Half-Life 2 engine used to create fire drill demo

durham_fire_videogame_011Fire drills are usually confusing. Due to poor building layouts, bad documentation, crappy maps. For whatever reason, people have problems getting out of a building quickly, even more so if it’s on fire. So in an attempt to put those Counter-Strike mapping skills to work, researchers at the University of Durham in England used the Half-Life 2 engine to create a video tour of how to escape from the building. They did quite the job on it, though it’s a bit spare visually, with the single-player campaign simulation containing a fire alarm trigger, fire exit signs, and even fires that spread as time goes by. The science on this is actually proven, as adult learners are typically quite visually oriented and learn better by watching a video then they do by looking at a map.

The video also doubles as a training video for how to avoid exploding barrels and how to crowbar a headcrab out of the air (very dangerous).

[via Reg Hardware]