Half-Life 2 is a masterpiece and it's surprising that people still play it to this very day, and honestly, it deserves all those players, because it's a game that defines peak technology. This sequel lives up to the first. Valve's second installment in the franchise followed a protracted five-year $40 million development, during which a substantial part of the project was leaked and distributed on the Internet. Sometime in 2002, the game was leaked by Axel Gembe, a dumbass 20-year-old who hacked and stole the source code and slowed down development. The game was delayed for over a year in late 2004. But this year, 2024, is the official 20th anniversary of the official sequel to Half Life (which celebrated its 25th anniversary a year ago, in 2023). The game received a 20th-anniversary update including the new UI menu, Episodes One and Two as an integral part of the game, Steam Workshop support, and much much more. The modifications are also great, including some of them that improve the graphics such as Half-Life 2: Update, which is made by one person who is involved in the development of Half-Life 2 (available on Steam). But, despite being a great update that fixes and adds a lot, it has its fair flaws, such as issues with non-Steam Workshop mods they don't work well with this update, and Alyx doesn't appear in the Lowlife chapter in Episode One.
The game takes place some years after the events of Half-Life, where the protagonist, Gordon Freeman, is awakened by the enigmatic G-Man to find out that the alien Combine has taken over the world due to events that occurred at the Black Mesa Research Facility in 2010, the setting of the first game. Gordon encounters human resistance forces that aid him, including former associates from Black Mesa, among them Dr. Eli Vance and his daughter Alyx, the latter of whom joins Gordon as they search for a way to eliminate the Combine from Earth and free humanity. This game is separated into short-length chapters, including Episode One and Two.
The game has revolutionized graphics and physics due to being made in the Source engine, which was capable of more emotion in characters and beautiful environments that look lifelike. These graphics still are magnificent to this day, even two decades later (minus some textures that were somewhat low quality by today's standards when looking closer).
The puzzles are all physics-based. It also stands out from other FPS games that use them because most of them are just "go there and press a button or destroy something with this to progress", here in this game most of these puzzles feel like physics or environment interaction is involved. What's more fun is that it introduces vehicles that allow you to traverse large levels, which spice up the gameplay a little.
Instead of the same copy-paste scientists and security guards that Half-Life 1 had, there are more types of NPCs and even new characters who are extremely likable. From Alyx Vance, the returning Barney Calhoun to the Civilian and Resistance members you meet and team with. And because the game is more focused on the story, there are actual characters in the game. This includes Isaac and Eli who were both scientists that worked at Black Mesa and were there during the events of the first game. There is also additional backstory about the protagonist, Gordon Freeman and more elaborate development of his colleague Barney Calhoun as the briefly shown figure in the first game becomes a contributing figure in the storyline championing the resistance and saving Freeman. And, once again, the voice acting feels truly genuine, especially for a game from 2004, even 20 years later.
Rather than taking place in a Western setting, such as the U.S., or confined in a large facility, the game takes place in Eastern Europe, which is a nice and interesting idea. The area also has references from many Eastern-Europe countries, via signs that are written in different languages besides English (such as Russian, Romanian, etc.), and there are also more areas to explore within that world such as a drained coast, zombie-infested town, prison or an alien fortress. The world building excels particularly in the fact that the environment communicates the state of the universe without directly telling the events of what happened overtime, or hammering-in excessive details in front of the player's experience, letting the players immersed over the implications of the past events.
Thinking back to the story, it has a brilliant plot and story with influences from one of my all-time favorite novels, Nineteen Eighty-Four (no, not from the year 1984, but from the last 1940s, written by a dying George Orwell). Gordon is brought back into the world by the G-Man and finds Earth to be taken over by an alien race, and Gordon must help the Resistance take back Earth.
The gunplay and overall combat are an improvement that allows the player to defeat enemies more creatively and the toned-down difficulty allows for more intense combat sequences. Even better, because of that, the player won't have to deal with death traps and won't die as easily, and I really like that. The Gravity Gun additionally allows for more creative combat, such as throwing an explosive barrel at a group of zombies, and it also creates clever physics puzzles in some cases, which is another thing the game excels at.
