Half-Life 2

Released on November 16, 2004 by Valve

Developed by Valve

1998. HALF-LIFE sends a shock through the game industry with its combination of pounding action and continuous, immersive storytelling. Valve's debut title wins more than 50 game-of-the-year awards on its way to being named "Best PC Game Ever" by PC Gamer, and launches a franchise with more than eight million retail units sold worldwide.


NOW. By taking the suspense, challenge and visceral charge of the original, and adding startling new realism and responsiveness, Half-Life 2 opens the door to a world where the player's presence affects everything around him, from the physical environment to the behaviors even the emotions of both friends and enemies.


The player again picks up the crowbar of research scientist Gordon Freeman, who finds himself on an alien-infested Earth being picked to the bone, its resources depleted, its populace dwindling. Freeman is thrust into the unenviable role of rescuing the world from the wrong he unleashed... [Read All]


  • Characters: Advanced facial animation system delivers the most sophisticated in-game characters ever seen. With 40 distinct facial "muscles," human characters convey the full array of human emotion, and respond to the player with fluidity and intelligence.

  • Physics: From pebbles to water to 2-ton trucks respond as expected, as they obey the laws of mass, friction, gravity, and buoyancy.

  • Graphics: Source's shader-based renderer, like the one used at Pixar to create movies such as Toy Story® and Monster's, Inc.®, creates the most beautiful and realistic environments ever seen in a video game.

  • AI: Neither friends nor enemies charge blindly into the fray. They can assess threats, navigate tricky terrain, and fashion weapons from whatever is at hand.

Metal Jesus has a new video where he asks his friends what game sequels are better than the originals. They have a lot of great answers and it got me thinking a bit about what I would pick? I think a few games stand out to me but Mega Man 2 is one of the games that comes to mind as being better than the original. I also think WarCraft III was a better game than the first two WarCraft's even though WarCraft II was really good.

What games or movies do you think are better than the original?


https://i.imgur.com/bEwafiU.jpg
"The Steam Link app, slated to launch the week of May 21st, allows gamers to experience their Steam library of games on their Android (phone, tablet, TV) and iOS-based (iPhone, iPad, Apple TV) devices while connected via 5Ghz network or wired Ethernet to a host system (Mac or PC), with Android access initially offered in beta. The Steam Link App will feature support for the Steam Controller, MFI controllers, and more across both platforms."

It's a good thing when you can play your games in more places and soon we'll all be able to stream out Steam games to our phones and tablets. I have a crazy fast 5G wireless router and a wired PC and when that's streaming to the... Read All


On this episode of Cheerful Ghost Radio, we celebrate the tenth anniversary of Valve's Orange Box by talking about what the games mean to us, then we discuss how our feelings about DRM have changed over the years. Are we in a DRMPocalypse, or DoesitReallyMatter?


On this episode of Cheerful Ghost Radio, we talk about the Switch getting better third party support, and ponder whether the Switch is the Nintendo console of our dreams. Then, we discuss Epistle 3, the plot summary Mark Laidlaw released of what Half Life 2: Episode 3 might have been.


Game Theory released a video a couple weeks ago and given Marc Laidlaw's recent Episode 3 fan fiction I thought it was well worth sharing. If you've played Half-Life or Half-Life 2 the G-Man is featured in the story and I'd argue is one of the main characters of Half-Life 2. Since G-Man isn't explained well in the games there are many theories online about who he is and the one Game Theory presents is a pretty compelling one. Since Marc Laidlaw is the only author of the Half-Life series answering questions right now someone asked him about Game Theory's G-Man theory and his response was pretty interesting.

I don't want to spoil anything so firstly I recommend you watch... Read All


Quite a few years ago, before Half-Life 2 launched, someone hacked into Valve's systems and stole the source code for Half-Life 2 and leaked a copy online. Gabe took to the Internet and asked for help in tracking down those responsible and later with the help of the FBI the hacker was caught. I recently watched a video that shows off the Half-Life 2 beta and it's a complete run through of the game at that point from start to finish. As you can see the story is a bit different as is the gameplay and art. It's interesting to see Half-Life 2 in such an early form compared to what it was when it launched(the final version being much better in my opinion).

... Read All


Speedrunning is amazing and I am in awe of the talent and care it takes to do it well. The fastest way through most games is to glitch it and go out of bounds to bypass massive areas to save time. YouTube BitRain makes a great video explaining how you can glitch through the walls in Half-Life 2 which is the basis for his 40:49 speedrun featured below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnFjTG9J-T8


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After I started Steam on Linux I noticed Half-Life 2 just entered beta, so naturally I downloaded it. It worked like a charm and the shot I took above was the start of the game. GO VALVE GO, PORT EVERYTHING!

I have beta install options for Half-Life 2, HL2 Deatmatch & The Lost Coast. I bought the episodes in the Orange Box but that was a PS3 purchase. I still have yet to get them on my Steam account.

The last time I played Half-Life 2 on Linux it was YEARS ago and I used wine. The experience now is much, much better.

I have 101 Steam games, 39 now playable on Linux and the number keeps going up.


This is my previous favorite game of all time before this generation changed my mind with Fallout 3 and then Skyrim. I must have played through this at least ten times on PC and Xbox 360. The atmosphere and genre go from sci-fi (obviously) to war, to horror, to driving, to puzzle seamlessly. The Source engine blew me away at the time, and even though it was the first iteration of the engine, it still holds up well graphics-wise today.