Half Life 2 Beta: City 17 - The City That Never Was
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- čas přidán 17. 05. 2024
- A look at the early version of City 17. It's completely different than what we have in the retail version of Half Life 2. The dark and grim atmosphere gives an idea of what kind of game Valve had originally designed.
Music: • Midnight Club 2 - Menu...
Project Beta - Mega Build Thread: hl2-beta.ru/index.php?PHPSESS...
0:00 Preface
0:17 Intro
2:06 City 17 (Retail Version)
3:07 2001 Beta
4:03 City 17 (2001 Beta Version)
9:32 Personal Opinion
13:13 End
****SOCIAL MEDIA****
Twitter: / radhaz_
Instagram: / radiationhazard
#HL2 #Beta #City17 - Hry
The true citizen starts a thermonuclear war.
Indeed.
THE GREAT TRIAL COMMENCES.
@@TheConsulC17 Bruh, didn't you got scrapped?
@@edryctan672 No, I'm still alive in Beta-17.
@@TheConsulC17 Damn, thank God you're in Beta-17. You're too scary.
I didn't know Steve Jobs was a dictator
I thought it looked more like Jeff besoz lol
He was to you if you worked at Apple.
Than you'd be tbe first
Fun fact there was croatian yugoslav politician named "Stjepan Radić" and if you were to directly translate his name to english it would be "Steve Jobs"
he looks more like joe biden
What sort of amazes me is how by the time the Gearbox expansions were being worked on the old Goldsrc engine HL2 in 2001 already looked so far ahead it boggles the mind. As well as that picture shown in the video, from 1998. It kind of shocked me. They already had an idea for what HL2 was going to be like even as they just released HL1?
I don't think so. A bit of an idea, maybe. Looking from the Beta Prespective, it looks like they were trying out different and new things. Things changed a lot every year until 2002, when they were able to finalize the design style. In 2003, they got the story finalized as well. 03 Beta and Retail have "almost" the same story and characters. Btw - Thanks for watching :)
@@RadiationHazardYT No problem it was a pleasure. :) I subscribed to you as well. I think in your videos the talks you do about how these empty and old maps invoke unique feelings of nostalgia and wonder and "what if?", really resonated with me and I haven't come across another channel to do that. So subscription well deserved!
@@NightField177 :)
Video game technology was evolving at lightspeed back then. Just look at the jump from the fifth-gen consoles to the Dreamcast within less than half of a decade. Or Quake to Half-Life within two years.
Well, kind of. Mark Laidlaw pretty much had the idea of the Combine or at least some all-powerfull space empire with teleportation technology as the true villains behind everything before Half Life even came out.
The distorted trumpets. Do they bring fake memories or weird freaky dreams?
Lmao. Weird freaky dreams after listening to that, for sure.
''Yeah, I still have nightmares about that cat.''
@ "what cat?"
@@Damian-cilr1 *"W H A T C A T ?"*
They bring me Russia vibe, it feels dark, hopeless, depressing.. Just like here, in Russia.
I love the design and ideas of the beta Half Life 2's world, but ultimately i like the final version a lot better. These City 17 maps are like the first thing you would think of when asked to create a dystopian city. Giant skyscrapers, cameras and screens everywhere, smog in the sky, etc. The final City 17 is a lot more original and in my opinion scarier because of it. Not only that but it gives the game its own unique identity.
5:30 i want to see this in a final version of beta mod, That first artwork was sick.
Till date we don't have any Beta mods that finished development :( Let's hope Raising the Bar Redux and Dark Interval reach their final form sometime soon.
its like the 7 hour war
Damn, I wish that someone could make a AAA version of what the Beta wanted to be.
The best we've got is Dark Interval and Raising the Bar Redux
I'd be nice if valve decided to rework on and finish the beta. Its basically the darker version of HL2
@@Chorophilax Valve would never do that.
