Half-Life 2

Undoubtedly one of the most influential games of all time but like some others have already said, it feels pretty empty. Not really in a "dystopian empty" way but in a way that I can't immerse myself into the game because it has that feeling of being in a gmod map in the way that you know there's nothing beyond the confines of the map. Also my enjoyment of the game went down quite a bit after Ravenholm (still like the rest of this game), but it's still a 4 because of how amazing that stretch of the beginning to Ravenholm is. The ending section is also very good. Just wish the latter-middle section of the game was more interesting.

Because you've already heard everything that's to be heard about this game related to the good parts.

1 - Amazing graphics for the time;
2 - Viktor Antonov's crazily unique art direction for the game, seriously go and look up the concept art;
3 - you get to witness the birth of modern FPS, TPS and all other action-adventure games nowadays in general;
4 - thrilling execution and immersion;
5 - good (although sparse) audio and OST;
6 - a crazy, powerful new engine that makes the experience;
7 - everything is virtually unforgettable. No moment, person or place you'll forget. The craft is amazing.

Now, Half-Life 2 has 3 major, undeniable problems:

1 - the "brainy" parts, too dumb and easy due to incompetent playtesters;
2 - the forced physics mechanics, that should have just been made more for emergent gameplay instead of idiotic "shoot the explosive barrel" bits and the like;
3 - the weird slow pace that makes it clunky.

The new experience Valve made (the story and action-packed cinematic adventure) with this game, that influenced all of the games coming after it, is also the reason for all of these shortcomings: they did it first but didn't do it just right.

Playing it is a chore. It's the classic sin of "shopping list" gaming, where there is no fluidity among objectives, even if they're put in a straight line. The natural feeling of Half-Life 1, that played between the height and space of levels is now replaced by move, stop - shoot, stop - puzzle, move again.

The semplicity has kind of been kept, but lost, as the design fails, giving you no ability to aim again but putting you in situations where aiming is necessary for example; you must throw grenades at the snipers all of the time and avoid them, but never get a rifle with a sight. You get a gimmicky level where you use the sand ants to help you with the enemies, that are useless and boring, just to give a sense of movement on screen and control (that was scrapped in the final game, replaced by a call command for teammates that is useless too), and the gravity gun gives limited excitement because there is just always one and only one way to solve things - you feel really trapped in this sandbox world that doesn't really work like one, everything is actually scripted and all other possibilities are locked.

Why? There is no answer other than the incompetence of the designers. Many steps forward on the hardest accomplishments to be ever achieved in gaming and then some dumb regressions over the simple things.

Luckily, this review is meant to be reactionary in order to write a few things down in a new perspective. The game is great for the most part; just too far from perfect. You should play it if you haven't.

Half Life 2 is an iconic and universally praised FPS from Valve, which had a few sequels and modded versions, yet no official Half Life 3. I think the hype at the time was due to a larger focus on narrative and a bit more depth to the gameplay than simply running and gunning.

The plot to the first game seemed like a typical sci-fi/horror plot - so I didn't really understand the praise for the plot when playing it for the first time in 2023. This sequel seems more of a dystopian future theme, and there's probably more story in the general lore (environmental storytelling and radio broadcasts) than what is portrayed via direct dialogue. I think the silent protagonist isn't a good choice because there's definite moments where you'd expect some kind of reaction or dialogue when you meet your fellow rebels. You play as researcher and hero of the first game, Gordon Freeman, who is woken by the mysterious G-Man who you met at the end of the first game. In the usual G-Man fashion, you periodically see him on your adventure; he always seems one step ahead of you, but what is he up to?

Your journey begins in City 17, which is now under the oppressive rule of the Combine. Propaganda broadcasts are played in the war-torn streets. Barney ushers you away from the Combine guards, and you flee and eventually run into Alyx who takes you to Dr. Eli Vance. Since Alyx is an iconic character, I expected much of the game to feature her, but you only team up with her in certain moments. The relationship develops more in the next game Half Life 2 Episode 1.

