Half-Life 2
-
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
(2005)
-
Half-Life 2: Complete
(2008) -
Half-Life 2: Game of the Year Edition
(2005) -
Half-Life 2: Holiday 2006 Collection
(2006) -
The Orange Box
(2007) -
Valve Complete Pack
(2008)
-
Half-Life 2 (Collector's Edition)
(2004) -
Half-Life 2 (Gold Edition)
(2004)
Description official descriptions
Following the period of instability caused by the events described in Half-Life, an interdimensional organization known as the Combine invades the Earth, defeating the human forces in the Seven Hour War. A Combine Citadel is erected in City 17, a town in Eastern Europe reminiscent of World War II ghettos. Dr. Wallace Breen, a human scientist, rules the city on behalf of his new masters. An energy field prevents humans from procreating, and no new children are born. Earth is turning into a grim, oppressive police state.
Meanwhile, Gordon Freeman, the man who was at the center of the events that took place shortly before the rise of the Combine, awakens from his stasis and is inserted into a train to City 17 by the mysterious G-man. Gordon is soon brought into a resistance group and makes a seemingly futile attempt to bring down the Combine and liberate the Earth.
Half-Life 2 is a linear first-person shooter with light puzzle-solving elements and many setpieces, similar to its predecessor in concept. The player guides Gordon Freeman through City 17 and the wilderness that surrounds it. On his way, he'll encounter a few friendly characters, but also fight dangerous foes. The game features a realistic physics system: Gordon can pick up objects and toss them freely, and many of the puzzles are physics-based - for example, at one point the player has to weigh down a seesaw with bricks at one end to turn it into a ramp.
Gordon's enemies, apart from alien wildlife which found their way to Earth, are mainly Combine forces, which utilize a variety of firearms, gadgets, and vehicles. Policemen and foot soldiers work along with helicopters, gunships, and gigantic walking machines to hunt him down. To defend himself, Gordon has a range of weapons available: from the iconic crowbar for close-quarter fighting, through pistols and rifles, up to grenades and a rocket launcher. One of the most notable weapons is the gravity gun, with which Gordon can pick up objects, hold them in the gun's anti-gravity field, then hurl them at the enemy with great force.
Setpieces in the game include coordinated assaults on enemy bases, fighting gigantic boss enemies, bringing down aircraft with the rocket launcher, and others. A few levels require the player to navigate buggy-type vehicles. Some of the more exotic stages involve the player summoning an army of antlions to unleash on unsuspecting foes.
Included with the game is Counter-Strike: Source, a version of Counter-Strike made with the new Source engine which powers Half-Life 2, and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, an online multiplayer game featuring the same physics and weapons as the single player game.
Spellings
- 半条命2 - Simplified Chinese spelling
- 戰慄時空2 - Traditional Chinese spelling
- 하프라이프 2 - Korean spelling
Groups +
Screenshots
Promos
Videos
See any errors or missing info for this game?
You can submit a correction, contribute trivia, add to a game group, add a related site or alternate title.
Credits (Windows version)
252 People (226 developers, 26 thanks) · View all
| VP Studio Operations | |
| Senior Administrative Assistant | |
| Senior QA Manager, Fuctionality | |
| Senior QA Manager, Resources | |
| Senior QA Manager, TRG/CRG/VUPC | |
| QA Manager | |
| QA Lead | |
| QA Testers | |
| [ full credits ] | |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 93% (based on 121 ratings)
Players
Average score: 4.2 out of 5 (based on 503 ratings with 24 reviews)
The closest to perfection any FPS game will ever get
The Good
Almost everything is good about this game, the storyline (it is NOT boring as some reviewers will argue, from a more educated point-of-view it is box office movie material which if it were a movie would clean out most of the awards on Oscar night), the graphics (a major leap forward over the original), the weapons, the monsters, I could go on, and on, and on. This truly is the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band of video gaming.
The Bad
The use of vehicles, such as the boat and the buggy, were OK, but the time spent using them was far too long and time consuming, time that could've been better spent shooting zombies and Combine soldiers.
The Bottom Line
Get it! You will not regret it! To paraphrase the legendary Jeremy Clarkson, it is comparable to rubbing a certain bee by-product onto a foxy English actress' abdominal region.
Windows · by Dave Billing (24) · 2009
The Good
- Gameplay and environment shifts from chapter to chapter while remaining true to overall direction.
- Lots of interesting gameplay situations with physics, AI, vehicles and environmental puzzles.
- Fast and good looking engine with great modding capabilities.
- Good characters writing, elevated by the voice acting.
- Unique audio and art direction.
The Bad
- Story is pretty bare bones and most of the exposition chapters (1,2,5) feels dragged and not very interesting.
- Same could be said about AI and the gunplay, so most of the chapters where you fight human enemies exclusively (9-11) at times are annoyingly dragged and not very interesting.
The Bottom Line
With all the flaws, it's still one of the best video games so far.
Windows · by SanfordMorgan · 2023
The half life of Half-Life turned out to be about seven years
The Good
It works. Doesn't have any bugs. Very polished. Few memorable levels. Difficulty is just right. Lasts little longer than other FPSes.
