Half-Life 2
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Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
(2005)
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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)
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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
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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)
If you have a dial up line, DO NOT BUY THIS GAME!
The Good
Graphics were wonderful. The game is immersive. Sound is very good. Skin textures and facial movements are the best I have ever seen. Action is non stop.
The Bad
The game is totally unplayable if you have a dial up modem or if you don't have an internet connection. Product activation is one thing, but being forced to log onto the Internet and get Vivendis permission to play a game you have purchased is totally over the top. Especially when, if you have a dial up as I do it takes between 35 to 40 minutes before the game is finally ready to play. What were the Vivendi guys thinking. It is so stupid I am lost for words.
The Bottom Line
I am reminded of Winnie the Pooh and the Honey pot. There is this wonderful game, but it is totally out of reach. I think cruel and unusual punishment is an apt description for the Vivendi people. I will never ever buy their products again if they have such an outrageous activation scheme.
Windows · by Edwin Wigmore (2) · 2005
"The Right Person In The Wrong Place Can Make All The Difference"
The Good
The sequel to 1998’s game of the year. So named by over 50 publications. Half-Life 2, is an amazing game. It is just as good and often exceeds the original. Not an easy task considering that Half-Life is considered by many to be the greatest FPS of all time.
Half-Life 2 picks up an undisclosed amount of time after the events depicted in the first game. Alien overlords known as “The Combine”, are in total control of the Earth. And have beaten humanity down. Due to the ruthlessness of the invaders very few dare to stand up against them. Gordon Freeman has gained a legendary reputation for his defeat of Ninlanth, the alien that led the invasion, of what is now known as “The Black Mesa Incident”.
Known as the one “Free Man”. Gordon is about to return. In so doing he will be the catalyst for the human race to fight back. In HL2, you will be reunited with many familiar faces, as well as some new ones. As in the original the game is broken up into chapters. The story is told via interactive cut scenes, in which the player has freedom of movement. While the characters talk. As before Gordon Freeman does not say a single word.
In HL2 you play through chapters on foot, and with the aid of vehicles. The chapters with vehicles play quite differently than those on foot, and of other FPS with vehicles. These chapters tend to be longer, and filled with more action. While more standard chapters have Gordon fighting Combine troops and other foes, collecting weapons, and solving simple puzzles.
In later stages of the game, you get to make use of a squad of fellow freedom fighters. Not unlike Opposing Force. However in HL2 it is implemented better. You can give more precise orders to your soldiers. They can heal you, and themselves, as well as give advice to certain situations. Parts of the game when alone tend to be more fun and more like the first game, but the squad gameplay is a nice change of pace.
There is little in common in HL and HL2 level wise. This is often a complaint about the game. But it is understandable. In the first game you were stuck in Black Mesa for 80% of the game. In Half-Life 2, the levels are almost exclusively outdoors. As you battle through “City 17”.
Where HL2 excels the most is the diversity of the areas. From the creepy “Ravenholm”, to the thrills of vehicle segments. In the end however HL2 is not a long game. In fact it is even shorter than the original.
The Graphics are stunning. The NPCS look so real as to be almost life like. The use of lighting and particle effects are outstanding! The decrepit city looks convincing, while Ravenholm looks eerie and foreboding. The best part has to be that you do not need dream machine PC to play it! The minimal video requirement is 32MB, incredible! The better your system of course the better the game will perform. But the fairly low requirements mean than playing the game will be in most peoples range.
As in the original the game has amazing sound. The voice overs are excellent. And while there are few big names aside from Louis Gossett Jr. The cast all do an amazing job here. The sound effects are very well done. From the gunshots to the chatter of the Combine troops. The music while not as good overall as the original, but is still great when it needs to be. Some tracks even return! I hope you have a good sound system for your PC.
The Bad
On the negative side, HL2 is too short. The ride is over a little to quickly. Some chapters are not as strong as others. Thankfully when you finish the game you can jump to any chapter. And play your favorites, over and over if you wish.
Steam sucks! Steam is a program used to upload HL2 to your PC. It is horrible. Even with a cable modem it is so slow. It took like an hour to install. Ridiculous!
The game needs a lot of hard drive space. About, 4.5 Gig…..shessh!
The game ends abruptly, and it seems that the writers have themselves in a corner.
The Bottom Line
Overall this is a worthy sequel, and a hell of a fun game. Even if you have not played the original. And barring the huge amount of hard drive space needed, this game can run on most systems. The different character boxes are cool!
Windows · by MasterMegid (723) · 2006
The Good
Visually uncanny. Unparalleled. It demands a hell of a graphic accelerator, but it's only fair in comparison to what you get.
Sound was quite nice. Excellent voices, nice sfx.
Physics in this game are a huge leap forward in game programming. Great stuff.
The Bad
The story is mind-numbingly boring (as a matter of fact: there IS no story!).
"Hi, Dr. Freeman. Here's your gun. Go trigger bum-bum. Shhh, not a peep, not a question ... just shoot and keep the questions to yourself".
The unanswered questions (and not the intriguing, mysterious ones that you could sometimes have in Half-Life, no), redundant gameplay and lack of absolutely everything but "mouse clicking" make this plot a behemoth of a disappointment.
The AI remains drop dead stupid. I've read some "specialized" websites claiming that the AI is "certainly impressive and that the NPC's react with lifelike aggression". Please.
Non-playing Characters are downright dumb. It seems that lately, erratic behaviour is mistakenly welcomed as intelligence to dodge, jump and retreat. Nothing further from the truth. The difference between the old Half-Life NPCs and the new ones is that these last ones now move to the sides a little, instead of staying put till their deaths.
Don't get me wrong: this is better that before. It makes for a, somehow, more "realistic", more challenging experience, but those people you relentlessly shoot at throughout the game will continue to come to their deaths like lambs in a slaughterhouse. I'll eat my hat if anyone challenges this paragraph.
The fights are ... well, so so. Sometimes fun, sometimes 1980's mediocre. The feel of the guns, the reaction to hits, the insane number of bullets needed to kill and be killed, it all screams YAWN.
The puzzles in the game are ... are ... well, whoever's responsible for this should be whipped and then stoned to death. They're nothing but moronic stepping stones in the gameplay. They add nothing new to the soup, they couldn't possibly be challenging for anyone with an IQ of eleven or more and they wither sadly in a most unfortunate attempt to add "some sort of variety" to the game.
The Bottom Line
Half-life 2 is a good game, but it doesn't remotely live up to the expectations.
Some seven years have passed since the release of Half-Life and the only thing that Valve could come up with after all this time was ... better graphics. That's it. Not an inch more than what's necessary. Not one light bulb went off in that company. They plain and simply relied on the advances of technology. Period.
All the hype, all the ridiculously generous ratings, all the momentum seem very dodgy, in my opinion. A phenomenal marketing and advertisement maneuver that had a large number of people convinced that this game was some sort of Messiah, when all it had was good graphs.
Big disappointment. Don't buy.
Windows · by Sebastian Cardoso (48) · 2007
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.
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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 +
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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.