Half-Life 2 News

Half-Life 2: Episode One VR fan mod is out today

Back in January, the makers behind the excellent Half-Life 2 VR mod announced they were moving on to making a virtual reality goggle version of Half-Life 2: Episode One - and we now know it will be arriving on Steam later today. What's more, we also have a release date for their VR mod of Episode Two. That will come next month on April 6th, according to its Steam page.

This is like pizza and ice cream, burgers and fries - two of my all-time favourites, Half-Life 2 and Resident Evil, fused together to make a new, classic-style, fixed-camera horror game, and it's out now and available for free. If you need something to fill the time before the Resident Evil 4 release date, I would say this is the one.

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'I was deranged'—Half-Life writer's regret at publishing Episode 3 story

Back in 2017 Half-Life writer Marc Laidlaw published a real oddity: a wibbly-wobbly short story that was once intended as Half-Life: Episode 3. It's a weird old thing. Eli Vance is dead, Dr. Mossman tracks down the Borealis, Gordon and Alyx head off to Antarctica, and everything of course goes wrong. Laidlaw made some cursory attempts at disguise like gender-swapping characters and slightly altering their names, but it was clear this story was once intended as a resolution to a series famous for its lack of them...
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Half-Life 2's face models include a legendary DJ and an actual dead body

It's no secret that Valve scanned the faces of real people to use as 3D meshes for characters in Half-Life 2. Most of them are credited in the "Thanks to the following for the use of their faces" section of the credits in Half-Life 2 and its follow-up episodes. Thanks to Source Filmmaker and Garry's Mod, many of them have enjoyed a memetic life beyond the Half-Life series too, with even the background citizens of City 17 developing followings in the SFM community...
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Half-Life has better writing than Half-Life 2, for one simple reason

There is a fantastic moment in Half-Life 2, during the 'Water Hazard' section of Valve's FPS game, when you first arrive at one of the resistance outposts, Station 12. Previously, you - or, if you prefer, Gordon Freeman - have been told that communications with Station 12 have mysteriously ceased. Overlooking City 17's irradiated river, the Station is supported on stilts. Immediately, you know that something is wrong. The river is silent. No-one exits the Station to greet you. A large wooden container dangles ominously from a pulley - the grand piano over Buster Keaton's head; some stark realisation just waiting to drop.