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Half-Life 2

Half-Life 2

  • Publisher
    NVIDIA Lightspeed Studios
  • Developer
    Valve Corporation
  • Release date
    16 Nov 2004

1998. HALF-LIFE strikes like a bomb. The game world is excited with this mix of stunning activity and energizing activity. Valve's debut collection gets more than 50 honors as "Game of the Year" and is casted a ballot "Best Game of All Time" by "PC Gamer". An entire scope of items is made, which is sold in excess of multiple times around the world. Half-Life 2 offers the fervor, challenge and overpowering experience of the first and supplements it with a mind boggling authenticity and responsiveness. This makes a virtual world wherein the player can impact everything around them, from nature to the conduct and sentiments of companion and enemy. The player again arms himself with the crowbar of research researcher Gordon Freeman, who ends up on an earth where the populace and its assets are excessively crushed by outsiders. Freeman is given the dissatisfied errand of liberating the world from the shrewd that he once discharged in Black Mesa. He needs to do it - his companions and compatriots rely on him. Source®, Valve's recently created motor innovation, empowers activity pressed ongoing interaction progressively in "Half-Life 2". Source is presently far superior and offers the accompanying upgrades: Figures: A best in class facial movement framework gives the most flexible characters in the game that have ever existed. With the assistance of 40 distinctive "facial muscles", human figures can respond to the player with knowledge and the full scope of human feelings. Material science: Whether stones, water or 2-ton trucks, questions consistently respond as per the laws of mass, grinding, gravity and lightness illustrations : Source's shader-based rendering program makes - like Pixar in his movies Toy Story® and Die Monster AG® - the most lovely and sensible scenes that you have ever found in a video game.KI: Neither companions nor foes beat aimlessly. They can evaluate risks, move securely in troublesome landscape and make weapons out of everything that comes into their hands.

see all / fold
AGM score 95%
IGN 9.7
GameSpot 9.2
sci-fi
strategy
first person shooter
fps
pistol
first aid kit
assault rifle
real-time combat
grenade
guerilla warfare
submachine gun
run 'n gun
aliens
rocket launcher
steam
train
vent crawling
radiation
dystopian world
a.i. companion
table
gloves
linear gameplay
scripted events
save file copy
portals
teleportation
silent protagonist
resistance
weapons
crossbow
environmental puzzles
physics manipulation
single-entity developer credits
horror
interactive environments
interactive cutscene
building
crowbar
train signal
electric cable
helicopter boss
shotgun shells
impaling weapons
first-person platforming
hunting rifle
totalitarian government
spas-12
magnum
alien invasion
stun baton
alternate history
animal weaponry
zombies
biotechnology
electric outlet
electric fence
rebellion
strider
source engine
vortigaunt
headcrab
barnacle
hev suit
metrocop
zero-point energy field manipulator
antlion
the combine
plywood
antlion guard
advisor
expand / fold

About Half-Life 2

Half-Life 2 is released by NVIDIA Lightspeed Studios in 16 Nov 2004. The game is designed by Valve Corporation. Half-Life 2 is a typical representative of the Shooter genre. Playing Half-Life 2 is a pleasure. It does not matter whether it is the first or a millionth hour in Shooter, there will always be room for something new and interesting. Thrilling levels and gameplay Half-Life 2 will not leave anyone indifferent. The complexity of gameplay increases with each new level and does not let any player get bored.

In addition to it in 16 Nov 2004 released games such as:

In addition to Half-Life 2, the representatives of Shooter games also belong:

A complete list of games like Half-Life 2 can be found at AllGame here.

Half-Life 2 is versatile and does not stand still, but it is never too late to start playing. The game, like many Shooter games has a full immersion in gaming. AllGame staff continues to play it.

Half-Life 2 is perfect for playing alone or with friends.

At AllGame you can find reviews on Half-Life 2, gameplay videos, screenshots of the game and other Shooter representatives.

