Players Prepare For Half-Life 2 - Code Download Available

Some of the code for Half-Life 2 has been officially released online. The long-awaited sequel has no official release date, but game maker Valve has started letting members of its online community get hold of encrypted copies. When officially launched, downloaders will be able to buy codes to access the encrypted files and start playing immediately. But Valve is facing criticism online for making the game available, but not actually letting people play it.

The 500MB compressed file containing some of the encrypted game was put on machines serving Valve’s Steam community on 26 August. Steam is software that lets members take each other on in Counter-Strike games and lets them get hold of updates to Valve games. Half-Life 2 was originally supposed to appear in September 2003 but has faced consistent delays. Even now no fixed date has been given for its release and some gamers speculate that it may not appear until November. Others believe that release is imminent because Valve is happy for the game software to be downloaded.

Some also speculate that the relatively small size of the files means that the encrypted version is not the full game. Many expect to have to download more code when the full and final game is released. According to some reports, the download only includes files such as textures, rather than the actual levels and programs needed to run the game. A lot of people keen to download the game are been forced to wait because the Steam servers are managing the numbers of people allowed to download it at any one time. However, soon after being appearing on the Steam servers, copies of the download started to appear on the BitTorrent file-sharing network.

Players prepare for Half-Life 2 @ BBC

Here’s the link to the Steam site.