[kupoartist]

Originally Posted by Bogart

Another think I wanted to ask you... what does "half life" mean? Does it refer to radioactivity or to some other aspect?

That's it pretty much. I know of no other reason for its use except that it's sciencey sounding and broke the "FP action game = one word" rule of the time (you know, "Doom", "Quake", "Hexen", "Heretic", "Unreal". They wanted something memorable, relevant but not formulaic). Incidently, the expansion packs follow suit with "Opposing Force" (Newton's laws of physics) and Blue Shift (the blue light given off by stars because they are moving away from us, so their light is "shifted" to the blue end of the spectrum, thus proving that the Universe is expanding. See, I do remember something from GCSE physics!). I suppose "Decay" (the PS2 version's co-op component) would also count.

I haven't actually played or seen Doom III in action yet. Tommorow I may get as a present (Ir was at the top of my list ^^) and i'll see then. I think that traditionally ID Software's games tend to have smaller levels (though those in Doom III may be a consequence of the planned XBox version)... mind you, that's kind of hypocritical in this case given that HL1 was built upon Quake 1's engine, yet was afforded pretty big areas. I suppose each engine is constrained by the theme of the game though - Doom III puts all it's detail in small spaces because it's an intentionally claustrophobic game. Half-Life 2 has some pretty massive areas (like the wasteland type levels where vehicles are used). Also, source is probably catering for a larger range of licensed games so it has to be more versatile - Valve's Team Fortress 2 is undoubtably one of these. A bunch of stuff the source engine has been shown to do won't seen in HL2 to evidence this - "dynamic terrain displacement" (in the videos, it was a sort of cave area which changed shape in real time) isn't in HL2 but is said to be in TF2.

There was an article comparing the two techs and HL2 "won". https://www.whutdufuk.com/?post=632287876827187500 , though Doom III is adknowledged to have stengths in certain areas (you know, being dark and scary). I'm not sure whether it's actually true now, but it was claimed that the HL2 tech scaled quite well to what your computer demand of it. In fact, any PC that can run Doom 3 will run HL2. Sure, you may not be playing it like it is in those oh-so lovely videos, (the first ones were reportedly on a Radeon 9800 pro. In the UK, these cards can be picked up for £150 - about £150 cheaper than what I got mine for :cries: ) but if the gameplay doesn't stand without the graphics HL2 will be a disappointment anyway...