Half-Life 2

Half-Life 2 is a first-person shooter computer game and the highly anticipated sequel to Half-Life, developed by Valve Software. It was released on November 16, 2004 to very positive reviews {{ref|reviews}}, following a protracted five-year development cycle during which the game's source code was leaked to the internet. The game utilizes the advanced Source game engine, coupled with a heavily modified version of the Havok physics engine, and was critically acclaimed for ground-breaking improvements in computer animation, computer graphics, artificial intelligence (AI) and physics. Since its release, the game has sold about 3 million copies so far {{ref|sales}}.

Cuts from the game

The book Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar {{ref|raisebar}} revealed many of the game's original settings and action that were cut down or removed entirely from the final game. Half-Life 2 was originally intended to be a far darker game where the Combine were more obviously draining the oceans for minerals and replacing the atmosphere with noxious, murky gasses. This quote from the book, from an early draft of the introductory sequence, gives a feel for what the game would have been like:

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"Off to one side, you see another train hurtling through the dusk. It gives you some sense of the train you are riding. The nose of the engine car is protected by a huge deadly variant of a cow-catcher, a sharpened steel plough designed to shear through herds of whatever creatures might stray across the tracks or try to take the train head-on. Something that resembles the old Gargantua looms up from a fissure, lunging at the parallel train, and the engine slices right through the thing, leaving it in gory pieces on the track."

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In addition, the coming about of Nova Prospekt is described: originally as a small Combine rail depot built on an old prison in the wasteland (the depot model remains in the game, visible from the beach and trash compactor) it grew and grew from a stopping-off point along the way to the destination itself.

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Promotional shots and gameplay videos released before the game became available showed parts of these scenes, and also showed enemies which do not appear anywhere in the final game, such as a hydra-like enemy. The hydra was apparently cut because its AI proved troublesome: while impressive when attacking NPCs, it was less interesting and frustrating for players to fight.

Related Topics:
Hydra - AI

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It remains unknown if the cut Half-Life 2 scenes will eventually be completed and released, or if they are lost forever. A removed section of the original Half-Life was eventually released as the ' demo; it is possible or even likely that removed sections of the sequel will be seen in expansion packs such as Half-Life 2: Aftermath.

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