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Half-Life 2

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Half-Life 2
Developer: Valve Software
Publisher: Vivendi Universal
Release date: November 16, 2004
Genre: First-person shooter
Game modes: Single player, Multiplayer
ESRB rating: Mature (M)
Platform: PC
Media: CD, DVD or Steam download

Half-Life 2 is a first-person shooter computer game and the highly anticipated sequel to Half-Life developed by Valve Software. It received mainstream media attention when the game's source code was leaked to the Internet in September 2003. Valve sent a release candidate to its publisher, Vivendi Universal, on September 15, 2004; the game went gold on October 18 and was released on November 16, 2004. Half-Life 2 became available nearly 6 years after the original game's November 1998 release date. A 1CD demo was released on December 21 2004 at Valve's partner ATI's web site.

Overview

Singleplayer

Template:Spoiler In the original Half-Life, researchers at a remote underground laboratory called the Black Mesa Research Facility accidentally open a doorway into an alien world, unleashing strange and deadly creatures into the facility. The player acted as Gordon Freeman, one of those research scientists, and guided him in his attempt to escape the facility. Half-Life 2 picks up the story ten years after the Black Mesa incident in a futuristic Eastern European 'City 17'.

At the start of the game Gordon Freeman is spoken to by the mysterious G-Man. He then finds himself riding a train into City 17, unarmed and without his HEV suit. It soon becomes clear that City 17 is under the rule of a totalitarian Administrator, Dr. Breen, who, incidentally, is the former administrator of the Black Mesa Research Facility. He enforces his rule through armies of intimidating Combine soldiers. Freeman meets up with some old friends from Black Mesa and soon becomes caught up in the struggle against the Combine.

Throughout the game the player fights a mixture of human and alien foes, ranging from insect-like antlions, headcrabs, and zombies, to elite Combine soldiers and towering, three-legged Striders. The player drives an airboat through swamps and an armed buggy along highways, has to solve puzzles with the help of the gravity gun, and occasionally commands a squad of underground resistance fighters.

As in the previous game in the series Freeman never speaks, and is never seen from an external angle or in a mirror. There are no cutscenes in the game - all of the plot exposition is viewed through the player's eyes. This has drawn criticism from some fans of the series, because they believe Freeman would have a great deal of curiosity as to what has happened since the Black Mesa incident. Furthermore, Gordon's colleagues seem to believe Gordon knows where and why he is here, even though he has not aged a day since the Black Mesa incident - although this may in fact be an intentional plot point.

There has also been concern for the plot of Half-Life 2. Because Gordon is mute, and his allies assume he already knows his situation, there is little in the way of conventional plot exposition. While some claim this was intended - to have the Player's confusion mirror Gordon's - some fans expected a section of the game where Gordon and the Player are brought up to speed. Interestingly, a recent Half-Life 2 book revealed that an area of the game was originally much longer, answering many questions players have asked about the plot. The removal of any direct explanation of the game's back-story does appear to have been a deliberate artistic move by the developers, however, and a surprisingly large amount of information is imparted through other, more subtle means, such as newspaper clippings on notice-boards, graffiti on walls and the chatter from various non-player characters.

What offends some gamers, interestingly, is that Half-Life 2 ends almost identically to the original. Gordon, after completing a major task, is 'removed' from the area by the infamous G-Man. As in the original, little is answered directly.

Multiplayer

When Half-Life 2 was released, its only multiplayer component was Counter-Strike: Source. On November 30, 2004, Valve released the Half-Life 2 Deathmatch component (HL2DM), along with the full SDK, as a free download to all Half-Life 2 owners.

Half-Life 2: Deathmatch currently has two official maps, dm_overwatch and dm_lockdown, which are both based on areas from the single-player game. Valve currently is running a Deathmatch Map Making Contest.

The goal of Deathmatch is for the player to kill as many other players as possible, using a variety of means. The player spawns with a gravity gun, pistol, sub-machine gun and grenades. All weapons aside from the pheropod and crowbar are available to be collected around the level. Players can be killed by gunfire, explosions, or by being hit by objects fired using the gravity gun.

Some players have expressed disappointment in HL2DM, specifically concerning the Gravity Gun. The two official maps for HL2DM are filled with items which can be carried by the gravity gun, leading to their near-exclusive use. This is compounded by the damage these items can deal when hit by them, which is arguably far greater than a conventional weapon. Instead of being deathmatch, these players argue, HL2DM is an exercise in "lifting and chucking."

Game engine

For Half-Life 2 Valve developed a new game engine called Source, which handles the game's visual elements, as well as licensing and implementing the Havok engine, which handles the game's environmental physics. As usual, to utilize the new graphics and visual effects, players require fairly recent video cards, giving GPU manufacturer ATI Technologies an opportunity to partner with Valve on a joint product release , which, unfortunately, was spoiled by the product delay. The game engine's interactivity promised to tie emergent gameplay with the scripted sequences that Half-Life was already known for. Valve has licensed the Source engine to other developers, on the condition that their games are delayed until the release of Half-Life 2.

