Why Everyone Loves the Half-Life 2 Beta

Great video. That photo is me in ~2015. Back in 2003 I didn't plan to steal the game. I remember being hyped from the first HL2 ad and when the website was up I decided to look for some more information that might have been accidentally left on the servers. Instead I stumbled across a huge security hole that was trivial to use, basically multiple accounts with empty passwords, and I just couldn't resist. It was wrong to steal and share the development files and I do regret it, though I do enjoy this kind of content because of its historic value. A big reason for the mild sentence was that the German justice system's goal isn't punishment, the focus is on rehabilitation. The judge saw that I changed my life, I got a job, moved into my own place and didn't break any laws in the 3 years it took until sentencing.

lost my 5 digit 41808.....they disabled my account from the early dl....thanks valve

I never get hyped for new games. I wait until there out a few years and get them for dirt cheap even free, and fixed as much as they're gonna be.

I downloaded the leaked HL2 build in 2003, the game didn't run, I could launch a map manually and see like 30 frames before it crashed and every map I loaded made it into the final game. So like most of the re-build of the game had to have happened before the leak.

that thumbnail making me go GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT

1351 seconds in the vid THATS NOT BREEN THATS JOE BIDEN!

they should release it. im buying. incredible they abandined so much work and never did HL3

darc and griddy

Am I going crazy? This phys gun wasn’t cut your gravity gun upgrades at like the tail end of the game into the phys gun? Am I dreaming this ???

I am glad they went with the more subtle dystopian scifi world rather than the one in the beta builds. I think it makes the world stand out relative to a lot of other dystopian sci-fi and it also makes the world incredibly relatable as human technology and architecture is essentially the same as the modern day while the combine’s architecture contrasts very strongly with it and feels truly alien. Plus the fact that people can’t reproduce at all is in some ways more bleak than child labor. It means every death irreversibly decreases the amount of people left who can ever resist occupation. Humanity is truly facing a slow, seemingly inevitable extinction and people have to come to terms with that for decades. The existential dread is more subdued but way more terrifying since things seem and look so normalized but it’s also very obviously dire. It also helps drive in the fact that this has been going on for 20 years. This is the new normal for people. If the game was as dark and in your face as earlier builds, i think it would be too shocking to really feel how normalized occupation has become in the citizens’ psyche. Lastly, the small glimpses we get of the combine as an entity builds the mystery of what the hell the they really are and also allows the true depth of their evil to keep building through each subsequent game.

"Get your free tvs" is city_test03 in the leak

the beta looked more fun, I didn't really get into HL2 thought it was boring

"no little german boy, don't leak the game!"

"Oh mein gott! its ein machine full of gameplayen!"

Idk what valve expects leaving such a huge and loving fan base dry with little to content for years. I can never understand their obsession to be this "fly on the wall crap" and it is so annoying bc they have so much money to just ignore their fan base.

I built a PC totally around this game and crysis. Vista build that still works. It's slow as hell now but does work.

Pretty sure this was the first game that started the incomplete and i can't play on launch day trend. I jump through so many hurdles to play this game. Not the first day but i think it was the second. Plus u had to download it from steam n no other way😂 damn that shit hit hard back then.

If they made Black Mesa and "fixed" Xen, they should totally do this with HL2........I'd buy the sh*t out of it.

I was part of the original crew who had the alpha leak. Fun times. Shoutout to HL2world

HL2 leaked was great, just can't find the files anymore :/

Im sure there is a reality where the beta content was released and the retail content was leaked and we'd be in the exact same spot

Just realised Half-Life released 7 days before my 7th birthday. Also fuck it's Half-Life 2 will be 19 years old next month.

Valve is just to lazy of a fucking company

Everyone loves the beta alyx 😅

I enjoyed HL2 on my first play-through which is all that really matters. At the time the graphics were amazing and the maps delivered a lot of atmosphere. I don't think much of the content that the developers cut would have made it a better game. If you want to compare it to the first game though It strayed away from a lot of things that made the first game fun. Mainly the fact the first game felt more like a horror survival shooter was considerably more bloody and felt like it had more challenging enemy AI. These are things that I feel would have made HL2 more enjoyable. I don't really care that they scrapped a bunch of maps and changed the story around a bit.

because of alyx's ass in that hazmat suit

the long boat scene with helicopter chasing you will be forever in my mind

tha thumnail tho

Child labor

honestly the hl2 beta lore is too dark but i wish we got some features of it, like the air transfer exchange whatever its called and factories in places siphoned over-dry by the combine (except without the child labour cuz thats Too dark) would make sense and make the combine even more terrifying, but atleast cremators are canon just never shown onscreen

Damn, I know why I love hl2 beta

20 years old!

happy 20th birthday to the leak!!

it feels weird saying that..

I want whatever confidence the leaker had when he asked for a job from a company he just did $250 million dollars in damages to

How the hell it can make 250m loses, if game was like few times less then that to make.

Great video. Just a small note: the amount of enemies produced and cut is quite normal for a big production game, where the (concept) artists are required to hand in tens of concepts for enemies at the beginning of production and then they are gradually cut off during design/implementation.

Artifact is whats straining the relationship to players.

As far as I know (and this might be another myth I heard), the trans06 audio was from a radio hoax that was supposed to portray a russian female astronaut dying in space and outting her governments corruption, i think it was a couple of artists who worked together as a sort of criticism of their leadership?

Retail release is better, honestly. Much of the beta world feels contrived and heavy-handed.

is this just ralphthemoviemaker

half-life 2 bad, half-life one very very good.

Didn’t the female combine become playable in another game? And they were a rather loved charecter or something? Or am I miss remembering

So is G-man an alien, or just a goofy ass man?

Lore of Why Everyone Loves the Half-Life 2 Beta momentum 100

I hope they will do a remaster in CS2 source 2 engine, that would be sick

"will it run on my x486 ?"

the air exchange maybe explains why combine metro police have gas masks and combine soldiers have helmets

"Beira"

ok ok ok don't shout geez