The Bad
The problem with Half-Life 2 is that it's just "a" FPS. It lacks something - anything - to elevate it from being just a game and make it a truly great.
Setting was a definite strong point of the first game; here, it's almost nonexistent. The lauded Orwellian atmosphere lasts up to the point when we grab the first gun, which is about fifteen minutes in. Then it's you versus the world in usually bland and boring linear levels. Not only was the first game less linear, when it was it made a nice job of hiding it; Half-Life 2 is completely linear and fails utterly at hiding it. Both games are very lean in story department(and yes, I do read that site listing all references and speculations about stuff like graffiti on walls and whatnot but that's what they are - speculations), so setting is extremely important. But it's just nowhere here nor there - the world seems more like wasteland than occupation. Ties and references to Half-Life seem forced.
The chapter structure of the game definitely doesn't help. The chapters can be vastly different from each other and the changes feel awkward. "Now you drive a boat" "Now you are scared" "Now you drive a car" and so on. Half-Life too had different sections, but you moved between them smoothly and meaningfully(usually by achieving a goal which was clear from the beginning), not just because the developers decided "Okay, that's enough, next".
Even the weapons and enemies compare unfavorably. The weapons are especially irritating because there is no "the" definitive weapon in the game. The SMG is just a little too underpowered and inaccurate, and the ammo for the Plasma Rifle is just little too sparse. Plus the weapons in general are quite uninteresting - gone are exotic and alien designs of Half-Life, instead we get bizarre stuff at best - like a crossbow firing red-hot steel bars. Couldn't it just fire normal steel bars? Couldn't it just be a normal crossbow? Well I guess then they couldn't put in pining enemies to walls - gimmick. Actually the same story is with Gravity Gun. I mean it's not like anyone will go into a firefight with it - bar the challenge of finishing the game using nothing else or whatnot. So other than the obligatory section where the player is literally forced to use it, its only application is solving banal puzzles. This is the iconic weapon of the game, mind - like Quake 2's Railgun - and serves nothing but gimmickry.
Enemies are same case as guns, and you'll spend majority of the game fighting soldiers. Some of them wear body armor, some of them are more blue, and some are white, but the generic-faceless-human-enemy archetype persists. And no, the AI is nothing special. In fact, the AI in Half-Life seemed better, even though it was mostly just running in random directions.
And the fighting itself is standard FPS fare: You and enemy shoot each other and you win because you have more HP and do more damage. Then you restore your health and ammo using the omnipresent crates. That is the most primitive way of making combat in FPSes work; it's actually below the level of Doom - where many enemies had attacks which could be avoided by strafing and melee enemies could be outrun. In Half-Life 2 it doesn't matter if you strafe, crouch, use corners for cover or jump around - you will get hit anyway, and if the game didn't throw all these medkits at you it would be nearly impossible to finish. And that's just bad design.
The game tries to be very verbose and make the player feel sympathetic towards the many NPCs that help us as we slaughter everything. However, it fails utterly for a very simple reason: Gordon doesn't say anything. Ever. Even when people are talking directly to him, even when they're discussion matters of grave importance, Gordon acts as if he was but a hardcore mercenary who doesn't give a crap about anything and only wants to know in which direction he should slaughter next. Apparently this is intended and was supposed to make the game feel more personal - how? Am I supposed to speak instead of Gordon? You expect me, sitting alone in my room, to talk to the monitor? That's not immersion, that's being crazy. Sure, Gordon was a mute in Half-Life as well, but the dramatic difference is that NPCs in Half-Life were clearly task-givers; you approached them, they said their script(about two lines), and then turned into docile sheep who could follow you or "wait here". Half-Life 2 introduces over ten minute long cutscenes packed full of social interactions, and leaving the player out of them is just... well, the bottom line is, what was supposed to be immersion-enhancing feature only ended up breaking the immersion pretty much every time someone speaks.
Even the graphics aren't all that great. Doom 3 is all around superior in that department, and the low polycount of some levels is glaring(for example fronts of many houses are completely flat, and the windows are simply part of the texture). This is probably because of the long development time and more of a side note, as the flaws are not really noticeable unless you're actively looking for them.
The physics system is there, but other than few puzzles the game doesn't actually do anything with it, so it's barely worth mentioning.
The Bottom Line
It's not a bad game. It's just barely above average. Even if you're resistant to some of its flaws, it certainly is not a revolution, visionary or "raising the bar" as the developers themselves audaciously put it.
Windows · by Peta Michalek (8) · 2010
Trivia
1001 Video Games
Half-Life 2 appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.
Characters
Almost all the characters in Half-Life 2 are modelled after a real person's appearance: * Barney's face in the game was provided by Valve's CEO Scott Lynch. * 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.
City 17
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 can be 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 some Russian words can be spotted. For example, during the mud skipper chase there are large gates with the words ПОРТ written above; "порт" is Russian for "port" (pronounced roughly the same way as the English word).
Closed captions
Valve designed Half Life 2 with closed captioning for the deaf. Sounds are bracketed. Each character has a color assigned to their dialogue.
Cut levels
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.
