Half Life 2 Mega
The Half-Life 2 Beta, also known as the Half-Life 2 Alpha, the Half-Life 2 Leak, the Beta, or the leak, is a generic name that refers to Half-Life 2 during its interesting development stages, from 1999 to its release in 2004. Ever since circa 2018 the Project Beta team has created patches and in 2017 maps and models for the Beta using the source engine by the community and other modders. Half Life 2 (+19 Trainer) More Half-Life 2 Trainers. H4x0r Half-Life 2: Provenance (+7 Trainer) Revelation Half Life 2 (Unlocker).
Hen God Said, 'Let there be light, and there was. And god saw that it was good. And he divided the light from the darkness. When god wrote the bible all those years ago, he wasn't modest about possibly his finest creation after man and Coco Pops - lightIn the industry's perpetual quest for photo-realism in games, Lost Coasts interpretation of light is the next logical rung on the graphical ladder. Using never before seen levels of lighting effects, Gabe Newell and his band of merry men designed thismap for Half-Life 2, to showcase their new HDR (High Dynamic Range) technology. Through a series of commentary nodes dotted about the map, the guys talk you through the exact science behind lighting the in-game world, and ramble on about game design ideas, how certain aspects of the map came to be and generally interesting points about the map's gameplay.
The Light Fantastic
So is it worth the download? Well it's free, so of course it is. But if you're looking for more action, you might be disappointed -the map can be completed in less than ten minutes, and aside from a few combine soldiers, it doesn't offer anything new in terms of gameplay.
Instead, Lost Coast is really just a vehicle for showcasing Valve's fancy new lighting techniques; it's a tech demo. That's not to say you shouldn't take a look, as the HDR effects are astounding (even if they seem a little over-the-top at times), and will no doubt become standard (in some form) over the next decade. Indeed, a bit of research will reveal that true HDR monitors are already in development, meaning future games could literally blind you with brighter than white pixels and ultra-high contrast ratios.
Bleary-eyed graphical effects aside, Valve is also showing off its new commentary system, which it plans to implement into future releases. Wandering around the Lost Coast you'll see floating speech bubbles, which when activated prompt a developer, an artist, a designer, a janitor, or some other Valve employee into giving a short spiel usually regarding something nearby. Granted, the Valve chaps don't have the charisma of HL2's characters, but it makes for some interesting listening. And besides, we need something to tide us over until Aftermath.
Back in 2005-2007, when Valve still had episodic system in mind the development of one of Half-Life 2 episodes was given to outsource company. At first it was Warren Spector's Junction Point Studios, and then since 2006 - Arkane. Before this day we only had some pieces of informations, few screenshots and model renders from Arkane's project. For more information you could visit a discussion thread on our forums.
Today a new documentary about Arkane Studios was released on Noclip channel. As we predicted there was plenty of new information, screenshots, concept-art and video footages from the cancelled Half-Life 2 episode Return to Ravenholm.Here's a short list with some of the facts from this video:
-A playable build still exists inside Arkane studio
-They had a build of Episode Four's previous iteration from JPS but from the looks of it they decided not to use their ideas.
-Inside their team this project was called just 'Ravenholm'
-The protagonist was Lt. Shephard from Opposing Force (it seems G-Man gave him a nice promotion, from corporal all the way ti leutenant )
-The main part of the game was to be insite an abandoned asylum, most likely somewhere not far from Ravenholm, and near the end of it in the town itself.
-Father Grigori was making some experiments with Headcrab's toxins in hopes to find immunization from them and we were to assist him in this
-Grigori was testing the cure's prototypes on animals and on himself. Later in the game he would get mutations that he would try to hide, e.g. under the hood.
-In the end of the game he would become fully mutated and most likely would be some kind of final boss.
-They planned to use Viktor Antonov's idea cut from HL2 - huge wind turbines that were built to generate electricity
-Two of the new enemies were mutated monkeys that are scared of flashlight and zombies that could spit acid
-Some of the new wepons were nailgun, some kind of plazma weapon and leaf blower-Nailgun could be used to solve puzzles with electricity by connecting the circuits with bolts с
-Leaf blower could be used for rocket jumps
-The ending wasn't revealed because according to the developers Valve still can somehow use it in their next games