It would be a too cliche and "on your face" type of game
@@scarfabledscar why
Good to know beta is not dead
NOTE: This is an early video, when I was still figuring things out. Please pardon the "super slow" commentary. I was just trying to be "2edgy4me". I've gotten better at it in future videos... I think :D
Edit: FIRST VIDEO TO CROSS 1k views!!!
**First video to reach 150 views! Thank you!!**
Good job mate
Thanks for noting this. It was pretty hard to listen to. To the point where it is distracting. But I could set it to 2x speed so it sounded like normal speech again. What was funny was to set it back to normal speed after listening for a while. Normal speed sounded like so-mo.
I think your opinion is spot on. The difference is the amount of remaining hope each style conveys. In canonical city 17 we see the people being controlled by force, but the people themselves are still despairing and struggling. They can't do much, but they have not accepted their fate yet. In that city, the right man in the wrong place can believelly spark a rebellion. In contrast, the beta city 17 suggests a totally subjugate civilization, where the control is both physical and mental, and people's wills are already broken. A rebel would not spark a rebellion, he will be instead persecuted by the citizens themselves.
The state of the world also conveys the same contrast between the two versions. The beta world is ruined forever: even the air itself is poisonous. The canonical world is damaged, but still beautiful and not beyond hope. HL2 conveys that in Highway 17. There are still plants, birds and life. There is a beach in Highway 17 that is totally optional, devoid of enemies and with no clear purpose (near the optional big building with the hopping mines), that i think it's made only to portray that there still unspoiled places in this earth.
The world in the beta is so bleak and hopeless that you can feel that it is no longer worth fighting for.
The world in the finished product is damaged and hostile, but still worth it. That is why i think the actual version was the correct one.
Well still in beta the citizens and conscript spark a massive rebellion against the combine with the destruction of the Depot, Air Exchanger and Weather Control.
So probably still in beta there was just little hope to a least fight for the last chance of freedom now with the oxygen becoming breathable again.
Agreed
Great analysis
Top 3 mysteries science still can't solve
3: death
2: the meaning of life
1: *why this guy doesn't have more subscribers*
Ayyy thanks my man!
What about today he still deserves more but still
He has gained more but he still deserves more
beta half life gives me oddworld vibes
5:51 ah yes my favorite city with skyscrapers, Washington D.C
I prefer the final version because the beta version of city 17 looks too much it's age, and one of the most impressive things of HL2 (for me) is how timeless it feels.
Maybe Adrian could’ve been in that beta game.
Setting: USA, City 4
He lands in America after G-man needs him for some reason, he looks around, everything looks hopeless and depressing. (This is around the time HL 2: EP 2 has already taken place).
A rebel notices and takes him in a building, explaining what had happened and how they’re planning to take down the city and make it a safe zone for civilians. Civil protection pound on the door and the rebel leads Adrian through a secret tunnel to the outside perimeter of the city, where he sees other rebels preparing with weapons and such.
Adrian gets through a bunch of obstacles and places that are run by the combine, in order to gather more tools and weapons for the rebels. Things build up, a gateway to the city is broken into, rebels are fighting through and taking over.
Adrian leads the charge to the citadel and takes over before G-man takes him and sends him back into stasis, however it doesn’t go as planned and Adrian is sent through time while G-Man is blocked from keeping him in stasis.
Eventually, he comes back and sees the city completely different. The city has been converted to a rebel base. The city itself looks less grim and depressing and more hopeful, with the sun shining down on the city.
idk, it’s mainly the key parts of how it would play out.
Oh god i wish an spin off like that set on Latin America or Usa with that dark depressing atmosphere
ooh I really wish somebody would make that a game
it would be more interesting if he came back and the combine wiped out the resistance
That would be really cool!
that's not a bad idea for a half life mod
I think a game with a combination of this and the style we got would have been better. Instead of everything being dark, or everything being hopeful. Have the two styles contrast eachother. Show the progression from dark to light as the game progresses. It will further emphasize the impact of what Gordon Freeman is doing. Showing how you really are making a difference.
