 The news will disappoint fans of the original game, one of the
most popular and widely acclaimed games of all time. Since it first appeared first years ago, Half-Life has sold some
eight million copies in its various versions.
Hacking effort
The sequel had originally been
expected to be out by the end of September. It was then pencilled in for a
release in time for Christmas. But the theft of a key
part of the game appears to have derailed those plans.
"Vivendi Universal Games is only
the distributor of the product, which is produced by the US studio Valve
and so it will up to them to make an announcement," said the head of
Vivendi Universal Games, Christophe Ramboz. "But it is true that the
launch has been delayed by a theft of a part of the game," he told the Les
Echos newspaper.
The makers of Half-Life 2, Valve, confirmed the theft of the game code last Friday after
copies leaked onto the internet.
It said the leak followed a concerted hacking
effort on the company's computers over a number of months. The code has spread quickly online, appearing on websites and
file-sharing networks such as Kazaa and BitTorrent.
Vivendi said it made up about a third of game.
Most importantly, it includes the physics engine, which determines how the
action in a game is shown. The source
code lies at the heart of a game and is kept a closely guarded secret to
stop other people copying it.
The team at Valve has five years working on
Half-Life 2, with an average of 30 people working on the title at any one
time.
Valve have appealed to the millions of Half-Life
fans to help them track down who leaked the code. It has set up a specific e-mail account, helpvalve@valvesoftware.com,
for people to send any
information. | 
