Ben Irwin - Firearms


On Half-Life 2 - Although I've only seen a very limited amount of information in the magazines I've read, it all seems very promising. From the screenshots I've seen, everything looks great, and the things people have written about the sound and physics are impressive too. But I hope the single player portion of the game won't differ from the original too much. Obviously you're in a totally different place under different circumstances, but some things (such as specific NPCs who could cause you to fail if they die) worry me a little. I've read about how people at Valve were surprised when players felt a genuine attachment to the security guards and scientists that were dotted around Black Mesa, so they've added specific characters this time who play a major part in the story. That's great, but part of the fun of playing the original game, for me at least, was the fact that you were all alone. Nobody to tell you what your objectives are, nobody to point out a weapon you didn't pick up. The only real objective in the game was to survive. Then there were the moments when you were short of ammo and decided to whip out your crowbar and cave Barney's head in so you could help yourself to his. I don't want to be in a situation where I have to reload the game because a vital NPC was in the wrong place. Having said that though, I have faith in Valve, and I'm pretty sure they'll avoid things like that. As for the multiplayer, I'm hoping that Team Fortress 2 is included as standard. I think that would be a pleasant surprise for everyone. TFC engulfed practically all of my time before I started toying with customising the game, and to have TF2 in September would be a dream come true.

On moving mods to Half-Life 2 - Although we don't have any specific plans yet, Half-Life 2 has definitely been added to the list of candidates for whatever we do next. Hopefully we'll get more information about the engines capabilities, as well as the tools which will be provided, in the run up to E3. I'm sure it would be a challenge to develop for. To take advantage of the engines advanced features will take a lot more skill than what is required to push Half-Life to its limits, but I'm confident that the team we have here is capable of it. Whether or not we'll end up developing a mod for Half-Life 2 is unknown though. We'll just have to wait and see...