Like with its predecessor Half-Life, Half-Life 2 is expected to become a base for many modifications, or mods. Many of them are sequels of original Half-Life mods. Valve has also included Counter-Strike: Source (Counter-Strike for Half-Life 2) in the retail version of Half-Life 2. Day of Defeat: Source will also be released, and is currently being pre-sold with premium Half-Life 2 Steam packages.

One of the more notable features of Half-Life 2 is the unique ability of the characters to simulate emotions and facial speech movements on the fly. The facial animation technology is language independent, with facial features being created automatically based on audio files and speech transcripts. According to Valve, forty-two "facial muscles" are simulated for this. Another feature, courtesy of the Havok physics engine, is the increased interactivity of the levels with every object having unique mass, density, buoyancy, and other properties which make its interaction with the player, other objects and the environment more realistic.

Steam content delivery system

Integral to Half-Life 2 is the Steam content delivery system developed by Valve Software. This allows customers to purchase games (or any other software) directly from the developer and have it downloaded directly to their computer. This system also allows "micro updates" to games - games are continually updated and only the most recent version is allowed to be run. This makes it much harder to hack the game to introduce cheats or to play online with a free 'pirated' copy. All users playing a single game must also have an account on the Steam servers to play the game. Steam is also used for finding and playing multiplayer games.

A 1 GB portion of Half-Life 2 became available for pre-load through Steam on August 26, 2004. This means that customers could begin to download encrypted game files to their computer before the game is released. When the game was released in the shops, customers were able to pay for the game through Steam, unlock the files on their hard drives and play the game immediately, without having to wait for the whole game to download. The pre-load period lasted for several weeks, along with several subsequent portions of the game being made available, to ensure all customers had a chance to download the content before the game is released.

Release problems

On November 16, 2004, Half-Life 2 was officially released. While the launch was mainly regarded as successful, a significant number of buyers (both through Steam and retail) initially found themselves unable to play the game, due in part to the overloading of Valve's Steam system.

Ideally, a user would install Half-Life 2, and then authorize his or her copy of the game, and be able to play. However, the skepticism by many gamers was proven true, and the Steam authorization servers suffered from high load, similarly to servers of MMORPGs. Regardless of purchasing the game retail or through Steam, users found themselves unable to play a game they had purchased.

While many players and reviewers complained about Valve's use of Digital rights management, they were generally more tolerant to it than to Microsoft's Windows XP activation scheme or Intuit, Inc. Turbo Tax DRM.

Another blemish on HL2's release record was the "No Counter-Strike" install error. If a user does not wish to install Counter-Strike: Source, he or she will encounter an error approximately 80% of the way into the installation procedure. Only if the user installs Counter-Strike will the installation complete (after which it can be specifically uninstalled). Note that not all users experienced this error.

Additionally, some users have reported game crashes when HL2 initiates its auto-save feature, as well as audio stuttering. A patch was released by Valve, but while it corrected the audio stuttering, it also forced many players to have reduced performance, either in lowered frame-per-second or lowered resolution. Despite this, the game can still run surprisingly smoothly on a machine matching the modest recommended minimum specifications.

However, even on the best of systems the auto-save feature can cause a significant "freeze" when it is triggered, often at important points of the game - during this time the game saves all applicable information about the player's current progress in the game so they can start off from the same point. This lag can be quite disruptive to play, and the developers have unfortunately not seen fit to include any option to turn off or disable the auto-save feature, even though there is already a "quick save" feature (F6) and a "quick load" feature (F9). (Edit: There actually is a way to disable the Autosave feature, which involves editing the config.cfg file using notepad. The config.cfg file is located at "C:\Program Files\Valve\Steam\SteamApps\<username>\half-life 2\hl2\cfg\" where username is your steam account name. After opening Config.cfg in notepad, simply add "sv_autosave 0" to the bottom of the file, and save. This now disables the autosave function.)

During the night of November 30, 2004, an update was released which inadvertently prevented scores of customers from launching the game. The update included the ability to play the multiplayer Half-Life 2 Deathmatch, which was noticeably absent from the original release.

On December 10, 2004, over a steam update, Valve solved the disc in drive incompatibility error by removing the Securom disc check routine, as well as allowing users to play the game without the game CD or DVD in their drives.

To play the game it is necessary to register your account on Steam, a process which only took a few seconds. However, this requires internet access, meaning anyone without the internet was effectively barred from playing the game. Although a majority of players will have internet access, it still affects a significent number of prospective consumers.

