Half-Life 2 - izigame

Game Info

1998. HALF-LIFE sends a shock through the game industry with its combination of pounding action and continuous, immersive storytelling. 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 them, from the physical environment to the behaviors even the emotions of both friends and enemies.

Name

Half-Life 2

Companies

Valve

Released

11/16/2004

Platforms

Android, Linux, Mac, PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 3, Xbox, Xbox 360

Engines

Source

Type

Shooter

Social Networks

0

izigame

members favorited

Reviews

Saturday, November 16, 2024 7:32:27 AM

1074 Steam users votes up

TreeTrunk

Steam user

About 20 years ago when my parents separated I would stay at my father's apartment every so often where he would always have the latest newspaper. I used to always grab it and go to the end where there was a section for video game reviews. The games were rated out of 5 stars and the available platforms to play those games were shown next to the ratings at the top. The platforms for each game would be either PS, xbox or gamecube and I would wish that I had one of those to play these games that were rated 3 or 4 stars out of 5, the PC platform was rarely shown. By this time our N64 was gone but there were still computers at both my parents' places.
One day in that section of the newspaper I came across a review for the game Half-Life 2. The only platform shown at the top was "PC" and it was the first full 5-star rating I saw. The review was full of praise of the game, one of the things I remember it saying was that the characters look and behave very realistically.
I asked my father to buy it for me for Christmas that year and he agreed. Steam says I created my account on December 24, 2004, so it must have been a bit before that time that we went to EB Games and saw the price, from memory it was $60 (Australia). My dad asked me if we should just buy it there or should we try and find it cheaper somewhere else. I said we should see if it's cheaper somewhere else. We then went to BIG W in the same shopping centre and they did have it for cheaper, I think the difference was $10.
The staff member went away and came back with the game asking my dad if that's correct, he said he doesn't know and he should ask his son (me), the staff member showed me the game and I said yes that's correct. Twenty years later I still have it and I've uploaded photos of it here on Steam.
I'm trying to dig into the deep valleys of my memory right now, but I do remember putting the disk in, and it asking me to create an online account. That frightened me a little and put me off installing the game for some time, I don't know how long. I must have ended up doing it on December 24th and now I wish I would have just done it right when we brought the game home so I can get the 'Years of Service' badge on Steam sooner!
Anyway, it was the first mouse+keyboard shooting game I ever played, using the WASD keys to move and aiming with the ball mouse was strange for me at the time but I persevered because the game looked absolutely amazing and the world was so interesting. When there was a loading screen I would just sit patiently waiting even though it took about 10 minutes. I remember one of my dads friends came over with his daughters who were much older than me. I don't remember how exactly but they found out I was obsessed with this game called Half-Life 2 and one of the daughters asked if she could watch me play. She sat next to me watching, I remember her getting spooked by the antlions and me reassuring her it's OK because I have the bait that makes them friendly, and when I held the mouse button to continuously swing the crowbar at the face of the female scientist, we exploded in laughter when that NPC slowly but surely drifted her eyes to us XD
I also remember a puzzle in the game, where you have to swim to one side to drain the water so you can swim to the other side to reach the top? Something like that, but I remember when playing the game for the first time, there was a section I didn't know how to pass so I got pretty much all the barrels from the top, dropped them to the bottom section, and stacked them like a pyramid to jump to the other hole at the top. It took me hours because the barrels kept falling, but when I finally reached the other side, I was stuck and realised I was supposed to do something with the water. I'm sure people who have played it recently know what I'm talking about?
I also told many friends at school about the game, when I was talking about the ending I said "you die but you don't die" and they bursted out laughing at me, one of them kept saying that to me after that. One friend did end up playing it as well and he agreed with me that it was good. When we were talking about the game I mentioned that it doesn't matter how many times the enemy hits you at the beginning, you won't die, and he said yes because you don't even have a health bar.
I remember when finishing the game for the first time, I was reading the credits and trying to memorise the names of the people. Of course I didn't remember a single one but in my child brain I was thinking that if I ever came across any of those people I would thank them for making the game. I did the same for Half Life Alyx after finishing that on my Valve Index but there's still 15 years to go before I review that one.
Thank you for making the game and being a big positive part of my life.

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Storyline

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.

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