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How much time do you have?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 24 / 29
Date: October 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is a blast- no way around it. But Steam, Valve's annoying memory hog run in the tray adware copyright protection content delivery application is a constant source of screaming fits. Every time I sit down and I just want to play for 30 minutes or something before work or school, Steam throws an error and refuses to let me into the game, even going so far as to tell me that I do not own the game, or its "unavailable."
Valve is going to have to realize that treating customers like criminals is just bad business, and that Steam has GOT to go.
I can no longer reccomend this game despite it's being so much fun, because at least %50 of the time I try to get in to play it, I am unable for some error.

Excellent game, spoiled by the most intrusive piracy protection ever!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 17 / 20
Date: September 21, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I endorse all the other reviewers postive comments about this game. As 1st person shooters go, it's about as good as they get. But I felt I had to post a warning for anyone who, like me, had no idea about this 'Steam' anti-piracy thing.

Frankly, I thought some of the other reviewers were getting too worked up about it. After all, for goodness sake, how bad can it be?

The answer is, very, very bad. I really, REALLY resent having to install this kind of adware on my machine, just so I can pay a game that I paid good cash for. I can't believe how intrusive the Steam system is, and much as I love this game, I will not ever buy any other product that forces me to install this junk on my machine, regardless of how good the game may be.

The long awaited sequel was worth the wait...barely.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: July 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

So, I'm here a bit late, but another review can't hurt since a lot of people might buy this game in wake of the new, decent, expansion.

Developers outta keep quiet about release dates. Premature talk breeds media floods. And media floods pigeonhole developers into making deadlines. Deadlines are meant to be broken. When the bomb was dropped that a lot of the Source code was stolen, Valve pussyfooted around the subject of Half-Life 2's release and used the theft as an excuse to delay the game. Fair enough, Valve taught the hackers and us a lesson, but with all the preloading of Half-Life 2, and the free Half-Life 2 giveaways with video cards, Valve was really doing the gamers a disservice by creating hype. Hype tends to equal bad, especially for a sequel.

The good news is Half-Life 2 rocks. Half-Life 2 rocks like Half-Life, and a lot of the great FPS games that have come out over the past few years. Amazingly, Half-Life 2 doesn't do too much in terms of changing the formula from Half-Life. In fact, Half-Life 2 has a scarily similar formula and story to Half-Life. But that's no deal breaker: Half-Life has been the best first person shooter to grace this planet (in my opinion, anyway), and it still holds up today with the exception of its graphics. Very few titles managed to push the envelope and expand upon the style that Half-Life created (No One Lives Forever is definitely one of the games that should get mentioned). Half-Life was a linear game, and Half-Life 2 is also linear. In that respect, there have been titles that have changed the genre, but very few linear FPS give a bump like Half-Life.

You know the story; you're Gordon Freeman, scientist, middle-aged guy, general bad-arse. You have a cool protective suit, a crowbar, and a few nifty weapons at your disposal. Half-Life 2 plays out a lot like Half-Life 1, though I won't ruin any of the story. A little bit into the game, you pick what has to be the most entertaining piece of First Person Shooter history, the Gravity Gun. This bad boy allows you to pick up, move, and propel objects at your enemies. It's a great replacement for shotguns and pistols, and it's tons of fun. All of a sudden, useless stuff that acts as level detail in other FPS games become deadly projectiles. It's pretty much the most awesome thing ever. The Source engine has some of the best physics you will see in the genre. Objects break, crumble and move. It's satisfying when you tear stuff apart, and there's never that cold dull feeling you get in some of the levels in other games like Doom 3 and F.E.A.R.. The enemy A.I. is okay, not great. Years of Counter-Strike has, apparently, made me pretty good at killing the Combine. And if you go from playing F.E.A.R. to Half-Life 2 you may find the A.I. a bit disappointing. Still, the A.I. will give you a run for your money if you crank the game up to the hardest difficulty, and I recommend you do just that so you can take more time to immerse yourself in the wonderful world that is Half-Life 2.

Half-Life 2 hasn't been all that revolutionary, or groundbreaking, or life changing. It plays out so much like Half-Life that it's easy to accuse it of being unoriginal and uninspired. But the truth is, why fix something that isn't broken? Valve has added a lot of new things that make Half-Life 2 worth playing, and fans of FPS owe themselves to check this title out. As far as linear FPS go, Half-Life 2 continues to raise the bar. For what it's worth, to me, Half-Life is a more fun game, because when I played Half-Life 2 there were a few moments of, been there, done that. But, Half-Life is getting graphically old, and the gameplay is starting to show its simplicity. And Half-Life 2 rocks anyway. So, do yourself a favor, and check this game out.

However...