The story

This section tells the history of the world of Half-Life 2

Gordon Freeman is brought out of stasis by the G-Man, who inserts him into a train arriving at City 17. After arriving at the station and eluding Combine forces, Gordon joins Lambda resistance members including Barney Calhoun, a former Black Mesa security guard now working undercover as a Combine CP officer, and Alyx Vance, the daughter of one of Gordon's former colleagues, Dr. Eli Vance. After a failed attempt to teleport Gordon to Black Mesa East from Dr. Kleiner's makeshift laboratory, Gordon, re-equipped with the HEV suit and a crowbar, is forced to embark on foot through the city's old canal system. After obtaining an airboat, he battles his way to Black Mesa East, several miles from the city. Gordon is reintroduced to Eli and meets Dr. Judith Mossman. Alyx introduces Gordon to her large pet robot D0g and gives him a "Gravity Gun", a weapon which allows Gordon to pick up and move any large object with ease. Black Mesa East soon comes under Combine attack and Eli and Mossman are captured to be taken to a Combine prison, Nova Prospekt. Gordon and Alyx are forced to take separate paths to Nova Prospekt; Gordon takes a detour through the town of Ravenholm, receiving help from its last survivor, Father Grigori. After making his way through the town and a mine, Gordon makes his way to a Resistance outpost. Gordon is provided with a Dune Buggy, which he uses to travel along a crumbling coastal road to Nova Prospekt. Along the way, Gordon encounters frequent Combine patrols, and helps one of the resistance leaders, Colonel Odessa Cubbage, to defend a Resistance base from a Combine gunship. After crossing an antlion-infested beach, Gordon enters Nova Prospekt, where he is reunited with Alyx. They manage to locate Eli, but also discover that Mossman is a Combine informant. Before they can stop her, she teleports herself and Eli back to City 17's Citadel. The Combine teleporter explodes as Gordon and Alyx use it to escape Nova Prospekt. Upon reaching Kleiner's lab, a shaken Dr. Kleiner reveals to Gordon and Alyx that they were caught in a "slow teleport", during which a week had passed. In their absence, the Resistance, who heard about what had happened at Nova Prospekt, has mobilized against the Combine, turning City 17 into a battleground. During the fighting, Alyx is captured by the Combine and taken to the Citadel, and Gordon fights through the city with the aid of D0g and Barney to reach it. Inside the Citadel, he is caught in a Combine confiscation chamber that destroys all of his weapons except for the Gravity Gun, the energy enhancing its capabilities and allowing Gordon to escape and dispatch platoons of Combine soldiers. Eventually, Gordon is captured riding in a Combine transport pod and is taken to Dr. Breen's office, where he and Dr. Mossman are waiting with Eli and Alyx in captivity. Dr. Breen begins to explain his plans for further conquest of the humans by the Combine, contrary to what he had told Dr. Mossman. Angered, Mossman frees Gordon, Alyx, and Eli before Breen teleports them off-world. Dr. Breen tries to escape through a portal, but Gordon pursues him and destroys the portal reactor with the super-charged Gravity Gun. Breen appears to be annihilated in the resulting explosion. Just before Gordon and Alyx are presumably met with a similar fate, time is frozen. The G-Man reappears, praising Gordon for his actions in City 17 and the Citadel. Making vague mention of "offers for [Gordon's] services", the G-Man places him back into stasis.

Half-Life 2 in the test - Outstanding first-person shooter from Valve

Author: Gunnar Lott
Date: 2004-11-26 16:31:00
Six years of waiting have paid off: Valve Software's spectacular sci-fi thriller Half-Life 2 is the action masterpiece that everyone hoped for.

The last scene in the first half-life: Gordon Freeman, physics doctor and hero against his will, has the choice. Death from the Xen alien race or a job as a henchman for the "G-Man" - a dodgy suit wearer who always seems to be one step ahead of Gordon. Freeman chooses life. And so Half-Life 2 begins with a conversation between Freeman and his boss, the G-Man. The two of them are on the way to the next destination - a town somewhere in the Eastern Bloc, which serves as a refuge from alien invaders, the Combine. Because the Earth is a zone of occupation: After a failed experiment (in half-life), the Xen aliens overran humanity, who had to surrender after a short war - an easy sacrifice for the Combine and their allies.

The atmosphere

City 17 - a desolate refuge: flying cameras buzz around and take pictures of every suspect, the population lives in fear. Huge striders, towering, spider-like aliens stalk through the house gorges on three legs.

Combine police officers patrol the streets and residential areas and harass the population: a police officer throws a coke can to the ground and bluffs: "Pick it up!" If you don't obey, a blow with the stun gun awaits you. It's no wonder that the residents avoid any contact with each other for fear of punishment. And Gordon Freeman ends up in the middle of this totalitarian terror regime. As soon as they got off the train, the occupiers ordered him into a back room, where his journey threatened to end prematurely. But the interrogation turns out to be security guard Barney - Gordon's old friend from the first part.

He advises him, Dr. Smaller to find who works underground against the Combine. Gordon's contact person: Alyx, daughter of Dr. Eli Vance, to whom you want to send Kleiner by teleporter. Of course, this goes wrong - and you are in the middle of a fast-paced adventure. In the course of this, you work with Alyx and Barney from time to time, but they mostly go their own way. A prankster who thinks of two possible addons here ...

The gameplay

The designers at Valve Software have given Half-Life 2 a highly varied history, in which indoor and outdoor areas, spectacular action and careful advance are brilliantly balanced.

