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Half-Life 2 delivers a new level of realistic action and excitement. Players return to the world of Gordon Freeman, as he returns to the Black Mesa research facility. The aliens are pouring into our world, and Freeman becomes part of a resistance group to stop them. New weapons, new enemies and new characters are waiting -- along with major enhancements in animation, artificial intelligence and graphics.
In many ways, creating a sequel to Half-Life is an unenviable task. After all, the goal is to craft not just any ordinary game, but an improvement to a title that is widely considered to be the high water mark for first person shooters. Fortunately, Valve does not disappoint on their sophomore effort. Half-Life 2 picks up exactly where its predecessor leaves off, with gamers stepping once more into Gordon Freeman's HVAC suit as he awakes at some indeterminate time in the future, now apparently in the employ of the mysterious G-Man. Humanity has been sold out to alien forces, and your job is to escape their thrall and lead the resistance to victory. HL2's key successes are in a few critical areas, the first of which is the new physics & graphics engine, called Source. People and objects fall, fly, tip over, float, and break in an extraordinarily realistic fashion, and in-game puzzles often require you to use simple applications of physics to progress. Second, an elaborate facial structure system coupled with excellent voice acting make for some of the most believably human NPCs in gaming history. This is no small thing; you will find yourself actually caring about the characters who surround you, even those that are normally regarded as cannon fodder. Third, the level design exhibits a subtle brilliance, which frequently fools you into feeling like you're making your way through an organic environment and not a forced linear path. These elements combine to form one of the most truly immersive experiences ever captured on a PC. This gaming bliss comes at a cost, however. If your computer isn't running the latest and greatest hardware, you may find yourself turning down a lot of the slick graphics to keep the machine from choking. Also, at the time of this writing the only two bundled multiplayer games are a barely updated version of Counter-Strike and HL2 DeathMatch. Counter-Strike: Source is every bit as fun as the original, but the DeathMatch is lackluster and contains only a handful of uninspired maps. Overall, Half-Life 2 is a smashing success, every bit worthy of the prestige and respect that the franchise has been awarded. This is absolutely a game that every computer gaming enthusiast is going to want to have in their collection. -- Jon "Safety Monkey" Grover Pros: - Advanced graphics and physics system provide highly immersive experience
- Believable, expressive non-player characters
- Fun, realistic level design
Cons:- Requires a very fast computer to play with all bells & whistles on
- DeathMatch mode has few maps and is not terribly entertaining
Half-Life 2 Accessories
 Half-Life 2: Episode One
F.E.A.R.: First Encounter Assault Recon
Far Cry
Doom 3
Half Life 2
Halo: Combat Evolved
BioShock
Crysis
Call of Duty 2
The Orange Box
Half-Life 2 Reviews
So if you buy it used, you won't be able to register, and can't play. I highly recommend the game, but it when you register it it's locked to a single user account on Steam.
Works on many older PCs. There are tons of associated titles and mods available. The game is the best and is already a classic. The story alone would make a great book or movie. And you cannot seriously plan on playing the HL2 episodes unless you have played this game. Simply great.
I really wished they didn't have these levels. First off, the story was kind of bland. I mean, it had awesome graphics, cool weapons, but the important things weren't there. You may get half of them if youre lucky and they manage to congregate on the grenade. It never wanted to go where you were turning the wheels and you always had a dozen antlions chewing your head off or something throwing you off the cliff. Good game i guess, if you like having your a$$ handed to you all the time. Both of which, are a pain in the a$$ to control and you always have several people shooting at you or a gunship on your butt. After a while it just gets tedious.
You spend quite a bit traveling in the stupid airboat and car. Other than that, its just easier to shoot them up with a rifle or something. Anyway, the story wasn't all that in depth. Granted, the graphics were great, the engine was great, but these annoyances can really kill a game. Got a room full of enemies. Either that you had some enemy, that you never seen before, that somehow managed to sneak up behind you and waste you away. There are several other games out there worth playing more than this one.
Shoot, jump, shoot, save, get hurt, shoot, die, reload. If they did without the vehicle levels, it would have been so much better. A lot of the weapons were good, but there were a couple that were just crap. I had more fun with other Valve products like Sin Episodes: Emergence. Mainly, the grenade and the rocketlauncher.
Sin Episodes, Far Cry, Halo, any of these would be better. It was alright, but not as great as other games, like Sin, Halo, or Far Cry. If it wasn't for the graphics and engine, i would have given it only 1 star. dont bother with a grenade. The game play was alright.
I only struggled through this to see what the ending was like, and that was about it. Thats how it was for me the whole time i was playing. I spent much of the time on these levels saving and reloading just to progress.
The ending wasn't all that great either. I guess the ending sucked because it was leaving it open for the following 2 episodes of HL2. Dont get me wrong, i play several games, but this one definitely didn't live up to all the hype i kept hearing. I guess my biggest gripe was the game itself, instead of the installation problems.
The car wasn't fun at all. Neither one were all that great unless you hit the enemy directly with either one. Ive heard so many people say "oh, HL2 is hands down the best game ever." give me a break.
The engine could use an update with new and more advanced shadowing, but that's it. Also, I think steam is great. This game has one of the best storylines and endings ever. The fishbowl game Bioshock has nothing on this. Very convenient. The graphics are still amazing by today's standard.
A couple of my HL2 CDs have become unreadable, but thankfully the cd-key is registered to my account so I am able to download this as many times as I want. I just started recently playing HL2 again because I put together a new rig, and I have to tell you it is far from showing its age. And when you install the FakeFactory Cinematic Mod v4, the only game that will surpass this visually is Crysis. . What a phenomenal game and engine this is. The facial and mouth animations are still unmatched.
The puzzles were pretty good. I've not even been tempted this year to reinstall it and see if maybe some of the early bugs have been worked out. And it certainly wasn't worth relinquishing control of my system to that invasive Steam app. And then one day, I had an epiphany. I really liked that gravity gun. I won't succumb again. I uninstalled it.
I was shocked when I installed the game to see what kind of control I had to hand over to Steam in order to run the single-player game. They're spot-on. And I will NEVER, EVER buy another game that uses Steam or its ilk. So I stopped playing. I crossed my fingers, ignored my instincts, and let it run anyway. It was HOURS from the time I unwrapped the box to the time when I could actually PLAY it. I'd give the game away or sell it, but I wouldn't wish it on anyone with whom I'm on speaking terms or even an unwitting stranger. And all this for the single-player game.
What a terrible precedent to set in the PC software world. The other 50% was spent waiting for a map to load, waiting for Steam to authenticate me, and rebooting my damn PC every damn time the game brought it to a screeching, frozen halt. And I never looked back. And the trouble never stopped.
I would say that I was playing the game maybe 50% of the time I spent trying to play it. The game play was pretty good. But it just wasn't worth the hassle. For weeks I stubbornly kept playing, in spite of system freezes, interminable delays between maps, and frustration with one of the damn dune buggies, which was terribly difficult to drive because the graphics kept jumping and stuttering (in spite of my pretty decent system, well above minimum requirements).
Dumb, dumb, dumb. Steam simply ruined this game for me. All the reviews bitching and moaning about Steam.
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