Half-Life 2 Beta - E3 2003 Maps 

The e3 2003 was incredibly impressive for it's time. Probably one of the best video game tech demos out there

These are some of the most interesting maps imo specially because you can see the actual show and how very scripted and particular the movements had to be

It's almost like looking at E3 trailers but in behind-the-scenes style and in HD quality.

Years has passed and source engine still look amazing despite the ages

I really like the e3_tech demo maps, especially the first where Gman is low poly then high poly and then says some random gibberish in another language. I also wish the line that Barney says: “Remember when we thought Black Mesa was as bad as it can get?” was used in the retail game. That line just goes so hard in my opinion.

Something about being near the water in Half-Life 2 is just so comforting. That Traptown map by the lake is just so nice, looks like a place to take a break and rest for a while...well, besides the zombies. 15:30 I think it is the first map of Follow Freeman.

9:55 It's also possible that the layout of the maps were changed simply for polish, and not because they were leaked.

I'll never forget those demos - my uncle (who introduced me to Half Life when I was a young kid) and I watched them every single time he came over, we were completely hyped. What a time to be alive. RIP Uncle Mike

Rip E3. My favourite moment will always be E3's Human Revolution trailer, which might very well be the best trailer made for a video game, ever.

15:12 they definitely did, it was after Traptown. If you search for the video "Half-Life 2 E3 2003 Presentation with Gabe Newell" you can see it there. Not sure why it's not in the one Gamespy recorded.

I obsessed over the e3 videos leading up to HL2s release. In some distant parallel universe, Valve showed Half-Life 2 at E3 2002. Man, I honestly wish it happened. We have the maps, but we don't know for certain how Valve intended for them to be showcased.

Wonderful tribute video to E3! These maps are like such a trip to explore honestly especially the sea floor maps. Good job rad!!!

4:44 That Alyx falls in the uncanny valey

Since E3 is now Dead, it’s a good time to look back the E3 2003 Half-Life 2 demonstration…

E3 really had some of the darkest and grittiest maps

source games rarely make me feel immersed anymore (maybe because im dealing with source stuff so often) but the seafloor is so cool

I was 11 when those 2003 E3 demos came out. It was like nothing else any one had seen before.

Well that's a shame, wanted to go to E3 at least once but oh well. To be honest, I'm kinda glad the wasteland wasn't as big, big maps in games tend to be empty and bad. Banger song at 12:50 , always liked songs that had stuff like an upbeat beat contrasted by some ominous instruments. 13:41 when I noticed Eli on the Buggy, looking like he was part of it, I jumped like Kleiner when Gordon teleports behind him.

Gman was saying in Mandarin Chinese, "Well, it seems that there is no opportunity for us to work together."

Dude, you doesn't know how much I love hearing that intro music of yours. I personally still can't wait to see more of your music making videos and also map making!

17:06 E3 used to mean something... It's sad to see it go but I'll remember it fondly.

This video made my day! For someone like me who grew up in late 90s and early 00s E3 is super nostalgic. What better way to make a tribute than with HL 2 beta! Thank you!

I believe e3_techdemo_3 is showcasing how a human NPC can 'panic' and run away from enemies, and use objects as cover while doing so. They just wanted to show how it appeared more advanced than when NPC's just ran from A to B in the first game. :)

Man, I'm gonna miss E3. So many cool games were shown off. Even though I don't like the way E3 2002 & 2003 maps were obtained (Stolen), I am grateful we have these. Really cool to be able to play these ourselves and experience this era of Half-Life 2 along with reliving E3.

I remember being so hyped after seeing this footage. Then the dawning disappointment turning to horror when I got my hands on the final product 😢shame it took so many years for Raising the Bar team to come along and restore what we were promised.

It is sad seeing E3 is never happening anymore. I never had a chance to visit one.😢

hell yeah I love when you use that track (first one that appears on the vid)

Such a great nostalgia unlocked. I absolutely loved this reveal and I was in the 4th grade XD. I was amazed by the physics and graphics.

8:33 If memory serves me right, you have to throw the bugbait in very specific spots, like directly in front of the spawns or something like that, then they should work like normal. These maps are very restrictive and meant to be played in a very specific way so any slight deviation can break certain triggers and events. Fun video as usual btw, RIP E3.

not an expert but i think the language gman speaks there is chinese. yes, they showed this off on E3, i still own the 2004 release CD of Half-Life² where the E3 demos were on. and no, i dont know why they put on beta videos of the game they ended up ditching for what half-life means now. the version of the steam on that CD was still the ancient olive green steam.

14:50 Actually, this map got turned into the final map of Follow Freeman, but it’s traversed in reverse order. The combine wall is the same one Dog lets you through, the horse statue is the same one you must reach in retail (until Dog knocks it down), the first strider enters from an area close to where the player would eventually start from, and the skybridge blown up by the strider is already collapsed in retail (preventing you from reaching the horse statue and forcing you to fight your way through the large ruined building) The uncollapsed skybridge from that scene was also relocated to the penultimate map of Anticitizen One, where you see it on the other side of the collapsed bridge in the part where Alyx is captured.

