Half Life 2

Other products by Vivendi Universal

Product Features

• Realistic physics: objects have varied and appropriate mass, density, physical properties
• 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
• Special Edition includes Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, plus Half-Life 2: Deathmatch and Half-Life: Source.

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000AOE14M
• Item Weight: 2 pounds
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: September 6, 2005
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #8,052 in Video Games (See Bestsellers in Video Games)

Product Description

Platform: PC | Edition: Game of the Year

From the Manufacturer
Half-Life 2: Game of the Year is a special edition release of the best-selling and critically acclaimed title that includes Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, plus Half-Life 2: Deathmatch and Half-Life: Source.

Featuring amazing digital actors, advanced AI, stunning graphics, and physical gameplay, Half-Life 2 has been called the greatest game ever made and earned over 35 Game of the Year Awards.

About Half-Life 2
1998. Half-Life sends a shock through the game industry with its combination of pounding action and continuous, immersive storytelling. Valve's debut title wins more than 50 game-of-the-year awards on its way to being named "Best PC Game Ever" by PC Gamer, and launches a franchise with more than eight million retail units sold worldwide.

NOW. By taking the suspense, challenge and visceral charge of the original, and adding startling new realism and responsiveness, Half-Life 2 opens the door to a world where the player's presence affects everything around him, from the physical environment to the behaviors even the emotions of both friends and enemies.

The player again picks up the crowbar of research scientist Gordon Freeman, who finds himself on an alien-infested Earth being picked to the bone, its resources depleted, its populace dwindling. Freeman is thrust into the unenviable role of rescuing the world from the wrong he unleashed back at Black Mesa. And a lot of people he cares about are counting on him.

The intense, real-time gameplay of Half-Life 2 is made possible only by Source, Valve's new proprietary engine technology. Source provides major enhancements in:

• Characters - Advanced facial animation system delivers the most sophisticated in-game characters ever seen. With 40 distinct facial "muscles," human characters convey the full array of human emotion, and respond to the player with fluidity and intelligence.
• Physics - From pebbles to water to 2-ton trucks respond as expected, as they obey the laws of mass, friction, gravity, and buoyancy.
• Graphics - Source's shader-based renderer, like the one used at Pixar to create movies such as Toy Story and Monster's, Inc., creates the most beautiful and realistic environments ever seen in a video game.
• AI - Neither friends nor enemies charge blindly into the fray. They can assess threats, navigate tricky terrain, and fashion weapons from whatever is at hand.

About Half-Life 2: Deathmatch Fast multiplayer action set in the Half-Life 2 universe! HL2's physics adds a new dimension to deathmatch play. Play straight deathmatch or try Combine vs. Resistance teamplay. Toss a toilet at your friend today!

About Half-Life: Source Winner of over 50 Game of the Year awards, Half-Life set new standards for action games when it was released in 1998. Half-Life: Source is a digitally remastered version of the critically acclaimed and best selling PC game, enhanced via Source technology to include physics simulation, enhanced effects, and more.

About Counter-Strike: Source Counter-Strike: Source blends Counter-Strike's award-winning teamplay action with the advanced technology of Source technology. Featuring state of the art graphics, all new sounds, and introducing physics, Counter-Strike: Source is a must-have for every action gamer.

Product Description
Half-Life 2: Game of the Year Edition compiles all the best elements of this incredible game, with all-new player options and even better graphics. Start out with Half-Life 2, where you return to the alien research facility called Black Mesa. The aliens are now pouring into our world and you'll join the resistance movement to stop them. Battle it out with friends in crazy, realistic mulitplayer action with Half-Life 2 Deathmatch. Then test your tactical abilities with Half-Life: Source -- where the gaming kicks up anotch through the amazing Source game engine. With the Source engine, you get high-resolution textures, detailed character models, realistic physics and lighting, support for up to 64 players, shiny water effects & better objects - creating a more realistic gaming experience. The action continues in bigger, better form with Counter-Strike: Source

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The long awaited sequel was worth the wait...barely., July 29, 2006

By	The_Great_Southern_TrendkiLL (Naperville, IL) - See all my reviews

Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

So, I'm here a bit late, but another review can't hurt since a lot of people might buy this game in wake of the new, decent, expansion.

Developers outta keep quiet about release dates. Premature talk breeds media floods. And media floods pigeonhole developers into making deadlines. Deadlines are meant to be broken. When the bomb was dropped that a lot of the Source code was stolen, Valve pussyfooted around the subject of Half-Life 2's release and used the theft as an excuse to delay the game. Fair enough, Valve taught the hackers and us a lesson, but with all the preloading of Half-Life 2, and the free Half-Life 2 giveaways with video cards, Valve was really doing the gamers a disservice by creating hype. Hype tends to equal bad, especially for a sequel.

The good news is Half-Life 2 rocks. Half-Life 2 rocks like Half-Life, and a lot of the great FPS games that have come out over the past few years. Amazingly, Half-Life 2 doesn't do too much in terms of changing the formula from Half-Life. In fact, Half-Life 2 has a scarily similar formula and story to Half-Life. But that's no deal breaker: Half-Life has been the best first person shooter to grace this planet (in my opinion, anyway), and it still holds up today with the exception of its graphics. Very few titles managed to push the envelope and expand upon the style that Half-Life created (No One Lives Forever is definitely one of the games that should get mentioned). Half-Life was a linear game, and Half-Life 2 is also linear. In that respect, there have been titles that have changed the genre, but very few linear FPS give a bump like Half-Life.

