Publisher: Valve
Developer: Valve
Release Date: 11/22/2024
Available On
Who hasn’t played Half-Life 2 yet? I still have a free coupon from 2007 in my Steam account, but I can’t give it away because everyone I know or have spoken to owns HL2. The game industry and people’s minds haven’t forgotten Half-Life, but it’s been on the back burner for a while now. Every time a new false rumor for a Half-Life 3 emerges, people perk up, and the game becomes popular for a bit and fizzles out. There have been many community updates, such as the famous Half-Life 2: Update that improved visuals and fixed bugs. However, Valve has finally released their definitive version of the game 20 years later.
The Anniversary Update incorporates several significant improvements, including enhanced resolution light cubes, the correction of G-Man’s green eyes during the intro, the ability to choose between original and improved blood and flame effects, a more contemporary user interface and menu, an additional 3.5 hours of commentary, the incorporation of both episodes, and additional features. These quality of life improvements make a huge difference and make the game more palatable to play by today’s standards. Half-Life 2, in general, is a fantastic game with a flow unlike any other game I have played.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary, I am going to do a full review of Half-Life 2 through modern-day eyes. Although I didn’t have the best experience when I first played the game on a business desktop in 2005, it was well-optimized for the time and ran smoothly on potato computers. This was the game that prompted me to finally download Steam. People tend to forget how awful it was back in the day, when it constantly crashed and updates would break both the software and the games that required it. While today’s gamers adore Steam, the gaming community didn’t hold the software in high esteem 20 years ago.
As for the game itself, the modern UI is a welcome change, especially on Steam Deck. The game now supports controllers properly with no need to remap anything. You can choose from a grid or carousel-style weapon menu too, which is a nice change. The visuals are sharp and crisp at higher resolutions, and the game overall looks very clean. It has aged incredibly well, and this is thanks to Valve’s Source Engine and the way everything scales up for higher resolutions. As for playing the game, it feels better than ever. The game takes place shortly after the first game, where Gordan wakes up mysteriously on a train bound for City 17, and features a now-famous intro by G-Man himself. The game is a master class on in-game storytelling. Instead of taking away the players’ controls and inserting pre-rendered cutscenes, the game tells everything through subtle details in the surrounding world.
The beginning of the game is the best example of this. Valve also teaches players how to play the game through natural in-game dialogue and simple puzzles at first. The Metro cop, who instructs you to pick up the can at the start of the game, teaches you how to use physics. The inclusion of this now infamous line ensured that players understood their capabilities. This may seem dated today, but in 2004, physics were very CPU heavy, and most high-end processors struggled with them. People had to learn how to pick up objects using real physics back then. Barney explains the first stacking puzzle, instructing you to stack boxes in order to escape a window.
The game’s natural progression is stellar. The game’s long segments ensure that you always feel like you are moving in the world and making progress in real time. Each area is an hour or two long, and you progressively make your way toward the Citadel and Dr. Kleiner’s lab. The hoverboat area is quite lengthy, giving you the impression that you’re actually traveling to your destination in real time. However, these lengthy segments are not monotonous. Valve puts little tidbits in the game that the player can do or ignore. You have the option to escape and obtain ammo or supplies from a passing house, but doing so could potentially lead to a firefight. There are hidden Lambda caches all over the game, and these really help and come in handy.
The transition from a vehicle to on-foot and back again significantly breaks up the pace. There aren’t many puzzles in the game, but there are some areas that require navigation of pipes and ladders and need a bit of thinking to find your way out. Every game introduces something new, whether it’s a weapon or the ability to command squads. While this is very simple and archaic by today’s standards, I found they mostly get in the way and rarely help outside of offering medkits and distracting enemies. Every game introduces new enemies, and just when you believe you’ve defeated them all, a new type emerges. The enemies range from Metro cops to zombies, and from Elite Combines to Striders. Weapons feel excellent and have a unique and distinct feel to weapons, such as the pistol, are not suitable for use in specific situations. It’s mostly useless after you get around half the guns in the game, and I rarely ran out of ammo. The more powerful weapons have limited ammo, so it’s crucial to use skill to ensure you hit everything, kill enemies, and avoid wasting ammo.
There are ammo crates, boxes, and medkits everywhere. While medkits are not a thing anymore in FPS games, they work well here. Gordon has the ability to recharge his HEV suit for armor purposes. Most of the game feels dated in terms of navigation. The entire game, including linear buildings, vents, doors that need to be opened, and tunnels, guides you along a linear path. Although the game may appear expansive and open at times, it actually follows a linear structure, which was the standard for first-person shooter games during that era. While other games such as Halo 2 set the standard, Half-Life 2 stands out for its organic progression structure and illusion of real-time progress in the world. The inclusion of physics such as needing to use the iconic Gravity Gun to pull a wooden beam from in front a door through a window to progress is something that FPS never really did.
Half-Life 2 has a distinct and unique sound and appearance. There are a lot of browns and beiges, but the game still has color in places. The coastline boasts a plethora of blue water, while Ravenholm is characterized by its dark hues of gray, dark metal, and aged wood. The sound design is iconic, from the HEV suit charging to the Metro cop and Combine radio chatter to the bleeps and bloops of the turrets, which were later used in Portal. The entire game exudes a distinct vibe, ranging from Gordan’s slick momentum to the physics and the firing of the weapons. Enemies respond well to weapon fire and ragdoll when dead or blown up. While there isn’t too much gore in the game there is a lot of blood. Enemies won’t gib at grenades, but you might see the occasional severed head.
The overall oppressiveness of the world of Half-Life and the Combine is palpable in this game. Every time you encounter a group of rebels, even if it’s just for a brief conversation, it’s a refreshing change from feeling alone and feeling like your assistance is fleeting. Ever since I was 15, this game has felt so lonely and melancholy. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t played through this game too many times over the years. Valve masterfully captures the sense of being a superhero, with everyone relying on you, and effectively conveys the dire consequences of making a mistake. The player bears the entire game’s burden.
The Anniversary Update may not seem like much to some. It’s not a remaster or remake, but rather a set of quality-of-life improvements that are not in any way detrimental. HL2 doesn’t need a remake as it works perfectly fine today. A remake would primarily serve as a cosmetic enhancement, but thanks to Steam Workshop’s implementation, we have access to mods that accomplish this for us.
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