Funny thing is, I’m making a GMOD map with that same flavor of Hope and Despair, Retail and Beta. It’s called gm_beta-17 and it’s still in progress.
The whole point is to show that even though humanity made massive achievements, this is only locally to the Eastern European city. There is potential for countless other Combine City’s to still be standing strong with human subjugation stronger.
I really like how City-17 was depressing, it'd really make you think you saved humanity at the end of the game. After playing the retail version, I just thought I defeated this minor enemy, something like the tentacle monster from HL1.
I know people are all like "The Half-Life Beta is Better than Retail HL2". While the concepts were great for the beta, I'm so glad with what we got. I don't think it wouldn't have made the greatest game, however it sure as hell would've made a great book series, or even comic novel. Or I may just be wrong, but my point is, we should be thankful for the Half-Life 2 we got, and I couldn't think of a better sequel to Half-Life 1.
I agree. At first, I thought the Beta was better but the thing is (imo); it's heavily inspired from other media and has that "edgy" late 90's feel to it. Retail HL2 is unique, and iconic than the Beta. But I still love looking at the Beta maps. I guess seeing a different HL2 is naturally intriguing, for me and everyone else. Btw - Thanks for watching! :)
@@RadiationHazardYT Yeah, the HL2 Beta’s artstyle isn’t as timeless as Retail HL2. Even after 16 years, Retail HL2’s artstyle still holds up
@@MauricioJara Well yeah, because Eastern Europe just is like that. You don't need a lot of graphical fidelity by modern standards to render a fairly realistic Eastern Europe. It worked out well for STALKER as well. The downside is, it's about as breathtaking as Eastern Europe. Late 90s stuff at least was _cool_ while Eastern Europe just makes you want to chug vodka and blow your head off with a shotgun.
I _slightly_ disagree, even with Radiation Hazard, but your arguments are quite convincing, and I appreciate a refreshingly different opinion on the subject, rather than the typical sentiments that echo other video game betas, where the beta almost seems fresher, newer, and better than the final.
@@MauricioJara I just remembered another point that's less about the final aesthetic and more about the original. While Valve used various terminology to discuss its art direction, there's one term I think describes it best that they were unaware of at the time. Dark Deco. It was coined as a descriptor of the artstyle of Batman The Animated Series and describes the grimy, gothic + art deco aesthetics artstyle, which is exactly what the Beta had going for it. It also became the definitive conception of Gotham and after several decades DC has given up on "improving" and handed Batman back to Bruce Timm to work his magic. So, I feel like there's a good chance it would have actually been more timeless than you may expect. Dark Deco clearly never lost any love or aged at all.
Ya idk, I think the dark dystopian American setting would've worked better honestly, I've never been a fan of HL2 being set half way across the world where conveniently everyone important to Gordon just "is"
I always figured it was the GMan's doing as to why Gordon and Eli, Kleiner, Barney, etc are all in City 17. It would make sense. It wouldn't be the first time GMan's made sure everybody and everything was all in the right place so he could ensure whatever he wanted to happen would happen.
In my personal headcanon this city still exists in Washington, barely maintained after whatever calamity fell there, barely holding out, the wastelands stretching for miles as resources are being plucked.
I this accept as cannon
EDIT: fuck l made a typo l meant l accept this is canon
I was always thinking that Valve could also still use concepts like these and the Air Exchange for future projects
Never knew about this version's existent, great video!
Thank you :)
Thanks for covering the beta content RadHaz. Really thank you.
i see you came back here as well after the end... don't worry though, this is hopefully the start of something even better.
I really like this video! I also agree that while the beta is really interesting it can't replace retail.
Thank you! :)
imo, I like the original idea more. More darker and twisted, just the way I like it.
