Half-Life 2 Review (xr0)
“There's so much here to talk about, but in truth I don't want to talk, I just want to get back to it: more, more, more... You have to experience it for yourself. This is the one unmissable game. It's time to get that cutting-edge PC system. Sell your grandmother, remortgage the cat, do whatever you have to do. Just don't miss out.” – PC Gamer 2004.
As described in my 25-year anniversary review for Half-Life, it’s incredible to see how this franchise has stood the test of time. I routinely come back to play the Half-Life series, and it’s added a bit of extra enjoyment this year ‘round having recently completed & added Half-Life: Alyx into the mix. The moment I load HL2 and hear that valve boot music, my collective conscious unravels many fond memories I have for this game – Ravenholm (don’t go there). Striders. Dog. G-Man. Gravity Gun. And of course many, many more.
Half-Life 2 had ground-breaking shoes to fill following its predecessor in 1998. Six years later, HL2 released and it once again blew people away. It blew me away: I absolutely adore this game. It’s true that HL1 was one of the first PC games I’d seen and played as a kid, but HL2 was the first Half-Life game that I was able to take complete control over. We’ve now entered two decades since it’s been released, and as you can tell by my time count it’s an endless, boundless, joyous experience that I find personally unmatched in terms of FPS replayability.
Half-Life 2 takes everything that works in Half-Life and improved on it. It’s been second-to-none at popularizing the use of physics manipulation to attack enemies or solve environmental puzzles, and the game's facial animation system is magnificent. It’s 20 years on now, and you can still feel the emotions displayed throughout character expressions.
I could write a novel with the amount of areas I want to cover, but for the sake of simplicity I’ll go through a couple of them lightly. Weapons – the introduction of the Gravity Gun! An unrivalled addition to anyone’s weapon array, capable of throwing or launching anything that’s not bolted down to the floor. Add into the mix a new throwable ‘Pheropods’ later in-game, which allows for Gordon to summon Antlion armies at the flick of his wrist. Pretty damn cool.
Levels (and their designs) – a big and beautiful world to explore. Starting in combine-controlled City 17, later making way through the old Canals onto a hoverboat towards the Black Mesa East resistance base. This eventually leads you through the daring journey of a little ghost town known famously as Ravenholm, a place rampant with jump-scares and nightmares... still to this day. From here you make your way through the Coast, pushing through to Nova Prospekt in attempt to overthrow the Citadel. As Gordon travels, he is aided by the citizens of City 17 and those that aim to fight the oppressors. Their hidden bases are, like the characters who inhabit them, hugely varied—an abandoned farm, a lighthouse, a canyon scrapyard and an underground laboratory—each superbly realised.
The sound effects are exhilarating. Combining these concussive sounds with the physical solidity of weapons, enemies, objects and environments, each encounter is alive with abrupt and impressively brutal effects. Bullets and shells spraying the air, whacking and slamming with devastating power. Explosions of grenades and barrels are unwelcome, loud and disastrous to all. The Combine are a fierce, mean opposition, and they’ll work in numbers to add pressure through man-power, strategy and weaponry.
It is this all-encompassing commitment to flawless design that makes Half-Life 2 so appealing, even still after all of these years. Even without the cascade of inventiveness that makes up the action side of events, the environments become a breathtaking visual menagerie.
One of the greatest games ever made, and a franchise that made me a PC Gamer.