Half-Life 2

by Vivendi Universal

Product Features

• Sequel to the hit first-person shooter
• Scientist-with-a-crowbar Gordon Freeman joins a ragtag human resistance fighting extradimensional invaders for the survival of a conquered Earth
• Unnervingly realistic graphics the likes of which have not been witnessed outside of a motion picture or pre-rendered cut scene
• Realistic physics: objects have varied and appropriate mass, density, physical properties
• For 1 player

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00006I02Z
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: November 16, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (656 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,990 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

In many ways, creating a sequel to Half-Life is an unenviable task. After all, the goal is to craft not just any ordinary game, but an improvement to a title that is widely considered to be the high water mark for first person shooters. Fortunately, Valve does not disappoint on their sophomore effort.

Half-Life 2 picks up exactly where its predecessor leaves off, with gamers stepping once more into Gordon Freeman's HVAC suit as he awakes at some indeterminate time in the future, now apparently in the employ of the mysterious G-Man. Humanity has been sold out to alien forces, and your job is to escape their thrall and lead the resistance to victory.

HL2's key successes are in a few critical areas, the first of which is the new physics & graphics engine, called Source. People and objects fall, fly, tip over, float, and break in an extraordinarily realistic fashion, and in-game puzzles often require you to use simple applications of physics to progress. Second, an elaborate facial structure system coupled with excellent voice acting make for some of the most believably human NPCs in gaming history. This is no small thing; you will find yourself actually caring about the characters who surround you, even those that are normally regarded as cannon fodder. Third, the level design exhibits a subtle brilliance, which frequently fools you into feeling like you're making your way through an organic environment and not a forced linear path. These elements combine to form one of the most truly immersive experiences ever captured on a PC.

This gaming bliss comes at a cost, however. If your computer isn't running the latest and greatest hardware, you may find yourself turning down a lot of the slick graphics to keep the machine from choking. Also, at the time of this writing the only two bundled multiplayer games are a barely updated version of Counter-Strike and HL2 DeathMatch. Counter-Strike: Source is every bit as fun as the original, but the DeathMatch is lackluster and contains only a handful of uninspired maps.

Overall, Half-Life 2 is a smashing success, every bit worthy of the prestige and respect that the franchise has been awarded. This is absolutely a game that every computer gaming enthusiast is going to want to have in their collection. -- Jon "Safety Monkey" Grover

Pros:

• Advanced graphics and physics system provide highly immersive experience
• Believable, expressive non-player characters
• Fun, realistic level design

Cons:

• Requires a very fast computer to play with all bells & whistles on
• DeathMatch mode has few maps and is not terribly entertaining

Product Description

Half-Life 2 delivers a new level of realistic action and excitement. Players return to the world of Gordon Freeman, as he returns to the Black Mesa research facility. The aliens are pouring into our world, and Freeman becomes part of a resistance group to stop them. New weapons, new enemies and new characters are waiting -- along with major enhancements in animation, artificial intelligence and graphics.

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

450 of 487 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In a word: Perfect!, November 17, 2004

By 

Christian Hunter "Christian Hunter" (Austin, Texas Santa Barbara, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Half-Life 2 (CD-ROM)

I stopped keeping time after 2am so I can't be sure what hour it is, nor can I tell you when I ran out of the cannister of Malt Balls and Peanut M&M's I brought as supplementation. What I can tell you however (in the humble opinion of a dedicated PC gamer for 15 years), is that Half Life 2 is the the most mind blowing game I've ever played.

I was at E3 with my pyscho gaming buddy cleaning the Pizza flavored drool off his chin when we got a preview of HL2. Like most, I counted the days, cursed Valve and Sierra for delay after delay, put all my faith and hope into Doom 3, was underwhelmed, went back to playing Desert Combat...basically went insane with anticipation.

In the brief moments before firing up HL2 for the first time, I was hopeful, but expecting to be dissapointed.

And I was.

Really, no multi-player! I'm one of those that have an absolute allergy to single-player games. Small beads of angry sweat began to form on my back...

But I soldiered on, and in:

10 minutes I was impressed,

at 30 minutes I was completely immersed,

at 1 hour chills were running up and down my spine, and occasional girlish yelps of horror began emanating from my pitch dark office...