I passionately dislike steam, although it does have one or two perks for its 20 flaws. In case you are wondering, Steam is Valve's handy tool to help you organize and play all of your Valve games.

If you have a broadband connection and credit card, I recommend downloading steam and just buying the game through steam. Non-broadband users should get the game from the store, because they can install most of it off the CDs or DVD.

The pros of buying the game from steam include, being able to just buy Half-Life 2, not Counter-Strike: source, and saving a trip to the store. The cons are you need (well, you don't NEED, but you should unless you don't mind waiting for a long long time) broadband.

For non-broadband users, the pros of buying the game are that you avoid the hassle of downloading it. In fact, it's pretty much impossible to get the game on a 56k connection, without aging a lot. The cons are that you have to buy the game...which comes with CS: Source, so you end up spending more money. Also, the game doesn't come with any linear information or booklets, just the CDs/DVD and CD-key. The biggest con is that you STILL NEED STEAM to activate and play the game. And in order to play it, STEAM will put you through the painful process of downloading patches, something that will still take a long long time.

For what it's worth, STEAM has become a marketing tool. Steam will alert you when new games are out; be sure to have a credit card at hand, most of the new games are only 20 dollars. Steam also will ask if you'd like to participate in surveys, and steam will occasionally crash. Steam also does weekly updates...which make me question A) the integrity of Valve's product, or B) the integrity of the updates themselves.

If you can get over the mountain that is Steam, you are in for a real treat. A game that does what it sets out to do, live up to the Half-Life name.

EDITED: Crashes far too often

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 18 / 26
Date: July 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I have NEVER had this much trouble with a game before. It often times won't run very long before crashing back to the desktop. I've updated every driver and shut down every other application to no avail. My computer is a Pentium 4, 1Gb Ram, and a GeForce video card. The problem seems to stem from the mandatory component called "Steam". It is very problematic for some people (me included). Apparently it is made for those with high speed internet connections, rather than those of us with dial-up connections. If you have dial-up you can expect problems. The game seems to "mandate" internet connection or it will crash, and with a low speed dial-up it's any iffy affair. Too bad the game will not work without Steam. It's a great game - When it works...

Would have been a great game, if there wasn't Steam involved.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: February 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Half Life 2 is a very good game that combines puzzle-solving and First person shooting elements. The gameplay is fun, as are the graphics and sound.

First, let me start off with the basic summary.

You play as Gordon Freeman, physiologist of Black Mesa. After the accident and defeating the Xen, the G-man offered Gordon a job in which he assumingly accepted. In the beginning of the game, you end up in City 17, during the time where the Combine(Aliens) invaded and controlled Earth. Throughout the game you fight the Combine as well as Zombies.

A very fun and interesting part of Half Life are not the standard weapons, but the Gravity Gun. Using the Gravity Gun, you can lift almost anything, and towards the end, even people. The physics are really amazing. If you turn on a furnace and throw a gas tank in there, a fire will start, burning zombies chasing you.

Here are your weapons: Shotgun, Gravity Gun, RPG, SMG with grenade launcher, crossbow, grenades, crowbar,pistol, magnum,pulse rifle, and also the enviroment. (Be creative!) You get to drive some vehicles in the middle of the game.

The graphics are almost as good as Halo 2, but detailed enough that you can see scraches and dents on objects.

Here is what I hate about the game: Steam.

Steam is this thing Valve uses that forces people to sign up online, even just to play offline. You can't just install it, like other PC games. This gets really annoying if you've got slow internet or no internet at all. My dad (I'm 13) gives me barely any internet time so I can barely play Half Life 2. So, in other words, If you don't want a hassle, don't buy Half Life 2. This stupid program valve runs pisses everyone off.

Hope this review was helpful.

Nearly perfect

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: July 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

As far as HL2 goes, the game is nearly perfect. It is easily the best FPS I have played and I would recommend it to anyone over eighteen. It is bloody and filled with gore not to mention a few places that will make you scream/jump/scared. The only drawback is Steam but it is not that bad.

The installation is time consuming. The CD version contains five discs. Please make sure all drivers including sound are updated. Once installed, Steam takes over to provide updates. Once updated and verified you have the option to disallow Steam to run on startup through the setup which I recommend. You do not need to connect to the internet to play the game. If you disable your internet connection prior to starting the game you will be prompted to either connect to the internet or play offline which is what I normally do. One added bonus to using Steam online is that you can backup your saves using Steam which I do on occasion because I switch back and forth between my desktop and laptop. Nice feature but probably not useful for most people.

