1088
Half-Life 2 was 10 years old
One of the most legendary games studio Valve published November 16, 2004
After six years of development and several delays the release date of the game with a budget of $ 40 million hit on the counter and made a splash.
The unanimous opinion of the critics of the success has not prevented even hacking , which resulted in the audience was surprised to learn about a small deception great leader of the corporation. The fact that at E3 was shown technical demo version of the game . Expectations from the illustration of the possibilities were so great that the game before release received several awards.
Valve has promised that the game will be ready by September 2003. This did not happen because of another postponement. But on October 2 on the Internet appeared utёkshie network sources. Gabe Newell even asked for help in catching the hacker community . With sources 22-year-old German Axel Djembe, like millions of gamers waited impatiently release utyanul of the company's corporate network and technical demonstration , which was deeply scripted. Almost everything that was shown in E3, it was not the work of AI, but only a set of ready-made scenes.
Leak nearly tore the development process, the cost of a month which cost millions. Designers seriously wondered whether it would not kill the company. But Valve has stood and released a game that innovation today imitate others.
Even with its beautiful graphics of the era it was very deeply optimized. Half-Life 2 officially released on the original Xbox, and specifications of the console were extremely modest: variant Pentium III 733 MHz, 64 MB RAM and a video processor, similar in strength GeForce 4 Ti4200. The game goes well on many modern media centers whose interiors are designed only for streaming images with more powerful devices.
Half-Life has made a number of innovations in the industry: it was one of the first games of seamless gameplay that starts and ends without cutscenes. There is an illusion of presence in the real world, the boundaries of which it was difficult to feel. This effect was created love to detail - even cockroaches have artificial intelligence : they fear a sharp drop of light and other creatures and come running for food by smell. What could be some simulator dogs with interactive fish to 1998 masterpiece.
And Half-Life 2 has successfully passed the baton osnovopolagatelya innovations in the industry. Background story is told not kilobytes of text or dialogue, the conclusions of what happened can make the user as if he lives the game situation. Eyes player stops in the right places skilful Level-design.
Throwing objects and damage caused by this today, no surprise, but it was not always. Due to the gravity gun weapon could be any sufficiently hard or sharp object. Already in 2005, it will be an analog of Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil. In addition to the real need to save ammunition, in some locations Half-Life 2 was a lot of simple physical puzzles correctly diluting monotonous chase scenes and shootouts.
Breakthrough was and facial animation. In favor of it even had to change the story - was cut air station, leads them on a half-game carry gas masks on their faces. But it really was worth it: now the characters at the expense of real emotions were people, not caricatures.
Much better than steel behavior of artificial intelligence, animation and sound in general. Again, today, it seems self-evident. But we do not consider «Семь Samurai »from the perspective of modern techniques of shooting, we will always remember that Akira Kurosawa showed a multitude of methods for the first time.
Total in 2004, Half-Life 2 was named Game of the Year 35 times. To date, has sold about 12 million copies of the game. And to this day it remains one of the best selling in history.
But not only in sales was the value of this product. The game is an excellent demonstration of the technical capabilities of the engine Source. In fact, the gravity gun was aimed at graphic unprecedented levels of interactivity. It is best to delight the public characterizes quiet "wow" when shown at E3 particularly of sophisticated falling barrels .
The engine can be configured to render as a cartoon scenes (Team Fortress 2), and photo-realistic graphics. Source is available on all modern consoles, three of the main PC operating systems and on Android. Since 2004, it is only partially updated, adding to a working network physics, automatic lip sync, the effect of water flow, inverse kinematics, skeletal animation a lot of new parts: HDR, cheated on video accelerator facial animation, multi-core support, morph target animation and others. < br />
Source came on and continue to go few dozen games (both from Valve, and under license from other studios) and countless mods . And it is an unambiguous indicator of the correctness of the principles laid down in the engine at the beginning of zero.
Now preparing to release its second version of Source 2. Who knows, no matter whether the work on Half-Life 3, or is it just a rumor. How will you celebrate the anniversary of Half-Life 2?
After six years of development and several delays the release date of the game with a budget of $ 40 million hit on the counter and made a splash.
