Damm it, Half-Life 2 is delayed once again till April 2004 because of the recent leakage of the source code.

» A third of the source code was stolen. It’s serious because it forces us to delay the launch of the game by at least four months, that is to April 2004. Just the time to rewrite parts of the game.
» This is the second time the game’s release has been postponed.
» Last month, VU games postponed the release of “Half-Life II” from September 30 to “an unspecified holiday release”.

Full report, click here.

Just in case you do not know what is going on in the gaming scenes these few days. The most anticipated game of the year, Half-Life 2, source code is leaked. Yes, thats right the source code alone without any other assets. This is worst then having the game beta leaked. Imagine 5 years of hardwork gone down the drain.

The code is in a 32MB rar file, it will extract to 7000+ files worth 160MB. The code is in c++ and it contains the code to cs, hl, hl2 and tf2. No doubt some sites say the code is fake, but rest assured that more people said that the code is real.

You are able to compile the codes, but you cannot run it because all the assets like textures, graphics are missing.

I must say that this file really spreads like wild fire. Internet is really a scary place. Things can spread at very fast speed. 1 to 10, 10 to 100, 100 to 10000 and so on.

For more information, refer to this thread.

I must really admire the hacker’s guts to do this. Well guess that the game will be delayed AGAIN.

I have got hold of the codes and I don’t even understand a single bit of it and I really wonder how they link 7000+ files together.

Blizzard’s founder Max and Erich Schaefer, David Brevik and Bill Roper ahve apparently resigned from Blizzard. Hope this will not affect Starcraft 2.

Here is the news copied+pasted from DiabloII.net

Some rather incredible and shocking news from the Blizzard camp today. Founding members, Max and Erich Schaefer, David Brevik and Bill Roper have resigned from Blizzard Entertainment today. The only explanation from the company is that they have left “to pursue other opportunities.” This will not apparently affect the two titles currently under development at the Blizzard North offices where Max, Erich and David were based. With all four having such a massive influence on Blizzard titles that’s difficult to believe. There’s no word what these “other opportunities” may be either. It’s going to be very interesting to see where these four turn up. The last time this happened Arena.Net formerly Triforge was born. You can read the full official Press Release here.

Update: A second Press Release has been issued, this one by Blizzard Entertainment (the other was by Vivendi) with a statement from Mike Morhaime, president and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment:

“I speak for everyone in our company when I say how grateful we are to have had the opportunity to work closely with this group of individuals. Each one of them has made valuable contributions to many of our games, and we would like to thank them for all of their hard work over the years. We wish them nothing but the best and are confident that they will be successful in their future endeavors. At the same time, we want to convey that Blizzard’s success has never been attributable to any one person or small group of individuals, and I am confident that we have the teams in place to continue creating some of the best games in the world.”

Is quite a pity that they left. =(

One of the game that I waited for so many months. Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne has finally gone gold on 29th May 2003. The game will hit the shelves on 1st July 2003. The game is estimated to cost around US$35.

Here is a scoope of the press release:

Following in the tradition of previous Blizzard expansion sets, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne provides gamers with a vast new chapter in the epic Warcraft saga. In the single-player campaign, players revisit the war-torn world of Azeroth. Several months have passed since Archimonde and the Burning Legion were defeated at the battle of Mount Hyjal, yet a new threat has arisen throughout the land.

Click here to view the full press release.

Woot can’t wait.

Half-Life 2, the rumors that have been going on for the past week and I have been following it closely. They are not rumors, it is true that Half-Life 2 will be out by the end of this year, rejoice guys. Here are some points taken from Planet Hal-Life & CS Nation:

» Half-Life 2 is scheduled for a September 30th release.
» Yes, you’re still Gordon Freeman, and yes, the story assumes you went to work for the G-Man.
» Half-Life 2 takes place in a European city called “City 17.”
» Headcrabs will be back! Although some of the Xen aliens will be your friends?
» Barney is back. And so is Half-Life’s original writer, Marc Laidlaw.
» While the new engine has all sorts of fancy features, it’s still designed to work on lower-end machines. Apparently a 700mhz processor and a video card capable of running DX6 is enough, although a 2ghz with a GeForce4 is recommended.
» The girl in the promo art is named Alyx, a daughter of a scientist who factors into the story somehow. She’s not playable.
» Scripted Sequences will be more interactive.
» Half-Life 3 is planned, so expect another cliffhanger ending.
»The eyes of players are dynamic, and accurately track objects in the real world, jumping to various objects of interest as well when nothing is happening.
» Eyes also feature true reflections.
» While a number of “Barney” security officers will be around, one main sidekick is planned.
» Full facial animation, based off of muscle-movement studies, gives natural expressions as well as automatic lip-synching.
» Fully realistic physics engine for fluid movement, falling, and collisions.
» All players will no longer walk “through” corpses, but rather step on and over them.
» Advanced fully dynamic particle system.
» Vastly improved AI system with intelligent pathfinding, threat analysis, and multiple prioritized objectives.
» Expected to be published by Activision.

