Trivia
At the event "GameStar/GamePro Leserpreis 2005" (February 2004) Half-Life 2 received the trophies "Best PC Game in 2004" and "Best PC Action Game in 2004" after the reader's voting of German gaming magazine GameStar.
In the German gaming magazine GameStar (issue 03/2005) Half-Life 2 received a special award for the "Most Annoying Copy Protection in 2004".
In September of 2007 Valve's Gabe Newell was interviewed by gaming website Kikizo's Adam Doree about the then shortly to be released Orange Box, asking, among other things, about the potential for a Macintosh release. Newell responded by saying that though they had been in conversations with Apple regarding the possibility "they seem to think that they want to do gaming, but there's never any follow through on any of the things they say they're going to do. That makes it hard to be excited about doing games for their platforms." Thus, there wouldn't be a Macintosh version of Half-Life 2.
A month later, in October, Tuncer Deniz, a Macintosh developer and owner of the news site Inside Mac Games, posted on his blog that while Newell's complaints likely weren't without justification, the actual reason for the lack of a Macintosh port was due to "Valve's insistence that anyone who wanted to port Half-Life 2 to the Mac had to advance $1 million to Valve. That's right, that's $1,000,000. That might be peanuts to someone like Valve, but no Mac publisher in their right mind would have given Valve that kind of money just for the rights to publish Half-Life 2 for the Mac."
Contributed by
Agent 5 (5385) on Sep 10, 2009.
According to the book Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar, the original storyline spanned four in-game days instead of just three. Among the parts cut are an antlion cave, a train ride through a dried out sea bed, a ship called the "Borealis", the underwater "Kraken Base", a Combine weather control station, a chapter set in arctic regions and a skyscraper. Many of these places show up in pre-release screenshots and press material.
Some parts were recycled for existing Half-Life 2 chapters, many others are making a comeback in the Half-Life 2 episodes.
Contributed by
Lumpi (143) on Jul 17, 2009.
Half-Life was named #4 Game of the Year in the 14th Annual Computer Game Awards issue of Computer Games Magazine (March 2005).
Contributed by
PCGamer77 
(3025) on Jan 21, 2008.
Dr. Kleiner's pet headcrab Lamarr is actually named after Hedy Lamarr (November 9, 1913 – January 19, 2000, born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler), an Austrian-Jewish naturalized American actress and communications technology innovator.
Almost all the characters in Half-Life 2 are modelled after a real person's appearance.
Valve Software's Chief Operating Officer, lent his face to the game for use in-game as Barney Calhoun.
Alyx Vance is modelled after American actress and television host Jamil Giovanni Mullen.
Eli Vance's is based on Larry "The Count" Heard, a local man holding a sign indicating that he was looking for work. Valve found him on the corner of Highway 520 and 148th Avenue in Redmond and hired him as a model.
The G-Man's Half-Life 2 model is based on Frank Sheldon, an Alexander Technique practitioner. He was originally slated to be the model for Dr. Breen.
The Vortigaunts are voiced by Louis Gossett, Jr. It is mentioned in Raising the Bar that Gossett was chosen partially due to his role as the alien in the film Enemy Mine.
City 17, the main location of "Half-Life 2", strongly resembles Eastern European and Soviet cities of the communist era; the architecture style of suburb districts is nearly identical to what you can see (even until now) in East Berlin, Prague, Moscow, etc. However, there is also more direct evidence to the "Soviet" nature of City 17; several times you'll spot some Russian words if you look at the game environment closely. For example, during the mud skipper chase you'll come across large gates with the words ПОРТ written above; "порт" is Russian for "port" (pronounced roughly the same way as the English word).
The background picture of the main menu changes based on what chapter you are at when you last saved.
Despite the complex graphics, including ragdoll physics and pixel shaders, the Source engine was designed to support cards that offer only DirectX 6 hardware support. The original Source engine code would run by using the software emulation encoded in the DirectX 9 library.
