When I reintroduced myself to computer games almost five years ago, the vehicle I used was Half-Life, and then its mod Team Fortress Classic. Even back in 2000, there was already talk of the sequel, Half-Life 2, but Valve never seemed to make any discernable progress. After a while, I quit bothering to notice when there was some supposed "news" on HL2.

Then today I noticed that Luke Hutteman posted a link to a new demo for Half-Life 2 (registration with FilePlanet required). It's a 22-minute demo movie, and it looks awesome. The realism of the game physics is amazing. I see that FilePlanet indicates the game should be released in Q3 2004, which I'll believe when I actually see it available for sale. But I'll certainly snap one up as soon as I see it, something I've never done with a new game in the past. This one looks incredible.