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You'll become obsessive, just like me!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: February 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Well, I bought this game over Steam (www.steampowered.com) and it worked flawlessly, my advice to people who bought the boxed version of the game is to download Steam from the website above, enter your cd-key then download the game. If you don't have a broadband connection, then download Steam (672kb give or take) and install the game. Anyway, back to the game, I am an avid PC gamer so I have played all the new and old games. Half-Life 2 is the best game I have ever played. The Source physics engine is revolutionary, the graphics are the most realistic of any game out, and a very compelling story. You will personally want to kill Dr. Breen, and will fall in love with Alyx Vance. Congratulations Valve! This is part two of your brilliant masterpiece!

painfully disappointed

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 10
Date: November 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have never had such a painful installation. The year old software that comes in the package is obscenly out of date and requires hours of on-line updating. The STEAM support forum is virtually useless, so unless you are a boy-junior-geek-squad-techno junkie, think twice before you blow your dough on this alegedly superb game of the year.

Better Than Sex

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 10
Date: November 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

How Much Fun Is This Game? 12 Stars At Least
How Do I Rate This Game? One of the Greatest Games Of All-time, and easily The Best First Person Shooter ever created.

Chances are, you've played the first game - and you know it's unbelievable. It got game of the year for a reason.

Now, disregarding any issues you probably won't even have installing the game (I downloaded through Steam 20 minutes after it was released) - the game itself is perfect in pretty much ever single way.

Just make sure you have a pretty decent system to run this mamoth beast. But, if you meet the reccomended settings - then you're going to be in for a treat.

I've been playing literally every major video game release since I was born (1986). And I can honestly say, without a doubt, out of all of the hundreds (possibly thousands) of games I've played - Half Life 2 is going to be the most fun you've ever had doing anything with a video game - ever.

The graphics, the phyiscs, and sound in this game are absolutely to die for. Quite possibily the nicest, most realistic thing I have ever seen. You shoot a tin can, it'll bounce and make noise exactly like a tin can. You pick up a matress with your gravity-gun, and you throw it a zombie, and it will fold around him, and flop to the floor - and then he'll walk over it, as it slowly gives way under his weight. Amazing. You will have a geek-asm the minute you start this thing up, its amazing.

The graphics, superior 5.1 sound, and physics aside - the gameplay is non-stop incredible fun, with lots of cool puzzle-solving areas (but never too many), lots of cool vehicles and awesome weapons - plus, the Story of the game is just as good - if not better - than Half Life 1 (which Steam has awesomely redone with the HL2 graphics engine). Now, that's not to say the story is the greatest thing ever... but it still pretty good, and the characters are definitely rememberable in this one. But if you're looking for some unbelievable lets-all-get-a-bowl-of-popcorn storyline, then go get a Final Fantasy title or something, otherwise, this above-par storyline will do just nicely, as it in now way is bad (its ju

Graphics are good, but where'd the gameplay go?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 10
Date: June 13, 2006
Author: Amazon User

While the game has beautiful graphics and great physics, it has a very dissapointing thing about it. I believe that Valve may have spent too MUCH time on the graphics and physics engine because the gameplay has gone WAY downhill since the original. Quite frankly, I enjoy the original Half-Life almost ten times as much as the new one. Yes, the graphics in the original are very grainy and unremarkable, but it's really the fact that it is so much fun to play that makes up for it. Half-Life 2 has failed in making sure that the player is almost always having fun while playing. It's a bit boring, actually. There are too many jumping puzzles and things. Sometimes you don't have any clue whatsoever on where to go next. It's irritating when you finally figure out where to go, fight a battle, then find yourself stuck with another puzzle to solve! It's good to have breaks from the fighting, but you CAN overdo it. It is still a great game, don't get me wrong. It IS worth playing. I'd suggest getting the original Half-Life instead, though.

PROS -- Incredible graphics
Realistic physics
Great storyline

CONS -- Boring
Repetative

Great game, but still deserves ONLY 1 STAR

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 10
Date: December 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Half-Life 2 is a great game, no doubt about that. But Steam just about ruins it. Steam tells you when you can play or not. Steam will attach itself to your computer like a virus, update when it feels like it, and decide to crash when it feels like it. All I'm trying to do is play the single player campaign for a game that I paid $55 bucks for. But this is the 4th time this week that I'm unable to play, because the servers on Steam's side (nothing wrong with MY OWN COMPUTER) decided to choke and I can't play. If all this sounds ridiculous, it is. How they paired the greatest game with the worst idea ever to hit the gaming community, I don't know. Their explanation: Stop piracy? What, at the cost of "legitimate" customers like me that actually go out and buy the game? Now more people who actually bought the game are looking for hacked version just so they can play the game they already paid for. Sounds like a farce to me. Do yourself a favor and boycott all Steam products lest it become a standard for the future gaming, which would be a total nightmare...