@@TheFellerHasAChannelGodDamnIt a bit cliche though
Its a beta, so you can't reasonably comment on how it looks. Its an unfinished beta that was scrapped halfway through, who knows what it would've looked like if they didn't scrap the beta before the engine upgrades
not sure i agree that the gritty, dark more industrial style wouldn't work for half life
every room in the first half life game is either has this extremely fabricated look or a somewhat industrial look, and the original idea seemed to be "what if we made everything more industrial"
it makes sense in the context too as the combine is an intergalactic superpower purely interested in power, so a super industrial gritty feel would really reflect that idea
sure it's a big contrast but i think if they made a compelling story out of it, im convinced it could've worked just as well as the retail version
Damn, the first video I ever viewed of Rad Haz back in october 2020, 3 years already watching your content non stop. I'm glad to have seen how your channel has evolutioned over the years and the community you have built is incredible!
The thing with the half life 2 beta while it had a cool atmosphere i think we can all agree the source engine would have been underused. Think about it, to my knowledge most if not every map had a green mist on it making everything look lifeless and dull. Which is fine that asthetic fits perfectly with a game ment to be dark and depressing like the half lfie 2 beta. But when you start to think about what do people praise half life 2 for one of the things would be the graphics. If the half life 2 beta became the actual game it would mean there would be no amazing realistic water the game is know for. No colorful skies nor rich enviroments... Sure i do like a lot of things from the beta but sadly had they gone that route it would have been just a gold source half life 2 if you think about it. I would def would love to see a modder make an alternative version of half life just using beta stuff
btw i love your videos on the half life 2 beta
You're pretty much on point my dude. And thank you! :)
Soo this is how it all started soo...can I cry now?
GET YOUR FREE TVS!
WHY ARE YOU NOT GETTING YOUR FREE TVS
That’s very dark for a game where you originally put the thing into the thing
i have a theory why every hl2 beta starts in industrial sector. i think in trainstation there was a sequence where this goes like in retail where we meet barney calhoun and escape backdoors but instead of plaza we go to the industrial area
You know in over twenty years of being into Half-Life's cut content your video here is the first time I saw someone wish this was its own game, and not simply what Half-Life 2 had been.
I really wouldn't mind a new IP, or even something else like this. I think that's so much of what made Dishonored 1 so appealing in the first place.
scary and griddy gold source half life 2
very dark and griddy/10
Bro the quality of this video is too great! I agree with your point of how this would never work out, and how you analyzed every aspect of the map. This would be good to see in a franchise like BioShock, or Fallout, in which a city like this one is the last one standing. This beta reminds me of Maze Runner, and the movie for the 3rd book has a very similar city. Great video man, you earned a sub.
I really appreciate it, thank you!! :)
The background music playing is from the main menu of Midnight Club 2 - amazing choice! 👌
The Midnight Club II menu music fits this video so well! brings me nostalgic feelings too...
great vid dude.
I honestly like the aesthetic of the beta more than the finished product, sad to see a lot of it didn’t see completion
7:35 Yes, there's a way to continue in that construction site. The path ends in a run-down building with some citizens. Resistance hideout maybe? It's a dead end, besides a chute dropping into a dumpster.
Instead of loading the next level, the drop just kills you.
Ah ok. I should have probably spent a bit more time and searched. Thanks for watching btw! :)
Holy i remember this a bit ago, but hooly hell i thought this was released just maybe 3-4 months ago, not a year.
Holy hell time flies when you’re having fun
Love your vids, keep up the great work!
Thank you! :)
the beta version of city 17 looks extremely good and more interesting than the release version. aged like fine wine imo. what could've been
You hit the nail on the head with your description of the beta being too dark and edgy for the sake of being dark and edgy. I think the retail HL2 is darker but it's darker in a subtle way that requires you to think about it, pay attention to the details, and it won't click until later. Leadhead's video "Just How Bad Are the Combine?" goes into detail about the game hinting at the Combine giving people bad meals so people are enticed to join CP, once they're in CP, their families are kidnapped to keep them working hard, likely turned into stalkers, and on good performance, Overwatch allows the CP members to have sex with their families, but if they fail, they're terminated. So for each CP member you kill, you're also killing their families.
