PC Zone UK out tomorrow with HL2 Exclusive

Munro

Munro

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A new issue of the UK PC gaming magazine, PC Zone, will be released tomorrow but some lucky subscribers of the magazine have managed to get it today.

Inside is a collection of new screenshots and concept art of Half-Life 2. There’s also some quite interesting new information on its characters, weapons and some brief walkthroughs of a few levels you’ll soon be playing.

If you want to read more head over to your nearest newsagent tomorrow morning and pick up a copy.
 
Munro said:
A new issue of the UK PC gaming magazine, PC Zone, will be released tomorrow but some lucky subscribers of the magazine have managed to get it today.

Inside is a collection of new screenshots and concept art of Half-Life 2. There’s also some quite interesting new information on its characters, weapons and some brief walkthroughs of a few levels you’ll soon be playing.

If you want to read more head over to your nearest newsagent tomorrow morning and pick up a copy.
Click to expand...

I hope they have enough copies to go around
 
Damn right I will. Hope my crappy local stores have even a tiny bit of humanity left in their brainwashed minds. Well, I can always get hte information here.
 
Some yanks get foriegn mags, but PCGamer has been missing in action for a bit and promises to have new info, so it might magically appear when the NDA lifts on the 29th.
 
I have no idea about yank magazines, if anyone has info on them please let me know :)
 
Apos is right, PC Gamer US has been delayed until the 29th, or so it would seem. I haven't seen a new issue of PC Gamer US in over a month, so I draw the assumption that they held off for the NDA
 
NDA means Non Discloser Agreement; it's a legal document that prevents people who sign it disclosing information to other people.
 
when did the NDA end? and why didnt it affect European mags?... or did I miss something?
 
Mr. Redundant said:
when did the NDA end? and why didnt it affect European mags?... or did I miss something?
Click to expand...

It ends tomorrow, magazines judge when it should arrive to stores/customers so they ship it out early.. hence most places getting it on the 29th, but some places get it sooner
 
Woah, wait, PCGamers NDA is lifted tomarrow or the HL2 NDA is lifted tomarrow?
 
but the staff of this site will put the information and images in the site no?
cuz that are not spoilers right?
please take the images and information and put it in the site

cuz I dont know if that magazine will be here in my country

I even know if I will buy it
 
I've seen it. Oh yeah, definitely new information and pictures. Don't know hl2.net's policy will allow though.
 
Javert said:
I've seen it. Oh yeah, definitely new information and pictures. Don't know hl2.net's policy will allow though.
Click to expand...
Info should be fine as long as its only the facts, not the whole article. Pictures on the other hand probably won't be allowed unless a major website is allowed to post them up on the net.
 
Scans from the mags will not be allowed, as they are copyrighted information.
 
well then.......ON WITH THE INFO!!!
 
Its a very good, positive, hyping, 10 page bundle of sweet new little bits of info, some reassureing confirmations about E3 and the future, and a myriad of really good screenshots, which we should see in High-Res form along with a few others officialy released online in the next few days..
 
Guess I'll head over to the store tomorrow and check to see if they do. I'm hoping to God that this game comes out soon because I just saw the new high resolution pictures and I'm more excited about this game then I have been in a long time. I'm really loving the atmosphere that these screenshots are showing. I wish I had a time machine to go ahead in time to when this game comes out.
 
that preview page gregor posted was interesting
the person that made the article even had a release date written
....sept.30........
 
It would seem that half-life2 dot de have got their hands on the original screenshots used in the german pcgames mag. Since this is currently being linked to by all the major gaming news sites (shacknews, homelanfed etc) I suspect that it's legally cool.

So yeah, new HL2 screenshots here.

I give up. Blocking the posting of URL's is terribly stupid.
 
That German site is not supposed to have those screenshots. I believe they were supposed to be for mags to print them tiny: they were never meant to be blown up and passed around as actual screenshots.

I also bet that now that the NDA has lifted, we'll be seeing some legitimate screenshots released fairly soon by online gaming sites.
 
this is looking awesome! i have read some forums with people bitching about the way it looks but i am being blown away!
 
Observations:

“15 minutes into the game”
Interesting….;) It appears that some piece of the intro was purposely skipped over. I’m just theorizing that there will be some impressive intro to the game…probably more impressive (relatively speaking) than the HL tram-ride.

Dr. Breen
According to this, Dr. Breen appears to be in bed with the Combine somehow. He’s some sort of public figure, probably not a combine puppet, but a combine ally.

