Exclusive Half-Life 2 'Coast' video

By Tom Bramwell Published 11 September, 2004

Valve's latest high resolution Half-Life 2 trailer debuts on Eurogamer this weekend. Get it from Eurofiles now. Plus, the third phase of the Steam/HL2 preload gets underway.

With Half-Life 2 drawing ever closer, Valve Software has released the latest in a long line of high resolution trailers drawn from its extensive E3 presentation this year, and has been kind enough to let us debut it exclusively on Eurogamer this weekend.

The "Coast" video weighs in at 164MB and is available over our BitTorrent-based Eurofiles service from here. For those who haven't seen a shakycam version of it, it has Gordon powering along gorgeous but eerily abandoned beaches in a buggy, before tackling enemies both alien and of the gun-toting oppression-enforcement variety. The Coast vid is also home to a rather enjoyable set piece involving a crane. All in all well worth downloading.

Meanwhile, the third phase of the Half-Life 2 preload has begun on Steam this weekend, and the good news is that it seems to be slightly smaller than the previous downloadables.

"This will allow users to download the majority of the models of Half-Life 2 in encrypted form," says a note on Valve's Steam website. "No purchase is required to pre-load Half-Life 2, but is required to activate the game. The moment the game is made available, those who have pre-loaded and purchased Half-Life 2 via Steam will be ready to start playing right away."

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (25) Latest comment 7 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • bunglebonce #1 8 years ago

    No word of the game going Gold then?

  • Abscido #2 8 years ago

    Nice one on the exclusive lads.

  • #3 8 years ago

    cool

  • medulla oblongata #4 8 years ago

    Yoink!

    Pity BT sucks, I'll wait for some mirrors.


    Nice one Eurogamer!

  • Kami #5 8 years ago

    A news post on a Saturday?

    ...

    wow.

    Nice going on the exclusive though. Now I really can't wait... although can someone tell me why I got a mail saying the release date is now November 5th? Has it been delayed AGAIN or shouldn't I be worried?
    Edited by 1 at 11/09/04 @ 15:07

  • MartinJ #6 8 years ago

    Original but wasn't there been 2 or 3 vids with HL2 close to the coastline?

  • rauper Verified Managing Director, Eurogamer Network #7 8 years ago

    I think it is generally thought that it will be November or later now.

  • MartinJ #8 8 years ago

    RC 1 Mid september...some testing and maybe couple of more RC depending how clean the RC is and how good they are on spotting bugs then they have to prepare for productiong, and other logistics and they also have to prepare the ad campaigns.

  • Freek #9 8 years ago

    I'm not doing it anymore, simply becuase there's so much of them. Kinda get the feeling it would spoil it a bitt for me when I do finnaly get the game.

  • MonkeyMatters #10 8 years ago

    I've got this on a pretty high quality from the Video collage of HL2 that FilePlanet released during E3. (the 700mb video).

    But this is the Binx version of the coast section, meaning super high quality.

  • Universal_Hamster #11 8 years ago

    Hnnnnggg... Must... Resist... Urge to download only part of game they havent shown yet... Looks like Valve didnt take my advice to just finish the game then... Oh well... I think im becoming more zen about the release for HL2. (Or is it Xen?)

  • Tricky #12 8 years ago

    and they also have to prepare the ad campaigns.

    If the ad campaigns haven't already been done for the last few months then I'll eat my hat. Remember they said that they were aiming for September 15th to submit the first RC but they may well submit before that. Also given the huge amount of beta testing that Valve have probably been doing already and the huge amount of extra testing that the CS: Source beta has provided and I think it's unlikely that there will be many problems (if at all) in that first RC.

    VU managed to release Homeworld 2 within 2 weeks of it going gold so I can't imagine why they'd want to delay the release until November. Unless of course they're going to try and steal some of Halo 2's thunder - okay it's a different format but surely releasing these two games at the same time is a stupid idea?

  • Sorb #13 8 years ago

    Congratulations on the weekend exclusive EG. Though with the current speed I wonŽt be able to see it until Tuesday morning.