Yooo, Midnight club 2 music? BASED
Great video man. Now I personally think that this style looked cooler than the retail. Yeah I'm one of those guys who think Half-life 1 is better than Half-life 2. But, I still loved your video and I can get your reasoning. I would love to see a Half-life game in this type of style, kinda like a Halo ODST Half-life or... something...
Anyways, you just got a new subscriber. Amazing work
Thank you so much :) A Half Life game like Halo ODST would be sick! I was actually jumping over fences about which style I liked best (Beta vs Retail) before making the video because the Beta is so awesome to look at, but I ended up taking Retail's side. Thanks again for watching and subscribing!
Oldest remaining map in the WC mappack is actually dated August *1998*
just imagine how popular a remaster of half life 1 & 2 and then eventually a 3 would be !! wishful thinking, but you never know :))
The style of Beta City 17 would actually be nice for a remake of Deus ex 1. It gave me kind of a Hell's kitchen levels feel...
great video bro, really entertaining
to say, i liked the beta buildings in C-17 yet unrealistic, but more fitting.
The midnight club 2 music is perfect for this
Nice video
You know what would be cool? Imagine if somebody made the beta maps filled with enemy’s and npcs in gmod
I disagre with you, after playing Raising the Bar and Dark Interval, and you know what we lost, i cant help feel that even the retail version is amazing, the beta concepts would be even better.
I love this version of half-life
If the beta had never been leaked, maybe all of us got a very darker and depressing game, I love HL2 retail version but the original ideas were more sinister and it puts you in a more stressing and satisfactory way to end a game. I really wanted some beta weapons and enemies that Valve just cut off in the final game. Maybe, like just HL1 tech demo they "modified some things of the game in the retail version" but really they made a totally different game in comparison of the first ideas of HL1
My opinion is that, the leaked files pushed valve to redesign the entire final version of HL 2
I know this is an old comment, but that's not actually true. HL2 was already getting it's makeover by the time the leak happened. You can see it pretty clearly in the 2003 build of the game, which is what they showed off at E3.
@@bshap495 nice to know, thanks for the information m8.
I love this vid! Will u make another video about hl2 beta?
Thank you! I've made quite a few of them actually. I'm not sure if you've seen the others, but here's my HL2 Beta playlist :) They are listed "newest to oldest".
czcams.com/play/PLwNJhBqOvkav9mB4PaMjvrTsi7xGDn0rP.html
Kingpin Life of Crime has that sort of city aesthetic
I have a theory where this city and everything else from the beta such as the wasteland, depot, air exchange, and weather control exists in retail Half-Life 2. This is why there is a giant X on North America in Half-Life Alyx as it was placed there not only to show the game is set in Eastern Europe, but to also show that North America is a barren place with only a few cities, such as this one.
Also, the reason why only North America is the only one effected like this in the retail game, is because of how rich the area was before the combine invasion. So they took special attention to take all resources and only leave a few cities.
I always thought they scrapped the citizens gasmasks because it made people too hard to distinguish from the Combine
Maybe they made the right decision with scrapping the beta, but I disagree when people say it wouldn't fit Half-Life. The original was dark, moody and industrial too, for me it feels like a natural continuation of HL1's art style. You should really play the original won version and crank down the brightness. The steam version is not that great.
Btw, What is the song that plays in the video?
Honestly I can't make up my mind on it. Sometimes I think it would have worked, other times not.
The is from Midnight Club 2. Just added the link in the description.
In my opinion the 2002's version would have been so much better, maybe because I like dark stories and horror games, so it appeals to me.
I love this Orwellian style I wish they made it, is there any modders trying to complete it?
I think quite a few people are trying to recreate the beta. Two mods I would suggest to keep in your "watchlist" would be Dark Interval and Raising The Bar Redux. They've made great progress in the past couple of years. Unfortunately, it'll still be a while before we play any mod that goes through the entirety of the Beta.
@@RadiationHazardYT dude thank you very much for the replies!
awesome
looks awesome, with right kind of fog or some shddowing effects it would feel more complete and usable a believe, but I dont know if they had that kind of tech back than :)
i would love if half life 2 beta darker theme continued to the retail version
I love the half-life 2 we have now but I want to see what it would have looked like
City 17 from 2001 is more like a “Industrial 17.”