There's plenty of Combine soldiers you'll be shooting throughout, and I'd say there's much fewer alien creatures to shoot this time around. The iconic Head Crab makes its return, as well as a few variants. I see this as taking inspiration from the Face-huggers from Alien, and maybe a raw chicken! They seem to turn people into zombies, so that's another variant you face. "Barnacles" are like an immobile sac found on the ceiling with a dangling tentacle that will grab careless people and pull them up. In one section, you have to cross a desert area where touching the ground causes Antlions to rise up. Later on you defeat a queen, then a friendly Vortigaunt gives you a sac that allows you to summon Antlions and direct them to attack enemies. The following raid on the prison using your Antlion friends was one of my favourite parts of the game.

One of the first weapons you acquire is the iconic crowbar which is used for smashing crates and grates which often allow you to venture forth. As you go through the game, you find more weapons. They start off typical - like a couple of types of pistol, machine guns, shotguns, a crossbow, and rocket launcher. There's no interesting alien guns this time around, and projectiles are just limited to grenades. Smashing supply crates reward you with extra pickups. More goodies are found in hidden lambda caches which are marked with a spray-painted logo. You can find medpaks and energy items to partially top up your health and armour. There are also devices positioned on walls which recharge your health and your suit.

Your suit gives you extra protection in hazardous areas, although you will still take damage from radioactive waste, fire and electricity. Other hazards are explosive barrels, and trip wires. Explosions can be used to your advantage in combat, but there are times you need to be aware that you can trigger a chain reaction. I'm not sure who left so many explosives around though.

You often take advantage of the explosives and general objects in the scene with the famous "gravity gun". This allows you to pick-up, then drop and fire light to medium weight objects. This is useful in combat to conserve ammo, but is also used in general navigation and puzzles. So you will be removing blockages from doors like a metal bar, pile of crates, fallen cabinet, making makeshift stairs or safe areas over hazardous material by careful placement of wooden objects. Sometimes it might not be clear what to do, but once you make progress with a creative solution; it sure is satisfying. The physics are good but I'm sure the weight of the concrete blocks Is off when I saw them sliding down a slope, and required way more blocks to counterbalance a ramp than I expected.

Most of the chapters are long, but there are a few short chapters. The game is generally well paced, featuring lots of action then a small section of dialogue when you meet your fellow rebels. There's a few vehicle sections which do probably last a bit too long, but you are often made to get out of your vehicle, and work your way through a building to hit a switch to unlock a gate to the next area. The vehicle sections do feel more open, but the game is very linear and you are often funnelled down corridors. Early on, there's quite a lot of being pursued by helicopters and ambushes by Combine forces. I suppose there is a feeling of the roles being reversed when you finally lead a team of rebels to take City 17. Then in the final moments, your Gravity Gun is supercharged and sees you picking up enemies directly and tearing through waves of enemies.

Although the graphics generally had a brighter colour palette, the game often switches lighting intensity, and features some dark areas. You have a flashlight, and this is where the horror aspect of the game comes in.

I think the game does well to keep the locales feeling varied and a nice balance between action and horror, careful gunning, running and gunning, and vehicle sections. Certain moments are very memorable like the horror based Ravenholm level where improvisation is key with the Gravity Gun when you have limited ammo. Compared to today's FPS games, the 12 hours playtime is quite long, but I felt it was about the right length.

While this game isn't as disjointed as the first entry in the franchise, I have to say there's a bit too much filler for it to be among my favourite games of all time even if I don't have any issues with seeing it to the end.

The big problem I have is how much driving around there is, I get the feeling valve genuinely thought that players would be amused by driving along these empty highways and canals for long stretches of time which I guess they were right about given how I appear to be in the minority with how dull these sections are. Thankfully they don't take up too much of the overall gameplay as you often find yourself pulling over in order to solve a puzzle so that you can move onto the next area. These areas also stop at the halfway point of the game once Gordon reaches the resistance base as he thankfully traverses on foot and by teleportation from here on out. I guess this was to showcase the graphics which do look great even to this day, however as the game was going for realism, the areas aren’t much to look at as they consist of abandoned buildings and barren mountains. At least the on-foot sections aren't needlessly spacious even if that might be due to how much space the driving sections take up in the game. Still, I’ll gladly take driving for minutes on end to my destination over the last third of the first game where valve really dropped the ball in quality for that game. As for what this game does right, that can be summed up in two words, gravity gun. How it took until when this game came out to have a weapon that uses everyday objects as ammo is beyond me, but congrats are in order for valve by successfully implementing not just this mechanic but the engine to allow the physics of this weapon to work flawlessly throughout the game. A close second to the greatest aspect of this game are the characters, specifically Alyx who really is the antidote not just for the brainless bimbos in media back then but ESPECIALLY the insufferable girl bosses of modern media. Sure, Alyx isn't a bombshell, but she isn't a stuck-up bitch either as she shows genuine compassion for those around her whilst displaying a high level of intelligence and combat abilities that feel natural to the story. The rest of the cast is good, particularly Barney who finally has a speaking role in universe after his so-so debut in blue shift.