  • Kami #14 8 years ago

    lol.

    I'm really looking forwards to this... patience... patience... nnghn... I WANT! I WANT IT NOW!

  • rauper Verified Managing Director, Eurogamer Network #15 8 years ago

    Sorb: Might want to check your firewall is allowing bittorrent to function correctly, as there are plenty of people sharing the file right now.

  • Sorb #16 8 years ago

    Thanks Rauper... The speed increased after a while. It took around 1:45h to download it. The movie looked great! Think IŽll keep this one :)

  • medulla oblongata #17 8 years ago

    It's no the best bink released, but it'll do.

    Actually no it won't ! Wheres the game!

  • Rusta #18 8 years ago

    Anyone know about the steam purchase? - do you get a CD as a backup copy at all?

  • Rusta #19 8 years ago

    Exactly, I'd rather have the fancy case and stuff, makes me feel like I've brought something.

  • lucky_jim #20 8 years ago

    I'm not sure how the download version of the game is priced, but if some of the savings on packaging, distribution and retail are passed on to the customer then I'm all for it. If the download server is quick, and you've got a decent broadband connection, then it's all good!

  • medulla oblongata #21 8 years ago

    It's so the hardcore(and disabled) can play it the moment it goes on sale.


    While laughing at the poor schmucks trudging to the stores...sorry the shops.

  • medulla oblongata #22 8 years ago

    the hardcore does, very very much

  • BootLace #23 8 years ago

    I think the reason most people are bothering with steam is because it's the only way to get the "free" copy of HL2 bundled with ATI cards. Beginning to wish I went with nVidia though :).

    Could be wrong, there may be lots of people desperate to fill their hard drives with encrypted vapour ware :). 2GB of the stuff at the mo', made me uninstall UT2k3 (thank god :)).

  • hp_on_toast #24 8 years ago

    I hope the video is taken of the game on the easy setting, otherwise Valve should hurry up and code some of that damn squad AI that was promised!

  • Eldritch #25 8 years ago

    Looks sooo dated. This would've been great two years ago. But now? Next.

  • kalel #26 8 years ago

    Gamplay sent me an email saying that this was delayed until Nov 5th. Don't know if there has been any offical announcement yet, but Gameplay don't usually do this unless they know something.

  • UncleLou #27 8 years ago

    /stalks

    Eldritch, does "Digital Mining" ring any bell? :-)

  • Eldritch #28 8 years ago

    "Eldritch, does "Digital Mining" ring any bell? :-)"

    Indeed. Plenty of bells. (C:

  • hp_on_toast #29 8 years ago

    It is like Valve spent so much looking at physics and facial animation that they didnt realise how far FPS's have come since HL one. How good would the game look if the HEV suit had its helmet and HUD as a proper model, a Metroid style, Halo Health / Sheild system and even CS style aiming accuracy based on movement / position/.

    Then again, at least Valve created a game with physics and lets the character pick stuff up with their hands, so they do have to wait for super physics gun before picking up barrels and boxes and hurling them around (I hope it is in CS:Source).

    And to be extra picky, when in the car, foliage doesnt fade in too nicely and when Gordon is climbing the crane, some pop up (or is it a clipping prob) is noticalbe on the right of the screen at a distance.

    Sorry if I sound like Im moaning, but I just dont want to see this game fail :)

  • UncleLou #30 8 years ago

    "Eldritch, does "Digital Mining" ring any bell? :-)"

    Indeed. Plenty of bells. (C:

    One of these coincidences - I happened to click on your username (sometimes I just do this out of curiosity), and your name rang a bell. In fact, I must have read it just a few days ago in a German print mag (or maybe online), and a quick googling revealed that this wasn't implausible at all.

    Sorry for stalking you. ;-)

    I take it the project you're working on is still a secret?
    Edited by 1 at 13/09/04 @ 16:05

  • #31 7 years ago

    hey, yeah. I have a fujitsu siemens computer. how did you know?