As for the game itself, the main drawback is the load times that occur during play. This can be annoying but it is there for a reason. During this period the games loads new information into ram and virtual memory allowing for the immersive play. A trade-off was made between the need for hardware performance and allowing users of lesser systems to run the game on higher settings. The game is processor driven. A high end video card is not needed. I initially was running a basic ATI X300se series card with 64 mb of memory from Dell. I have since upgraded to an ATI X600 series with 256 mb of memory and really can not tell the difference. RAM and processor are much more important to a good experience than a more expensive video card.

My desktop runs the game extremely smoothly with the following configuration. Current configuration includes 2 gb of RAM and an ATI X600 video card and the difference is not very noticeable.

Dell Dimension 4700C

Intel Pentium 4 at 3.4 ghz
1 gb of memory
ATI X300 video card with 64 mb of memory.
160 gb SATA HDD 10,000 rpm
19" Ultrasharp LCD

My laptop does an OK job on HL2. Performance is somewhat jumpy and load times are much longer.

Toshiba Satellite

Intel Celeron M at 1.5 Ghz
704 mb of memory. (this is not a typo and I know that it is an odd configuration)
ATI XPRESS 200M series card with 64 mb of memory.
60 gb PATA HDD at 5,000 rpm
15.4" monitor

I would not recommend running this game on a comparable or lesser system than my laptop, It just takes the fun out of it. However, if you have a decent system, it is absoluetly wonderful. Steam is a pain but you really only have to deal with it once and the game makes it worth it.

Awesome game even with the very slight problems

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: February 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'm a fan of the Half Life series, played Half Life 1 and was the first game that really held my interest with the story line. The game was what I felt, the first thinking first person shooter, not just a run and gun Doom type game.

Here in Half Life 2 we see the similar style of game play but with a deeper story and greater graphics. Basically, the game starts out with your character, Dr. Gordon Freeman, on a train to City 17, a place somewhere in Europe. The world has been taken over by the Combine, an alien race that is controlling the world. Without giving away more of the story and some of the suspense, the game play is your character battling with the Combine forces and teaming up with the rebel underground fighters.

Overall the game is very impressive, one very fun item about Half Life 2 is the fact that most objects can be moved, picked up, or destroyed. With a physics engine built in, objects act like they do in the real world, especially when shot with a weapon. The characters also react to your actions in a somewhat responsive style but usually it's just a looped message.

As for the graphics, I'm playing this game at 1280x1024 on a GeForce 7800GT, AMD 3800 XP2, 2GB memory, running at a steady 100 frames per second. There are some places where the frames really drop, for example in the large outdoor areas I saw some drops near 30fps but overall the game plays fast enough for me. It's much faster than a game like FEAR which even my computer can not play at 1280x1024. The sound is great as well, I have a 5.1 surround system for my pc and the ambient sound is awesome. I can easily pin point a target behind me and the music for each level or end boss matches well.

Overall there are great details and the settings are done very well. I especially liked the feel of the level Ravenholm, it was very dark and spooky, where as Highway 17 displays awesome views of the coast line and bright colors. Don't be surprised at the colors when you first play Half Life 2, there is a very over-exposed look of the game, and while you still have bright colors some things appear more washed out. I noticed this mostly on the long bridge of the Highway 17 level.

As for the overall game play I have to say it's a bit more in depth with the fighting thanks to the interactive objects of the environment. For example, there are many explosive red barrels located through out the game, which can be used against the opposing force. Also other objects can be thrown as well, later in the game you will receive a new weapon that makes great use of most objects such as saw blades, cinder blocks, gas cylinders. Personally, for this factor alone I love playing Half Life 2 :).

With Half Life 2, I really enjoyed the story and dialog between the characters. The game really doesn't have many cut scenes since the actual scene is really in the game. You interact with the computer players of the game but again, it's very linear and only can give them basic "follow" "stay" commands. The opposing forces AI is decent but does not open up nothing new other than using different techniques for fighting them. I didn't notice any of the AI getting stuck (sometimes the computer characters will get stuck in a door way or someplace cramped) but still attacked in a very simple method.

If you have read about Half Life 2 on the Internet you may come across many arguments about Valve's Steam application. Basically Steam is the method for authorizing and downloading the latest patches. You can also download the latest games from Valve and other popular modifications of the Half Life 2 engine. Basically, in order to run Half Life 2 you need to have Steam running in the back ground. Again, some people hate it but it looks like this is the future of video game publishing and a method to defeat game copying.

I should also mention that with Half Life 2 there is a very common problem of a stuttering with the game. Basically the game will load the next scene and just stutter for a few minutes or lock up and crash. On my system, the stuttering is usually only when loading or saving a new game save. I have heard many suggestions from not enough memory to slow drive access causing this problem.

On the down side, Valve has pushed out a few questionable patches to the public. A month ago they updated the game content with a video change that caused all of the surfaces to be very glossy and have a silver sheen. A few weeks later Valve again published another upate to resolve this issue.

