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All the clitches? All the Virus's? All the problems...Where??

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: October 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Half the reviews i read about this game are negative, now how a PC games gets it for Game Of The Year with all this negative feedback i'll never know, but really i do. This game is (was) way ahead of its time and still is here in 2005, yes we have beautifully graphically enhanced games like, Far Cry, Doom 3, Painkiller, and so on, big deal. These games while fun in there own right, get very mundane and i myself can onl stand to play them for around half-an-hour or so. I love Doom and have been a huge fan since 1991 or whenever it was first released, but it does get a little boring quickly. There is not much interaction with people, you can't pick up objects, or throw anything or even really talk to anyone for that matter. Then there is Far Cry, in which i think the only great thing about it is the Water effects, it is spectacular. However the game is extremely to hard and it gets old that everytime you get killed you must start back at the same point with the same amount of energy and ammo that you died with. Also there is no Quicksave feature. So many of this games are fun but redudant.
Half-Life 2 is very "engaging" to say the least from what i've played thus far, and it only looks more and more promising the more i play it. First off yes the graphics are superb, but it mostly the interaction in the game with dozens of people that make it amazing. You can basically interact with anything and everyone in the game. Much like a a FPS Elder Scrolls. The main problem i have is allll the complaining, i just upgraded one of my computers with this: AMD sempron 2800+(anyone who tells you its no good for gaming is on crack) its just as good as the AMD Athlon 64. 768megs of RAM, all games run flawlessly. And last but not least a nVidia 5200 FX card at 128mb(Yes this is a value card that many people put down), well guess what works just as good as a card you pay 150-200 dollars for, so don't believe what people tell you. Actually i got it for 23 bucks because STAPLES messed up on the discount, and the rebates. Lucky ME.
First off i have a 56k connection on my Desktop for now, until i move and get DSL, everyone says ohh it will suck and be unplayable(wronngg). There are very few times that any lag hits, if it does its very minimal, i'm sure that wireless and DSL are probably better but i don't think your just gonna be "blown away" by a faster connection. Also i never had one issue in updating, so it took 45 minutes to update Steam, whoopie, go eat for 45 minutes or watch TV if you have dial-up. Also there wasn't one installation problem here, ran great. The longest update was the game itself, probably one hour, again no big deal. Also when it asks(or tells you) that you need to update your drivers on your video card, don't take this at face value, i didn't update them and again it runs great. So where in the world everyone gets all this rubish from about how the game does this and does that i have no idea. Must not have a very top notch computer or they must have to much firewall and antivirus crap on it. At any rate this game is getting better everyday, i can even play it on a laptop with OpenGL extreme graphics on a lower resolution and what? You guessed it..runs fine. Later

sound story line and game play

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: November 18, 2004
Author: Amazon User

In 1998 I purchased half-life -an instant classic. The new version is a updated story and with great content. Hey Its nice to see barney again. Installed the 5 disc (4-6 min each. Having a current steam acct made the activison process go much faster. Total time was less than 1 hour from opening box to game play. Yes you can play the single mission without being connected to the internet- just follow instructions. FYI the game looks and runs great on my 3 y/o computer. Enjoy

System Specs:
Dell P4 1.9Ghz
Nvida 64MB video card
1 Gig RAM

Bug ridden engine, uncreative level design

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: June 11, 2007
Author: Amazon User

It's been a few years since I played this "masterpiece" but I remember it well.

Half Life 2 is a sci-fi/first person shooter that follows the adventures of Gordon Freeman. And by adventures I mean, shooting stuff and being denied information about what's going on by everyone. Of course you can infer a vague aliens took over the planet plot in the first 2 minutes, and the inference is about all you'll ever know. Cliche ridden sci-fi ambience aside, the real problem with Half Life 2 isn't the monsters in game but the monsters in the programming.

You see, when it came out there was a bug that seemed to randomly hit people. The bug caused stuttering with sound and hitches in gameplay, even on high end machines. The bug STILL exists and shows up in Source licensed games. I can only be confounded at how a development studio which as much money as they have can't make a stable game. id can do it. Crytek can do it and beat the pants off everyone else's technology. What's up with Valve? Aside from the infamous stutter bug, there are the load times that don't make any sense. Load times that are as if you're defragging your entire HD each time, it takes so long. How do you play a game under such maddening intermissions taking you out of the action? This is a problem that also has NOT been fixed despite Valve's ability to update their game. Add in the sloppy jalopy that is Steam, a piece of software you are forced to run to play their games, and I am utterly fed up with Valve's software practices. They just aren't up to par.

