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Half-Life 2: Lost Coast is a smalladditional level for the2004 first-person shootervideo gameHalf-Life 2.Developed by Valve Software, it was released onOctober 27, 2005 through the Steam content delivery serviceas a free download to owners of the Microsoft Windows version ofHalf-Life 2. Lost Coast serves as a technology demonstration,specifically showcasing the high dynamic rangerendering implemented in the Source engine. The level wasdesigned with a variety of appropriate environments to emphasizethese effects. In addition, Lost Coast was the first videogame developed by Valve to allow developers to explain variouselements of design as the player progresses through the level.

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Lost Coast follows Half-Life protagonist Gordon Freeman ashe travels up a coastal cliff to destroy a Combineartillery launcher in a monastery, which is firing on a nearbytown. The Lost Coast level was originally created forHalf-Life 2, but was ultimately removed from the game. Asa result, it has several minor story details that were not includedin Half-Life 2. The level received a generally positivereception, and there was consensus among reviewers that the newfeatures included in Lost Coast should be integrated intofuture games released by Valve.

Gameplay

Lost Coast uses the same first-person shooter gameplaymechanics as Half-Life 2. The game is viewed from theperspective of the player character, and plot informationis imparted through scripted sequences rather than cutscenes. A heads-up display at the bottom of thescreen shows the player's health,energy gauge, and ammunition status, while available weapons areshown at the top. Health and armor energy can be replenished bypicking up medical supplies and energy cells respectively, or byusing wall-mounted charging devices. The player character isequipped with a small armory of weapons from Half-Life 2at the beginning of the level, including a pistol, shotgun,crossbow, and gravitygun. The gravity gun allows the player to manipulate physicalobjects in the world; it can be used to pick up nearby objects andthrow them at enemies or create cover from enemy fire. The gravitygun can also be used to perform several non-combat functions, suchas grabbing out-of-reach supply crates.^[1]

Plot

Lost Coast opens with the protagonist, Gordon Freeman,gaining consciousness near a group of decaying piers, underneath amonastery set up onrocks and overlooking the small town of St. Olga. A fishermanrecognizes Freeman and directs him to the monastery, which theenemy Combine are using as a platform tolaunch artillery shells filled with headcrabs into the town. The fisherman opens agate, allowing the player to proceed, and waits for Freeman'sreturn.^[2] AsFreeman proceeds up the cliffside to the monastery, he encountersheavy resistance from Combine soldiers who rappel down the cliff toengage him. Gordon fights his way up, enters the monastery'ssanctuary, and disables the artillery launcher. This alerts nearbysoldiers, who assault the sanctuary in force, while a Combine attackhelicopter arrives to support the soldiers. After defeating thesoldiers in the courtyard, Freeman moves to scaffolding over theside of the cliff and destroys the helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenadelauncher. The helicopter crashes into the scaffolding, freeingup a path to a crude elevator which lowers Freeman back down to thepier. The fisherman congratulates Freeman on his success, inviteshim to a feast in St. Olga, and the screen fades out. The fishermanexclaims that Gordon is 'getting all fuzzy round the edges' as thelevel ends.^[1]

Development

Leveldesign

Lost Coast was originally conceived as a level inHalf-Life 2, but was later discarded during development.As a result, Lost Coast features minor storyline detailsthat were removed from Half-Life 2, such as the headcrabartillery launchers.^[3] Eacharea of the level was designed with a specific purpose. An Eastern Orthodoxarchitectural style was deliberately chosen for the monastery,as buildings of this type 'are very colorful and have a largevariety of materials' and are 'often lit naturally, with extremesof darkness and brightness,' providing an ideal showcase for theHDR lighting effects.^{[N 1]} Valvealso thought that the use of a monastery would help provide astarker contrast between old human architecture and futuristicCombine technology found within it.^[N2] The cliffside that leads to the monasteryhad a gameplay-oriented purpose, and was meant to emulate a similarcliffside combat scene in Half-Life. The cliffsidealso forces the player to be observant of threats from above andbelow, breaking from normal horizontal combat.^[N3] The monastery's courtyard was designed asan area where the player recovers from the cliffside combat, whilealso presenting a contained combat arena later in the level inwhich the player must hold their ground while they are attackedfrom multiple directions.^{[N 4]}

High dynamic rangerendering

The goal of Lost Coast was to demonstrate the new high dynamic range (HDR)rendering implemented into the Source game engine.^[4]Valve first attempted to implement HDR rendering in Source in late2003. The first method stored textures in RGBA colorspace, allowing for multisample anti-aliasing andpixel shaders tobe used, but this prevented alpha mapping and fog effects fromworking properly, as well as making textures appear sharp andjagged.^[5]The second method involved saving two versions of a texture: onewith regular data, and the other with overbrightening data.However, this technique did not allow for multisample anti-aliasingand consumed twice as much video card memory, making it unfeasible.^[5]The third method, shown at the E3convention in 2005, used floating point data to define the RGB colorspace, allowing for reasonably efficient storage of the HDRdata. However, this method also did not allow for multisampleanti-aliasing, and was only compatible with Nvidia video cards, leaving ATI cardsunable to run HDR.^[5]The fourth and final method compromised between the second andthird methods, using overbrightening textures sparingly andallowing ATI cards to render HDR in a different way to the Nvidiaones while nearly producing the same end result.^[5]

