Source: PlanetHalfLife
Related: Shattered Oasis

The Unreal Tournament 2004 mod Shattered Oasis reports that it is also going to use the Half-Life 2 Source Engine:

Well we've all had a bit of rest now, and the MSU (Make Something Unreal ) contest is over and waiting for judging.

These our SO's future plans.

We will be continuing to develop for the UT2004 engine and we will be starting on our single player as well as some fixes and updates for Multi player.

Now that's out of way, we will be starting to develop for the HalfLife 2 engine with over 3 years of art assets in our collection we are well on our way.

We however need a HalfLife Coder as well as a couple mappers familiar with Hammer.

So the call goes out for help. If you can help us with coding and/or mapping please gives us a msg.
We are waiting for you.

E - Mail me at toothless@shatteredoasis.com

Check the Shattered Oasis site for more information on this already great to play mod.

Source: Azzkiker from HL2Files.com via mail

Want some fun in Half-Life 2? Well then maybe this mod is something for you. The BulletTime mod adds well bullettime to Half-Life 2:

Here's a tiny simple script for hl2, which makes the game go "bullet-time" when pressing "b" button and while in bullet-time the physics and ragdolls fly a lot further than in normal mode. Due to no physics on bullets except crossbow, grenades, rpg and bugbait, the other weapons' bullets wont slow down.

Think of it as "The Matrix" ... or ... "Max Payne" in Half-Life 2!

Full installation instructions included in the ReadMe file.

Enjoy!

You can get the mod here at HL2Files.com.

Source: Azzkiker from HL2Files.com via mail

Version 1.1a of the HL2 Deathmatch MultiPlayer Mod has been released. The newest version adds some fixes and more and can be gotten right here at HL2Files.com.

Source: PlanetHalfLife

CBSNews.com has put online it's review of Half-Life 2. If you're still not sure that Half-Life 2 is the game for you then check out the review here.

Source: ModDB
Related: Syndicate Black Ops

Version 1.35 of the mod Syndicate Black Ops has been released:

The 1.35 fixes some problems due to the 1.34 full install. So if you have the 1.33 or 1.34 on your pc, you just have to download the patch by clicking here. If your version is out of date, you have to download the full install, you can do that here.

For those who want the linux version, simply download it here.

Now, speaking about the dedicated server. We thank the BR community for creating it (if you understand French language, go to there forum).

You can join one of the servers (there are plenty) by entering the follow information:

IP : 217.174.198.167:27017
The password is in the server name.

Check the Syndicate Black Ops site for more information.

Source: Half-Life Fallout

Half-Life Fallout has put online the first part of their Half-Life 2 Walkthrough Guide. The first part covers the first ten chapters of the game in a great and detailed way, showing you how to play out those chapter. Here some words:

Ready for a break from all the zombies? Tired of all the dark scenery? Want some fresh air? You got it! Welcome to the open road! Highway 17 - non-stop fun from Shorepoint to the Sand Traps!

The gate opens. There stands the most fun vehicle you will ever have the pleasure of driving. Mounted with a gauss rifle and unlimited MP7 ammo, you will soon find how useful this little buggy can be!

The full first part of the Guide can be found here. And here some more on what is coming:

Stay tuned in the next few days for the release of the final chapters and pile of other content. Coming sections include secrets and cheats, tweak tips, a story guide, content page updates and more!

Check out Half-Life Fallout for more information.

Source: Half-Life Fallout

TweakGuides.com has put online a very detailed guide on how to get the most out of Half-Life 2. The guide contains lots of tweaking information, console commands and mush more to help you play Half-Life 2 the best on your system. Here some words:

Model Detail: This setting controls the number of polygons used for objects in the game. There are three settings - Low, Medium and High – click the screenshot comparison above to see the difference in detail. Note the shape of the good Doctor's head, and the bar to the left of the orange tanks in particular. The Low setting provides the best performance, however objects and in particular characters will seem much more angular and less realistically "filled out". The Medium setting provides more polygons to smooth out character appearances, and objects contain more detail, but FPS is reduced. The High setting provides the most number of polygons and hence the greatest realism, but at the cost of a noticeable FPS drop particularly for lower-end graphics cards.

The full article can be found here at TweakGuides.com.

Source: Borg Wars

Developers Log: 24 November 2004
With the release of Half-Life 2 now complete and the full SDK coming next week I decided it might be a good time to ask for some more help. Since I will not be able to do everything myself. (It would be next to impossible for me to do everything), I need help in the following areas:

Level Mapper

• Needs to have past experience with Hammer


• Able to complete tasks on a deadline

Character Modeler

• Needs to have past experience with 3d Studio max and comfortable with Soft Image|XSI


• Past work is required


• Able to complete tasks on a deadline

Weapons Modeler

• Needs to have past experience with 3d Studio max and comfortable with Soft Image|XSI


• Past work is required


• Able to complete tasks on a deadline

Material Artist

• Past work is required


• Able to complete tasks on a deadline

If you can help out in any of these areas please contact me at mjcs@hlgaming.com. I am always looking for some help.

The mod is starting to come along. I have more or less finished up the design document for the single player campaign and have started to work on the Bridge (Map) for the USS Prometheus. It looks like I will be able to map the entire ship in one map. I do not know how this will affect performance but it would be a nice feat for me to attempt.

The actual storyline is being tuned. A storyboard will soon be laid out starting in early January. This board will help me and the other developers to arrange how the story will take place.

After playing though Half-Life 2 in its entirety, I am now convinced that all of the things I have wanted to add to this mod will be able to be put in.

Until next time.

Source: Steam

[UPDATE]
The update apparently isn't helping everybody. Some people now have more problems than before. To turn things back to normal you can use the following command in the console to change it back:

mat_forcetextureintohardware 0

[/UPDATE]

The changes in this release are directed at reducing the problem some users are experiencing with sound stuttering. The sound stuttering is not indicative of a sound problem, sound stuttering is only a symptom of texture thrashing on your video card or AGP memory. For information on how to reduce texture thrashing visit this link on our support site:

http://steampowered.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/steampowered.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=280

This update will fix sound stuttering that users were experiencing that would last for longer than a few seconds during normal gameplay. This update will also eliminate this same behavior following a quicksave or autosave. There will still be a short pause while the autosave happens, but not the more drawn out stuttering behavior.

We are still investigating another performance problem on some hardware, which will manifest where the game is getting into a state where performance drops to less than 5 fps and does not recover or crashes.

Next week we will be releasing the Source SDK, along with a surprise for the community.

Source: The CPL

The CPL announced today that a crew from 60 Minutes will be filming at the Cyberathlete® Extreme Winter Championships, taking place Wednesday, December 15 to Sunday, December 19, 2004 at the Hyatt Regency in Dallas, Texas.
The 60 Minutes crew will focus primarily on the competitors of the first USA national qualifier for the $1,000,000 CPL World Tour.

60 Minutes, the CBS News magazine providing a blend of investigative reports, interviews, feature segments and profiles of people in the news, is the most successful broadcast in television history. It's been in Nielsen’s Top 10 programs a record 23 consecutive seasons – a record never even approached by another program. According to Nielsen, an average of 14 million viewers tune to the broadcast every week.