You know the story; you're Gordon Freeman, scientist, middle-aged guy, general bad-arse. You have a cool protective suit, a crowbar, and a few nifty weapons at your disposal. Half-Life 2 plays out a lot like Half-Life 1, though I won't ruin any of the story. A little bit into the game, you pick what has to be the most entertaining piece of First Person Shooter history, the Gravity Gun. This bad boy allows you to pick up, move, and propel objects at your enemies. It's a great replacement for shotguns and pistols, and it's tons of fun. All of a sudden, useless stuff that acts as level detail in other FPS games become deadly projectiles. It's pretty much the most awesome thing ever. The Source engine has some of the best physics you will see in the genre. Objects break, crumble and move. It's satisfying when you tear stuff apart, and there's never that cold dull feeling you get in some of the levels in other games like Doom 3 and F.E.A.R.. The enemy A.I. is okay, not great. Years of Counter-Strike has, apparently, made me pretty good at killing the Combine. And if you go from playing F.E.A.R. to Half-Life 2 you may find the A.I. a bit disappointing. Still, the A.I. will give you a run for your money if you crank the game up to the hardest difficulty, and I recommend you do just that so you can take more time to immerse yourself in the wonderful world that is Half-Life 2.

Half-Life 2 hasn't been all that revolutionary, or groundbreaking, or life changing. It plays out so much like Half-Life that it's easy to accuse it of being unoriginal and uninspired. But the truth is, why fix something that isn't broken? Valve has added a lot of new things that make Half-Life 2 worth playing, and fans of FPS owe themselves to check this title out. As far as linear FPS go, Half-Life 2 continues to raise the bar. For what it's worth, to me, Half-Life is a more fun game, because when I played Half-Life 2 there were a few moments of, been there, done that. But, Half-Life is getting graphically old, and the gameplay is starting to show its simplicity. And Half-Life 2 rocks anyway. So, do yourself a favor, and check this game out.

However...

I passionately dislike steam, although it does have one or two perks for its 20 flaws. In case you are wondering, Steam is Valve's handy tool to help you organize and play all of your Valve games.

If you have a broadband connection and credit card, I recommend downloading steam and just buying the game through steam. Non-broadband users should get the game from the store, because they can install most of it off the CDs or DVD.

The pros of buying the game from steam include, being able to just buy Half-Life 2, not Counter-Strike: source, and saving a trip to the store. The cons are you need (well, you don't NEED, but you should unless you don't mind waiting for a long long time) broadband.

For non-broadband users, the pros of buying the game are that you avoid the hassle of downloading it. In fact, it's pretty much impossible to get the game on a 56k connection, without aging a lot. The cons are that you have to buy the game...which comes with CS: Source, so you end up spending more money. Also, the game doesn't come with any linear information or booklets, just the CDs/DVD and CD-key. The biggest con is that you STILL NEED STEAM to activate and play the game. And in order to play it, STEAM will put you through the painful process of downloading patches, something that will still take a long long time.

For what it's worth, STEAM has become a marketing tool. Steam will alert you when new games are out; be sure to have a credit card at hand, most of the new games are only 20 dollars. Steam also will ask if you'd like to participate in surveys, and steam will occasionally crash. Steam also does weekly updates...which make me question A) the integrity of Valve's product, or B) the integrity of the updates themselves.

If you can get over the mountain that is Steam, you are in for a real treat. A game that does what it sets out to do, live up to the Half-Life name.

25 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars How much time do you have?, October 4, 2006

By	David Kenneth Caudill "dkcaudill" (Hendersonville, Tennessee United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This game is a blast- no way around it. But Steam, Valve's annoying memory hog run in the tray adware copyright protection content delivery application is a constant source of screaming fits. Every time I sit down and I just want to play for 30 minutes or something before work or school, Steam throws an error and refuses to let me into the game, even going so far as to tell me that I do not own the game, or its "unavailable."
Valve is going to have to realize that treating customers like criminals is just bad business, and that Steam has GOT to go.
I can no longer reccomend this game despite it's being so much fun, because at least %50 of the time I try to get in to play it, I am unable for some error.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Excellent game, spoiled by the most intrusive piracy protection ever!, September 20, 2006

By	J. Scott "whitefort" (Co. Down United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

I endorse all the other reviewers postive comments about this game. As 1st person shooters go, it's about as good as they get. But I felt I had to post a warning for anyone who, like me, had no idea about this 'Steam' anti-piracy thing.

Frankly, I thought some of the other reviewers were getting too worked up about it. After all, for goodness sake, how bad can it be?

The answer is, very, very bad. I really, REALLY resent having to install this kind of adware on my machine, just so I can pay a game that I paid good cash for. I can't believe how intrusive the Steam system is, and much as I love this game, I will not ever buy any other product that forces me to install this junk on my machine, regardless of how good the game may be.

2115|R2Q4RS95TE7RHV;2115|ROCPWUMGKVRSQ;2115|R3DFGABH6YD7XR;