Fantastic game, terrible delivery system

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 10
Date: November 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Unfortunately I've spent more time waiting for Steam to authorize my CD for an off-line, single-player game than actually playing the game itself. While HL2 does deliver on the hype with a truly immersive experience (I haven't even gotten to the monsters yet, and even City 17 itself is downright creepy), the hair-pulling content protection mechanism that is Steam makes the whole affair frustrating to the point of giving up. Which is a pity, as HL2 is a fantastic follow up to its predecessor. I suspect Steam will either work out its kinks or go the way of DivX, but in the meantime, welcome back, Dr. Freeman!

One of the best games ever, believe it.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 7
Date: February 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is absolutely phenominal.

I have to be honest, I didn't play much of the first Half-Life.
But regardless, this game has to be bought by any First Person Shooter fan, because this isn't just some run-of-the-mill first person shooter. This game didn't let down like Halo 2 did.(Sorry Halo junkies, I just thought Halo 2 was disappointing.) Half Life 2 has to be one of the best sequels created. I've seen a review that this game was "unoriginal". The Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator gun seems pretty original to me! Take that, blind critic!

Buy this game, it has to be in every gamer's library.

...what are you still doing here? Go buy the game!

Revolutionary engine

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 7
Date: November 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Half-Life, the original version was more than the game Half-Life. It was the best engine to be released at that time. For those that arent game junkies, the Engine is the nuts and bolts of the game that control the scenery, character appearance, movement and interaction of all objects. The original Half-Life engine was later used in countless other game titles. So a Half-Life 2 release is more significant than the actual Half-Life 2 game itself. They've brought out an outstanding new engine that improves graphics from the status quo as well as adding many new things that other game publishers tend to ignore. In HL2 you can interact with almost every object in the game and they move incredibly like that same object would in real life. I found myself sidetracked from the storyline for hours on end messing around. I ran in to someones apartment, pulled the TV (that was on) out of the wall (it turned off and sparked as the cord yanked out of the wall) and threw it out the window.

Take note that the bad reviews on this game are for the most part issues with install and copy protection. I chose the default settings and my install went through fine. I signed up for Steam and typed in my info, that went through without a hitch.

I underscore this: You must have internet connected at install!

I have to disagree with all the people bashing this game soley based on their own problems installing it. I read a couple negative reviews where it doest appear they even played the game yet claim that its horrible. What many people dont know, is PC Games are pirated more than movies and music. Half Life 2 cost over $40 million to make, they have to try and protect their investment. How can anyone own a PC and expect it to work like an xbox or PS2? Its a variable platform with unlimited hardware variances from one box to the next. It is very difficult to make one piece of software be perfect on 100% of machines. That said, i've heard they (haxors) already defeated the protection, so now steam is just a pain in the arse of legit people that have bought the game.

In any case, I enjoyed playing Half-Life 2 the single player game all the way through to the end. There are parts of it that are actually kind of scary, like this zombie town you have to go though. One tip though, think gravity gun and saw blades! Notice how when an NPC talks to you, they actually will turn their head and look at you, if you move their eyes will follow you. These subtle differences make this a big step for gaming. HL2 is more than just a game, its a relase of an entire genre of new games that will follow, a catalyst for many good things to come.

Just got Counter Strike Source beta.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 11
Date: August 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Well i got it yesterday and after 5 hours of play I can say the Half Life 2 Multiplayer is amazing. Counter strike, but with amazing graphics, fluidity and physics. There are now barrels at the CT spawn point on de_dust and you can knock them over and use them for cover, the smoke grenades actually work now etc. it's just amazing. However I was most amazed by the fact that the game works fine on my pc which is running a P4 1.8 GHz CPU, 256 RAM (took a while to load into the ram as everything else had to be put into vram) and a Geforce 3 ti200 GPU!! So those of you worrying about hardware, DON'T just use valves tester on their website, I got 45 FPS which is perfectly reasonable. Can't wait for the final version now.

Steam leaves me cold

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 11
Date: January 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Half-life 2 seemed to have the potential to be a fair game, but then I found I was doomed to be in the grips of the "Steam" company and no amount of effort made it possible for me to play the game without at least starting on line. This is a suck system. Next, I started running into software glitches. For one thing, the tunnel entrance to get the airboat to the final helicopter battle shows itself open to the player on foot, but solidly locked closed to the airboat, and you cannot survive on the other side without the airboat, hence, the game is terminally flawed. You CAN'T progress. After paying top dollar for what was supposed to be a good game, I am pissed as hell at having bought a piece of junk that won't play. It has crap controls anyway. Save your money. This is a rip-off.

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