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Don't buy it USED!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 14
Date: August 26, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you buy this used you will have to send the CD and all packaging INTACT back to Valve for replacement due to CD key being registered to only one user. It will cost $10.00 and take 6 to 8 weeks.

The instructions at Valve say that if you buy it used then ALL the packaging has to be sent back. How often do you receive all the original packaging when you buy something?

I just bought a used copy, and found that Valve's registration system was a ripoff. rather than dump this game on another unsuspecting idiot I have thrown it away.

What game?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 14
Date: November 21, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I've been trying for almost a day now to get this thing to work. I've never had so much trouble installing a game since the pre-windows days of 16 color ega graphics. Is there a lawyer out there who wants to start a class-action against Vivendi? Contact me please!

Worth the wait.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 14
Date: November 18, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Like a great many number of gamers excited about the release of hl2, i was online at midnite (PST not EST) to unlock my copy of hl2.

I thought i'd only play for a few minutes to see the intro movie and get an idea of how cool or not cool it turned out. 45 minutes later, I'm trying to pry my hands off the mouse to go to sleep.

My initial reaction to the game was a sense of returning home. The characters look amazing, but are very familiar too. Gamespot wrote a long report on valve / vivendi with many interviews with Gabe, and one thing really stuck with me, which was Valve's Kabal process and the question "how long has it been since something cool happened?".

A lot of manufacturers have built good games. But to make a game truly great, you need an ebb and flow to the adrenelin and a sense of exhileration now and again. HL2 has done this and Valve has really mastered the cinematic feel of this game.

* S P O I L E R S *

Playing through levels through the past few days, I've happily noticed that anytime i'm just about tired of the game, it takes a sharp turn. Playing last nite I thought... man i'm tired of shooting things, and just then i was put on a boat to drive through a river. When i'm gettin' tired of my boat, pow, i'm playing catch with a robotic dog. Just a lot of fun. And just around the time i'm gettin' tired of my guns, pow, new gun to play with. :D

* END SPOILERS *

Anyways, if you haven't gotten yourself a copy from Amazon, or from Steam, (CDs are great backups), grab one and set aside around 4 hours to play. I'm only around 8 hours into the game and I can tell that this one is a definite hit.

p.s. ppl have been complaining alot about half-life2, but few really whine about the game. If you want to complain about valve/steam/vivendi, that's fine... But don't tarnish hl2's name. It's obvious that it was put together by some people who truly care about delivering a fun and enjoyable game; one that is in a genre all on its own.

GREAT FPS! Steam is a PITA, but otherwise ...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 12
Date: August 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Except for Steam, I'd call this about the best fps I've ever played. The artwork is fabulous, and the motion, the weapons, vehicles, overall responsiveness and realism is first rate. And the story line, while not the very best, is a realistic vehicle for a genuine message, like a good video game should be. Because this is a great work of art here, folks.

The overall theme of this game is of the rebellion, taking place around the world right now, of humanity against post-humanity. Kind of ironic since anybody educated and wealthy enough to possess the game and a computer to play it on is probably pretty good posthuman material anyway. But that's what it's all about. (Same with "Prey," really, but the Doom engine s#cks by comparison.) In the game it's all about a violent underground conspiracy against faceless half-human mandroids, who are gradually turning all humans into faceless creeps; where in real life it's all about disorganized lo-tech cults, or tribes, or ethnic groups, struggling (mostly) peacefully to preserve something of themselves as the forces of "civilization" close in and normalize us all. As Gordon Freeman, you are the "last free man," and sort of a heavily-armed messiah. Just as some modern terrorists may see themselves.

Meanwhile, the game interface is fabulous, the action is awesome, and the artwork is impressive. The vehicles are awesome, and just loads of fun. The weapons are great, original, and work smoothly.

I'm very impressed that they can do so much without requiring that much of a video card. I have no problem at all with my "mere" NVidia 5600fx card. You can't even play Doom 3 or Quake 4 with my card, really, and their graphics engine is cr@p by comparison to the half-life engine. Sure, IMO any vid card that costs $100 is an unnecessary luxury--but still, compared to what's required to play something like F.E.A.R., or Crysis, I'm really pleased somebody actually tried to make a game that isn't just a demo for the latest outrageously expensive video card. Let the other chumps buy the $400 vid cards and I'll buy them later for an eighth of that. You can actually make really good games with just a good plot, engaging characters, good artwork, and maybe sneaking some ideas in there. It also helps if your graphics engine does a fabulous job. I have a 2.4 ghz p4, 2g ram, and this game flies for me. So a serious gamer would probably say it is a good game for a slow machine.