The music and beta c17 pair well
I personally like to think this city still exists in some form in another part of earth in the hl2 storyline
Oddly enough the Midnight Club 2 menu music you used fits HL2 beta
interesting story and video.
I'd mix fast paced action from retail with the grim aesthetics from beta ,. as well as some survival horror elements in certain parts of the game.
I'm glad Half-Life 2 didn't become like the beta, it seems too much like Deus Ex but darker (I remember in the late 90s, matrix styled art & other forms of media was popular at the time, especially when everyone was wearing trench coats). But the beta version is interesting and mysterious. Its definitely like looking at an alternate timeline, a "what if" food-for-thought if this version of the game came out and not the one we got. Overall, I believe with all of the assets from HL2 beta would be enough to make a spin-off of the Half-Life series or a Half-Life game where there's gordon and the resistance weren't successful timeline in the series.
In conclusion, imagine if Half-Life 2 had its own "DOOM 64" of it's series.
GMan narrated this video.
Part of me really wishes that they had combined these two versions. Early on in the retail version there's not a lot of evidence that the combine are really that bad. Can you imagine if it started bleak and Orwellian and then things got better just because you were the hero who saved everyone?
"Early on in the retail version there's not a lot of evidence that the combine are really that bad" Play the game again
@@42kitter I did.
midnight club 2 menu music lol good video though
who else is coming back here after his final beta video. goddamn the memories.
I'd swear our boy Radiation Hazard here is also Prismo from Adventure Time.
As awesome and brutal as this looks I agree that the final product is a much more unique design. I agree that all of the design decisions they went with are why the game still stands the test of time.
5:25 that looked like it takes place in the 7 hour war, buildings on fire, explosions, red skies, it looked pretty chaotic.
How can i tell the .bik video files to follow at start/end of the maps?????
pretty cool
What's the music you use in these videos?
Nice.
Tbh i prefer the beta version much more,
Simply because i love its dark dystopian atmosphere and how it fits so well with the combines feel!
Dark
Gritty
Depressing
:) im all for that
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
im eating depleted uranium so i get some form of terminal cancer so i can ask the make a wish foundation for valve to finish the beta and release it
R/cursedcomments
wow
beta city 17 reminds me more of detroit instead of d.c. or vancouver, mainly from the pipes connected to the buildings
i like to think that the unused maps still exist in the half life universe but in a different place.
Just like the war that never was in ArmA 2 Operation Harvest Red
Is this being narrated by the gman
Im sorry - the older videos have the "edgy" commentary. I got better with time.
@@RadiationHazardYT lmao it’s cool man, good video
"the buildings....... they're........ american..... in style."
One thought came to my head when you said that this version of city 17 feels like an alternate world, what if this versioned city 17 is how the combine has implemented themselves in other places in the world? What if each country was dictated differently so that the combine can cause further confusion among the human populace and make worldwide rebellion near impossible?
Under the Geneva convention. A standing military force must have a centralized governing body, in the hopes that when war begins. It can end when a singular organization concedes.
If the combine were to have a decentralized organization like you suppose, it would not simply be impossible to fight against due to the amount of confusion it would cause, but no matter how many victories had in one land, the men on the other shore wouldn't feel a thing. Making this kind of fight a reverse guerilla war. No matter how hard you struggle against the oppressor, the weight of its apathy with crush your soul.
Vastly superior to any IED.
04:29 the door at left hahaha
It sure is a lot darker
And grittier
I like this version of half life so much, I want this to be half life 3
Happy 2nd anniversary!
Thank you :)
Considering this is your first HL2 Beta video, someone had to say it.
Also if you remember my comment about the unlisted videos playlist, I just wanted to say that it could be for nostalgia reasons, but that is your choice and you don't have to do it.
4:30 Dark City.
we lost all of the horror of half life