Half-Life 2
ESRB: M (PARENTAL WARNING: This game contains intense violence, large amounts of realistic blood, swearing, and frightening scenes) Content: Blood & Gore, Language, and Intense Violence Price: $9.99 (Standalone) / $19.99 (The Orange Box bundle) (Retail / Download)
Publisher: Valve Developer: Valve Platform: PC Release: 2004 Genre: First-Person Shooter / Puzzle Rating: 9.3 \ 10: Excellent
Above is Gordon battling Antiloins on the coast of Highway 17
Whether the best PC games of all time or even the greatest games in general are being discussed, Half-Life and its sequel are bound to be brought up. In 1998, the classic first-person shooter revolutionized the genre by introducing a fascinating style of storytelling and setting high standards for setpiece moments in future action titles. A few years later, Halo: Combat Evolved refined this concept, and a few years after that, a sequel came along and, to an extent, perfected scripted shootouts. Let me begin by saying that I feel that Half-Life 2 is a tad bit overrated. While it is a spectacular experience, it has too many flaws for me to consider it the greatest game of all time as so many others do, and I'll explain these issues later.
The game begins with a speech from the mysterious G-Man. Around two decades after placing protagonist Gordon into stasis at the end of the previous game, the interstellar agent decides to wake the silent scientist. Now seeing the world through the eyes of Freeman, you are suddenly placed aboard a train getting off at an eastern-European city. This, as scientist-turned overseer Dr. Wallace Breen will soon inform you via a massive screen, is City 17. Quite a lot has changed since Gordon unintentionally opened a portal to an alien world at the Black Mesa science facility. An alien race known as the Combine took notice of this and invaded Earth, and they managed to force the planet to surrender in a matter of seven hours. They're now draining the planet of its resources, and the remaining population has been forcibly spread out among an unknown amount of numbered cities where they live in pseudo-slavery. The enslaved humans now have to decide between facing unfair beatings and raids by the Combine Overwatch's Civil Protection forces or risk death by attempting to escape from the cities. A Suppression Field surrounding the city prevents human reproduction, which is why you won't see a single child throughout your journey. Soon after getting off the train, Gordon is taken into an interrogation room by a Combine soldier who reveals himself to Barney, who once worked as a security guard at Black Mesa and was the protagonist of the Half-Life expansion Blue Shift. Barney uses a video terminal to call Dr. Kleiner, one of Gordon's fellow Black Mesa scientists who is thrilled to see them both. After making his way through the streets of the city, Gordon enters an apartment building where he witnesses the wrath of Civil "Protection" firsthand, and soon finds himself running across the rooftops while being pursued by armed Metrocops. He is cornered by the Combine and struck with an electrified baton, temporarily blinding him, but is rescued by an unseen figure who is revealed to be Alyx Vance, daughter of another of one of Gordon's coworkers, Eli. She escorts the scientists to Kleiner's lab, where he is finally reacquainted with his Hazardous Environment Suit. All is well, and the group is preparing to teleport to the hidden Black Mesa East facility where they'll meet up with Eli; but Kleiner's pet Headcrab Lamaar messes with the teleporter, sending Gordon to a variety of locations, | including Breen's office. Gordon is spotted, and the Overwatch is alerted of his presence. He finally ends up outside the lab, where Barney tosses him his trusty crowbar and bids him good luck in making it to Black Mesa East. This lengthy introduction sequence, although fairly slow, was surprisingly fun and captivating. Looking back, I think the main thing that kept me content during the intro is HL2's attention to detail; most of the citizens have a thing or two to say when you get near them, almost every object not rooted to the ground can be interacted with in some way, and angering the metrocops is super fun. There are even two achievements that you earn by either obeying or rebelling against a Metrocop who prompts you to throw a can into a trash bin. However, the game isn't paced slowly for much longer. After a couple more minutes, you'll come across a couple being cornered by a pair of CPs, and you'll finally get your hands on a pistol.