The only real detractor for this game is the whole Steam process, which requires you to be online while you are playing, even if only single-player like this game was basically designed for. Essentially it's an ironclad piracy protection scheme to keep the game from being pirated to death like the original half-life was. (After all, only the best games get ripped off as much as half-life 1 was.) D@mned shame, really.

After reading all the reviews complaining about Steam, let me say this: The game is absolutely great. If you have a legit copy, a good internet connection, and a Pentium 4 as good as mine or better and a graphics card of decent quality, you will have no problems. If you have trouble installing or registering, do a little searching for solutions before giving up. I discovered among other things you have to install the "optional" other game that comes with HL2 before it will install properly, and then you can uninstall it at your leisure, or just ignore it. I think the guys at Valve have displayed kinda poor business judgment before, at least partly because their focus is on the artistic, or so I like to think. The whole Steam registration scheme is irritating, but with a little patience I got it all worked out and enjoyed the game massively, which is what really matters.

So for $20, as I see it priced here at Amazon, it's a steal. If you haven't tried it this is one of the best FPS games you can get, and the hardware requirements aren't outrageous. You may find yourself losing a lot of sleep playing this great game.

WARNING about this game!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 12
Date: December 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I received this game for Christmas yesterday and was very excited about spending a few hours last night playing it. I am a devoted PC game fan, never having had an X-Box, Playstation or anything else. At 8pm I popped the first (of five) installation cds into my computer... and I was able to start playing the game at exactly 10:55pm. Yes, that is correct, I spent almost 3 hours installing and "registering" my game with Steam online-- an incredibly FRUSTRATING process that seems designed to punish legitimate buyers of this game by making them jump through RIDICULUOUSLY ANNOYING hoops in order to "be allowed" to play the game my father bought me for $55.

I understand that Sierra and Valve are attempting to combat software piracy, and I do not have a problem with them experimenting with ways in which to do this, BUT, this process they've created it completely out of line and I think nothing short of a public apology posted on their website and forums with the promise never to do something so HORRIBLE to their loyal consumers would ever bring me to purchase a game from either of these companies in the future.

I won't go into detail about the process in which registering with Steam entails, since I skimmed through a few earlier reviews and noticed that many others have explained it, but I had to deal with alot of "waiting to connect" and system freezing, rebooting, etc.

Also, I just wanted to point out how cheap the packaging was. I opened the cardboard box and 5 cds in paper sleeves fell out, along with a tiny "quick reference card" which gives you very little information. Gone is that little booklet all other pc games come with that give you important things like the games story/history, characters, weapon descriptions, and credits. Usually I like to read through that stuff while the game is installing... not this time. Instead I got to sit in my chair and stare at the screen and wonder why the game was such and incredible pain to install. And all other PC games I have come in a nice plastic case, so I am able to keep the game discs organized, but now I have 5 cds in blank sleeves strewn across my desk

I think we need to send a message to these people that they screwed up, and so I hope that if anyone is contemplating buying this game and is reading this review, PLEASE DO NOT PURCHASE THIS GAME!! Sierra and Valve need to get the message that we are not going to stand for this, and the only way that they will hear us is if we BOYCOTT THIS GAME! I hope that if they feel the hit to their bottom line they may realize their mistake and never do it again.

Also, keep in mind that alot of the five star, glowing reviews you will read here are FROM PEOPLE AT SIERRA AND VALVE! It is common practice for game compaines to "encourage" their employees to post positive reviews on forums such as Amazon. So keep that in mind, please.

As for the gameplay... well, I did finally play it for a couple of hours late last night, but the anger and frustration that I had experienced had left a bitter taste in my mouth, so I can't say I was ever completely "into" the game. Graphic-wise, I wasn't very impressed. Alot of the texturing was pretty flat and boring, the levels are very linear, so there is no taking you time and exploring your surroundings. The puzzles, so far, are very easy to figure out and get past, and the bad guys are very generic and repetitive.

The funny thing is is that I wasn't going to post a review here, even after my horrible experience with the game last night. I don't think I have ever posted a review on Amazon... I was just going to make it a personal point to never buy Sierra and Valve games in the future. But, today, after a good nights sleep, I felt refreshed and decided to play the game some more... hoping that the bitter taste was gone. So, I click on my Half Life 2 icon and then spent 10 minutes while the game attempted to connect to Steam... until finally I realized that my system had frozen which forced me to reboot. So, I realize now that every time I attempt to play this game it's going to be like this! Now I had to get the message out!

DO NOT BUY THIS GAME!!

BOYCOTT SIERRA AND VALVE!!

