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Half-Life 2's iconic City 17 looks incredible in the Unreal Engine

Let's try and get through the rest of the day without thinking of Half-Life 3.

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You're going to want to see this: A forum user at videogame artist hangout Polycount has remade Half-Life 2's iconic City 17 introduction using Epic's Unreal Engine 3.

The Netherlands-based Jeannot van Berlo, who posts to the forum under the name Logithx, has released three huge screenshots of his project, saying he rebuilt everything from the ground up for his Unreal Engine passion project, with the exception of Dr. Breen's imposing face and the Combine insignia.

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He now intends to recreate City 17 in Unreal Engine 4.

"I'm working every day to port this to the new Unreal Engine 4," he said, adding that "there's lots of work that was unfinished not to mention that I have to redo all the materials and many textures because of the awesome physically-based shading in Unreal Engine 4. There's a lot more content in this level that I haven't shown yet and I probably won't until it's all finished."

The screenshots have caused quite a stir, for obvious reasons--they look absolutely fantastic.

Half-Life 2 celebrates its tenth anniversary later this year.

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LiQuiDPixeLz

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3 images... Half Life 3 confirmed

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Hillsy_

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Impressive, good level of detail.

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ChiefFreeman

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looks amazing. On a side note, Gamespot; stop embedding video links that are dead and no longer play. Fucking idiots.

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deactivated-60b838d2a137f

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Damn, now this guy had some talent!

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KGBinUSA

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Gabe just had a heart attack, because this isn't source 2.

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StokeMeAClipper

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My brother owned a PC in the late 90's, but after that I only played consoles for few years (had a social life at the time so wasn't inside enough to justify buying a gaming PC and consoles were more convenient). The first time I saw HL2 on my friends PC it totally blew me away. It was gorgeous and a real eye opener.

Unfortunately I got back into PC gaming in 2008. Since then PC exclusives have become more rare and there have been a lot of lazy ports. I like consoles and PC but I wish there was more to separate them. Rather than having a multi-platform game where the additional power of the PC is used to make the graphics a little prettier, it would be nice to see more games built from the ground up to take advantage of the platform.

There have been games in the past that have had very high system requirements. While that should certainly not be the norm, I think you need these games every now and then to show what is possible on high end equipment. Give us a reason to install 16GB of RAM, give us a reason to buy an i7, give us a reason to buy a top of the line card. In short, give us a reason why we NEED a PC.

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StokeMeAClipper

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<< LINK REMOVED >><< LINK REMOVED >> The email account Gamespot alerts go to is not my main account, so I have just read this for the first time.

You seem to have misunderstood what I wrote. I'll break it down for you, so you don't get confused.

I had a social life, so this meant I wasn't at home most of the time. Being I wasn't at home most of the time, I would not have a lot of time to play on a PC. A gaming PC costs money, so there is not much point in me spending money on something I would barely use (because I'd be out).

Now was that so hard to understand?

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dooNish

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<< LINK REMOVED >><< LINK REMOVED >>you sir.... are a jerk.

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nameaprice

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@cheeckybit Also it sounds like your jealous or something, maybe YOUR an anti social gamer/person and dont like to be reminded of that fact ;)

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deactivated-60b838d2a137f

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<< LINK REMOVED >> Someone definitely seems to have struck a nerve...

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nameaprice

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<< LINK REMOVED >><< LINK REMOVED >>You dont need an i7 for gaming, not YET anyways

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quakke

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Thats awesome. Yet these people also managed to keep the colors.

When will you AAA studios learn? No one wants grey black colored games. No one.

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theKSMM

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I admire and envy people with this kind of talent. Well done.

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etgarmoyal

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its kind of missing the point ....

although half life 2 had a great campaign the mods and the source engine took a massive part in this revolutionary game

and to say the truth i dont see any reason to recreate the game with unreal engeine 3 or 4

yeah maybe it will have some better graphics here and there but what is the point there's alerady ten's if not hundreads of mods for better graphics

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fillup0

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<< LINK REMOVED >> It's a passion project, let 'em do it. It's good practice to allow indie devs to use the engine and if anything, it's showing how easy it is to create high quality content.

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bourne714

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Half Life 2 was kind of cool back in the day, but for the life of me I don't even remember what the hell it was about. I did a lot of drugs back then though.

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bigruss730

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<< LINK REMOVED >> Same here, I still do drugs though, just not as many now I'm in my 30's. I remember it being good, just not much about the story line.....

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deactivated-597794cd74015

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If Half-Life 2 was actually done in Unreal Engine 3 you would probably see a loading screen every 2 minutes.

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TheWatcher000

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Half Life Forever Confirmed.

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game_overdose54

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"Let's try and get through the rest of the day without thinking of Half-Life 3." It's pretty easy actually.


Amazed that people still care about Half Life 3. Seven whole years with NO info shouldn't really fly with its fans like this.

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Brakkyn

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We need to use reverse psychology, here. The less we talk about Half-Life 3, the better. The more it gets hyped, the less likely they are to release ANY kind of information.

So, like, yeah, Half-Life 3? Pfft, who needs it. I don't. Seriously.

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berserker66666

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HALF LIFE 3 ON UNREAL ENGINE.......CONFIRMED !!!

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tonet666

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I've played this game with Cinematic it was awesome. I think I'll replay the whole series for nostalgia.

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bigruss730

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<< LINK REMOVED >> Sometimes the past is left as just that......

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Minasodrom

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<< LINK REMOVED >> thx for that!!

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ThePowerOfHAT

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Holy shit. Half-Life 2 is going to be a decade old...


Wut.

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gamingfriendly

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<< LINK REMOVED >> Half Life 3 Forever!

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Redsyrup

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<< LINK REMOVED >><< LINK REMOVED >>I see what you did there.

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budwheizzah

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Too bad Unreal's a complete poorly optimized resource hog. It's so bad it's not even possible to use it for VR. Don't believe me? Ask the folks at Hypersloth.

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naryanrobinson

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Not really a fan of the way Unreal Engine 3 looks though. It's very hard to find the vocabulary to explain why, but I think there's just something about the shading that just prevents it from ever looking real. It actually makes me feel slightly uncomfortable to look at. Like looking at a painstakingly made, incredibly detailed mask designed to look exactly like the face of the person who's currently wearing it. Just slightly... wrong.

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hystavito

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<< LINK REMOVED >> I used to joke that Unreal engines were mainly just for sci-fi settings with lasers and stuff :). I kinda always felt it looked a little off as well, like it couldn't really recreate real life looking stuff and so that's why I made the sci-fi jokes.

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Redsyrup

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@naryanrobinson How about 'illustrative'? More like a drawing than real? I think you're right it's in the texture shading and lack or real images used as textures. It's also in the modeling of the polygons. Artistic skill and direction are more important than ever.

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Pewbert

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<< LINK REMOVED >> Yea I have always found something odd with how games in the Unreal engine look. Everything looks ... chunky. Or something.

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