. It also allows them to be much more structurally complex than ever before. For instance, while current action games have difficulty handling monsters with more than 500 polygons, Half-Life will contain monsters with over 6000 polygons.

Additionally, Half-Life is expected to have a much improved artificial intelligence and support for Open GL, Direct X, and MMX technologies. Valve has assembled a team of the finest developers to arise from the Quake Community and it seems highly likely that Valve will actually deliver on all of these promises. A very detailed interview with members of Valve has been posted by Online Gaming Review. Other information may become available on Hoc Opus, a page updated by Wedge and Choryoth, the former team behind Quake Command and current members of Valve.

Spotlight

Jaspur's Half-Life News and Happenings is a perfect example on how to create a site for a game that hasn't been released. This site has every bit of information available about Half-Life and has each item placed into a logical order. This makes it quite easy for visitors to learn about the game. Site by Jaspur .