We are introduced to new enemies, from the Combine Soldiers and Civil Protection units, the Manhack bladed flying drones that can be launched toward other enemies if caught, the bulky Poison zombies throwing poisonous Headcrabs that cripple the player's life to a single digit, to the towering Strider a tank-like but mobile alien with a heavy laser cannon that disintegrates targets and impales nearby targets with it's spindly legs.
Allies are much better this time. Their AI is much better (they strafe/use cover, verbally recognize different enemy types (i.e. "Combine!" "Zombies!"), and are smart enough to back away from melee enemies while firing), they have stronger weapons like SMGs and are bulletproof to the players' guns so you don't accidentally kill them. But the Combine AI aren't as smart as the HECU Soldiers as they don't run away when taking multiple hits. Allies also have an annoying tendency to charge straight into sniper rifle fire, cluster around each other and the player instead of giving anybody some space to breathe (or run away from a tossed grenade), and cannot be told to "wait" in a safe position for more than several seconds before rushing in to crowd around the player again. Resistance NPCs can even be annoying in the next two chapters for if not all hardcore players who want to kill the Combine alone, in the final chapters of the game.
Now, let's see about those episodes...
Episode One:
A new enemy, a.k.a. the Zombine, is introduced in the game. It is a Combine soldier which is controlled by a headcrab, which can hold a grenade until it blows up.
Some unused ideas from the development of Half-Life 2 have been reused seen here for the Episode's plot. Especially, the jaw bone from the Basic Zombie's model as seen from the the leak, being reused for the Zombine.
And last of all about the first episode, Isaac Kleiner's speech is interesting:
"Fellow citizens! Residents of City 17 and environs! By which I mean "sentient residents", of course, human and otherwise, although I believe there is little need to explain recent developments to our Vortigaunt allies. At any rate, first, as a matter of great urgency: If you still find yourself still within the confines of City 17, you are well-advised to leave the city at once by the fastest means available to you! We have restored service to much of the commuter transport system to carry citizens out of the city as quickly as possible. We have also established camps and triage areas in the surrounding environs.
- I repeat: You must evacuate the city at once! While there was certainly a great benefit in destroying the Citadel's teleport core, we have detected one rather unfortunate side effect. It would appear an inevitability that, very soon now, the Citadel will be consumed in a destructive event whose magnitude I cannot currently estimate with any certainty, except to say that it will almost certain irradiate a certain area of many miles' radius. Therefore, I repeat: Evacuate City 17 at once! If not sooner. I cannot state this without enough undue emphasis."
- Now, about episode two...
Episode Two:
A new vehicle is introduced: the salvaged 1969 Dodge Charger muscle car--a.k.a., one of my favorite video game vehicles of all time, instead of those ugly vehicles in those abhorrent Tom Clancy's games.
The Flashlight has its bar instead of being attached to the sprint meter.
There is a lot of variety. You can explore a mine, walk among a broken bridge, drive a muscle car, defend yourself from the incoming antlions and Combine, and more.
Three (four if you count the grub) new enemy NPCs are introduced. The Hunter, which is a miniature Strider that shoots flechettes, The Antlion Worker, which is a poisonous Antlion, another variation of the Antlion Guard and the grub, which can be stepped on to earn some healing pellets.
Two new characters make their debut as well. Arne Magnusson, a scientist who invented the Magnusson Device, and Uriah, a vortigaunt scientist.
Striders are much easier to kill. Rather than having to waste 5-7 rockets, there's the new Magnusson Device - This sticky grenade can be launched by the Gravity Gun and explodes when shot, shredding the Strider with no effort.
Some more unused ideas and mechanics from the original Half-Life 2 seen here, have been even more reused or reworked for this episode's plot. These include the Combine Guard's running AI being converted into the Hunter's running AI, and the first quarter of the game supposedly taking place in-between Eli's Cave to the Wasteland chapters in the beta version, is re-purposed in an abandoned mine in the retail.
The game is longer than its prequel, being two-thirds the length of Half-Life 2.
Unfortunately, this game has its fair share of bad qualities.