...by the third hour I came to the conclusion that HL2 was/is the most impressive game software I've ever had the privilege of living in. Some highlights:

1. The engine is truly revolutionary. Doom 3 has a darn good engine, HL2 in my opinion is vastly better. Indoor AND outdoor environments are near photo-realistic (I have a 3.2GHZ w/ 1GB RAM), the physics are jaw-dropping AND deeply integrated into the play of the game, texture and lighting, faces, water, you name it, this engine is now The Standard.

2. Vehicles. Well, not only do they have them, they're really fun to operate (or be chased by as the case may be).

3. The Gravity Gun. This weapon comes later in the game, and in my humble opinion, is easily the most fun weapon I've ever used. Picking up and throwing items, using it to activate latent elements of the environment (often as weapons) is unbelievably fun. Which brings me to:

4. Humor. This game has some really funny moments. I almost busted a gut when I ran out of heavy/sharp things to fire at zombified creatures that were teaming up on me in close quarters. I desperately pulled over a large can of paint, fired, and splattered huge gobs of white paint all over their (now more upset) faces. I died, but I died laughing. And finally:

5. Immersion. The screams were obvious signs of immersion, but beyond that, I noticed myself making facial expressions of anger, empathy, anticipation...all throughout the game I found myself genuinely caring. That's a first for me.

I really could go on and on, but I can't, literally, I fear that dawn isn't far from my window and I'd like to pretend that I myself won't be a zombie tomorrow.

Enjoy,

Christian Hunter
Santa Barbara, California

21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great game, but I will never buy a valve game again, November 29, 2004

By 

kender - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Half-Life 2 (CD-ROM)

The game is fantastic, if you can manage to play
for some reason valve software has decided to use steam, an internet game network, to validate the game, even the single player one.

you can read all about how good the game is (it really is) in the other reviews.
but be aware that
1) installation takes forever
2) counter strike source reports "game unavailabe" most of the time
3) You need to be online to play, wont be taking this game on any trips.
4) The steam engine is as I write this in frustration "verifing my flies" again, for the last 20 minutes!! before allowing me to play. I've only had the game for three days!

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Corrupt CDs and Install Woes, November 22, 2004

By 

Michael Kelley (Prince Frederick, MD United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Half-Life 2 (CD-ROM)

I tried installing HL2 for 6 hours before I finally gave up. I kept getting "Error 1305: Cannot read hard drive" messages. After following the instructions on the Valve Support page (of which there are precious few), and doing ridiculous things like updating my DVD-ROM bios at their request, it still wouldn't work.

I finally looked online and found that a score of others are having the same problem. The answer: Faulty disks! The media Valve used to distribute the game is horrible, some of it getting corrupted between release and my time of purchase (less than 15 days!)

I had to return the CDs for replacements, and then the game installed the first time. Oh, by the way, if you have dial-up (thanks to living in a rural area), installation will take at least 90 minutes. You have to install Steam--a ridiculous program that is the ultimate Digital Rights Management kick in the neck--(5 minutes), install the game (15-20 minutes with CD swapping on 5 CDs!), let Steam update itself (10-20 minutes), register for a Steam account (10 minutes), register your game with your Steam account (15-20 minutes), and then allow Steam to "decrypt" your game so it's playable (20-45 minutes).

After all that, it STILL takes more than 90 seconds just to get to the game's main menu when you run it! I had Commodore 64 games in the late 80's that loaded faster than that. To to it all off, with this new "innovation" in game installation (read: annoying ploy to destroy our souls to keep someone's 13-year-old cousin from burning his own copy), there are NO DIRECTIONS, NO GAME MANUAL, no nothing! There's a "reference card" to help with install, which says nothing of what Steam actually is or will do to your machine (it resides in the system tray and eats resources even when you're not playing?!)

For a game that was so severely delayed, this is not just disappointing-this is unconscionable design. There are as many pages of advertising for ATI video cards as there are instructions. By the way, forget about tech support. I emailed them 3 DAYS AGO, and have heard nothing back. Of course, you can try "live tech chat." Good luck with that, if you can even get connected. No telephone support, and no contact info for support on the ridiculous card that's not even a manual. There's no game manual even on the CD, from what I can find!

For those who say you can't rate a game based on its install and interface, I have to disagree. In fact, I think it is inane to think otherwise. How can you rate a car that's nearly impossible to get into? Sure, it might drive great, but if you can't actually squeeze through the door to get in, what use is all that speed?