It's a game I want to give a perfect score to but can't due to the excess fat it has, hopefully there's a version which scales back the driving sections so that I can finally give this game the full love everyone else heaps on it.

This game is one of the most well designed games I have ever played. I was loving the original game's engine, but this one is better in almost every way. Graphics were good for their time, level design had a good mix of realism and fun, soundtrack goes absolutely insane, characters are deep and fun to be with, dialogue is believable, everything about this game has been taken into account. Upon first playthrough it is already no wonder this game is as influential as it is. The ambient laboratory/military base labyrinth feel of the first game is now a distant, foggy dystopian future and they did not hold back on the immersion. Travelling from empty windy beaches to busy cities, this game really does make you feel like an on-the-run resistance fugitive. It doesn't look the most pretty to today's standards, but it's definitely far from ugly. This is a game that I have come to love and will never forget.

With all due respect i've always considered this one of the most overrated games ever and the more i return to it the more i stand by that opinion. For smth marked as fucking Noah's Ark of PC gaming it hardly uses it's physics features to truly great extent, mostly it's autistic puzzles, which are such a dull way of downtiming, i didn't find them interesting at all. It took 13 more years for Breath Of The Wild to make an open-ended gameplay with this concept - something i expected back then from as highly praised game as HL 2 is.
The gunplay lacks proper impact and also clever squad AI of the original alongside with it's more enganging weapon combos.., that's because in Half-Life 2 they expect you to use conveniently placed red barrels for your gravity gun - duh, Ravenholm and the ability to catch an enemy grenade are the only instances for me when this gadget felt actually next-gen for it's time.

Besides, for something which was considered as influencial as, say, the original Deus Ex is way too restrictive to deserve this status. For example, you can't shoot through wooden doors despite in-depth boxes destruction or tear off machine guns from constant armored vehicles (Halo 3/Crysis 2 style). And i find it annoying at times how this game can't sort out it's core gameplay properly (like the 1st one did) to instead force you to partake in some either questionable or not that smooth set pieces. Controlling ant lions with one pheromone device in your hand? Fun. But doing those shabby tower defences sequences with enemies instantly moving down your turrets due to overly tight rooms certainly doesn't do it for me. I also hate how plushy the boat feels to control and how i can't do precise aerial damage for tiny Strider's legs (talking about too restrictive for it's status).

The more i reach the ending the more i feel tired of these unskipable scripted cutscenes (which HL 1 almost never did) and half-empty hallways. And while both HL 2 and it's latest episode engdings feels cool they kinda leads the plot to a dead end if you think about it.

Honestly, HL 2 kinda ruined linear shooters for me. Contrary to the 1st one, it's interactive story-telling is too forced at you. Next-gen features are hardly used as means of truly impressive, open-ended game design akin to Deus Ex or Zelda: BOTW. The gameplay itself feels not that great, because the devs relied more on gimmicky "whoa segments" rather than making the whole thing an actually consistent and satisfying FPS in each of it's core aspect.

Hell, Riddick and Halo 2 were loads better as innovative FPS games back in 2004. What HL 2 really excels at is it's story, aesthetics and clever subversion of 1984's type of dystopia. Yeah, as an adventure game it can work in parts (thx to the Valve's idea fix for campagin variation), but i like my games for the solid fundamental process itself leading to a gameplay loop which keeps me interested to PLAY it instead of some sparse ideas making the single player looking cool and different just for the sake of it.