Great game, poor programming--please read before judging me!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 12
Date: January 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I love "Half-Life 2" - it continues the cinematic brilliance of the first game while adding a great continuation story-wise. It is not a rehash of the original - it improves upon it in every way. In a year of disappointing sequels this reigns king. "Halo 2" was a fun game and very good but it was way too short, the storyline wasn't as good as I had hoped, and the actual campaign was incredibly disappointing considering the potential. "Half-Life 2" blows "Halo 2" away. And this is coming from someone who is a fierce supporter and fan of the "Halo" franchise. But even I can admit its sequel's flaws - "Half-Life 2," in comparison, is a masterpiece.

But it is not a perfect game. Where "Halo 2" succeeded, "Half-Life 2" fails: its programming.

I have only a few complaints: I have a Dell Dimension 8200 "gaming computer" (according to Dell.com) with 2 ghz, a GeForce T500 graphics card (it's a bit out of date but not much), 256 MB, flat panel monitor, massive surround sound speakers - the works. And the game just won't play very well.

I know it's recommended to have 512 MB and 2.4 GHZ but even with the lowest settings, the game frequently crashes, freezes up, has EXTREMELY long load times, and the Steam-ware is absolute garbage!

I talked to someone with a 3.4 GHZ 1GB PC, and he said the game freezes up on him as well - and the loading zones take about thirty seconds to load. Which is quite long for a 3.4 GHZ processor! Just imagine what it's like on the standard 2 GHZ...my PC is fairly new - I'd hate to be buying this game with a PC a year older!

But okay...having the right computer to play this isn't really Valve's fault, right? I guess not. (Although considering the fact that most people in America and Europe still don't have up-to-date computers should have crossed their minds.)

That's not really my problem. It's the other stuff:

1. Takes over a half hour just to install the game. 5 CDs! No problem because I've had long installs before, but it's nevertheless a bad start. I don't mind this but the problem is that this is just the installation - we have lots left to go before we can actually play the game! (See below for info.)

2. Registering Steam - first you must connect online, then you must sign up for an account, and spend about fifteen minutes doing all of this. After registering with Steam, you must type in the game's serial code. It then spends well over an hour (on 56k connection) "decrypting" the game code, and then you have to restart.

This is when I was thinking, "Alright, time to finally play!" after sitting at my PC for 1.5 hours doing all of this Christmas morning.

But wait! There was more! After all of this, in order to play the game you must be online. You must then re-register the game with Steam when you first load it, and Steam updates the game/its software without asking you if you actually want to. Then, finally, the actual game loads and it takes FOREVER (on 2GHZ at least)! It just kept freezing up. I turned down all the settings the lowest they go and the game still locks up as I'm playing.

Every five minutes I reach a new loading zone and it stops for five minutes to load the next scenario. So you basically get five-minutes' worth of play time, then five minutes' worth of loading time. And then choppy, buggy gameplay.

As I said above, a friend experienced similar occurences on a 3.4 GHZ 1 GB PC so it's _not_ just on slow processors. Five minutes for me is thirty seconds for him - but that's still a long time to sit and wait on an incredibly powerful computer!

Also, Steam really p!sses me off because every time I restart my computer it pops up a message saying INTERNET CONNECTION NOT FOUND - RUN IN OFFLINE MODE? and then when I press YES it says offline mode is not available. It says this a few times until it finally accepts it.

There is no way to disable this (at least not to my knowledge). Whenever I click the desktop HALF-LIFE 2 icon to play the game, up pops a Steam box that says "Internet connection not found - play in offline mode?"

Just now I tried playing the game in offline mode and guess what? It wouldn't work. So despite the fact that it's supposed to play offline, I had to go online to play a game I paid $55 dollars for. This sort of thing really makes me, as a consumer, mad.

I'm not trying to bash the game. It's a great game but good god, the programming and whole Steam stuff is awful! It really makes the gameplay suffer as a result. I heard from someone that Valve rushed Half-Life 2 and it wasn't ready - there are supposedly many bugs in the code and it's locking up on many PCs.

And frankly I don't like the idea of going through all this Steam/registering stuff (2 hours' + worth!) just for Valve to verify I have a purchased copy. I can understand typing in a serial code - most games nowadays have these. But going through two hours' worth (!) of verification seems a bit much, and makes Valve seem just a bit greedy and disrespectful of its gamers. And even a bit pretentious - i.e. what makes them any better than any other gaming company?

Because let's face it - the people who want to get pirated copies are going to anyway, and Steam won't stop them.

THAT SAID, the game itself is brilliant. Without these bugs/Steam stuff it would be my new favorite game.

The game is very realistic, you can pick up just about any object. Where Halo 2 seemed to fail was in its build-up - Half-Life 2 has a strong build-up; you don't pick up a weapon for about 45 minutes and by the time you do you're really engrossed in the story and believing everything that's happening.