Distribution
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.
Engine
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 the game can be run even with an Intel 846g card or a Nvidia TNT chipset. To give some perspective, The TNT chipset was introduced in 1997.
According to John Carmack himself, "there are still bits of early Quake code in Half Life 2".
German version
There are changes in some German versions: * Blood from humans (including Gordon Freeman) and blood which is part of the level design was coloured grey * Almost all enemies disappear instantly after being killed. This is not true for a level near the end where the corpses are necessary to proceed. * The cries of burning zombies were toned down * In the original version enemies get dragged with the buggy for a short time after driving over them. In the German version the buggy just drives through them.
A detailed list of changes can be found on schnittberichte.com (German).
G-Man
G-Man can been spotted in a few places throughout the game, as he is watching over Gordon or walking around.
Hydra
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.
Macintosh version
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."
A Macintosh version was finally released in 2010 when Steam, Valve's digital distribution platform, was introduced for Macintosh.
Menu
The background picture of the main menu changes based on what chapter you are at when you last saved.
Multiplayer
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.
Piñata
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.
Rating
Even though the initial release of Half-Life 2 as part of The Orange Box compilation received a PEGI rating of 16+, the stand-alone release received an initial rating of 18+.
References
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.
References to the game
Half-Life 2 was parodied in an episode of "Die Redaktion" (The Editorial Team), a monthly comedy video produced by the German gaming magazine GameStar. It was published on the DVD of issue 05/2006.
Source code theft
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.
Special Editions
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 at the time. * Half-Life 2 Gold includes the game, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, Valve's back catalog available on Steam at the time, 3 HL2 posters, HL2 hat, HL2 soundtrack, HL2 sticker, City 17 postcard, Prima's HL2 strategy guide, special collector's box and a chance to win a trip to Valve.
Vortigaunts
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.
Awards
- 4Players
- 2004 – PC Game of the Year
- 2004 – Best PC Action Game of the Year
- 2004 – Best PC Direction of the Year
- 2004 – Best PC Graphics of the Year
- 2004 – Best PC Successor of the Year
- Computer Games Magazine
- March 2005 - #4 Game of the Year 2004
- Computer Gaming World
- March 2005 (Issue #249) – Best Music of the Year
- March 2005 (Issue #249) – NPC of the Year (for Dog)
- GameSpy
- 2004 – #2 Game of the Year
- 2004 – PC Game of the Year
- 2004 – PC Action Game of the Year
- 2004 – PC Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
- 2004 – PC Action Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
- 2004 - Best Graphics of the Year (PC)
- 2004 - Best Character of the Year (PC) (for Dog)
- 2005 – #7 Game of the Year
- 2005 – Xbox Game of the Year
- 2005 – Xbox Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
- 2005 – Xbox Shooter of the Year
- 2005 – PC Mod of the Year (for Garry's Mod)
- 2005 - The "It Shoulda Been on Xbox 360 Award" (Xbox)
- 2011 – #10 Top PC Game of the 2000s
- GameStar (Germany)
- February 2005 - Best PC Game in 2004
- February 2005 - Best PC Game in 2004
- Issue 03/2005 - Most Annoying Copy Protection in 2004
- Golden Joystick Awards
- 2004 - Runner-up for "Most Wanted Game For Xmas"
- 2005 - PC Game of the Year
- PC Gamer
- April 2005 - #4 in the "50 Best Games of All Time" list
- It was the first game to tie PC Gamer's 98% rating of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, previously their highest rated game ever
- PC Powerplay (Germany)
- Issue 02/2006 - Best Game in 2005
- Issue 02/2006 - #1 Action Game in 2005
Information also contributed by Agent 5, Apogee IV, B14ck W01f, Indra was here, James Isaac, LepricahnsGold, Lumpi, Mark Ennis, Mark Papadakis, PCGamer77, piltdown man, Scott Monster, Silverblade, Unicorn Lynx, VVP and Zack Green.
Analytics
Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!
Related Games
Released 1998 on Windows, Macintosh, 2013 on Linux
Released 2006 on Windows, 2010 on Macintosh, 2013 on Linux
Released 2001 on Windows, Linux, 2013 on Macintosh
Released 2000 on Windows
Released 2004 on Windows, 2010 on Macintosh, 2013 on Linux
Released 2004 on Windows
Released 2002 on Windows
Released 2020 on Windows
Released 2000 on Windows
Related Sites +
-
Half-Life 2 Hints
This question and answer type solution guides you through the steps gradually, giving only as much information as you need before the final answers are provided. -
The Boy Who Stole Half-Life 2
article about the game's source code theft, on Eurogamer.net (21st February 2011) -
The Final Hours of Half-Life 2
Gamespot's extensive article about the production process of Half-Life 2.
Identifiers +
Contribute
Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.
Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Zack Green.
Android added by GTramp. Linux added by Sciere. Xbox added by DarkDante. Macintosh added by Zeppin.
Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Apogee IV, Sciere, n][rvana, Paulus18950, lee jun ho, VVP, Patrick Bregger, Plok, FatherJack.
Game added November 25, 2004. Last modified January 27, 2024.