Well, I thought I would create one since noone else has yet.

With Half Life 2 just around the corner I am getting pretty excited. I know some of you are... and aren't ;-).

As far as anyone knows, at least anyone that makes a difference... Half Life 2 is still scheduled for late September even though rumors have went around that it has been delayed. Since Valve nor anyone else with any real say so says different, it's still late September as far as I am concerned.

Anyway, any new screenshots or videos that you see surface let us know and post them here. I for one would want to know when something new comes out.

Planet Half Life has by far the best and most content for Half Life 2 so I am going to provide some links to there instead of a bunchof other websites:

I suggest checking out the screenshots because a few of these I have not seen anywhere else. There are also screenshots of the videos.

Videos: http://www.planethalflife.com/half-life2/videos/
Screenshots: http://www.planethalflife.com/half-life2/screenshots/

..also lots more information at Planet Half-Life

im also excited since my new box should run hf2
w00t w00t w00t w00t!

Valve and VU Games UK announce that Half-Life 2 will be shown for the first time in Europe at ECTS later this month.

Valve and Vivendi Universal Games UK have today announced that Half-Life 2 will be shown for the first time in Europe at ECTS. The game will be presented, by Valve, in a purpose-built soundproofed amphitheater dominating much of the VU Games UK stand.

I saw a Video on this, it looks pretty nice. Not sure how game content is gonna be though. If its anything like the first one, kinda boring

Its the Mods that made Half- Life Successful, ie TFC and Counter-Strike.

If those didnt exsist i dont think Half-Life would have been what it is.

Im more excited for DOOM 3, looks better and im a avid id Software fan =]

But, of course i will buy HL2 just because you know

News from August 28th 2003:

HALF-LIFE 2 TO RELEASE IN SEPTEMBER, INSISTS VALVE

The words of reassurance we've been longing for - read them inside!

16:21 Half-life 2 at ECTS - it wasn't quite what we'd hoped for, we'll admit it. Y'know, it still looks ace and all, but previously seen E3 footage, previously heard E3 speech, and a ban on questions that might expose any new information whatsoever - what the hell is that?
Oh well, at least developer Valve didn't compound our disenchantment with release date woes.

Despite whisperings of slips, Valve's Doug Lombardi stated: "the release date is unchanged". Top news indeed; that's just over a month away, mathmatically challenged Freeman fans. In the meantime, we'll be running the first part of our interview with Mr Lombardi later today...

It may be out on Sept. 30. Saw this at Warp2Search.

Mods; I posted this in another thread, didn't see this one. Deltete the other one if you want. (Half Life Delayed)

Then again, maybe not Sept. 30. Just looked at Best Buy, and they are taking pre-orders, for $49.99, with an estimated arrival date of 11/3-11/12.

Mods; I posted this in another thread. Delete that one if you want. (Half Life Delayed)

olefarte: I think Best Buy is just playing it safe because they dont want to say it is coming out on September 30th and then have a lot of mad customers so they chose a late date just in case.

As far as boxes being on shelves, I think they probably don't know even more about the release dates than us or anyone else does. Worst case, some customer asks when HL2 is actually coming out, and in any case they have early advertisement. I'm sure a lot of people that don't keep up with this kind of thing see those boxes and go "Oo!". I know I would hehe.

I cant wait!

So when does it come out on Kazaa, then?

*Puts his hand over Phants mouth* Shhhh! Its a secret! :-D

Lol, well as soon as it is released and someone shares it ;-). I am buying this game though. If it cost me $100 I would still buy it.

Half-Life2 optimised for Radeon 9800, to be bundled with ATi cards

I saw that last night. Even though I own an ATI card and Nvidia both I don't think its fair of them to do that but I'm not going to complain. I don't play on buying a 9800 Pro because I own a 9700 Pro. When the next ATI card comes out that will probably be my choice. Hopefully I can find a job again soon so I can continue building my third PC. I've had to postpone that due to losing my job recently which really sucks . It won't stop me from getting HL2 though!

Links:

Most of you already know of this one, just thought I would add it. Contains all the E3 videos split up into sections in the form of .exe self running vids. Along with the technology demo and screenshots.

http://www.3dgamers.com/games/halflife2/

Screenshots
http://www.3dgamers.com/dl/games/halflife2/hl2pix.zip.html
http://www.3dgamers.com/dl/games/halflife2/hl2pix2.zip.html
http://www.3dgamers.com/dl/games/halflife2/hl2pix3.zip.html

Videos:
http://www.3dgamers.com/dl/games/halflife2/hl2-barricade.exe.html
http://www.3dgamers.com/dl/games/halflife2/hl2-bugbait.exe.html
http://www.3dgamers.com/dl/games/halflife2/hl2-tunnels.exe.html
http://www.3dgamers.com/dl/games/halflife2/hl2-traptown.exe.html
http://www.3dgamers.com/dl/games/halflife2/hl2-kleiners_lab.exe.html
http://www.3dgamers.com/dl/games/halflife2/hl2-docks.exe.html
http://www.3dgamers.com/dl/games/halflife2/hl2-g-man.exe.html
http://www.3dgamers.com/dl/games/halflife2/halflife2_divx_low.avi.html
http://www.3dgamers.com/dl/games/halflife2/halflife2_divx_high.avi.html


Where to get your up to date news briefs:

http://www.halflifesource.com/

Further Information:

http://hl2.ogaming.com/
http://www.halflife2files.com/
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/27703
http://www.halflife2source.com/
http://www.hl2.co.nz/


*Valve still says the ship date is Sept. 30th until further notice.