Wake up babe, another RadHaz HL2 Beta vid dropped:

The G-Man is speaking one of his Japanese Half Life 1 lines in the first G-Man test video.

i don't think many people know this but there are actually unused visgroups in e3_techdemo_4 with the same sequence but based on the earlier larger manhack arcade era lab. edit: correction the e3 map is based on an earlier version called e3_techdemo_014 which has those visgroups

Nice I recently got into the half life 2 beta and I literally just binged watched almost all of your half life 2 beta playlist and then this comes out today lol great video!

"Well, well... isn't this just like old times?" That has to be one of my all-time favourite G-man lines. If Valve ever makes Half-Life 3 I hope the first trailer will end with this sentence.

I can't believe E3 is gone for good. That said, these demos were nothing short of revolutionary for 2003. Valve definitely showed the maximum potential of the engine with this presentation. (Though, I'd argue that some aspects were almost TOO impressive and got little to no utilization in the final game, not to mention the heavy reliance on linearity, excessive prop use, and choreography like in the Traptown demo.)

Peak radhaz is back

Man! I reckon that E3 End segment would have been so cool after the Teleporter sequence in Entanglement in the retail game. Oh well.

The first time i've heard from the E3 was on a Gamestar CD with the whole HL² presentation on it. It was mindblewing and the moment i watched the presentation, with my best mate from back then, it's burned in my mind like 9/11 for others. I will never forget these minutes. There has never been such a moment in gaming history that hyped us so much! We both started to get jobs like lawn mowing to save money for graphic cards, just to be able to run this game. The most things that i missed in the retail game were: e3_techdemo_6 at 3:20 with its legendary skybox, the Wasteland chapters, the tram from e3_c17_02 at 14:42 and the Hydra at 15:37. And the rooftops scene, with the Antlion just watching us and those refelctive, metal roof plates. In the retail game they didnt reflect the lightning and this disapointed me kinda. Anyways, this presentation was always connected with the E3 for me and i was quite sad to read, that the E3 will no longer be a thing.

the e3 era was my favorite beta era, its so similar yet different and its way more finished than erlier versions

It's nice to see that you still make an occasional HL2 Beta themed video. BTW can I ask you one more thing?

2:26 if I remember he says "prepare for unforeseen consequences".

fun fact: You can run a video stress test in Counter-Strike: Source which uses e3_techdemo_5

Suck that E3 was down forever. Since it was always entertaining to see a new announcements on it and cool games.

Before you watch! Be careful! This video is full of radiation hazards!

3:01 This is a liminal space... But also even the tech demo still holds up...

Rip E3. many loved games were showed first there. My one of the most favourite game, portal 2 either

Omg a half life 2 beta video from Mr. Rad, thats absolutely *dark and gritty*

im genuinely convinced that if games took more of a half life 2 approach that the industry would be way more interesting now. you rarely see any physics based games nowadays and if there are physics used its mostly to show new graphics. half life 2 holds up so well when it comes to physics based stuff cause its all so fluently integrated into the game via the gravity gun.

The footage at 15:28 - I remember watching this on an bundled CD that came with Counter Strike: Condition Zero's retail copy. I'm not sure if it was a euro only exclusive or not, but I will have to try and find it.

E3 Half life 2 made alot of people excited back then I meant that physics, ragdoll etc. For us it's normal but for people back then it was exciting. I'd argue that Half life 2 is still technologically and mechanically better than today's some games

E3 End is pretty cool. I once made an extension map of Hazard 01 where I added E3 End at the... you guessed it, end! Though the G-Man speech was the Hazard 01's.

Finally my favorite intro

Dark and griddy

So those last few map sequences, the one that starts in the retail factory, and then ends with Alex and the Hydra... Those were uploaded in Bink video format as demo trailers. I remember them very fondly, and I remember watching them over and over again, showing them off at school and what not. I think they were released staggered over the time span between the E3 demo and the retail release... The initial batch had The Hydra, Trap town, The Ravenholm docks, And eventually we got the prison and the antlions, The crane, and the apartment sequence, which was the standout for me as I was reading 1984 at the time. Thinking back on it, the fact that they were in bink video format is kind of ridiculous.. I know there were a lot of trailers released in QT formats, anything with the film industry doesn't exist outside of something apple can provide, certainly back then LOL... But LOL.. Bink would have probably been my last choice given the state of the internet back then. I do miss the good old days, When the idea of streaming was just kind of a bonus that you could watch it while you were downloading it.. and then Burn it to A CDRW, Or if you were a Baller, Your USB flash drive that Had even more than a whole CD in it.. We still used floppies pretty Commonly for Documents, But those USB flash drives, never as useful as they should be retrospectively looking back, But Definitely a game changer from the floppies, I think we were just used to waiting for the CD to burn for most things anyways so, maybe it was a little less impressive than it should have been LOL. Also I think reading from them was actually slower than a CD, certainly slower than a dvd at the time LOL... Yes I was the guy with that CD case full of the movies With the tryhard sharpie labels of all the movies that got passed around. No I didn't have great internet, but With my parents it was gonna be able to talk about anything with anybody at school LOL so... side bonus, Ended up being the off market librarian, With a stupid amount of patience for download speedsThat only upgraded from A56K To 512DSL And that seemed spectacular LOL... It would only take 12 hours! Once again apologies for the ramblings, and spelling and extreme Capitalization inconsistencies, I don't understand how Samsung has made their keyboard so much worse over the last few years, Both the voice typing and the Initial keyboard... But if it's trained off of that it's running through and collecting as is the way… that really worries me about the state of the English language in That it could get so bad In such a short time since the last time I used It. I thought Google was bad LOL.. I still think it is common just because the standards are so much lower elsewhere now… that's no excuse LOL but my God... Why can't I just have that Microsoft trained model voice typing program LOL it worked it worked just fine it was wonderful even, even it was offline go figure..