The last point I would like to bring up is the level design of HL2 was a joke. It was linear. As in, well a straight line of gameplay. It's almost shocking, like, am I playing Star Fox? Am I playing a 2D scrolling shooter for the NES? Why on Earth would they take the ability to make open 3D designs, and make every level a linear walk to point A,B,C... ugh, some of the worst shooter levels I've seen, although the office areas of F.E.A.R. trump it I guess. The thing is, Far Cry came out before Half Life 2, and you know what? It was wonderfully open ended. Sure you had to complete the objectives, but you weren't in a little of tube of gameplay with no other choices. Valve seemed to have gone backwards gameplay-wise, like another bigshot that crashed, id with Doom 3, they could not capitalize on the things that make gameplay great and so the game was just a hollow tribute to lots of money spent on art and self worship.

That said, I think Valve is very gradually trying to overcome the criticisms levied at them. It's not happening overnight, but I wonder, maybe we'll see a Half Life 3 that makes everyone happy and not just those who like their games dead simple.

highly overrated...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 23
Date: July 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is the most overrated game i've ever seen.
With NO storyline, half-life2 is getting 3^1/2 stars. that is impossible. games like this one should get 2 or less stars. Almost no effort was put in this game. I wasted my money for this game, and i'm buying an actually GOOD game now, called doom 3.
This is only my opinion, but i recommend you to spend money for something more worthy your time than THIS.
Not satisfied at all

Half-Life 2 OK

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 10
Date: September 06, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The game is a lot a fun. Game runs pretty fast with the notable exception of Steam (EVERY TIME YOU START THE GAME !) Steam would have problems connecting and it won't even let you play (even as a single player) until IT decides to allow YOU. Rated so low because Steam gets in the way TOO much. It is definitely a very obtrusive piece of software that really detracts from the quality and entertainment value that the game can possibly provide.

Half Life 2

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: September 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Great Game
Get the regular edition the collectors edition doesn't have anything to justify the cost.

One of the best out there

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: October 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

First and foremost, I'm sick of people writing about how powerful their computers are and they are having the hardest of time trying to play the game. Listen, I have a GeForce FX/MX graphics card, very ancient yes, all I did to play Half-Life 2 is download a updated driver for my graphics card, I have a lousy 20G hard drive, and yes, I deleted Freelancer and MS Money to make some room for it. My motherboard, a MSI KM4M-V Via Socket A ATX Motherboard and AMD Athlon XP 3000+ Processor
,didnt even sound intimidating right? I have a 512mb memory, a dull 1.2 ghz and guess what? I turned every visual to minimum detail, turned sounds to the lowest detail and wala! The game works great. As far as Steam, I only use it to play CS 1.6 online, I dont play the Source part. I have no problems with installation, or needing to have internet connection to play single-player. This game is awesome, I'm not saying its perfect but the story line is good, gameplay is great, graphics even when everthing turned to the lowest is wonderful. I do get a occational 1 second freeze but it doesnt happen all the time and not during intense fire fight. I was intimidated to buy Half-Life 2 because almost everyone reviewing the game is complaining about their computer specs, well, believe it or not, my specs are 2 year old technology. Plus, I got the game for only 10 bucks in a military base. I recommend this to anyone who is into, FPS or Sci-Fi or just a good long game to kill time.

Fantastic game with just a few flaws

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: December 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

For the first half of this game, I was ready to anoint it the best action game ever made. Everything just works so well. The gameplay is perfectly balanced, the mystery in the story builds, and everything seems perfectly tested so that it works just right. All of the additions that the game makes to the genre are ingenious. Then, about 2/3 of the way through, the game loses some steam. The level design takes a step backwards to 1998 in some areas. Other times, gameplay elements don't work very well. Finally, the story ends without answering anything, making you wonder whether there is going to be any resolution for what seems like a bunch of senseless plot twists.

Half-Life 2 is the most incredible looking game ever made. It blows away Doom 3, and is still easily better looking than Far Cry. Everything in the game looks amazing. The characters look, move, and act so life-like. The water almost makes you thirsty looking at it, and each of the game's enemies are loaded with detail. The new alien enemies that you meet about halfway through the game are particularly impressive, and the gigantic striders are simply unbelievable. City 17 is a strange mix of beauty and despair. I have never played a game that so perfectly captures an atmosphere like this. Imagine what a rundown Eastern European city would look like in a futuristic totalitarian state ravaged by mayhem, and you have it in this game. Towards the end of the game, when you are fighting through bombed-out, war-torn and flaming buildings, you have to occasionally stop to marvel at the carnage. Valve really hit a home run when it comes to atmosphere.

