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)
The Good
The Source engine is a lot of fun to play around with. It's quite stable once it's booted up, switching between weapons is easy and you can jump very well. Those three qualities pretty much mean that the engine is tailor-made for the Half-Life series. Thanks to Source, I played through the entire game with barely any problems whatsoever, only the occasional crash while impatiently tapping buttons while the game was booting.
The gameplay is also very challenging and combines the shooting from games like Medal of Honor, with running and jumping that is most reminiscent to the Mario games. Both of these vastly different mechanics start off just as easy: You shoot some slow enemies with a pistol and then continue to jump across some platforms, but nearing the end I was having massive squad-based battles with huge enemies while making jumps that would instant-kill me if I slipped. What remained consistent though is that I never felt like I could just play without paying attention, there was always a degree of challenge and I I always felt satisfied after making it past another section.
Early on in the game you will get your hands on the Gravity Gun, which is one of the main items you will be using. This weapon can pick up objects and fire them away, which is insanely satisfying to do against the Combine. It also pulls double-duty as a puzzle-solving device, as it allows you to reach objects you couldn't normally reach. Another weapon I find criminally enjoyable to use are the beetles. At one point in the game you obtain a little ball that constantly summons beetles, throw it at something and they will go there and kill everything inside. I love it when games give me weapons like these :)
There are also a few vehicle sections spread across the game that were really fun diversions from the normal gameplay. The boats and cars you will be controlling have really smooth controls and are therefore very fun to drive. When they have a gun on top of them, it gets even better!
The world is brilliantly designed and it really makes the story more compelling than it would have been in any other game. From the moment you arrive in City 17, you will notice just how vastly different it is from anything you are used to. It has a linear path that you must follow, but you can never predict what you will see or be faced with next. Valve also totally nailed the atmosphere and I really started caring about the people, not just because of the characters, but because I saw how they treat everything first-hand.
The story focuses on a small group of core characters and their design is also really great. They also have some great writing and voice-acting backing them up, which in the end leaves us with some of the most memorable characters in a video game ever. Hell, when the credits rolled, I was suddenly a lot more interested in buying Half-Life 2: Episode 1, a purchase I had specifically planned not to make.
The Bad
I am going to be honest with you guys: I never finished the first Half-Life. I got to like 80% of it, but in the end I grow a bit bored or I just get myself saved into a corner and can't progress. Going into Half-Life 2, I didn't think I needed any sort of explanation, but once I started playing I was just completely confused. Who are these people? Where are we? Who the heck are these Combine? Some kind of explanation would really help here, but I was given none and just had to make do with what little I could extract out of the dialogue. I also find it peculiar that every plot-point from the first 80% of the first game is seemingly abandoned and that this must mean everything worth mentioning was crow-barred into the last few hours of the game.
It's still quite possible to get yourself saved into a corner, though it's a bit harder this time around. The first time I had to restart the game was during a vehicle section with a boat, where you had to jump over a fire that almost always hit you. I took a lot of damage early in the section, got past three checkpoints and never found any more health, so when faced with the fire, I had no chance at survival and nothing to reload from. Like I said though: it's a lot harder to mess up now.
One section in the game has endlessly respawning enemies, which is a game-design sin I simply can't overlook. It's just ONE moment in the entire game, but it mystifies me how somebody can possibly think we can do proper puzzling and platforming when there are zombies who throw headcrabs at you spawning right around the corner. There is also no indication that you are entering a zone with endless amounts of enemies, so the first time I wasted an insane amount of ammo trying to keep the buggers at bay, until I realized I had to advance, only to be faced with a Fast Zombie and no weapon that could kill him.
The Bottom Line
Every once in a while I get a bit tired of games. I play a lot of RPG's that last 60 or more hours: Zelda, Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy (more recently), which aren't really games I can just boot up two hours before work. During these times I just sit at my laptop and do nothing. Eventually I pop in a good FPS and I feel really spirited again, so when I did this with Half-Life 2, I was pleasantly surprised that the game was more than "just an FPS". Possibly one of the best, if not the best, in its genre, Half-Life 2 neatly combines deadly firefights with equally as deadly platforming.
