Take it to the net After some time, you will get tired of the monsters constantly kicking your ass. So what should you do? Take on a human in a deathmatch. Deathmatches are great for relieving the pressure of a tough day at work, or whenever those voices get to you, and you need to shoot something. Well, maybe that's just me, but whatever your reason for playing, everyone loves deathmatches. Half-Life will have some of the best deathmatches to date. As said earlier, some of the weapons that will be used are just plain awesome. Spray paint, arrows with your name on them, and a tranquilizer gun to name a few. I'm obviously not going to go into what these weapons do again, but I thought I should mention them in this section too, because they kick so much ass. All multiplayer in Half-Life will be handled like Quake, using TCP/IP. So Gamespy and programs like it can be used. A cool note: the decals in a deathmatch never go away, so you can see the most active areas of a level. Deathmatch is all well and good, for a little while. Soon though, we crave something more, something intricate and fun. Valve will deliver. Either being bundled with Half-Life or sold as an expansion soon after, they will be including Team Fortress 2. What is Team Fortress? Well, basically it is a way of playing capture the flag. The difference though, is that there are classes. When you join a server, you select a class. Each class has separate weapons and abilities. Team Fortress 1 had the classes Soldier, Demolitions Man, Medic, Sniper, Pyro, Heavy Weapons Guy, Scout, Spy, and Engineer. The sniper had a high accuracy, high power rifle. The engineer could set up 'sentries', which are like turrets around a level. The scout is fast, great for carrying the flag. As you can see, no matter what playing style you prefer, there is a class that suits it. All of the classes must work together to get the other teams flag. Usually there are snipers on the roofs of the enemy bases, demolition men clearing rooms with bombs, and scouts running into it all to get the flag, only to be gunned down by an enemy sentry gun guarding it… damn engineers :) With the fine folks of Team Fortress Software we can be assured that Team Fortress 2 will be even more fun than the original. I got the opportunity to see Team Fortress 2 at E3 this year, so I know it will be great. It is more realistic and better looking than TF1. For example, you won't see 2 guys strafing around each other with huge machine guns or rockets. Those guns are heavy. You need to be steady when shooting them or they will be extremely inaccurate. So even if Half-Life's single player sucks, which I assure you it won't, we know we will get 2 great multiplayer modes built into the game. Something I would like to see are different kinds of turrets. Though we have no information about it, I think it would add a lot of strategy to TF. Just think, laser and machine gun turrets guarding bases. If Team Fortress 2 does not have something like this, people could easily add it in Half-Life. More on editing later. Single player at its best OK, so you're the solitary type of person. Or you don't have a net connection. How are you reading this then fool? :) Either way you wont be disappointed. Half-Life's single player will go above and beyond anything ever experienced before. Valve wants people to be able to go through the single player game multiple times, and see some new stuff every time. One of the things I am looking forward to most are the scripted sequences of events that take the place of cut scenes, moving the story along. Certain things will happen, even if you are not around to see them. The coolest part is that you can interrupt the sequences. One that stands out in my mind from E3 is when the player went through a corridor to see a guard performing CPR on a scientist. He looked up and you could see the terror on his face as bullets from a turret mounted on a ceiling nearby flew past him. I wondered what would happen if you shot him, but since it was just a movie I was not able to see :)