Half-Life 2 adds a lot to the original game. There are a couple of long vehicular sequences, some squad-based combat, a handful of new and interesting enemies, but most of all, physics. No PC game has integrated physics this well into the gameplay. The gravity gun is certain to be imitated by lots of other games. With it, you can pick up all sorts of objects in the environment and use them as shields or weapons. After playing through the game almost twice now, I can tell you that ripping a radiator off the wall and flattening an enemy with it never gets old. Neither does launching an exploding barrel at a group of enemies and watching them fly across the screen. The game also has some physics-based puzzles, which aren't that much of a highlight.

With the exception of one significant stuttering bug, the audio for Half-Life 2 is unforgettable. Everything in the game sounds so - cool. Every sound will implant itself firmly in your memory. The radio chatter and AI barks of the combine, the whirling of the manhack blades, the horrible moan of the headcrab zombies, the sounds of the gunship machine guns, the hum of the gravity gun, the resounding crack of the 357 magnum, the screeches of the ant lions, and the "thump-thump" that the striders make as they plow through the city. Half-Life 2 also has some great voice work to go with its wonderful sound effects.

Level design, for the first 2/3 of the game, is brilliant. The game is pretty tightly scripted and doesn't deviate too far from the formulas of lots of other first-person shooters. Health and shield power-ups are places just enough to make the game forgiving without making it too easy. The game throws a variety of exciting challenges at you and doesn't get too frustrating or annoying. In particular, the hover boat level is a nonstop thrill ride, and the Ravenholm chapter is like a survival horror game on crack.

But after that, you start to run into some areas that become either annoying or just aggravating. It starts with the dune buggy level, which features horrendous controls. You will spend more time upside-down in the buggy than you will spend driving it. Then there are some annoying physics puzzles. Three times, the game throws a puzzle at you that requires you to build some sort of bridge over a hazardous terrain using objects in the environment. These sequences all interrupt the action, they are too long, and they aren't fun. There are also some "avoid setting off the turret" puzzles near the end that are outdated and shouldn't have been in this game.

A couple of defensive missions require you to set up automated turrets, which are easily knocked over and seemingly impossible to get standing back up again. These sequences are indescribably aggravating, as you helplessly try to get your turrets upright while your enemies blast away at you. The squad-based portions of the game are unsatisfying. The squad is either fodder or just gets in your way in the game's tight corridors. If you have a squad, a single strider will cut it down in about five seconds, so it's pointless to try to keep them alive. The game still has encounters that require you use the knowledge that you gain by quick saving to get through them. If you ask me, games like Far Cry and Halo have made this type of encounter obsolete.

Half-Life 2 is somewhat longer than your average action game. It took me over 15 hours to complete it the first time, and it has so much to see and do that you can go back and replay it immediately. I loved Half-Life 2, but some of the parts at the end left too much of a lukewarm taste in my mouth to call it Game of the Year.

Welcome to the matrix...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: March 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

By saying that, this game does not remind me of "The Matrix" that much. But playing it is like plugging into the matrix. It is that real. Yes steam is kind of a pain if you have slow internet, but I can promise it's worth the long installation wait. I have never been so sucked into a game before. There are parts that are so intense, I found myself jumping and getting and adrenaline rush... from a game!!!! In short, it's worth every penny, blows away any other game, and everyone should own it. Period.

700th review: Half-Life 2 is the best game ever!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: March 19, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is the most amazing game I've ever played in my life! Great storytelling (note no cutscenes), fun puzzle solving (you can get really creative), humour (when you throw a paint can, the paint inside splatters...or when an enemy is right behind a car and you roll the car over with your gravity gun, the enemy dies pushed flat), awesome level design with (sometimes) scary tactical enemy AI, and so on....Also, this game has great graphics which perform greatly even on old computers. (think about Doom 3 which has a hard time running smoothly even on the best computers on the market nowdays)

Conclusion? BUY THIS GAME AND YOU WILL NOT REGRET.

p.s. there's lots of pissies about Steam's decryption process. It's just a way for Valve to check if the game's legit. So, don't get too angry with that. Hey, if you got an illegal copy, the game won't run anyway.

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