It is from this point that you'll get to experience one of my favorite aspects of Half-Life 2: the combat. There's almost always a creative way to approach each encounter, whether you decide to conserve ammo by shooting a conveniently placed explosive barrel (of which there are too many to count littered throughout the campaign, but blowing stuff up is fun, so I can't complain) or fling crates using the Gravity Gun you will acquire partway through the game. Another thing I appreciate about HL2 is that the firefights require you to think before you act; as much as I enjoy other sci-fi shooters such as Halo and Destiny, being able to fully regenerate your health after avoiding fire for several seconds detracts heavily from the tension shooters should have. While Gordon can take an unbelievable amount of punishment even on "Hard" difficulty, all injuries will remain unhealed until he can find a medkit or a health station. This allows you to learn from your mistakes, and soon enough you'll go from charging at turret tripods, crowbar in hand to strategically lobbing grenades at them from behind the protection of a wall. You don't have to be extremely careful, though; the HEV Suit will absorb more than half of the damage caused by projectiles that strike you until its energy is depleted, at which point you'll need to find an energy capsule or charging station. However, the suit can't protect you from long falls or drowning. The way weapons are used in the Half-Life franchise is unique among shooters as well; rather than being limited to only a couple firearms at once like most games in the genre nowadays, you can hold onto every single one of the near dozen weapons you come across and switch between them on the fly. As an avid Halo fan, I was initially thrown off by this feature, but came to enjoy it very much. I only have a few complaints with this aspect of the game when compared with the original Half-Life: First off, the arsenal is smaller than the original game's, and the few new weapons (with the exception of the Gravity Gun) are either carbon copies of or are very similar to old ones. Also, despite the shorter length, there are more sequences when you are encouraged to use certain weapons then I would like, and the hints as to what tool in your arsenal will be the most useful at a given time are far from subtle.
If you went into to Half-Life 2 knowing nothing about it, you may be shocked to hear that it was released in 2004 -- this game is a technical marvel. This was the first game to use Valve's Source engine, and the results are beyond stellar for an early-2000s game. The graphics are what stand out the most. The character models and textures may no longer look stellar, but the realistic facial expressions of NPCs are impressive to this day, the environments are thoroughly detailed, and the water looks practically real! (And when a game makes you talk about how good the water looks, you know it's doing something right). This is also one of the first titles to employ the sophisticated Havoc physics engine. The aforementioned Gravity Gun is one off the most accurate examples of Newton's Laws ever seen in a game. Havoc also allows for hilarious ragdoll deaths. However, I sometimes felt that Valve was trying too hard to show off the power of its fancy new engine, as evidenced by the physics-based puzzles sprinkled throughout the campaign which bring your journey to a halt and serve no purpose but to show that the Source engine can successfully emulate the physics of a makeshift teeter-totter. Additionally, the fact that there is an achievement for completing the mission "We Don't Go to Ravenholm" using only the Gravity Gun does little to hide that the horror-themed level is a glorified showcase of the weapon. While I wish the game didn't flaunt its physics so much, you can't deny the realism.
In addition to being a visual spectacle, HL2 sounds great in every possible way. One element of this game that will never age is the voice acting, which surpasses the quality of some movies; each one of the sci-fi sound effects from the button press to suit recharge the are as iconic to gamers as Star Wars sounds are to film fans; and the intense techno tunes will help to boost your adrenaline as you battle the Overwatch forces.
I have only a few other complaints about Half-Life 2, first and foremost being that there's not much incentive to replay it. There's no achievement for beating the game on a higher difficulty, and because this is a linear shooter, there's nothing more to discover in subsequent playthroughs other than a few secret areas and brief G-man cameos. However, this is the type of game you play again when you have the time because it's that good. Another issue I have is with the story, of all things. The game has a strong plot, but it's ridiculous how highly regarded Gordon is. In the original Half-Life, Gordon was an every-man. He may have slain an evil alien overlord, but he was just a normal scientist like everyone else at Black Mesa. Now everyone from Gordon's coworkers to the NPCs treat him as some sort of messiah (which is even explicitly referenced by Breen). My last quibble is that the campaign ends on a massive cliffhanger, and the story ark's conflict hasn't been solved even after the release of two additional episodes. (Chances are you've heard of the "Half-Life 3 confirmed" meme)
Overall, Half-Life 2 is an incredible game that should easily appeal to fans of shooters, sci-fi or otherwise. The visuals, physics, story, and combat have all aged gracefully, and at a price of only $9.99, you have little reason not to experience what some call the greatest game ever made.
The System Difference: There are also a couple technical inferiorities exclusive to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game available via The Orange Box (I originally played the game on 360). The first disadvantage of playing the game on a console is that the load times are longer than what the vast majority of PC hard drives are capable of. The other thing I noticed is that there were occasionally very brief framerate drops when one or more explosion was onscreen at a time. The PS3 port, which was clumsily developed by Electronic Arts, reportedly has much worse frame rate issues. If you own a computer that's several years old or less, it will probably be able to run Half-Life 2 on high graphical settings, but if you're not one for playing on computers, the console version will suffice. Besides, the controller vibration in the console version adds a little to the experience.
