Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy...

"Basically, we took every dollar we made on Half-Life and put it into Half-Life 2." - Gabe Newell, founder and managing director of Valve Software

The Source engine was finalised in September, whereupon Valve "cut everything that wasn't ready, to be used in Half-Life 3". Oh baby, Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 3. [metaphorical embarrassing splurge]

Reflections on characters's eyes, airborne particles of dust glittering in the light, flickering shadows from a blazing room, model location damage, powerlines that sway in the breeze, cut-scenes you can now interact with, bullet holes and sounds depending on the impacted material, a wrench dropped into a machine will tangle in gears, breasts that move beneath clothing when Alyx raises an arm (what?!), proper lip movements from speaking characters, ripply water...

:-D [blissful sigh...]

September 30th, 2003, the dawn of a new era in computer gaming...

Unless of course it gets put back by the developers.

Which would lead to rioting on the streets of Bellevue, WA.