Don’t count your chickens just yet, folks, but this leaked video may show someone using the Project Natal beta to play Valve’s beloved 2004 shooter, Half-Life 2.
Okay, right off the bat: The source for this video is unconfirmed (and will probably get fired if they ever do come forward) so take this with a heaping of salt high enough to make the Dead Sea feel inadequate. While it’s certainly possible that the video is faked, if it is it’s a very, very convincing fake – in it, we see a man using what is presumably Microsoft’s Project Natal to control Gordon Freeman in Half-Life 2 as he walks around Dr. Eli Vance’s office Dr. Kleiner’s lab interacting with objects.
It’s a very interesting look at how the Minority Report-esque control might work with more “traditional” games, as the view seems responsive (though there looks to be a tiny bit of input lag) and everything he’s doing to interact with the objects seems to work well enough. Of course, Natal had better be responsive if it’s ever going to take off.
What we don’t see, notably, is any gunplay – Natal might work fine for walking around the lab and looking at stuff, but how is it going to work when the Combine are ready to shove a stun baton up your ass?
Again, there’s nothing confirmed here and Microsoft is keeping mum and refusing to comment on rumors. It could be a fake, but if it’s real it’s a very interesting look behind the scenes at Natal.
Maybe this is why Valve is taking so long to release Episode 3.
