Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2 is a 2004 first-person shooter (FPS) game developed and published by Valve Corporation. It was published for Windows on Valve's digital distribution service, Steam. Like the original Half-Life (1998), Half-Life 2 combines shooting, puzzles, and storytelling, and adds new features such as vehicles and physics-based gameplay. The player controls Gordon Freeman, who joins a resistance to liberate Earth from the Combine, an interplanetary alien empire.
Half-Life 2
Valve
- WindowsXboxXbox 360PlayStation 3Mac OS X
- WW: November 16, 2004
Linux- WW: May 26, 2010
Android- WW: May 9, 2013
- WW: May 12, 2014
Half-Life 2 was created using Valve's Source game engine, which was developed simultaneously. Development lasted five years and cost US$40 million. Valve's president, Gabe Newell, set his team the goal of redefining the FPS genre. They integrated Havok, which simulates real-world physics, to reinforce the sense of presence and create new gameplay. They also developed the characterization, with more detailed character models and animations.
Valve announced Half-Life 2 at E3 2003 with a release date of September of that year. They failed to meet the release date, leading to fan backlash. A year before its release, an unfinished version was stolen by a hacker and published online, which damaged the team’s morale and slowed their work.
Half-Life 2 was released on Steam on November 16, 2004. It won 39 Game of the Year awards and has been cited as one of the best games ever made. It was ported to Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, macOS and Linux. By 2011, it had sold 12 million copies. Half-Life 2 was followed by the free extra level Lost Coast (2005) and the episodic sequels Episode One (2006) and Episode Two (2007). In 2020, after canceling Episode Three and several further Half-Life projects, Valve released a prequel, Half-Life: Alyx.
Plot[edit]
After the alien invasion at the Black Mesa Research Facility, a multidimensional alien empire known as the Combine invaded and subjugated Earth. Approximately twenty years after being placed in stasis, Gordon Freeman, the player character, is awoken by the G-Man (Michael Shapiro), who cryptically informs Gordon that "his time has come again" before celestially inserting him into a moving passenger train bound for City 17, an Eastern European city (probably in Russia as most of the posters and signs are in Russian) which houses the Citadel, a several-miles-tall tower which serves as the headquarters of the Combine on Earth. Helped by undercover Resistance member Barney Calhoun (Shapiro), Gordon attempts to reach the laboratory of Dr. Isaac Kleiner (Harry S. Robins) before being beaten and arrested by Combine officers. He is rescued by Alyx Vance (Merle Dandridge), who takes him to Dr. Kleiner's lab. During Dr. Kleiner’s attempt to teleport Gordon to the main Resistance base at Black Mesa East, Gordon is accidentally, briefly teleported to the Citadel office of Dr. Wallace Breen (Robert Culp), the Combine’s puppet ruler of Earth, alerting Dr. Breen to Gordon’s presence. Gordon is subsequently forced to progress to the base using the city's canal system, navigating it on an airboat.
Upon his arrival at Black Mesa East, Gordon reunites with Eli Vance (Robert Guillaume) and meets Dr. Judith Mossman (Michelle Forbes). Alyx introduces Gordon to her pet robot Dog and gives Gordon a Gravity Gun. Black Mesa East is suddenly attacked by Combine forces, who capture Eli and Judith; Gordon is forced to escape through the zombie-infested ghost town of Ravenholm, aided by its lone inhabitant, Father Grigori (Jim French). Escaping the town, Gordon reaches a Resistance outpost, whose inhabitants provide him with a dune buggy. He drives across Highway 17 to reach the Combine prison of Nova Prospekt, where Eli and Judith are being held. He breaks into the prison and reunites with Alyx. They locate Eli and discover that Judith is a Combine spy. Before they can stop her, Judith teleports herself and Eli to the Citadel. The teleporter explodes moments after Gordon and Alyx use it to escape Nova Prospekt.
Returning to Dr. Kleiner's lab, Gordon and Alyx learn that the teleporter malfunctioned and that a week has passed, during which time the Resistance has launched a full-scale armed rebellion against the Combine. Aided by Barney and Dog, Gordon fights his way inside the Citadel. He makes some progress in climbing the tower before he is captured and taken in a transport pod to Dr. Breen’s private office, near the tower’s apex, where he and Judith are waiting with Eli and Alyx as captives. Dr. Breen reveals that he intends to use his captives as leverage during negotiations with the Combine, which contradicts what he had previously told Judith.[3] Angered, Judith frees the three captives before Dr. Breen can teleport them off-world. Dr. Breen attempts to escape using a teleporter on the Citadel’s roof, but Gordon destroys the Citadel's reactor using the Gravity Gun, causing Dr. Breen to fall into the abyss, although it is uncertain if he had died as a result. Just as the reactor explodes, the G-Man reappears and freezes time, praising Gordon’s actions and placing him back into stasis.
Sequels[edit]
Half-Life 2 was followed by two episodic sequels: Episode One (2006) and Episode Two (2007).[80] After canceling Episode Three and several further Half-Life projects,[81] Valve released a prequel, Half-Life: Alyx, in 2020.[82]
