I remember the days when all first person shooters took place in huge towers. The next level was attained by going to the elevator, and the goal was to get to the top (or bottom?). Valve has changed that. With their seamless level transitions you might not even notice you changed levels, except for a small load time. If the level transition is in a room, you cross the room and you are in the next level, if you throw a grenade across the room, it crosses into the next level where you can watch it explode. You can also go back to previous levels at any time. The cool thing is, that even though you finished a level, stuff still goes on and things may have changed since last time you visited. Health and weapons will not just be floating around either. You will need to find first aid stations throughout the complex, and find weapons on gun racks and fallen enemies. If you want a weapon someone has, you might have to beat the shit out of him with a crowbar to get it. If you shoot some kind of a rocket at them, you might destroy the gun you're trying to get. That is something that Valve has added which most other first person shooters lack. A better physics system. For example, before crossing a bridge you better check the supports under it to make sure it is stable. If you step onto something that wont support you, it will collapse, usually killing you. So for you people like myself who long for a good single player first person shooter, you finally have one. Half-Life's single player will kick ass. Valve has added something, I'm not even exactly sure what it is, but I can be sure that it will be one of the games that I will want to come back to. Some games seem cool when they are first played, but soon they grow old. In Half-Life, there will be so much to do and see it will take a long, long time for this game to grow gray hair. The designer in all of us For all you game designers at heart, Valve has not forgotten you. They will be including a new version of the popular map editor, Worldcraft. Worldcraft is highly popular among the Quake and Quake 2 crowd. Though I am no level designer, I have played around with it a few times and found it fairly simple to use. But the simplicity does not limit people in any way. I have seen some amazing levels done by people using Worldcraft. Also, almost all of the Valve level designers use it to create all the Half-Life levels. Mod makers will also be able to do some really cool stuff. The scripted animations alone will allow users to create stuff never possible in the past. In the chat, some people were talking about a bar fight TC. You could have scripted animations actually have a bouncer throw people out. I can't wait to see what some people do with the resources Valve is including. At last, gamers have something fun So what does Half-Life have above the current crop of 3D shooters? Simple, the kick ass features I just spent all this time describing :) But aside from all of that, Half-Life looks to be a truly fun game. It might be all the detail, the amazing weapons, or the revolutionary technology, but whatever it is, this is one title you definitely don't want to miss. Look for it in "Summer 98", but the official word is 'When it's Done". For more Half-Life information, check out Contaminated.net. This was my source for a lot of information throughout the preview, and it is a great source for the latest Half-Life news and info. Mike Lasky