Wow, I managed to suck down the 500 meg Half Life 2 video and all I can say is wow. Almost more exciting as the Doom3 footage I mentioned. The physics in the game look amazing, you shoot a wooden platform and hey, it spliters, and (if shot in the right places) falls apart, just like real life, or at least I’d assume. Things look like they react “properly” to the world. The new engine, “Source” also looks like it has dynamic lighting and bumpmapping, which is the big thing about Doom3. Facial animations (something like 40 muscle groups working to create facial expressions) and near perfect lip syncing as well.
The video also shows the gameplay and interaction of you (Gordon Freeman) in the real world, and all I can say is, wow. Hit alt.binaries.multimedia to grab a copy, if it’s still there.
I’m getting very excited about this game. On friday I went out with Cat5 to a friends place to watch a Alien/Aliens/Alien3/Alien Resurrection movie marathon and the guy hosting showed the HL2 trailer and was really excited about it. I was excited, but more excited about Doom 3. I think that’s changed now. The fact that Half Life 2 has a solid (at least now) release date instead of “when it’s done” helps as well (even if it is 195 days away).