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Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar Hardcover – November 23, 2004
·A forward by Valve founder Gabe Newell
·Hundreds of art, design, preproduction, and other art pieces crammed into the book
·Over a dozen key members of Valve's staff interviewed
·Officially approved by Valve
·Behind City 17 and other locations
·The development of the Source engine
·A rogue's gallery of beasts, characters, and monstrosities
·Key weapons development revelations
·A tour of many of the game's locations, from inception to completion
·Filled with art, screens, and anecdotes from the Valve team
- Print length288 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPrima Games
- Publication dateNovember 23, 2004
- Dimensions8.9 x 0.9 x 11.1 inches
- ISBN-100761543643
- ISBN-13978-0761543640
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Product details
- Publisher : Prima Games (November 23, 2004)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 288 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0761543643
- ISBN-13 : 978-0761543640
- Item Weight : 2.76 pounds
- Dimensions : 8.9 x 0.9 x 11.1 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #486,205 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #832 in Video & Computer Games
- #995 in Computer & Video Game Strategy Guides
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

WRITER OF TALL TALES AND HEFTY STRATEGY GUIDES
After fleeing from a rusting, condemned, dry-docked German fishing trawler slowly sinking into the River Thames, Manchester-born author David S J Hodgson spent his formative career years writing for the UK's premiere video game magazines. After a stint at MAXIMUM magazine and the Official Nintendo UK magazine, he emigrated to the United States, where he joined the crew at the part-fraternity, part-sanitarium known as GameFan magazine. He wrote his first guide in 1996, and has authored over 100 official video game books. Highlights include official guides for Metal Gear Solid (1998), Half-Life 2 (2004), Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006), Fallout 3 (2007), Skyrim (2011-2013), WatchDogs (2014), Fallout 4 (2015), Witcher 3 (2015-2016) and Fallout 76 (2018). He also wrote The Improved Emperor's Guide to Tamriel (TESO Imperial Edition), and The Hero's Guides to the Elder Scrolls Online (2014). He lives in a shed overlooking Los Angeles with his wife, dog, and an eight-foot statue of Great Cthulhu.
Customer reviews
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Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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I have to believe the continuity throughout each installment of the HL world comes in large part because they laid such a solid foundation in their creation of so much beautiful, detailed concept art. Some of the materials displayed in the book missing from HL2 have shown up in later installments. It seems even years ago they knew where they were headed.
What you will not find in this book are details on the source engine, details on the writing process behind the storyline, or any mention of the delay in production of HL2. This is a book almost exlusively about the visual art present in the game.
No matter where the storyline for HL2 ends, this book will show where it began, and how concepts led to one of the greatest games, and franchises, in PC gaming history. If you're a fan of Half Life 2, buy this book. You will not be disappointed.
If you're expecting a book with lots of interviews from the dev team prepare to be disappointed.
Top reviews from other countries
I now work in the games industry, and even after all these years looking back at the game and this book still makes me think wow. Valve really did raise the bar back then and now look at where they are.
Lovely art book, with some insight.
The book is lavishly produced, and is heavy on development ideas, showing just a fraction of the stuff they threw away. The overall impression the book gives is of a process of iterative experimentation that led almost by good fortune to something great.
The book shows how the game could very nearly have been awful, but there's very little here about "raising the bar". I'd have liked to see a more analytical treatment of the subject, and a few less pictures of beasties that never made it off the drawing board.
Worth having though for it's future second hand value.
The description matched the product, there were only minor blemishes on the dust jacket, and as far as I can see no blemishes on any of the pages.
The book itself is fantastic and a *must* for any true fan of the Half-Life series, giving deeper descriptions to the design of the NPCs, levels, atmosphere, etc. of Half-Life, Counter-Strike, and Half-Life 2. The images are of a high quality. I can highly recommended this rare book.