Also available on Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PlayStation 3 (via The Orange Box bundle)
Above is Gordon battling Antiloins on the coast of Highway 17
Whether the best PC games of all time or even the greatest games in general are being discussed, Half-Life and its sequel are bound to be brought up. In 1998, the classic first-person shooter revolutionized the genre by introducing a fascinating style of storytelling and setting high standards for setpiece moments in future action titles. A few years later, Halo: Combat Evolved refined this concept, and a few years after that, a sequel came along and, to an extent, perfected scripted shootouts. Let me begin by saying that I feel that Half-Life 2 is a tad bit overrated. While it is a spectacular experience, it has too many flaws for me to consider it the greatest game of all time as so many others do, and I'll explain these issues later.
The game begins with a speech from the mysterious G-Man. Around two decades after placing protagonist Gordon into stasis at the end of the previous game, the interstellar agent decides to wake the silent scientist. Now seeing the world through the eyes of Freeman, you are suddenly placed aboard a train getting off at an eastern-European city. This, as scientist-turned overseer Dr. Wallace Breen will soon inform you via a massive screen, is City 17. Quite a lot has changed since Gordon unintentionally opened a portal to an alien world at the Black Mesa science facility. An alien race known as the Combine took notice of this and invaded Earth, and they managed to force the planet to surrender in a matter of seven hours. They're now draining the planet of its resources, and the remaining population has been forcibly spread out among an unknown amount of numbered cities where they live in pseudo-slavery. The enslaved humans now have to decide between facing unfair beatings and raids by the Combine Overwatch's Civil Protection forces or risk death by attempting to escape from the cities. A Suppression Field surrounding the city prevents human reproduction, which is why you won't see a single child throughout your journey. Soon after getting off the train, Gordon is taken into an interrogation room by a Combine soldier who reveals himself to Barney, who once worked as a security guard at Black Mesa and was the protagonist of the Half-Life expansion Blue Shift. Barney uses a video terminal to call Dr. Kleiner, one of Gordon's fellow Black Mesa scientists who is thrilled to see them both. After making his way through the streets of the city, Gordon enters an apartment building where he witnesses the wrath of Civil "Protection" firsthand, and soon finds himself running across the rooftops while being pursued by armed Metrocops. He is cornered by the Combine and struck with an electrified baton, temporarily blinding him, but is rescued by an unseen figure who is revealed to be Alyx Vance, daughter of another of one of Gordon's coworkers, Eli. She escorts the scientists to Kleiner's lab, where he is finally reacquainted with his Hazardous Environment Suit. All is well, and the group is preparing to teleport to the hidden Black Mesa East facility where they'll meet up with Eli; but Kleiner's pet Headcrab Lamaar messes with the teleporter, sending Gordon to a variety of locations, | including Breen's office. Gordon is spotted, and the Overwatch is alerted of his presence. He finally ends up outside the lab, where Barney tosses him his trusty crowbar and bids him good luck in making it to Black Mesa East. This lengthy introduction sequence, although fairly slow, was surprisingly fun and captivating. Looking back, I think the main thing that kept me content during the intro is HL2's attention to detail; most of the citizens have a thing or two to say when you get near them, almost every object not rooted to the ground can be interacted with in some way, and angering the metrocops is super fun. There are even two achievements that you earn by either obeying or rebelling against a Metrocop who prompts you to throw a can into a trash bin. However, the game isn't paced slowly for much longer. After a couple more minutes, you'll come across a couple being cornered by a pair of CPs, and you'll finally get your hands on a pistol.
It is from this point that you'll get to experience one of my favorite aspects of Half-Life 2: the combat. There's almost always a creative way to approach each encounter, whether you decide to conserve ammo by shooting a conveniently placed explosive barrel (of which there are too many to count littered throughout the campaign, but blowing stuff up is fun, so I can't complain) or fling crates using the Gravity Gun you will acquire partway through the game. Another thing I appreciate about HL2 is that the firefights require you to think before you act; as much as I enjoy other sci-fi shooters such as Halo and Destiny, being able to fully regenerate your health after avoiding fire for several seconds detracts heavily from the tension shooters should have. While Gordon can take an unbelievable amount of punishment even on "Hard" difficulty, all injuries will remain unhealed until he can find a medkit or a health station. This allows you to learn from your mistakes, and soon enough you'll go from charging at turret tripods, crowbar in hand to strategically lobbing grenades at them from behind the protection of a wall. You don't have to be extremely careful, though; the HEV Suit will absorb more than half of the damage caused by projectiles that strike you until its energy is depleted, at which point you'll need to find an energy capsule or charging station. However, the suit can't protect you from long falls or drowning. The way weapons are used in the Half-Life franchise is unique among shooters as well; rather than being limited to only a couple firearms at once like most games in the genre nowadays, you can hold onto every single one of the near dozen weapons you come across and switch between them on the fly. As an avid Halo fan, I was initially thrown off by this feature, but came to enjoy it very much. I only have a few complaints with this aspect of the game when compared with the original Half-Life: First off, the arsenal is smaller than the original game's, and the few new weapons (with the exception of the Gravity Gun) are either carbon copies of or are very similar to old ones. Also, despite the shorter length, there are more sequences when you are encouraged to use certain weapons then I would like, and the hints as to what tool in your arsenal will be the most useful at a given time are far from subtle.