Escaping City 17 starts a crazy ride through 14 game chapters that can easily take on any action film. Your goal: Dr. Find Vance and advance to the heart of the Combine, the Citadel. Your path leads through sewers and river beds, to the village of Ravenholm (a tribute to zombie films such as From Dusk Til Dawn), through a disused mine, along lonely coastal roads, to a high-security prison and finally back to City 17 and the citadel. Incidentally, Warren Breen, former head of Black Mesa and now "Combine government official", also lives there. What he does there is reminiscent of the last seasons of X-Files - we don't want to tell you more. In any case, we have hardly seen such a sustained arc of tension in any other action game.

With all of this, you have a choice of three levels of difficulty, which you can change as you like in the game. Puzzles and levels remain the same, but the opponent strength changes. On "Simple" you will deal with light enemies and get target help from the PC, "Normal" offers challenging opponents and normal weapon damage, while "Heavy" gives you very crisp adversaries and less effective weapons. Saving is of course possible at any time.

The opponents

A bestiary of old and new enemies tries everything to thwart Gordon Freeman's mission. On the one hand there are the barnacles known from part one: tentacle creatures that stick under blankets and bridges, grab their victim and pull upwards for digestion.

Headcrabs jumping on the head are available in two versions - the well-known and the black ones. The latter are slower, but they do you a lot of damage, which your Hazard Suit - Gordon's "armor" - only fixes little by little. Zombies (people infected by headcrabs) and ant-like Ant Lions are also back on the trail - some slower, others significantly faster. Only heavy guns help against Ant Lion Guards. The best way to get rid of the spider-like striders that trudge through the streets of City 17 several dozen meters high is as a team. Combine infantry such as guards, soldiers, elite armored units with rapid-fire weapons and white-clad killer commands (think of the ninjas in the first part) are encountered in almost all of the 14 chapters.

The scanner cameras mentioned at the beginning are still relatively harmless, but the man hacks - flying circular saws, which do nasty damage - are more malicious. If that's not enough for you, fire-breathing helicopters, gunships, tanks and dropships with armies of Combine units do the rest.

The weapons

The Freeman crowbar in all honor, but against a helicopter it does little good. Gordon snatches more powerful weapons from friend and foe in the course of the game: a 9mm pistol and a .357 revolver are ideally suited for precise shots, but do not have the penetration power of the Submachine Gun or the Pulse Rifle, with which you can attack larger numbers of opponents decimate.

Against zombies and evil animals very practical: shotgun and crossbow. Hand grenades are the ideal means to raise an opposing gun position; Scoundrels in "high positions" have little to do against your rocket launcher. However, after launching a rocket, you have to keep an eye on the enemy so that the automatic laser aiming system can steer the warhead to the target. A very special weapon is a bag with Ant Lion fragrances. If you hurl them at enemies, the aroma attracts a swarm of alien ants - and they make short work of the now fragrant bites of the enemy. The crawling animals are especially helpful when breaking into the heavily guarded Nova Prospekt prison.

The greatest invention at the end: Dr. Eli Vance's Gravity Gun that allows you to manipulate gravity and attract, hold, and push objects away. Absolutely brilliant: This also works with mechanical enemies such as the flying man-hack saw discs or target-seeking roller mines, which mercilessly head for Gordon and his vehicles. Catching such a roll mine with the Gravity Gun and immediately firing it back into an enemy group - it's so cool that even the most stubborn action veterans of the editorial team were grinning in front of the monitor.

The physics engine

In all of Half-Life 2's presentations, the designers were particularly proud of the physics of their game world. Rightly so, because all the other titles look like a fun fair shooting gallery. Gordon Freeman also grabs almost every object that a person can take in real life in the game.

Would you like some examples? We stack bricks on a wooden board, which descends like a seesaw, we jump up over the resulting slope. Crates that fall into the water bump realistically and serve as stepping stones for skillful players. A metal support on two long cables, with which one opens a lock gate, swings back and forth slowly minutes later.

With the help of the Gravity Gun you make your way through rusted car bodies, throw headcrabs and zombies aside or lift tables and boxes to build a ladder. An impenetrable energy field blocks the way, eats bullets and shakes off every clutter we throw against it? Well, then we'll just pull the plug out behind it with the gravity gun. A fixed radiator serves as a protective shield, a steel beam as a weapon. And whether you shoot toilet paper rolls or gas bottles at a zombie has quite different effects.

The level design

Do yourself a favor and take your time for Half-Life 2. Sure, if you want a steady stream of opponents to hit your fur, it's better to take your legs in your hand. But there is a lot to discover in both action-packed and quieter moments, be it in the varied interior or the immense outdoor levels.

