Product Description

Pistol-packing Black Mesa research scientist and scourge of the Xen, Gordon Freeman is back in the eagerly awaited sequel to the seminal first-person shooter Half Life. In Half Life 2 Gordon is again humanity's only hope against a whole sea of alien trouble as he joins up with another scientist Eli Vance and his daughter Alyx, in a mission is to save the world from being overrun by the Xen invaders. It seems that the incident at Black Mesa was just the tip of the iceberg and now the aliens have spread like a virus across the planet leaving death and destruction in their wake. It's up to you to set things right.

Half-Life 2 is set some time after the original Half-Life ended--with Gordon now in the employ of the ambiguous G-Man. The action takes place in the environs of the Eastern European-esque, City 17. Multi-player will be included.

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 behaviours, even the emotions, of both friends and enemies.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4504 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Sierra
• Released on: 2004-11-16
• ESRB Rating: Mature
• Platforms: Windows NT, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows XP

Amazon.co.uk Review
There can be few titles in gaming history that were more eagerly anticipated (and more consistently delayed) than Half-Life 2. The original Half-Life was one of the most influential first-person shoot-'em-ups ever made, with its amazing story-led gameplay and incredible artificial intelligence--this sequel follows in the same proud tradition. As with the first game you play resourceful scientist Gordon Freeman as he attempts to fight back against an alien invasion from another dimension. In the years that have passed since the first game the world governments have become ever more despotic in the face of the threat and Gordon once again finds himself fighting both human and alien foes.

Even more so than the original, what sets Half-Life 2 apart from the rest is its incredible technology--stunningly realistic graphics, amazing real world physics and highly adaptive AI. In combining all three elements, the game offers an almost infinite variety. One minute you find yourself being hunted down by Special Forces, using furniture to block doorways and throwing grenades to dislodge container crates and squish unsuspecting bad guys, the next you'll be stalking zombies through an abandoned village or fighting giant War of the Worlds styled tripods with the resistance movement and using a tractor beam gun to capture chunks of masonry and fling it at your enemies.

Half-Life 2 allows all this and more and could very well be the first game to actually exceed its hype, never mind just live up to it.--David Jenkins

Customer Reviews

Half-Life 2 on an older computer
I'm not going to do a lengthy review of the game - suffice to say that it is superb.
What I thought would be useful for people to know is my experience of playing Half-life 2 on a computer fairly close to the minimum specs. I have a 1.4GHz (pre XP) Athlon processor and a GeForce 2 graphics card that is only DirectX 7 capable and has 64Mb of RAM. My computer does have 512Mb of RAM which is double the minimum requirement, but it is only PC2100 speed.

The game automatically set itself at 800x600 with most of the settings on medium and of course no AA or AF. At these settings it runs smooth as silk (although the fact that the graphics card is only DirectX 7 capable means that I don't get to appreciate any pretty water effects etc). However, there are two main compromises -
i) Only surfaces very close to Gordon are rendered in detail. While moving it is fairly easy to see the border between sharper and more blurred texture changing.
ii) Non-important objects (boxes, non-explosive barrels, bits of wood, etc) become transparent and then disappear altogether at a distance from Gordon. This is mostly of no significance, but can occasionally be troublesome. Cleverly, objects such as medkits and supply boxes are visible from any distance.

As the game was running so well, I tried upping the resolution to 1024x768. At this level it still runs superbly well, with the only problem being a second or so of stuttering following a load screen. (By the way, load times are fairly long, but that seems to be a problem on higher specced machines aswell.)

Overall I am extremely impressed at how well this cutting edge game runs on an old computer. It has certainly not detracted from my enjoyment (although I do sometimes think how truely stunning it must look on a high spec system!). I would highly recommend this game, and I hope this review has convinced anyone with a less powerful computer that they won't be disappointed.

Lets just clear this up once and for all
Right. This internet connection issue. Yes, you do need an internet connection during the installation process which will:

1) Set up a Steam account for you
2) Prompt you for the DVD key
3) Decrypt the already installed files on your hard drive
4) Update the game

Steam is there to reduce piracy through compulsory registration, offer an online channel for buying and updating games and to help with network play. Once it's set up though (and it will take a little over an hour on dial-up), you will ONLY need to be connected to Steam the FIRST TIME you play the single player game. Just follow the 3 instructions about setting Steam options on the Quick Reference Card in the box.

The first time you try to play it offline it will say that Half Life 2 hasn't been set up to be played offline. Go and start it through Steam while online and when you've started the first level, QUIT the game. Then launch the game again without an internet connection, click 'play offline' in the Steam dialogue box and you're sorted, because the game is now registered and has stored the information it needs on your PC. But it's very important to follow the 3 bullet points listed on the Quick Reference Card.

I hope this helps.

BTW: Haven't got that far in the game, but already the atmosphere of City 17 is proving to be pure escapism. But that installation process...

Excellent game but please get rid of this steam nonsense.
Played the game all the way through on normal difficulty. I won't bother with an explanation of the game, you should all be familiar with it.

It is lovely. It looks and sounds fantastic, the new engine is a big improvement on the previous incarnation. I sometimes had to stop and just look around at the lovely scenery.

The new ability to interact with the environment is fantastic and will hopefully be improved upon in the future. Gives a much more realistic feel to the game and allows for some interesting gameplay where you have to manoeuvre objects in interesting ways in order to progress. It's also fun lobbing washing machines and such at baddies.

The range of weapons has not vastly changed, except for the new gravity gun, it's the usual familiars. It did feel that the range of baddies was limited, seemed to be fighting pretty much the same sort of things time and again. Also, they weren't especially clever, generally just rushed at you.

The levels are quite big, took about 12 hours playing time. It is very easy though. If you are a veteran gamer do yourself a favour and play it on hard.

The game alone does deserve 5 stars. The reason I've given it three stars:

Steam - A completely over the top, pain-in-the-backside method of distributing and controlling software releases. Installing the game took hours, because of steam. Even playing the game opens up steam and connects on-line. It is always there getting in the way. If Half-Life 2 was not such a good game I would boycott it all together because of Steam. The developers of steam seem to have forgotten about customer service, instead, their software is intrusive, laboured and unnecessary. I understand the need to introduce methods to reduce piracy, but at the expense of the majority? PLEASE STEAM, JUST GO AWAY!