the map "e3_techdemo_3" is actually a modified copy of the map "testroom_standards" which is a reference map for object sizes you can play on it through Leaknet selecting HL2 2003

I'm really gonna miss E3. I remember watching E3 on TV when Titanfall was first revealed and was super excited. Watched E3 ever since and was always a dream to attend one. Now thats its gone its just painful to see the games industry in shambles. I hope for one day E3 to return and Valve to show us something. I remember playing these maps years ago and thinking man it would've been awesome to see these shown at E3 in 2003. Thank god for the community and its obsesssion with Beta or else we wouldn't have alot of what we have. Ik these are from the leak but its cool nonetheless given HL1 Beta is much rarer

Brings me back. Going to miss E3

Dark and gritty⁉️

2:31 This is ponderous, man, really ponderous. Okay now that the 2NU reference is out of the way I wonder what he's actually saying.

Pretty sure the reason why the trap at the end of phystown didn't work is because all of the e3 maps are *heavily* scripted, and if you don't follow the script exactly then everything breaks, could also be why you were having trouble figuring out what the third e3_techdemo map was about

6:12 that was their early vision for the citadel? organicly curved shapes with white tiling? interesting concept but more horror than scifi

hello rad, hope you're having a good day :) love putting your vids in the background

As much as I love poking around the beta maps I've never noticed tech_demo_4 and it's HL1` throwback, that's really cool. Tech Demo 2 was the original poolrooms, wasn't it?

Out of all of these my favorite is the strider demo, there is just something about it I really love. + I find the Hydra demo odd since it starts off with that big weird industrial building from anticitizen one. Then mashes it together woth the original strider 2002 demo.

12:36 If you like that then I'm 100% sure you will like Dark Interval's Wasteland levels, I haven't play it myself but from the screenshots and short clips I've seen it perfectly fits within your words

e3_c17_talk is probably a title screen map concidering those go around similarly, maps are cut off where not seen and such

Man this looks interesting.

Hi

4:30 Tiffany Grant? Is that you? Hahaa!

they showed under02 in E3 to show the manhacks and how they can affect the world, it is right before the hydra sequence

Man the gamespy logo is nostalgic

The E3 was not like the hl2 beta, It was not, Dark and Gritty. It will be missed.

The Half-life 2 Beta History Could be used On A future valve game the story seemed dark to me but it would also have been the final story of the game

These maps are the Beta maps I would like to be in the release, they're not the cliche "dark-n-gritty" the community is seemingly addicted to like drugs but are still different enough from retail to be interesting

Rad the reason why the bug bait didn't work is because it is so scripted that you need to throw it in specific areas

Oh, and there is a weird map called e3_gurluas that often gets passed off as being from Valve's 2003 presentation, which is not true. The map's real name is CMP_Gurluas_2000_Road, which was made by Gurluas who was a HL2World site member. Later it was found by Russian bootlegers, renamed into e3_Gurluas for some reason and included in one of their bootleg Half-Life 2 beta disc releases.

Bright and light-hearted.

It's a damn shame what happened to E3 I never got to go to one

Hello there.

E3 was something magical… sucks it’s gone…

I still amazes me how far ahead-of-its-time Half Life 2 was.

The game itself looked insane in 2003,but lets not forget about free tvs,for 2000 That was insane,but 2001 is still my beloved

what a madman lmao

Back when game trailers shown actual gameplay.

One day im gonna make that E3 2003 Metrocop and ill add so many reflective surfaces just to be extra flashy!

i can't see you do anything relating to the hl2 beta without thinking of the NPC's are dead incident it genuinely haunts me

Rad.

Amor eterno a la Beta ❤

e3_under_02 was definitely shown. It's the one that ends with the hydra monster.

Cool!

Now for someone to demake the E3 2002 & 2003 maps in GoldSrc.

The retail map design is good,but i really wish this old 2003 maps were finished and implemented into the retail game

I wonder what a 2003 citadel would look like on the inside?

I felt heartbroken when they announced e3 was cancelled, i always dreamed of traveling to America with my friends and go to the E3 after decades of waiting, but looks like it will never happen…

this was 20 years ago. my god

Im pretty sure the e3_techdemo5 was reused in counter strike source when you do the stress test, because it has the same layout, with some couple of changes.

The e3 techdemo5 looks like the hardware test from Counter Strike: Source

If I'm not wrong e3_c17_03 ended up being in the released version as the street where you reunite with Barney in d3_c17_13