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Play as adventurer-physicist Gordon Freeman as he leads an alien resistance in this first-person shooter

Play as adventurer-physicist Gordon Freeman as he leads an alien resistance in this first-person shooter

Vote: (875 votes)

Program license: Paid

Developer: Valvesoftware

Works under: Windows

Also available for Mac Android

Vote:

Program license

(875 votes)

Paid

Developer

Valvesoftware

Works under:

Also available for

Windows

Mac Android

Pros

  • Half Life 2 has a massive and varied single player campaign.
  • This game's Gravity Gun is one of the most ingenious weapons in all of gaming.
  • Half Life 2's vehicular segments are great.

Cons

  • Half Life 2's story is a little bit too convoluted to be truly engaging.
  • Half Life 2's use of infinite ammunition boxes makes some segments too easy.
  • Some of this game's puzzles may be too frustrating for new players.

Half Life 2 is a futuristic first person shooting game for the PC. Players take control of an engineer named Gordon Freeman. Freeman is the sole survivor of a violent experiment involving aliens at a research facility. This game's lengthy story mode spans across long stretches of land and water. Half Life 2 often feels like several small games glued together. The complex story melds the game into a cohesive whole.

There are so many things going on in Half Life 2's story that it can feel convoluted at times. The gameplay is almost perfect. This is a first person shooting game, so players find and equip a large number of weapons to take out a myriad of different enemies. The game throws endless swarms of infantry soldiers at the player. These soldiers are often hard to take out because the artificial intelligence in this game is complex. Players accustomed to standing in one place in shooting games will likely find that they can't do that. This is because Half Life 2's enemies work together and breach the player's cover from multiple directions. One of the hardest segments in this game involves strategically placing turrets to survive a huge swarm of attackers.

The game also introduces new aliens and zombies. Many of the aliens from the first Half Life game are included here. One of the aliens climbs out of the ground to attack the player. The player later gets a weapon that allows him to direct this enemy to attack other enemies. Half Life 2 is full of variety. One unique weapon that this game introduced was called the Gravity Gun. This weapon can be used to pick up objects in the environment and hurl them at enemies. One part of the game forces the player to use the gravity gun to scour the environment for different items to hurl at infiltrating zombies.

Half Life 2 also has vehicles. The vehicular segments in this game are great because many of the game's environments stretch across long expanses of desert. One boating segment forces the player to traverse a long and narrow canal while a helicopter shoots at Gordon. The game also has a lot of puzzles that require the player to analyze the environment to progress. These can feel cheap because progressing often requires a simple and easy to miss solution. Half Life 2 is arguably the greatest first person shooting game of all time.

Pros

  • Half Life 2 has a massive and varied single player campaign.
  • This game's Gravity Gun is one of the most ingenious weapons in all of gaming.
  • Half Life 2's vehicular segments are great.

Cons

  • Half Life 2's story is a little bit too convoluted to be truly engaging.
  • Half Life 2's use of infinite ammunition boxes makes some segments too easy.
  • Some of this game's puzzles may be too frustrating for new players.