The Story
After Gordon stepped through the teleportation thing, it appears that the Gman placed him in some sort of stasis, and has finally be revived after 10 years (somehow). The combine are a ruling-class occupation/police type force that oppress and controls city17 residents. It appears that you made quite an impression from your “work” at Black Mesa, and people seem to recognize you (wanted posters maybe?).

“but we’ll be bringing pieces of Xen to Earth”
Perhaps we’ll be seeing some un-earthly environments? Maybe some areas will have strange Xen cities along with plants, animals, and other strange formations that would only come from a place like Xen. Even though we don’t return to Xen specifically….perhaps this is a valve attempt to surprise us?

Graveyard level
This level appears to be quite interesting, but probably not vital to the story. The picture shows some sort of strange flying head-crab zombie with a deteriorated body. It appears that you get the manipulator gun from the very beginning (which is cool). Now, a little bit of valve creativity shows with the saw blades (probably circular saw blades). Afterall, those have to be one of the coolest things to send flying through the air to chop a zombie in half. I wonder if the saw-blades could get stuck in trees…that’d be cool.

everything in the game is a physical object
I think like most people…as long as we don’t have to worry about the consequences, we’d all like to play a huge part in chaos theory. I’m going to have too much fun blowing things up and sending things flying. Since this game appears to be some sort of targeted guerilla war, it seems perfect to have the physics system so interactive. It would probably feel like any other FPS without the physics system (ok…I’m rambling)


Friendly AI
It appears that you have a level of interaction with the AI….based on what you do in-game and also based on commands that you can issue. There's also some sort of squad GUI in one of the screenshots.

Vehicle Physics
Vehicle physics appear to be very realistic, which of course means you get the good and “bad” aspects of realistic driving. Up until now, games seem to have a very disconnected feeling, especially driving games. Something that I’m looking forward to is having a game that makes it actually feel like you’re driving…not just with decent physics for the vehicle, but also unpredictable terrain and similar factors.

Roller Mines
….interesting….

Weapons?
The editor criticized the lack of new weapons shown….but…if you follow the HL1 scheme and take hints from some Valve HL2 interviews, I’m sure that more advanced weapons come in the later levels. Considering the editor only played an intro level (no weapons), a trainer level (few weapons), and a single real-action level (with the buggy), I’m not surprised he didn’t see many new weapons that he hadn’t seen before (plus valve is probably trying to keep some stuff a secret)

“We’re targeting this summer for completion. We’re hopeful we’ll be able to declare a date at E3 in May”
Considering the game-test was a month ago (or more) I wouldn’t be surprised to see release date declared at E3.

HL3 & TF2 Confirmed
I think the big thing (as I suspected) is that TF2 was delayed to be made on the source engine=higher quality.

Screenshots
There’s a helicopter sort of vehicle and an armored, but simplistic combine vehicle. There’s a flying/floating headcrab zombie using a rather deteriorated body. It seems like the sniper/watch tower as seen in the 2003 E3 video (when team AI is shown) is fairly common. The screenshow with the smoking hovercraft seems to show some sort of drivable buggy, a generic vehicle (I wonder how many generic vehicles will be drivable), & a ?new? rocket-launcher type weapon. Of course there is the stun-stick that the combine use.
 
cool. i just saw the high res pics over on halflife2.de. no compare to the scans, i saw. :) looks great.
 
just wondering, can you smash buldings and such with rockets and grandes.
 
Dude, you're letting out spoilers. You should use the spoiler tags.

Oh, and yeah, I think it's possible to destroy complete buildings. Like in the strider video, the strider blows off a wall of a building.
 
Bio said:
just wondering, can you smash buldings and such with rockets and grandes.
Click to expand...
Not all of the buildings will allow you to destroy them, but certainly some of them will allow that to happen.
 
If you're wondering if HL2 will have geomod (red faction, destroyable stuff), then no, but it might feature some walls n' stuff that could be destroyed with an explosive.
 
Ok, had been cool tough.
But the game will be good anyway.
 
Mod idea

Sounds like a good idea for someone to implement in a mod.
 
Ahhhh, yes, GeoMod. Such an incredibly good idea wasted on such a mediocre game like Red Faction that only utilized the system 1 or 2 times in the whole game.
 
I just checked in 4 Mag shops. Dam man they all said the next issue will come next thursday the first week from the new month.

WTF is going on ?
 
you know the granades you could shoot from your smg in hl1 will they return in hl2?
 
what are those "roller mines" that were mentioned?
 
wendle said:
what are those "roller mines" that were mentioned?
Click to expand...

Mines that appear to latch onto the vehicle and drain its power... interesting.
 
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