The unanimous opinion of the critics of the success has not prevented even hacking , which resulted in the audience was surprised to learn about a small deception great leader of the corporation. The fact that at E3 was shown technical demo version of the game . Expectations from the illustration of the possibilities were so great that the game before release received several awards.
Valve has promised that the game will be ready by September 2003. This did not happen because of another postponement. But on October 2 on the Internet appeared utёkshie network sources. Gabe Newell even asked for help in catching the hacker community . With sources 22-year-old German Axel Djembe, like millions of gamers waited impatiently release utyanul of the company's corporate network and technical demonstration , which was deeply scripted. Almost everything that was shown in E3, it was not the work of AI, but only a set of ready-made scenes.
Leak nearly tore the development process, the cost of a month which cost millions. Designers seriously wondered whether it would not kill the company. But Valve has stood and released a game that innovation today imitate others.
Even with its beautiful graphics of the era it was very deeply optimized. Half-Life 2 officially released on the original Xbox, and specifications of the console were extremely modest: variant Pentium III 733 MHz, 64 MB RAM and a video processor, similar in strength GeForce 4 Ti4200. The game goes well on many modern media centers whose interiors are designed only for streaming images with more powerful devices.
Half-Life has made a number of innovations in the industry: it was one of the first games of seamless gameplay that starts and ends without cutscenes. There is an illusion of presence in the real world, the boundaries of which it was difficult to feel. This effect was created love to detail - even cockroaches have artificial intelligence : they fear a sharp drop of light and other creatures and come running for food by smell. What could be some simulator dogs with interactive fish to 1998 masterpiece.
And Half-Life 2 has successfully passed the baton osnovopolagatelya innovations in the industry. Background story is told not kilobytes of text or dialogue, the conclusions of what happened can make the user as if he lives the game situation. Eyes player stops in the right places skilful Level-design.
Throwing objects and damage caused by this today, no surprise, but it was not always. Due to the gravity gun weapon could be any sufficiently hard or sharp object. Already in 2005, it will be an analog of Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil. In addition to the real need to save ammunition, in some locations Half-Life 2 was a lot of simple physical puzzles correctly diluting monotonous chase scenes and shootouts.
Breakthrough was and facial animation. In favor of it even had to change the story - was cut air station, leads them on a half-game carry gas masks on their faces. But it really was worth it: now the characters at the expense of real emotions were people, not caricatures.
Much better than steel behavior of artificial intelligence, animation and sound in general. Again, today, it seems self-evident. But we do not consider «Семь Samurai »from the perspective of modern techniques of shooting, we will always remember that Akira Kurosawa showed a multitude of methods for the first time.
Total in 2004, Half-Life 2 was named Game of the Year 35 times. To date, has sold about 12 million copies of the game. And to this day it remains one of the best selling in history.
But not only in sales was the value of this product. The game is an excellent demonstration of the technical capabilities of the engine Source. In fact, the gravity gun was aimed at graphic unprecedented levels of interactivity. It is best to delight the public characterizes quiet "wow" when shown at E3 particularly of sophisticated falling barrels .
The engine can be configured to render as a cartoon scenes (Team Fortress 2), and photo-realistic graphics. Source is available on all modern consoles, three of the main PC operating systems and on Android. Since 2004, it is only partially updated, adding to a working network physics, automatic lip sync, the effect of water flow, inverse kinematics, skeletal animation a lot of new parts: HDR, cheated on video accelerator facial animation, multi-core support, morph target animation and others. < br />
Source came on and continue to go few dozen games (both from Valve, and under license from other studios) and countless mods . And it is an unambiguous indicator of the correctness of the principles laid down in the engine at the beginning of zero.
Now preparing to release its second version of Source 2. Who knows, no matter whether the work on Half-Life 3, or is it just a rumor. How will you celebrate the anniversary of Half-Life 2?
| congratulating Gabe in English to mail gaben@valvesoftware.com |
| pereproydu one of the games in the series |
| Play in one of the mods |
| Download and go pick up in 2003 leaked demo |
| Quiet burst into tears, realizing the approach of death Only registered users can vote in polls. Sign , please. 545 people voted. Excused 266 people. Source: geektimes.ru/post/241502/ |