Half-life Episode 3

The final version of Valve's HDR technology adds a significantnumber of lighting effects to the engine, aimed at making the gameappear more realistic. Bloom shading was introduced,blurring bright edges in the game world and emulating a camera'soverexposure to light.^[6]This is combined with exposure control to tailor theeffect to represent the human eye. For example, as the player exits adark area into a light area, the new area is initially glaringlybright, but quickly darkens, representing the adjustment of theplayer character's eyes to the light.^[7]New cube mappingtechniques allow the reflection cast by an object to correspondwith the brightness of the light source, and lightmaps enable light bouncing and globalillumination to be taken into account in the rendering.^[6]Refraction effectswere added to make light account for the physical attributes of anobject and to emulate the way light is reflected by water.^[6]The Lost Coast level is specifically designed to showcasethese effects. It uses the sea and beach as opportunities todemonstrate water-based effects, the monastery to demonstrate bloomfrom its whitewash walls, and the sanctuary to provide the means toshow refraction through stained glass windows and cube maps ongolden urns and candlesticks.^[8]

As a technology showcase, Valve considered Lost Coastto have very demanding system requirements.^[9] Thegame runs on computers with specifications lower than what isrecommended, albeit without some key features such as HDR. If anon-HDR capable card is used, the developer commentary is changedslightly to reflect this. For example, Gabe Newell would describe the effects thatare seen in a different manner.^[10]

Commentarysystem

In addition to a showcase for visual improvements, LostCoast acted as a testbed for Valve's commentary system. Whenthe feature is enabled, additional items appear in the game thatcan be interacted with to play an audio commentary. Each audiopiece ranges from ten seconds to a minute of commentary. Playershear the developers talk about what the player is seeing, what ishappening, why they made certain decisions, and what kinds ofchallenges they faced. Commentary tracks are represented byfloating speech bubbles called commentary nodes.^[11]Valve intended for players to first play the level with commentarydisabled, and after completing the level, play it again withcommentary enabled, learning about each new stage as theyprogress.^[12] Thecompany has made the commentary system standard in all of its latervideo games.^[13]

Releaseand reception

Lost Coast was released on October 27, 2005 as a freedownload from Valve's Steam content delivery serviceto anyone who purchased Half-Life 2.^[14]People who received Half-Life 2 as a gift from Valve'sonline store were not eligible to download the level. Valveannounced on May 30, 2007 that Lost Coast, along withHalf-Life 2: Deathmatch, would be made available for freeto owners of ATI Radeoncards.^[15] Itwas later released without charge to Nvidia graphics card owners along withHalf-Life 2: Deathmatch, Peggle Extreme,and the first eleven levels of Portal.^[16]

Lost Coast was generally well-received by video gamecritics. 1UP.com enjoyed theamount of detail, including the graphics, puzzles, and intelligentenemies, saying, 'Valve just packed more atmosphere into a tinysnippet than most shooters muster, period.' The review also praisedthe level's commentary system, calling it an informative addition,and enjoyed the interesting and insightful comments made by some ofits creators.^[17]The level satisfied UGO because 'it would be harder not toenjoy this level in all its beautifully rendered glory—even afteryou've broken all the windows and spattered the walls with Combineblood,'^[18]and GameSpot commentedthat 'the textures in Lost Coast are noticeably more detailed andnumerous than in the retail game.' The review concluded by hopingthat the features introduced in Lost Coast would beincluded in future games released by Valve.^[10]

Negative reaction to the game focused on its length andgameplay. 1UP.com and UGO both considered it short;^[17][18]Shawn Elliott of 1UP.com described it as 'a lickety-split runthrough postcard-pretty tide pools, up cliffs, and into a churchturned Combine outpost'.^[17]UGO's Nigel Grammer stated that Lost Coast's gameplay seemed to besecondary to the level's graphics.^[18]Lost Coast'sgameplay disappointed Brad Shoemaker ofGameSpot, who compared it to that of Half-Life 2 and considered them to bevery similar, saying that it 'isn't going to set the world onfire'.^[10]

