Half-Life 3 confirmed.

Not as much as you might think. Half-life levels have markers at the exit points that match up with markers on the map the exit point leads to so the transition from one map to another (other than the Loading freeze) is unnoticeable. It's straightforward to just place the maps based on those markers using code.

I was thinking with the advancement in computing power since Half Life came out, isn't it possible that you COULD load the entire map with all the AI and play it straight through with no load times?

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tldr: Actually, games do this all the time, but usually only for water surfaces!

The reason for this is that the way you render a proper reflection is to "flip" the camera to the other side of the reflective surface plane: looking down on a lake, you'd render the water reflection from the point of view of the camera looking up from under the water surface, flipped over. This is called "planar reflection". In order to do this, you render your entire scene again, so it's not cheap. Also, the reflection only works for that one plane: if you had two altitudes of water (or two differently angled mirrors) they'd be on different planes and so you'd have to render a reflection for each one.

You can't render curved surface reflections this way, though. For example it doesn't work on a car (what plane would you flip the camera over?). For that, the trick is called "cubic environment maps". I won't go into the details, but it only really works well for faking reflections on objects since it shows the correct view from a single point. You can create them dynamically for things like racing games, but they require 6 scene renders (one for each face of the cube) for each environment map.

Half Life offered both techniques for water reflections, so one could fire that up and compare them that way.

This demo seemed to use environment maps for the mirrors and I suspect all of the other shiny surfaces.

Note that these techniques are to get detailed reflections: specular lighting (where you don't reflect an image, but instead mathematically simulate simple light bouncing) is easier and cheaper, since it's just math to get a color and strength.

You could do planar reflections for every mirror, but it's a full scene re-render for each one so your frame rate would tank or you'd have to take out other features. Compromises!

Game graphics is all trade-offs and smoke and mirrors: it's our job to fake things and make you think the game is doing sophisticated simulation when actually it's doing as little as it can to get as much as possible.

Half Life 3 already! JUST TAKE MY MONEY!!!

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Seeing and hearing all of them at the end reminded me of the manhacks from Half-Life 2.

So, Half-Life 3 is a prequel ?

The 1999 one from Gabriel Knight 3 also appeared at the start of the original Half Life. The music fit the tone perfectly.

I just never got into Doom or Quake or any of the really early. The whole hell theme just never resonated with me.

I think System Shock was my first FPS, then later Half Life

Never before have I found something both so cute and so creepy at the same time. He's like a super happy escapee from the world of Half Life, or a biological Mouser (from TMNT). LOVE IT!

One thing is certain... Numbers beyond 2 doesn't exist at Valve. Proof:

L4D1 & 2
Half-Life 1 & 2
Half-Life 2: Episode 1 & 2
Portal 1 & 2
TeamFortress 1 & 2

Please. Please. PLEASE be a viral for Portal 3 and/or Half Life 3 and/or Episode 3 and/or SOMETHING FROM THAT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY!

Very fun.

The ones I spotted were:

Pong, Asteroids, Battlezone, Mario, Gameboy boot screen, Quake, Quake 3, Silent Hill, Limbo, FEZ, Portal, Minecraft, The Unfinished Swan, Super Hexagon, Thomas Was Alone, Half-Life and Braid.

Some could be:
Snake, Rez, Yoshis Island, Dear Esther.

The one at 0:32 is bothering me as I'm sure it's something I played a lot as a kid. Also 00:59 makes me think of the original GTA but I think it's something else from around the same time.