Various reports from various sources currently dissipating across the net suggest that 2 is in the process of entering the latter stages of development, with several new magazine and previews and articles based on the title suggesting that and publisher Sierra are ready to begin ramping-up the hype machine.

One such article is found in German gaming publication 'PC Games', upon which one Halflife2.net forum poster offered: "According to Gabe, currently they let people play-test the game, to balance the chapters better. They have noticed, that most of the tester spent a lot of time in playing with the physics, so they may increase the number of these little parts. He also said that they are planning to release it in Late summer this year and he apologized for September 30th. He also said, that the stolen code wasn't the reason for the delay, they had a bad scheduling," unsurprisingly, the poster in question also apologised for his poor English.

Plenty more details, including a few interesting spoilers are available in the post, and word on the grapevine has it that other major print magazines will be releasing their own new Half-Life 2 goodies in imminent editions with plenty of new screenshots on the cards.

'Late' summer and the promise of further information soon it is, then.

By Luke Guttridge