Once again (as in the original) everything takes place from Gordon Freeman's perspective and there are not cut scenes, which helps engross you even more in the story. Frankly the first game creeped me out a bit and it seemed a bit eerie - same here. It really leaves a disturbing after-effect - but in a good way. It leaves a strong impression.

The world you travel through is like a WWII ghetto - it looks like a huge attack has just happened, there are people being beaten and killed by enforcement officers who are evacuating towns.

It's all so realistic. It's all so fun. It's all so cinematic and totally 100% engrossing.

It's _the_ game of 2004, a benchmark revolution in gaming.

Hopefully by the time Half-Life 3 rolls around (and trust me - it will eventually!) they'll have dropped the whole idea of Steam and just deliver a straightforward game.

Because that's my only complaint. This is a revolution in gaming but the fact that this so-called "revolution" features the worst concept ever (ahem, Steam) is a step backward in my opinion. Kudos to Valve for making a brilliant game - but shame on them for having us suffer through their insane Steam partnership.

While I'm mentioning this, it's worth saying that every time you log on to Steam it pops up advertisements for other games as well. Is this what I want for $55?

So in conclusion:

Half-Life 2:

Gameplay: 10
Graphics: 9
Sound: 9
Fun: 9
Programming: 5
Steam: 1

Overall: 8/10 - a great game; shame about the programming.

one of the greatest games ever, but...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: September 05, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Yes, it is true. All the rumours were true about how this would be the greatest FPS game there ever was!!! graphics are perfect, i haven't had one glitch or bug in my gameplay, plot is great, yes true, it seems to be like Half-Life, but it is the sequel to it(duh), overall you'd think it would be THE perfect game!!!

but guess what?

it sure isn't!!!

but it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the gameplay! it's about BEFORE you play the game, you know, loading the game entirely? you have to sign on-line, not only to first install the game, but for each and EVERY time you want to play the game, and yes, i AM, in fact, talking about SINGLE-PLAYER MODE!!!!! yes, we all understand the whole piracy problems that are going on, but honestly, give us a break Valve!!! first off you had us wait an extra year and a half(at the minimum!) before the game ever became released, and yes, hackers did destroy the game while in the making, but come on!!! do we, even the most trustworthy gamers, need to prove EVERY time that we do, in fact, OWN the game??? here's your kudos...that's why i gave this game an overall score of two stars, and i only put in two stars because the game is perfect.

frustrated customer

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: January 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have just wasted an entire day trying to get this game to run. I curse those who came up with the steam concept. I did finally get past the steam nightmare, but this game crashes my relatively new computer.

Thx for the warning reviewers--avoid at all costs

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: December 29, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I loved Half Life and like a lot of game junkies was excited about HL2. Thank god I came here and read the reviews first. I knew something was rotten when a friend told me the issues with the key and installing. CD keys don't bother me but this is the most fascist thing I've ever heard of.
**Buying this game means you can never resell it, or give it to a friend after use**
Think about that for a second, this is something you just spent $50 on. I like to resell or loan/give games to friends, the costs are getting too high for me not to do so. When I read about this key nonsense that did it for me.

100% frustrating.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 15 / 26
Date: December 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Well, Valve has my money, but I don't have a game.

I bought Half-Life 2 at my local Best Buy and hurried home to see just how fun it was; I haven't had a good game to play in quite some time, and was pretty stoked by the "... THE BEST GAME EVER MADE" printed on the game's front cover.

Well, what WASN'T printed, on any part of the box or the non-existent users' manual (that's right -- the game came with no instructions, colorful manual with descriptions of weapons/monsters/gameplay, storyline, or anything -- just a DVD) was the fact that you need to register the game with something called 'Steam.' I suppose the idea was to keep people from pirating the game, but guess what?

Steam didn't work for me. I tried for hours to simply get the game to install, but I couldn't even load the files onto my hard drive because the Steam authentication server was down. After a long, fruitless struggle, I checked Google and found a myriad of similar complaints; maybe it's a great game, maybe not -- I'm not sure, because I CAN'T PLAY IT. I paid for it, yet can't install it... neither can I get help. I tried Valve's phone number, but got a busy signal each of the dozen times I tried it throughout the afternoon. I tried to get onto Steam's website -- the support page won't even load, and of course Steam doesn't have a single e-mail or phone contact on their site.

What a rip-off.

I advise anyone who is thinking about buying this game to either a) get Gears of War on xBox 360, or b) wait for BioShock, which is actually going to be an innovative game (unlike this, where you stalk the hallways with a shotgun, killing zombies, reminiscent of ALMOST EVERY FPS EVER MADE).

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