Half-Life 2

aka: Bantiao Ming 2, HL2, Hλlf-Life², λ²
Moby ID: 15564
Windows Specs
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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

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 93% (based on 121 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.2 out of 5 (based on 502 ratings with 24 reviews)

Incredible Movie-like Gameplay well worth overlooking the flaws.

The Good
Game Play:

It is obvious as you play; Half-Life 2 is a demo of their engine and physics model. All the game types are there: FPS, Tactical Shooter, Horror Survival, Platform jumper, and racing simulator. Yet, this is so well balanced and carefully configured that you don't feel it’s a demo. In fact, by carefully mixing the types of game play, it never gets stale.

Valve is the master of level design. They have created well made and heavily scripted scenes that feel spontaneous and quite interesting. Each level rarely gets tedious, and when it ever starts feeling this way, the situation is changed just in time. They seem to time ever shift in situation at just that perfect point, where you could get bored. And as in the original half-life, each situation has enough sense of urgency, with enough pause to catch your breath and feel what you are doing. You always want to go one step further to see what Valve has set up for you.

Finally, one cannot move on without mentioning the incredible physics model Valve created for the game. Items all flow and feel real. When you interact with a bed, it flops and moves realistically, while steel looks heavy and hard when moved. Items move through the air with a real sense of weight and resistant. And this is well used in the game play, as moving certain objects creates realistic chains of events, such as an explosion destroying a base holding a log that swings from a rope down to batter a gate wide open (and just wait until you get to operate a magnetic crane :-) ).

On top of this, many time Valve plays with the physics model to create entertaining and useful effects. The best example is the famed gravity gun. It can sling heavy objects easily and be your best friend when supplies are out of reach. It is the top of a fine assortment of weapons, though I felt the enemies machine gun proved to be the top-notch weapon, especially the secondary function if you figure out how to use it. Just watch your enemies fry.

Graphics: The state of the art today (2004). The graphics are well designed and the engine feels smooth. 3-d is looking more alive than ever before. But, what really works is the craftsmanship of the models. Each main character is carefully skinned with highly detailed skins that look real, pock marks, dimples, and all. Each area is equally well crafted, and carefully detailed with fine objects, such as empty Chinese food cartons strewn, well place rubble and logs. And these set pieces are designed into the game play, as you will find out when you use them to defend yourself, or even use for offense.

Sound:

Special effects where well done. Each gun sounded unique. Each landscape had its own feel, such as the metallic echo of the enemy's lair, the lush sounds of the beech, and the high-pitched sounds of battle in the city.

I found the music quite enjoyable on its own and in the game. I don't think it stands out in the game, but fits the background nicely. Its played in the right places, though its nothing extra-ordinary.

Also, the voice-acting it generally very good especially by the old hands at video game acting, with strong performances from Merle Dandridge, Jim French, and Mike Shapiro. The more famous voices are a little less enthusiastic, though Robert Gillaume is surprisingly fresh in his role.

AI:

On this I'm split. So I'll discuss the enemy AI. This was a more intelligent group of enemies I've fought. They use their weapons well and attempt to force you out of hiding. They react quickly and seem to move on their toes. But, the bad I'll explain later.

The Bad
Story:

Okay, there is this story, and well, that’s it. It really is an excuse in this game just to put your character in very different situations, from the buggy ride to the horror survival. And man, there will be no pay-off, so don't be disappointed at the end. You really won't know much more at the end as you did from the beginning. Really, no one liked the X-Files after they never gave any info about what was going on. Start giving more.

Oh, but don't make the existing plot twists so obvious. I was not fooled once as to what was going to happen. At least knowing why they happened would make up for it.

Characters:

Okay, I just never got into the characters of this game. There is one point where something significant happens to one of the main characters (near a big ditch, if you played). After it occurred, I just shrugged and wondered how to cross the ditch. The character situations feel forced and can make you feel uncomfortable, especially when you don't feel what they seem to think you should.

AI:

Okay, continuing from before, the enemies do have their faults. They don't notice when they mistakenly throw their own grenades, and tend to blow themselves up. They also seem to react intelligently, but slowly, allowing me to take advantage of their paralysis.

Then there are my allies in the game. Extremely dumb AIs that run into gunfire without consideration. The worse was the way they did not use cover, as when my missile launching pals would run up to high powered striders and gets blown away before a missile could be fired. AIs that frequently blocked my retreat because they could not move out of the way in a quickly responsive manner. Some day, some company has to specialize in developing an AI engine that will allow enemies and allies alike to at least appear to be thinking.

Voice Acting:

Again, this was over-all strong. But poor Robert Culp was given way to many speeches, and seemed to get stuck in that speech tone when the personal conversations began. Also, some of the dialogue felt un-realistic, undermining the performances, and making it difficult to care about the characters. It really goes back to the story; good acting can only go so far.

The Bottom Line
This is a must have game that really should be played by anyone. It’s not perfect, but is one of the best games I've played in recent years. Its physics and game play definitely over-ride any of the minor complaints I've made. It was an amazing game experience that I don't believe would be lost on anyone but the most jaded game player.

Windows · by Dwango (298) · 2005

Methodical FPS with a decent story.

The Good
Half Life, in all of its forms is one of the most beloved IP's to ever grace computers and home consoles. It's obvious to see why, the games are thoroughly enjoyable experiences. They're solidly developed, well produced and competently paced games. The mythological status that the series has developed over the course of years may be a little exaggerated but it can't be denied the core elements of the franchise like the seamless world and well developed story are what defined the series upon release and why it is so popular and so well loved.