The amount of weapons is more limited than in the prequel. There were planned to be even less weapons in some earlier versions of the game, funnily enough! Also, they seem less creative with there being no alien weapons (excluding the Bugbait) at all. And speaking of the Bugbait, since it's an alien organic weapon, it unintentionally creates a gameplay plothole, which in the final version has the weapon creating infinite spheres while somehow not showing where new balls are grown (like being grown on Gordon's suit or where it came from); despite showing it in the leak, a concept art, and E3 trailer with the same name (which in the latter shows five/six of them are all equipped to try 'addressing'/fixing the plothole, rather than one of them and seeing it removed in the final version), that the Bugbait originally had limited ammunition (from one infinite amount to 5/10 balls).
There is a notable lack of enemies from Half-Life or even new ones not found in retail, with a handful more planned to be included initially, such as the Bullsquid and Houndeye.
Compared to the original game, the base game doesn't really have a challenging boss finale or final act, as it's essentially a chase sequence to race to the top additionally undermined by the fact you have a overpowered weapon in your hands. However the next episodes gave thrilling enough final acts sequences. This game even retconned has lots of things from Half-Life as you'll hear characters talk about things that weren't originally true or didn't happen in the previous game, which could confuse some players of the first game.
The original Xbox version has a couple of issues when played on the 360. It does not play on PAL-60 televisions with composite cabling (this doesn't affect PAL-50 televisions) and screen corruption in attract mode will occur after the console has been idle for a long time. And the Steampipe (Source Engine 2013) release of Half-Life 2 requires newer components in one's computer and a more capable GPU.
Not even Episode One/Two are safe from their bad qualities, either:
The ending was left on a huge cliffhanger for the course of 13 long years until HL: Alyx release. Originally, Half-Life 2: Episode Three (and later on, Half-Life 3) was going to be made but was at least put on the back burner due to a multitude of issues: scope-creep, developmental issues with both the Source Engine and the Source 2 engine, a lack of satisfying ideas, and the fact that they constantly wrote themselves in a corner since every script made led back to the Citadel. Fortunately, the ending of Half-Life: Alyx implied that Half-Life 2: Episode Three/Half-Life 3 is going to happen and the cliffhanger will be resolved.
The PlayStation 3 version suffers from technical issues and many framerate drops as Valve (at the time) didn't have that much faith in the PS3, as well PS3 development was very complex (due to Cell architecture) at the time, and outsourced it to EA instead.
One of the new enemies is just a lazy reskin (specifically the Antlion Guardian, since its only difference is another skin to tell it apart from normal Guards) that is toxic green skin, an effective radioactive-like push, and an okay in-universe backstory within the gameplay to justify their existence.
Metrocops don't appear in this game, yet the game never tells you why but it's guessed they were very likely wiped out by the time of Episode 2's beginning.
Even Combine Soldiers were completely absent from the final battle despite them being seen protecting an Advisor pod from another Antlion cave entrance. Thus it's a guess that this was a cut idea from the last minute before the game was released.
When I first played Half Life I was completely in awe. Not just at how amazing it was, but at the quality of the FPS having alien themes. Awesome stuff. And when it became more popular than a babbling, bumbling band of baboons (you know, that's really popular), we all knew there would be a sequel. I had nightmares about how they would stuff it up like they do with so many unwanted sequels before it. That's what they do to video games everyone loves (I've only met 2 people who didn't like the original, and they are escaped mental patients), they do stupid cheap-ass lame sequels so that we all lose faith in the video games industry ever making anything good ever again. Thankfully, this sequel is actually good. That's right, you're not hallucinating, you heard me, it's actually AMAZING! It does start off a bit slowly, but once it gets going, and the two chapters begin, it's non-stop fun. Again the graphics are improved and fantastic, and if it was awesome from the start I'd probably give it full marks, but since it takes a while to warm up I've gotta cool its jets off a bit. If you're not one of the mental patients who didn't like the original then you've probably played this already, for the rest of you give the original another chance and then go and enjoy this. It's a sequel that's like the first. And twenty years later it's still a favorite.