That means that you can run this game even if you have Intel 846g card or a Nvidia TNT chipset. To give you some perspective, The TNT chipset was introduced in 1997.
Contributed by
Santa (847) on Dec 10, 2005.
The PC version of Half-Life 2 was the last game that Sierra distributed for Valve at retail. Electronic Arts was quick to scoop up the retail deal, but their Steam digital distribution service remains independent.
As a result of a settlement in a lawsuit between Valve and VU Games, VU Games ceases distribution of retail packaged versions of Valve's games (including Half-Life 2), effective August 31, 2005.
Contributed by
Sciere (119383) on May 02, 2005.
Half-Life 2 was ranked # 4 in the 50 Best Games of All Time list published by PC Gamer Magazine in its April 2005 issue.
Contributed by
PCGamer77 (3025) on Mar 19, 2005.
Several news sources first reported Half-Life 2 entering gold status, quoting an unnamed source within the development team. The source revealed the existence of a piñata doll (a traditional South American custom of a doll stuffed with sweets and toys for children to break) which was broken to celebrate HL2's official completion.
It was later revealed that this "piñata" was in fact a full-scaled Scanner model (the flying machines that take pictures of suspects in-game) and it was broken using a crowbar.
An enemy that was shown in early previews known as the hydra, which was a blue tentacle, was cut out of the final game. The developers said that it was good to watch, but when it came to kill you, you would just see a blue blur and you would be dead. They didn't think it would be fun to fight against.
According to John Carmack himself, "there are still bits of early Quake code in Half Life 2". Incredible, isn't it?
Valve designed Half Life 2 with closed captioning for the deaf. Sounds are bracketed. Each character has a color assigned to their dialogue.
Contributed by
Santa (847) on Dec 29, 2004.
Barney's face in the game was provided by Valve's CEO Scott Lynch.
Contributed by
Black Wolf (37232) on Dec 26, 2004.
G-Man can been spotted in a few places throughout the game, as he is watching over you or walking around.
3 different Half-Life 2 packages are available.
Half-Life 2 Bronze includes the game and Counter-Strike: Source.
Half-Life 2 Silver includes the game, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Valve's back catalog available on Steam.
Half-Life 2 Gold includes the game, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, Valve's back catalog available on Steam, 3 HL2 posters, HL2 hat, HL2 soundtrack, HL2 sticker, City 17 postcard, Prima's HL2 strat guide, special collector's box and a chance to win a trip to Valve.
Contributed by
Apogee IV (2361) on Dec 02, 2004.
Sometime in September 2003 Valve's network - including Gabe Newell's own computer - was compromised by a hacker and the worst case scenario soon unfolded. The entire Half-Life 2 source code was released on October 4 and only 3 days later a playable version of the game surfaced. FBI was brought into the case, and Gabe Newell also posted a message on a Half-Life 2 forum, asking the community to help them find the hacker.
Months went by without any substantial progress, when finally on February 15 the hacker sent an e-mail to Gabe Newell, expressing both his compliments on Valve's work so far and his somewhat dodgy statement that he never had any intention to hurt Valve. Gabe Newell and the hacker, known as "Da Guy" from Germany corresponded over the next period of time, and came to the agreement that since Da Guy had been smart enough to compromise Valve's security, he deserved a job. Soon, a job interview was setup. This was of course a trick. FBI agents would be waiting for the German when he arrived. However, when the German government heard about the scheme they denied such activities, and instead they arrested him themselves.
Da Guy, aka Axel G now faces charges for compromising Valve as well as several other computer related crimes.
Contributed by
Apogee IV (2361) on Dec 02, 2004.
Counter-Strike: Source was the only multiplayer mode available at the release. Two weeks later, on November 30, 2004, Valve released the regular multiplayer mode (Deathmatch) through Steam, their online content distribution system.
Contributed by
Sciere (119383) on Dec 01, 2004.
Half-Life 2 was the first game to tie PC Gamer's 98% rating of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, previously their highest rated game ever.
