One of the most anticipated games of the year, Half-Life, has had its release date set back from its original schedule. Expected to be released in November with the demo in mid-October of this year, Sierra pushed back the release date of its game to the first quarter of 1998. The demo should be available about a month before the retail version is out. Disappointment was felt both at Sierra, and also Valve Software, developers of Half-Life. In an honest statement to many Half-Life fan sites, the people at Valve told of the delay. "The problem is pretty simple, Half-Life is a very intricate and detailed game, and it's taking us longer to get it done than we thought. We considered simplifying parts of the game or dropping some features to try and cut back on the amount of work, but in the end we decided it was best to keep building the product we all believe in and take our lumps on the schedule." At least they told us in advance instead of surprising us with the news at the last moment.
In a lighter note, Sierra and Valve Software also released their Top 10 reasons on why the delay:
| 10. | We resisted Ultima On-line but got sucked into Oprah's book club |
| 9. | Wasted 300 development hours catapulting sheep |
| 8. | Gabe and Mike learned scheduling at Microsoft |
| 7. | We're having problems making it year 2000 compatible |
| 6. | El Nino |
| 5. | Redoing the models so they all have ponytails |
| 4. | Wedge put his eye out with his new pellet machine gun (see www.valvesoftware.com/hocopus) |
| 3. | Spending too much time on our .plan files |
| 2. | Everything is finished; just waiting on the "Bill Gates Mansion" level |
| 1. | Forgot to add mandatory Satanic references |
A little about Half-Life
Half-Life is a first-person shooter based on the Quake engine. Unlike all of the other knock-offs of Quake, Half-Life is a completely different game. New and improved design and technology make it a serious contender with any other first-person shooter out there. With developers from all over, fresh, new ideas were thought up: new monsters, new weapons, new sounds . . . . The monsters are now more detailed and smarter than ever, giving you a gorgeous view just before you're ripped to shreds. Even if Half-Life isn't one of the most anticipated games this year, it will be next year. Just look forward to it.
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