Half-Life 2: Episode Two

Unfortunately, few new details regarding Half-Life 2: Episode Two were revealed, though Newell did play an updated trailer for the game showing off a new feature Valve refers to as "cinematic physics." In the trailer, a huge cement bridge spanning a ravine was split in two, with chunks of rubble breaking off, colliding with the ground and with other chunks, splitting into smaller pieces, and so on. It is unclear specifically what all the applications of the technology will be, but it likely has to do with taking the fairly small scale realtime physics interactions Valve has pioneered in its games and scaling them up to larger situations. To create the technology, Valve has brought in cinema effects specialist Gray Horsfield, who handled destruction physics for Weta Digital in films such as The Lord of the Rings and King Kong. Valve will also be implemementing various additional graphical upgrades to the Source engine, such as a new particle system, better foliage rendering, and shadow buffers. These technologies will be immediately available to all Source licensees.

Newell pointed to these tech upgrades as one of the benefits of the company's episodic business model, as it not only helps Valve keep its products up to date, but provides value for the company's business partners. In gameplay terms, the company can incorporate player feedback in each successive release. To that end, Newell noted that Episode Two will indeed include new weapons, as well as the new opponents and environments already suggested in the game's teaser trailer.

Portal

Newell mentioned another benefit of episodic development: experimentation. If a player is investing less money into a game, they may be more willing to try something new. To that end, Episode Two will come packaged with a full single-player game that seems to exist in the Half-Life universe but it is entirely different from existing Half-Life titles in gameplay terms. In fact, it's more similar to Human Head and 3D Realm's Prey.

Based on the trailer, it appears that the player's sole weapon is a gun that projects portals onto surfaces. Two portals can be created at any given time, and they are linked together; walking into one will have you walking out the other. Objects, enemies, basically anything at all can also be sent through portals, and all of the game's challenges are circumvented by creative use of the portal gun. Whereas Prey is a first person shooter which uses various interesting elements such as portals to create an alien atmosphere, Portal uses portals as the basic gameplay mechanic. Early challenges include simple tasks such as crossing a pit of fire--just shoot one portal nearby, shoot another on the opposite side of the pit, and walk through--but towards the end of the trailer, the tasks became far more interesting.

For example, the player was creating portals underneath enemies, who would then fall out of another portal onto an enemy in another room. Since objects retain momentum after passing through portals, they can essentially be launched great distances: if one portal is on the ground with its "opening" facing up, and the other portal is on a wall with its opening facing horizontally, dropping an object from a great height into the portal on the floor will send it shooting horizontally out of the other portal at the initial speed it had reached just before entering the first one. It is also possible to use such tricks for the player to shoot him or herself across great distances. Portals can even be created by shooting the gun through other portals. These mechanics led to some astonishing and complex feats making use of gravity and momentum, most of which are difficult to succinctly describe in text having only seen the trailer once.

For a taste of what Portal will offer, check out the impressive freeware Narbacular Drop, a game created at DigiPen by students who are now working with Valve on Portal. Though Narbacular Drop is fairly short, its mechanics and technology are extremely polished. Based on a playthrough of Narbacular Drop and a viewing of the Portal trailer, it is safe to say that the puzzles and situations in Portal reach a much greater intensity than the scenarios in the game on which it is based.

Team Fortress 2

The incredibly long awaited Team Fortress 2, once publically in development but in more recent years presumed to be cancelled or indefinitely delayed, was officially announced after the Portal demonstration, and it was the biggest surprise of the whole expo by a very long shot. No actual gameplay footage was shown, and no real details about the meat of the game were revealed, but one thing is for sure: it looks absolutely nothing like the screenshots we saw five years ago. Perhaps in response to the overabundance of realistic war-themed shooters, or perhaps simply because Valve really wanted to mix things up after lots and lots of Half-Life, the game has taken on an entirely new visual style. In a move that will surely set it apart at first glance from every other popular multiplayer PC shooter on the market, the game has a very colorful, almost cartoon-like appearance, making use of what appears to be cel-shading rendering. Think The Incredibles, with fewer gradients (and no superheroes), along with some of the campy 60s spy movie aesthetic as seen in the No One Lives Forever series.

The teaser trailer merely highlighted each class, usually in some kind of humorous situation. Veteran Team Fortress players will recognize all of the nine playable classes: the Heavy, the Spy, the Scout, the Demoman, the Engineer, the Medic, the Sniper, the Soldier, and the Pyro. The colorful and fast-paced montage was accompanied by stylish horn-infused spy movie music--again, think No One Lives Forever or The Incredibles. I'm not sure how the music will be integrated into a team-based multiplayer game--if at all--but I can't wait to find out.

Newell described the game as the "best looking, best playing class based multiplayer game." Considering how that segment is heating up these days, that's a steep promise, but the series' lineage is certainly there. Team Fortress 2 will be bundled with Episode Two, making the planned holiday season release a practically irresistable package. Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. I'm the console editor around these parts, so I should probably be more excited about the two upcoming consoles that will be hitting around that time, but Valve just made that a little difficult.

PS3 and Xbox 360

For those of you who prefer your shooters on consoles, why are you reading Shacknews Newell also announced that Episode Two will launch on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 the same day it launches on PC. Since he was speaking at an event held by Valve's retail publisher Electronic Arts, he was presumably referring to boxed releases for the console games; it is not known whether they will be distributed digitally on consoles as well.

Since it doesn't make much sense to release Episode Two for consoles when those consoles have never had the first episode, Valve will be including in the console Episode Two package the full version of Half-Life 2 as well as Episode One, Portal, and Team Fortress 2.