Ludography
90/100
Players3,484 ratings
79/100
Critics7 reviews
More scores
Metacritic81 critic reviews
96/100
Metacritic usersuser score
91/100
GameFAQsJust Right
4.4/5
Player reviews
97% positive204,498 reviews
Steam Deck
Verified
Runs on
Windows, Linux
Price
US$9.99

Where to get it

Half-Life 2 cover

2004 · Valve Corporation · First-person shooter · Post-apocalyptic

Half-Life 2

Timed Xbox exclusive

1998. HALF-LIFE sends a shock through the game industry with its combination of pounding action and continuous, immersive storytelling.

Released
16 November 2004
Platforms
AndroidLinuxPlayStation 3WindowsXboxXbox 360macOS
Genres
First-person shooterPost-apocalypticScienceScience fiction horrorShooter
Developers
Valve Corporation
Publishers
Valve Corporation
Modes
Single-player
Perspective
First person
Themes
ActionScience fictionHorror
Engine
Source
Country
United States
Age ratings
PEGI 16ESRB MACB MA 15+CLASS_IND 18GRAC 19+USK 18
Languages
Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian and 7 more
Time to beat
9hmain story14hwith extras20hcompletionist
Composers
Kelly Bailey

About

Half-Life 2 is a 2004 first-person shooter (FPS) game developed and published by Valve Corporation. It was published for Windows on November 16, 2004, on Valve's digital distribution service, Steam. Like the original Half-Life (1998), Half-Life 2 combines combat, puzzles and storytelling, and adds features such as vehicles and physics-based gameplay. The player controls Gordon Freeman, who joins a resistance effort to liberate Earth from the alien Combine empire.

Valve developed Half-Life 2 using its Source game engine, developed simultaneously. Development lasted five years and cost US $40 million. Valve's president, Gabe Newell, set his team the goal of redefining the FPS genre. They integrated the Havok physics engine, which simulates real-world physics, to reinforce the sense of presence and create new gameplay. They also developed the characterization, with more detailed character models and animations.

›Story

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.

Players say

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Like the original Half-Life (1998), Half-Life 2 is a single-player first-person shooter (FPS) in which the player controls Gordon Freeman. It features combat, exploration, jumping challenges, and puzzle-solving, and narrative elements conveyed through scripted sequences. Weapons include a pistol, submachine gun, shotgun, and the powerful Combine pulse rifle. With the bugbait item, enemy antlions become allies and can be called to the player or sent to attack enemies.

Half-Life 2 introduces detailed physics simulation. With the new gravity gun, players can repel objects or pull them from a distance. For example, objects can be fired at enemies, held as shields, or placed to reach new areas, and enemy grenades can be caught and thrown back. The player must also use physics to solve puzzles. Half-Life 2 also adds sections in which the player controls an airboat and a dune buggy.

Story

After the alien invasion at the Black Mesa Research Facility, a multidimensional alien empire known as the Combine has conquered Earth. Approximately twenty years after being placed in stasis, Gordon Freeman is inserted into a train bound for City 17 by the G-Man (Michael Shapiro). Helped by the undercover Resistance member Barney Calhoun (Shapiro), Gordon attempts to reach the laboratory of Dr. Isaac Kleiner (Harry S.

Robins) but is subdued by Combine officers. He is rescued by Alyx Vance (Merle Dandridge), who guides him to the laboratory. Kleiner's attempt to teleport Gordon to the Resistance base fails, and Gordon is momentarily teleported to the Citadel, the skyscraper headquarters of Dr. Wallace Breen (Robert Culp), the former Black Mesa administrator and the Combine's puppet ruler.

Development

Development of Half-Life 2 began in June 1999, six months after the release of the original Half-Life. It was developed by a team of 82, or around 100 people including voice actors. Valve's president, Gabe Newell, wanted to redefine the FPS genre, saying: "Why spend four years of your life building something that isn't innovative and is basically pointless? If Half-Life 2 isn't viewed as the best PC game of all time, it's going to completely bum out most of the guys on this team."

Newell gave his team no deadline and a "virtually unlimited" budget, promising to fund the project himself if necessary. They used Valve's new in-house game engine, Source, developed simultaneously.

Reception

Half-Life 2 has an aggregate score of 96/100 on Metacritic based on 81 reviews. Sources such as 1UP, GameSpy, The Cincinnati Enquirer, The New York Times, and VideoGamer.com gave it perfect scores, and others, such as PC Gamer, IGN, GamesRadar, and Eurogamer, gave near-perfect scores. It was the fifth game to receive ten out of ten from Edge. Critics praised the graphics, physics, story and gameplay. Maximum PC awarded Half-Life 2 11 on their rating scale which normally peaks at 10, calling it "the best game ever made".

In the United States, Half-Life 2's PC version sold 680,000 copies and had earned $34.3 million by August 2006. It was the country's 17th best-selling PC game between January 2000 and August 2006. It received a "Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 300,000 copies in the United Kingdom. Forbes reported on February 9, 2011, that it had sold 12 million copies worldwide.

Awards

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
Windows16 November 2004North America · Europe 16 November 2004 · Japan 2 December 2005
Xbox15 November 2005North America · Europe 18 November 2005
Xbox 3609 October 2007Asia · North America 10 October 2007 · Europe 19 October 2007 · Australia 25 October 2007 · Japan 22 May 2008
PlayStation 311 December 2007North America · Asia 11 December 2007 · Europe 14 December 2007 · Australia 20 December 2007
macOS26 May 2010Worldwide
Linux9 May 2013Worldwide
Android12 May 2014Worldwide

Editions and related releases

Included in
The Orange BoxValve Complete PackHalf-Life 2: Game of the Year Edition
Derivative works
Half-Life 2: SurvivorDear EstherBlack MesaHalf-Life 2: UpdateHunt Down the FreemanEntropy: Zero 2
Followed by
Half-Life 2: Episode OneHalf-Life 2: Lost CoastHalf-Life 2: Deathmatch
Follows
Half-Life
Ported as
Half-Life 2: Survivor
Standalone expansions
Half-Life 2: Episode OneHalf-Life 2: Episode TwoReturn to Ravenholm
Built on it
SMODNightmare HouseSynergyHalf-Life 2: Episode OneHalf-Life 2: SurvivorHalf-Life 2: Episode TwoFortress ForeverAge of ChivalryInsurgency: Modern Infantry CombatDystopiaGoldenEye: SourceThe Stanley ParableEstranged: Act ISilent Hill: AlchemillaHalf-Life 2: UpdateEntropy: ZeroHalf-Life 2: DownFallResident Evil 1: Roku's cutAction: SourceEntropy: Zero 2Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary UpdateThe Burton EquationHalf-Life 2 RTXKayf-Life: Complete Edition
Editions
Half-Life 2: Collector's Edition

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Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.