Notes

1. ^Valve Corporation. Half-Life 2:Lost Coast. PC. (2005) 'Viktor Antonov:Churches are great dramatic spaces. They’re often lit naturally,with extremes of darkness and brightness, which makes them a greatshowcase for HDR. Gothic churches are the sober, monochromaticspaces that you’ve seen in almost every horror movie or game.Byzantine churches, on the other hand, are very colourful and havea large variety of materials. We wanted that color & materialvariety to show off our HDR reflections.'
2. ^Valve Corporation. Half-Life 2:Lost Coast. PC. (2005) 'Viktor Antonov: Wealso like to focus on contrasting elements in our settings, likeancient human architecture and futuristic Combine technology. Amonastery fit these requirements perfectly. Monasteries aregenerally isolated, unlit, and built ages ago. They provide a greatbackdrop for the contrasting Combine technology.'
3. ^Valve Corporation. Half-Life 2:Lost Coast. PC. (2005) 'Robin Walker: We wereparticularly happy with the vertical cliffside in Half-Life1, and regretted that we didn't iterate further on thatconcept in Half-Life 2. Vertical space allows us to forcethe player to deal with threats from above and below. We find thatplayers focus their view on the direction they're travelling, so byusing a cliffside, and having the player ascend it, we ensure theplayer will look up and be prepared for enemies. If the player'spath was to move past the bottom of the cliffside, it would beunlikely he would notice the soldiers rappelling down fromabove.'
4. ^Valve Corporation. Half-Life 2:Lost Coast. PC. (2005) 'Robin Walker: Thecourtyard in front of you is a space we call an Arena. Arenas arebuilt to hold the player for a period of time, and usually containcombat or some other challenge. They often have multipleentry-points for enemies, along with a gate of some kind to preventthe player moving on, until the challenge has been completed. Inthis case, the arena is free of enemies until the player solves apuzzle, and triggers an alarm. [..] The break in action here isalso a crucial part of the level's pacing. It allows the player torecover and explore the world a little, after being attacked on theway up the cliffside.'

References

1. ^ ^ab'Half-Life 2: LostCoast Walkthrough'. Planet Half-Life. GameSpy. http://planethalflife.gamespy.com/View.php?view=HL2Walkthroughs.Detail&id=8&game=3. Retrieved2008-11-21.
2. ^'Half-Life 2: LostCoast Allies'. Planet Half-Life. GameSpy. http://planethalflife.gamespy.com/View.php?view=HL2GameInfo.Detail&id=18&game=3. Retrieved2008-11-21.
3. ^Accrado, Sal (2005-10-28). 'Half-Life 2: The LostCoast (PC)'. GameSpy. http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/half-life-2-lost-coast/662640p1.html. Retrieved2008-10-17.
4. ^Half-Life 2:Aftermath and Lost Coast'. 1UP.com. http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=1&cId=3143168. Retrieved2008-11-20.
5. ^ ^abcdReimer, Jeremy (2005-09-15). 'A primer on HDR and a tour ofValve's Lost Coast: The road to HDR'. Ars Technica. http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/lostcoast.ars/3. Retrieved2008-11-21.
6. ^ ^abcRichards, Geoff (2005-06-14). 'Lost Coast / SourceHDR Feature Set'. bit-tech. http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2005/06/14/hl2_hdr_overview/2. Retrieved2008-11-20.
7. ^. http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2005/06/14/hl2_hdr_overview/3. Retrieved2008-11-20.
8. ^Half Life 2: LostCoast HDR Eye Candy'. bit-tech. http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2005/06/14/hl2_hdr_overview/4. Retrieved2008-11-20.
9. ^Bramwell, Tom (2005-10-28). 'HL2 Lost Coastreleased'. Eurogamer. http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=61449. Retrieved2008-11-20.
10. ^ ^abcShoemaker, Brad (2005-07-28). 'Half-Life 2 LostCoast Hands-On'. GameSpot. http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/halflife2/preview_6129904.html. Retrieved2008-10-17.
11. ^Half-Life 2: LostCoast Overview'. Planet Half-Life. GameSpy. http://planethalflife.gamespy.com/View.php?view=HL2GameInfo.Detail&id=11&game=3. Retrieved2008-11-21.
12. ^Richards, Geoff (2005-09-14). 'Preview: Half-Life 2:Lost Coast: Thoughts'. bit-tech. http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2005/09/14/lost_coast_screens/5. Retrieved2008-11-21.
13. ^. http://www.steampowered.com/Steam/Marketing/August5.2005/?l=english. Retrieved2008-10-17.
14. ^Pinckard, Jane (2005-10-27). 'Lost Coast Out Now'.1UP. http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3145123. Retrieved2008-11-20.
15. ^Valich, Theo (2007-05-30). 'Valve gives free games toATI Radeon owners'. The Inquirer. http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2007/05/30/valve-gives-free-games-to-ati-radeon-owners. Retrieved2007-05-31.
16. ^Swinburne, Richard (2008-01-10). 'Free Portal to all NvidiaGeForce owners'. bit-tech. http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/01/10/free_portal_to_all_nvidia_geforce_owners/1. Retrieved2008-11-29.
17. ^ ^abcElliott, Shawn (2005-10-28). 'Half-Life 2: Lost Coast(PC)'. 1UP. http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3147182&p=1. Retrieved2008-11-20.
18. ^ ^abcGrammer, Nigel. 'Half-Life 2: Lost CoastReview'. UGO. http://www.ugo.com/channels/games/features/halflife_2/lostcoast.asp. Retrieved2008-11-20.