So, based on the core fanbase developed by its predecessor Half Life 2 had something to live up to. A change in the dynamics of the gameplay would have totally up ended the solid foundation that had been established and would have ruined everything. Then, it is logical to assume Half Life 2 is very similar to its predecessor. Similar to the point that the two games play almost identically. Judged side by the side the two games are almost identical, very little has changed and it's a double edged sword. If you're familiar with Half Life, if you love Half Life then you'd love Half Life 2. The games virtually identical control system, seamless world broken up by sporadic loads and exposition through interaction with NPC's will be comfortably familiar.

If you're not entirely familiar with Half Life you control a theoretical physicist named Gordon Freeman who in the events of the first game was forced to confront an alien horde invading a hidden government contracted research facility called Black Mesa when an experiment goes wrong. If it sounds strange that a theoretical physicist would be able to fight off an alien horde then there is more explaining to be done, shortly before entering the test chamber to begin the experiment Freeman donned an HEV (or Hazardous Environment) suit to protect himself. The HEV suit provides Freeman with protection and augments his physical strength and speed considerably.

Gordon Freeman is seemingly put into cryogensis at the end of the game and wakes up some time in the future when the world has been dominated by an alien race called the Combine. The story is serviceable and provides a few satisfying twists and turns and memorable characters like the beautiful Alyx Vance and and ex security guard from Black Mesa. The concepts surrounding the story are occasionally more satisfying than the actual reveals, what few of them there are. The hulking, synthetic monstrosities and suggested glimpses at transformation processes give hints at the malevolent machinations of the Combine, while little is actually elaborated on. This suggestion seems to work better than simply laying out a foundation of exposition as every cold war era building crumbling around you and every lonely swingset seems to tell a little story of its own. A story of desolation and neglect, indicative of the grey, depressed resignation of the human race in their subservience.

In every aesthetic respect it's a beautiful game. The Source engine is employed to give the impression of a drab, frightening and claustrophobic world of crumbling buildings and forgotten people. Long lost relics of humanities past lie in the countryside, reminders of how safe a house used to be, now only to be used a base of operation for Combine forces. The town of Ravenholm is a blood spattered mess, filled with corpses, hideous and disfigured monsters lurking in the shadows of the wind swept and long forgotten city. Suggestions of traps being laid, barricades and makeshift hospitals litter the halls of buildings and on the streets. The cityscapes are poetic and do more for the story than the actual story does for itself. What is suggested is powerful and frightening.

The Bad
While Half Life 2 is a beautiful game it lacks any significant gameplay edge. The constant moving from load to load feels like a slog through a drab, depressing neverending world of constant hardship. There are moments of quiet however these quickly end and you're forced back into constant firefights and small, cramped tunnels. It's suffers from the problems that its predecessor suffered from, the rigid insistence not to deviate from the "you are Freeman" concept limits the amount of exposition you could possibly hope to have. It also limits game play possibilities and forces you to adjust to simply going from checkpoint to checkpoint, firefight to firefight and vague narrative point to vague narrative point.

There are sequences where you are able to drive a buggy or a jet boat however these are either too long or too convoluted. There is no pay off for completing them other than going from point A to point B.

The story itself is nothing special either. There was wriggle room to concoct an impressive science fiction story however the narrative elements in this game are either poorly explained or not explained at all. Almost everything has to be picked up from paltry pieces of dialogue or things taped to notice boards and it just isn't enough. The environments tell a story, but they can only tell so much.

The Bottom Line
Half Life 2 is a game that does a lot of things really solidly but ends up coming across as vacuous and Valve as somewhat arrogant. They're convinced that the narrative elements in the game can purposefully remain vague so long as the engine is solid and the game play is too.

The game play is very solid, the firefights are challenging and satisfying and the little deviations like being able to drive a buggy and jetboat are welcome. This doesn't help to alleviate the overwhelming sense of aimlessness. It doesn't help alleviate the feeling that you're simply going through the motions, going from checkpoint to checkpoint.

As much as I enjoyed Half Life 2, I can also appreciate its flaws, which it contains in abundance.

Windows · by AkibaTechno (238) · 2010

My favorite PC game ever!

The Good
Everything about this game is great. The story is extremely involving, the controls are great, and the graphics are fantastic. I found myself playing this game for countless hours, I just couldn't put it down. Another thing I really liked about Half Life 2 was the vehicles. In a lot of first person shooters, vehicles don't work to well, but not in this game, valve really did a lot of work to make this part of the game extremely involving. This game may not have been the best game I have ever played, but it certainly comes close. I can without a doubt recommend this game to not just first person shooter fans, but anyone who enjoys playing video games, also, the addition of Counterstrike Source doesn't hurt.

The Bad
I really didn't find anything bad about this game, the only thing that could be considered bad about this game is that you need to have a pretty high powered PC to play it, and if you want to enjoy the online multiplayer, you should have a good broadband connection. If you are worried about not having a high powered computer, you should just wait for this game to be released on the XBOX

The Bottom Line
You need to buy this game, you will not regret it, but don't just take my opinion, take mine and everybody else's as well.

Windows · by Joshua Price (24) · 2005

[ View all 24 player reviews ]

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.

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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.