Here are some screenshots in NeoWin forums. They are all scans from PC Gamer.

It will be an interesting year for us despite the war on SARS and Iraq. And on the FPS side, it is Doom 3 vs Half-Life 2. Who will emerge the winner? I will put my vote on Half-Life 2.

I have updated the poll to reflect this. Question is Doom 3 vs Half-Life 2. Click here to vote.

*Update* Here is a link to bigger scan images of the pages from PC Gamer.

Westwood also announced today that Command & Conquer Generals has gone gold and will be hitting shelves on 11th February 2003, which is about 19 more days.

Here is a scoop of its press release:

Command & Conquer Generals puts players trigger fingers on the pulse of modern warfare as they become a powerful general and control massive armies of bleeding-edge military weaponry. Three unique sides will be available, each with customizable high-tech arsenals ready to deliver unprecedented firepower on land or in the skies. Players can annihilate the opposition in the 22-mission single-player campaign or dish out the damage in global multiplayer mayhem.

For the full press release, visit the offical C&C Generals website.

Blizzard has announcement an expansion to Warcraft III. Warcraft III expansion will be called “Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne”, and it will be out somewhere in July, which is about a year since Warcarft III is launched.

Here is the key features:

» One new Hero per race, each possessing powerful spells and magical abilities specifically designed to enhance each race.
» A host of new units, each equipped with new abilities and spells, giving players the opportunity to create diverse strategic and tactical forms of combat.
» 3 new tilesets featuring extraordinary new lands to explore, complete with numerous creeps and critters to wage war upon.
» Player-built shops, unique for each race, equipped with items carefully designed to improve and aid the units of every race.
» Neutral buildings, which will provide players with numerous new upgrades, items and abilities.
» Neutral Heroes, available for recruitment by all players, that can supplement and strengthen a player’s army with all new spells and abilities.
» An advanced world editor that allows players to create their own custom campaigns, complete with cut-scenes and voiceovers.
» Many new multiplayer maps.
» Expanded multiplayer options over Battle.net® including multiple new game types, clan and tournament support.

Click here to see the full press release.
Click here to visit Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne official website.

Blizzard has released Warcraft III demo yesterday. Here is the storyline of Warcraft III demo:

After receiving an ominous warning from a mysterious prophet, the Orc warchief Thrall must guide his warriors to a strange new land in this fully playable demo of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. Whether you’re new to real-time strategy or a skilled veteran, you’ll be in for a challenge as you navigate the Orcs through lush 3D environments and lead them into battle against those who stand in their way. Can you rally the Horde in the face of extinction?

The demo features a two-mission tutorial introducing players to one of the central Heroes of Warcraft III, three all-new missions that chronicle the Orcs’ embattled journey to Kalimdor and head-to-head play through Battle.net, Blizzard’s free online gaming service.

The demo is about 100mb in size. Click here to visit the official Warcraft III demo site.

C&C Generals has been officially delayed, but not to worry guys, Westwood always ship their game on time.
Here is a scoop of it:

GameSpyDaily has learned that EA Pacific’s highly anticipated RTS for the PC — Command & Conquer Generals — has been strategically delayed until February of next year. Now set to ship on February 11, 2003, EA attributed the reason for the delay to its strong lineup of other titles from now until early 2003.

Source : GameSpy Daily.

Yap, thats right UT2003 has gone gold. It will be out on shelves about 2 weeks later, can’t wait for it. Sure a great game with fantastic graphics. Here is the forum post about it:

Just before 5AM Eastern Standard Time this morning we shipped the release version of Unreal Tournament 2003 to manufacturing. It should be in production later today and in stores before the end of the month. We want to thank everyone on the forum for all of the valuable feedback. In the week since we shipped the demo we worked pretty much non-stop to squash a lot of bugs and incorporate some of the great feedback we got from players all around the world.

Steve Polge is going to post a list of some of the gameplay changes we made since the demo in the demo feedback forum.

UT2003 is a 3 CD set. Of course you know its a huge game with a ton of content (over 35 levels), great characters, awesome gametypes, incredible AI, cool mutators, etc. But theres also some great tools.

Click here for the forum url or click the “read more” link to see the full details.
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