Follow the lambda signs that will lead you to some badly needed goodies. Examine an empty house to find a new weapon. Eliminate zombie hordes with gas bottles, saw blades and jerry cans - this saves ammunition. Disengage derricks under enemy fire, the noise of which would scare off your Ant-Lion force and prevent you from obeying your commands. Balance on the way to an energy field control panel at dizzying heights over bridge struts, shake off Combine security guards, deactivate the energy field and then run back twice as fast on the breakneck course while a startled gunship makes you hot. Twice as difficult because the rocket supply for the bazooka is only in the middle of the bridge. And after the gunship, eliminate a number of Ant Lions that come through the now deactivated energy field. Keep your nerve when a train rushes towards you on the narrow bridge that is believed to be safe, with roaring sirens.

With all the joy of exploring, however, linearity rules: there is only one way to get you to the next chapter - but often several ways to achieve this. Do you want to cross a sandy area teeming with Ant Lions? Since direct contact with the sand attracts the critters, cautious contemporaries use the Gravity Gun to lay out a path made of old pallets and corrugated iron plates, which dampens the footsteps. You don't have the patience to do this? Then sprint and jump for your life, hoping that not all Ant Lions will follow you - and that your ammunition will be enough to kill the beasts you couldn't shake off. Can't get past two automatic guns? Either stalk from the side and knock the cannons over with the Gravity Gun. Or use the Ant Lions pheromone pouch to rush them.

The vehicles

The Valve designers apparently played many rounds of Halo during the development of Half-Life 2. This always shines through, for example if you have to deal with Combine soldiers in a chapter with a few helpers who are dropped by some dropships. In addition, there is stirring music that is strongly reminiscent of the Halo soundtrack. And like in Halo there are 2 vehicles in Half-Life.

And what for: In a hovercraft, you race across water and the mainland, with a dune buggy you jump over collapsed bridges and whiz through roadblocks - that's a lot of fun. Action scenes that would look good on any Bruckheimer film: They use a hovercraft to heat over a river bed that is suddenly blocked by a flaming barrier. Only with a daring jump over an improvised ramp can you escape death from the grill. Shortly afterwards you are under rocket fire from a tank and have to perform breakneck evasive maneuvers. And just a little later, an explosion hurls wildly rotating cars at you - wow!

Here, too, the physics engine shows its muscles: if you want to heat up a mountain with a buggy over gravel, you need a good start, otherwise the tires will spin and you will slide down again. You control the two vehicles with the keyboard and use the mouse - if available - to operate the cannons. You can choose to knock out opponents or take out the cannon. Or maybe stop beforehand, hide your vehicle and then do the Wegebager on foot?

The puzzles

In any case, sometimes you have to leave your vehicle to clear the way. For example, if one ramp has to be brought to the correct jump height using a pulley system with a heavy washing machine, another on the other hand with a few buoyant empty plastic barrels.

Again, the Gravity Gun is your friend, especially with objects that are far away or protected by energy fields. For example, you fish a battery from a car wreck to start a gate mechanism. Many puzzles extend over large areas and are far more demanding than the stupid key card collection of other genre representatives. If you have mastered a particularly tricky puzzle, such as deactivating a generator, you can count on enemies who will meet you at the exit. But that makes sense in game logic - if someone blows up the fuse box of your apartment, you will probably see something grumbling about the right thing. At any rate, Half-Life 2 does not see a dull »enter room, opponents jump out of the cupboard« like in Doom 3 far and wide.

The control

Valve relies on Dr. Freeman on the proven combination of keyboard and mouse. The controls are explained to you at exactly the right moment in the game, there is always enough time to learn how to use the new weapon or the new vehicle before it gets serious. Sometimes you get in the middle of the action, for example the first time you use the bazooka with which you have to get a Combine dropship from the sky.

However, you will then receive support from PC-controlled rebels who will put ammunition and medipacks to you. Towards the end of the game, you can command a team of up to four men in City 17. However, the tactical possibilities are limited: You look in the desired direction or at the preferred opponent and press the C key. Then your men storm without regard to losses. You don't have time to take care of them - otherwise you will die as quickly as your squad. However, new followers are quickly found. The artificial intelligence of the computer opponents is much smarter: Combine soldiers take cover, give themselves fire protection and only run towards you in the last chapter in desperate moments.

The complete article can be found in GameStar issue 01/2005 or online as a pdf in the magazine archive.

Other reviews

We gathered the finest game reviews for you to have a better idea of the Half-Life 2

Screenshots

Screenshots will help you evaluate the graphics and gameplay of Half-Life 2.

Half-Life 2 - scene 1
Half-Life 2 - scene 2
Half-Life 2 - scene 3
Half-Life 2 - scene 4
Half-Life 2 - scene 5

Videos

If screenshots are not enough, you can enjoy creative videos from NVIDIA Lightspeed Studios

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