Omg, I'm so excited about it! it's the biggest hype IMO.. im going to appear @ the store early to buy the game b4 it gets sold out cuz its omg awesome!
The ultimate trailer for it is 500mb or so, it shows how the engine works... ill explain some details
In the game the materials work like real materials, you hit wood and it works like wood, it slightly bends like real wood, it cracks, slivers fragments and sounds exactly like wood, metal bends snaps and sound slike metal and same goes for every other material like concrete..
The engine works on real world physics, if something is held by 3 small wooden pylons and you shoot one down, chances are that it will come tumbling down because the weight is too much for the wood to handle.
If you put barrels on a slant, they will start rolling.. the engine also clearly shows that there are no set limits to what can be done physics wise. you can push tables.. hit tables, pick things up and throw them at people, cut people in half, cut off limbs or cut their torso ect.. my favorite feature of the game though is a gun (not sure what it's called yet) but ill explain it
With this gun you can pick anything up froma distance and move it around iwth a beam swing it at people and also launch them at people (in the video they show somebody picking up letters from a building and launching it at a robotic spider, they also show him picking up a heater (big wall heaters) and launch it at somebody which ended up killing him .. he was crushed against a wall.
Another The deaths are all ragdoll deaths (ragdoll death is when the surrounding enviroment effects the death sequence) for example, if you shoot somebody near a table, he will land on the table and move according to the tables curves.. but with the real world physics im sure itll be much M UCH more interesting than any other ragdoll supporting game.
One of the greatest improvements are the graphics, there is somuch detail that it boggles the mind, the people's faces have true emotions, many MANY emotions... their mouth moves to what they say (including the shape of their lips) and their eyes cheeks chin ect ect. The textures are also incredible, they use real world effects so it seems like you are actually in the middle of the action while you are playing.. visit
http://www.planethalflife.com for more information (click on halflife2) ofcourse