The characters are very enjoyable, the atmosphere is amazing and the game plays very well, Because the story seems to leave new players in the dark, I recommend this game mostly to the fans of the franchise. If you are new to it though, there is no real reason to skip out on this one, aside from the story not really filling you in on some stuff. Only if you prefer your shooters in a more realistic way, without platforming in them, or you just don't like shooters in general, then you should probably find something else to play.
Windows · by Asinine (957) · 2012
The Good
The gameplay here is very fun. You don't really need to use a lot of brains, there is almost no dialogues... this is my type of game! For me, a game should make me feel relaxed, not using my brains too much.
Each level is different. Some look as if you were in some communist country. The last level is so different, like science fiction... not something that would happen in a communist country. Some of the places are very spooky. Zombies and headcrabs always appear... and try to go into my brain!
And in each level you do different things. Sometimes you have to build a bridge to pass through, sometimes you shoot a lot, sometimes you should change your weapons all the time. There is a great weapon, gravity gun. Gravity gun is always good. If you want to go to some place or to get things, you only need to use your gravity guns, you can move everything and build bridges. It's interesting to see the next level when you're playing the current level, because you know each level is different and you will not be disappointed.
The graphics are great, but the best thing is that you can take and throw everything you see, it's like in real world.
It's very cool to drive cars, especially when you can zoom and shoot at the same time... I'm always very careful in those things.
It was very fun to call those antlions. Actually, in the beginning I wasn't used to it. When I turned around and suddenly saw such a face!! I wanted to kill them. But then they sacrificed themselves for me...
In some levels you fight alone, and in others you have your soldiers, who help you to fight. And you can send them to kill enemies for you.
And I like the Dog! He is so cute. Especially when he hugged Alyx. I want to have such a dog at home to serve me!
The Bad
Story? I don't think there is a big story here. The important thing is the gameplay. It's just for fun.
Oh, and another thing I don't like: those soldiers (those who fight for you) and really so weak! I hate them! And they shout "follow Freeman", if they are so bad why should they follow Freeman? They should go and train instead.
It's a little bit annoying to fight the striders, it's not that fun when humans fight big machines. The machine is too smart and is always chasing you, you can't avoid it. It would be cool to have such a machine on your side, but not on their side...
The Bottom Line
It's a cool and fun game. Follow me, my faithful antlions! I know you won't betray me!
Windows · by Melody (48) · 2008
Great Graphics, Great levels, but Dated Play
The Good
This review is going to be simple and straight forward.
I downloaded it off Steam, fully patched and updated. No bugs at all. Even the annoying audio stutter was resolved.
It stays true to the original, for good and bad. You have the clever puzzles and hidden paths of escape. The sound effects are improved but not replaced. The voice acting is top notch and including a lot well known actors like Robert Culp and Robert Guillaume.
The graphics are remarkable, considering that they'll run on most machines made within the last 8 years. Unlike Doom3, You don't need an ATI or Nvidia card to play the game. You have several options for customizing the video to match the requirements of your PC.
The story is not going to win any Hugo awards, but it serves the gameplay suitably. The story is actually enhanced by the dialog performed by the helpful and not-so-helpful NPCs.
The gravity gun is awesome but not used enough in game play. Part of the fun is finding out what weapons work best against the varied baddies you face. The barnacles and headcrabs make a great return as the annoying aliens.
The Bad
This game is very linear. The only challenge stems from survival to the next level. For a game with such potential, the play options are surprisingly limited.
The bullsquids and One-eyed Howlers are missing.
The Bottom Line
A decent challenge the first time you play it.
If you're into run and gun gaming, this is a good game for you. If you're more into any role playing, you might find this a bit dry. There's little reason to play it more than once.
Windows · by Scott Monster (986) · 2009
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.