Source: Half-Life Fallout

GameSpot has opened up it's great behind the game article about Half-Life 2. From start to end (Gold) they cover about everything that happened during the development of Half-Life 2. But they also go beyond that and look at the future, Team Fortress, X-Box conversion etc. The Final Hours of Half-Life 2 is truly a great inside article of which this is just a small part:

"This time the stakes are different."

It was with those six words that Gabe Newell launched the development of Half-Life 2 in June 1999. Yes, you read that right--1999, only six months after the original Half-Life shipped. For Valve there was never a question about whether there would be a sequel to Half-Life. The question was how the company could top--or even match--what was being heralded as one of the best PC titles of all time.

The full, 25 pages long, in depth article filled with screens (Normal ad exclusive) can be found here at GameSpot.