If you went into to Half-Life 2 knowing nothing about it, you may be shocked to hear that it was released in 2004 -- this game is a technical marvel. This was the first game to use Valve's Source engine, and the results are beyond stellar for an early-2000s game. The graphics are what stand out the most. The character models and textures may no longer look stellar, but the realistic facial expressions of NPCs are impressive to this day, the environments are thoroughly detailed, and the water looks practically real! (And when a game makes you talk about how good the water looks, you know it's doing something right). This is also one of the first titles to employ the sophisticated Havoc physics engine. The aforementioned Gravity Gun is one off the most accurate examples of Newton's Laws ever seen in a game. Havoc also allows for hilarious ragdoll deaths. However, I sometimes felt that Valve was trying too hard to show off the power of its fancy new engine, as evidenced by the physics-based puzzles sprinkled throughout the campaign which bring your journey to a halt and serve no purpose but to show that the Source engine can successfully emulate the physics of a makeshift teeter-totter. Additionally, the fact that there is an achievement for completing the mission "We Don't Go to Ravenholm" using only the Gravity Gun does little to hide that the horror-themed level is a glorified showcase of the weapon. While I wish the game didn't flaunt its physics so much, you can't deny the realism.
In addition to being a visual spectacle, HL2 sounds great in every possible way. One element of this game that will never age is the voice acting, which surpasses the quality of some movies; each one of the sci-fi sound effects from the button press to suit recharge the are as iconic to gamers as Star Wars sounds are to film fans; and the intense techno tunes will help to boost your adrenaline as you battle the Overwatch forces.
I have only a few other complaints about Half-Life 2, first and foremost being that there's not much incentive to replay it. There's no achievement for beating the game on a higher difficulty, and because this is a linear shooter, there's nothing more to discover in subsequent playthroughs other than a few secret areas and brief G-man cameos. However, this is the type of game you play again when you have the time because it's that good. Another issue I have is with the story, of all things. The game has a strong plot, but it's ridiculous how highly regarded Gordon is. In the original Half-Life, Gordon was an every-man. He may have slain an evil alien overlord, but he was just a normal scientist like everyone else at Black Mesa. Now everyone from Gordon's coworkers to the NPCs treat him as some sort of messiah (which is even explicitly referenced by Breen). My last quibble is that the campaign ends on a massive cliffhanger, and the story ark's conflict hasn't been solved even after the release of two additional episodes. (Chances are you've heard of the "Half-Life 3 confirmed" meme)
Overall, Half-Life 2 is an incredible game that should easily appeal to fans of shooters, sci-fi or otherwise. The visuals, physics, story, and combat have all aged gracefully, and at a price of only $9.99, you have little reason not to experience what some call the greatest game ever made.
The System Difference: There are also a couple technical inferiorities exclusive to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game available via The Orange Box (I originally played the game on 360). The first disadvantage of playing the game on a console is that the load times are longer than what the vast majority of PC hard drives are capable of. The other thing I noticed is that there were occasionally very brief framerate drops when one or more explosion was onscreen at a time. The PS3 port, which was clumsily developed by Electronic Arts, reportedly has much worse frame rate issues. If you own a computer that's several years old or less, it will probably be able to run Half-Life 2 on high graphical settings, but if you're not one for playing on computers, the console version will suffice. Besides, the controller vibration in the console version adds a little to the experience.
Also available on Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PlayStation 3 (via The Orange Box bundle)
ESRB: M (PARENTAL WARNING: This game contains intense violence, large amounts of realistic blood, swearing, and frightening scenes) Content: Blood & Gore, Language, and Intense Violence Price: $9.99 (Standalone) / $19.99 (The Orange Box bundle) (Retail / Download)