Once you finish the game I didn't feel the need to complete the story again. I think part of the factor about this is you already know where the people are going to jump from and all of the traps.

But that doesn't mean you can't play any modifications of the Half Life 2 game! Since Valve allows free use of the tools to create Half Life 2, many people (including you) can create a game of their wishes. Now it's hard and not just point and click but this means lots of custom games are available for download from the Internet for free. My personal favorite is a mod called Garry's Mod (http://gmod.garry.tv/) this mod allows you to free roam or what's called playing a "sandbox" level. Basically you can add any player to an empty level, monsters, weapons, even add building objects. It's lots of fun and you can create little battles, or practice your shooting by adding a bunch of zombies.

Overall, if you don't mind spending the money I think your will be greatly impressed with Half Life 2. Yes, it has a tad more bugs than other games but the graphical quality will overcome that. If you're a gamer like me and enjoy a slightly slower paced first per shooter with some thinking puzzles and traps, then this is a great game. If you are looking for a much faster or pure shooting game I would possibly suggest Quake 4 or Battlefield 2, which don't have puzzles and other slowdowns of the game play.

Pros:
Great graphics
Awesome sound, especially in 5.1 surround
Controls feel great, no sluggish or sloppy aiming feel
Steam (for easy downloads)
Story line

Cons:
Steam (for crashing and authentication issues)
Load times between levels
Buggy updates (some times)
Multiplayer is not as fun

Hope you enjoyed my review.

Thanks,
Rob

Excellent Game... but you'll get Steamed waiting to play!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: November 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I have owned this game for just about a month now and I must admit. HL and HL2 are the best games I have EVER played!

HL - Source: while the game was certainly very good. I do feel cheated by the fact that the Source engine was not fully tuilized. I understand it doesn't look much diferent from the original HL except for better water effects. but you do have your scary moments. Overall, very good for an 8 year old game.

HL2: This is where the fun REALLY began... character appearances and behaviours are so lifelike. It's also the ONLY game I've played where AI ally characters say "excuse me" and "sorry" when I bump into them.

HL2 - Deathmatch: definitely a fast paced game where the gravity gun makes everything movable around you a weapon... just know that you are very prone to one-hit kills - with a toilet bowl!

HL2 mods: OMG..... The mods people are creating out there for Half-Life 2 are simply amazing!! get your hands on a download of the "Mistake of Pythagoras" mod. You'll be hooked forthwith looking for mods.

Now I come to my criticisms:

- game playing time is just a tad too short for me... beat both games in just about 2 weeks in between living life.
- WHY ON EARTH Does a game ship with FIVE CDs.... Don't these people know about DVD media??
- STEAM: (one star DEFINITEY deducted for this!) If ever there was an intrusive engine, Steam is it.... at least Sony's DRM was actually removable. I literally waited THREE hours between popping the CDS in my PC to install and actually playing the said game! You just installed the game, yet you still have to wait for HLS source files to download and install. (God help those on anything less than 256Kbytes/ps!) You are forced to register as soon as you've installed and also activate (What is this? Windows XP on steroids??).

What also really annoys me is that you MUST be online to play, even in single player mode. (At least having the CD in th drive is no longer required at this point.) So what happens if my DSL connection dies? And there is always an "update" that you are forced to wait on to finish before playing?? Geez! Can't these updates be done in the background? How no-brainer is that??

I just hope I can find a way to back up all these "updates" that Steam put on my PC... I swear I'll spin a tornado if I ever have to reload Windows on my PC and go through THAT torture again.

Conceeding that Getting STEAMED will be a permanent part of your HL2 experience, The games are good enough for me to go out and acquire the stand-alone expansions Episodes 1 and 2. If you are gonna buy this game, get DSL at 256K or higher! you have been warned!

Steam is not so bad

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: December 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Reading through these reviews, it seems that Steam is giving people a lot of trouble and thus, the game a bad name. I for one have had no problems with Steam. I bought the game in a store, installed it, and it has run fine. For those worried about the internet connection, you only need this to register your copy of the game. Once installed on a machine, you can select to play a game in "off-line" mode (meaning no internet required). Just thought I would help clarify.

steamed out

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 14
Date: October 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I never got to see it. 3300 megs , 5 dvds, it was gonna be great, but then
steam happened. with its patches and updates, invalidating my account,(witch I never wanted anyway) and always trying to sell me the stuff I just bought and lockups-- I have a dual core pentium with a gig of ram. Sure I have 56 k but thats why I bought the dvds. What crap, a million dollars worth of copy protection for a 30 dollar game. I don't want to be connected to the internet to play games that reside on my machine. Well anyway, a small miracle , walmart actualy took it back, goodby game of the year, goodby steam. stick it in your ear.

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