Half Life 2 Delay opinions by Planet Half Life

Half-Life 2 Delay Editorial

— Kevin "Fragmaster" Bowen
09/09/03


NOTE: PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS AN EDITORIAL! THAT MEANS IT CONTAINS OPINIONS! YOUR OPINIONS MAY VARY, SO YOU HAVE THE RIGHT GET PISSED OFF AND NOT BELIEVE ANY OF THIS GARBAGE! THIS EDITORIAL DOES NOT CONTAIN MANY CONFIRMABLE FACTS AND WAS IN FACT WRITTEN BY A HUGE (AND I DO MEAN HUGE) NERD!

When Half-Life 2 was announced in late April of this year, it was given the rather firm release date of September 30, 2003. Since then, that hasn't really officially changed.

Unfortunately, I feel very confident in saying that there is no way Half-Life 2 is coming out September 30th. Not through Steam, not through anything. And it's not going to be just a week or two late either. We don't even think Valve knows for certain when the game is coming out.

"HELLO, I AM A FREAKISH GEEK! MY OPINION IS CORRECT BECAUSE I HAVE A WEB SITE! EVERYTHING YOU READ ON THE INTERNET IS TRUE! I WEIGH 500 POUNDS STERLING!"

I was probably 99.5% sure it was delayed back in July when we posted basically the same claim: "Don’t get your hopes up. We’re still sure the game is delayed. Just wait and see." But it's not like we had some super secret information, we're pretty sure print magazines and some of the major online sites (ex. GameSpot) have known the game was going to slip even earlier. They just haven't been jerks about it, like I have. Sorry about that.

I can't post any proof that the game is delayed, but then again, you can't post any proof the game isn't delayed outside of a few old quotes, speculation, and blind faith that Valve will live up to their so-called promise. A release date isn't a promise, release dates are made to be broken. And Valve has already broken a whole bunch of 'em.

http://www.planethalflife.com/features/articles/delayeditorial/

I wasn't going to post this, but since Acid found the above info, I guess this one might be just as trustworhty, so here it is. Click the link to read it all.

I still kinda dont trust any of these 3rd partys nor the publisher and am waiting on an official word from Valve themselves. It's looking like it might not come out when we all expected, but hopefully Valve is going to have a final say and get their stuff together and have it released. Maybe that's just wishful thinking though ;-).

Nvidia hardware beaten by FAR by ATI in HL2 benchmarks.

-----

GD was among the first to report to you that NVIDIA's current line-up of GPUs are not the best choice for DX9 games. We fist benchmarked a beta of Halo and Tomb Raider: Angel Of Darkness.

If that wasn't enough to hopefully get the fine folks at NVIDIA working their asses off to get a better GPU out the door, we're not among the first to show you just what kinds of performance levels you can expect while running Half Life 2 on your current video card or the one you've been considering getting.

Truth be told, this story is much larger than just GD or you, the reader. It shakes the graphics industry to the core and calls out the "big dog" in town to check it's own backyard.


Full storys:
http://www.gamersdepot.com/hardware/video_cards/ati_vs_nvidia/dx9_desktop/HL2_benchmarks/001.htm

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1261767,00.asp

Acid, I'm going to follow your lead again. Look at this. It's reported to be Half-Life 2 benchmarks from Valve. If this is all for real, it makes me glad I have an ATi card.

Edit; And then there's this, at Warp2Search

Must be a good day for Half-Life 2 news. Here's some more at GamersHell, read the whole article.

Me too :=). However, I wouldn't be surprised to find nvidia make a massive leap with new drivers. I can't see their hardware being subpar, so they probably just haven't optimised their drivers for DX9 yet. There are few DX9 games currently available, and nvidia seem to be more concerned with getting good performance on current benchmarks, which are still the norm for hardware reviews.

Something that I still find unclear is that ATI cards use 24 bit shaders, while nvidia uses both 16 bit (half precision) and 32 bit (full precision) shaders. Valve managed to improve performance for nvidia cards by switching to 16 bit shaders for those cards. According to tomshardware, valve has indicated that in future 32 bit shaders will be the norm (unless that was a typo). ATI cards do not currently support 32 bit shaders so I wonder what that will mean for future titles.