Post-release piracy

On the day the game was released a cracked version which did not require Steam or a CD appeared on the Internet. Despite being a single-player game, normal copies of Half-Life 2 require online activation through Steam in order to play. This enabled Valve to track users by their authentication key. On November 23, a week after the game's release, Valve announced that they had disabled 20,000 Steam accounts that had used a key that was being distributed by warez sites on the Internet. On December 22, a further 30,000 Steam accounts were disabled, as announced on another forum post.

Development controversies

Source Code Theft

Half-Life 2 was merely a rumor until a strong impression at E3 in May 2003 launched it into levels of hype only equalled by Doom 3 at the time. It was forecast to come out in September 2003, but it was delayed several times. This pushing back of HL2's release date came in the wake of the cracking of Valve's internal network, through bugs in Microsoft Outlook, resulting in the theft of the game's source code in early September 2003.

The source-code theft had more of an effect on morale for the developers than it did on the schedule - it was later revealed by both Valve CEO Gabe Newell and PR man Doug Lombardi that the September 2003 release date was 'aggressive' and could not have been met even if the theft had never occurred. Many gamers were not surprised by the early delays, recognizing that Valve's first public mention of the game came just four months before its intended release date.

In June 2004, Valve Software announced in a press release that the FBI had arrested several people suspected of involvement in the source code theft.

Beta leak

Roughly at the same time as the source code leak, a beta version of HL2 was leaked to the net. Initial claims that the leak was a hoax turned out to be in error as the beta quickly spread widely and was verified to exist by a large number of people. The beta reportedly contains parts of the game in a playable state, as well as some of the tools used to create game content.

Going gold hoax

On August 27, 2004 a forum post by Gabe Newell from Valve Software said "going gold on Monday". "Going gold" means that the game is finished and simply needs to be pressed onto DVDs and packaged into boxes. This caused much excitement among Half-Life 2 fans but it later turned out that the post was a hoax and was posted by someone who had guessed Gabe's password ("gaben").

Breach of contract with Vivendi

On September 20, 2004, it was revealed by GameSpot that Vivendi Universal Games is in a legal battle with Valve Software over the distribution of Half-Life 2. According to VUG, the contract they signed with Valve did not include distribution of Half-Life 2 over Steam. The trial to settle the dispute is scheduled for March 2005.

In November 29, 2004, Judge Thomas S. Zilly, of U.S. Federal District Court in Seattle, WA, ruled that Sierra/Vivendi Universal Games, and its affiliates, are not authorized to distribute (directly or indirectly) Valve games through cyber cafés to end users for pay-to-play activities pursuant to the parties' current publishing agreement. Valve games such as Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and the recently released Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike: Source are all popular in cyber cafés. In addition, Judge Zilly ruled in favor of the Valve motion regarding the contractual limitation of liability, allowing Valve to recover copyright damages for any infringement as allowed by law without regard to the publishing agreement's limitation of liability clause.

Motion sickness and field of view

Some complained that playing Half-Life 2 resulted in motion sickness and many attributed the problem to the game's low field of view, which defaults to 75 degrees instead of the more commonly used 90 degrees. While players can increase the FOV through console commands, it can take away the realism, as staring at a monitor about a foot away (the recommended distance) is 75 degrees. Additionally, when using 90 degrees, the character's face will get distorted and the levels will seem larger with the player moving through it at high speed.

Interestingly, when the player enters either of the vehicles the FOV is switched to 90 degrees, yet that is where most complained that they experienced motion sickness.

Valve's Bill Van Buren responded to a question on this asked by a fan on the Half-Life2.net forums () with this response:

We've been rigorously playing and testing Half-Life 2, Counterstrike Source and Half-Life Source for a long time now - and we've found nothing to suggest that the FOV change is a significant factor in causing motion sickness. We have, however, put a great deal of work and attention into reducing the motion sickness that can be experienced in the vehicles in Half-Life 2. During our early playtests, many of us were experiencing motion sickness from driving the buggy and the airboat - especially the airboat. We've done a lot of work on tuning the experience to reduce any ill effects - especially looking at how we manage the players head/view in relationship to the movement of the vehicles. Interestingly, for all of the vehicle sequences we revert back to FOV 90 so that you have more peripheral vision which is helpful when moving at these faster speeds. Even so, some people still do experience some motion sickness effects from long stretches in the vehicles - personally, I find that I am most affected by the intense jarring that occurs when you slam into something in the airboat at high speed - like when you miss a jump or something.

Others attribute the motion sickness to the default refresh rate setting of 60Hz.

Weapons

  • Crowbar: the melee weapon of Half-Life, and also the first weapon available. Does not expend ammo.
  • Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator (a.k.a. Gravity Gun): A "tractor beam"-like weapon that heavily utilizes Source's physics engine, and does not use any ammo. The primary fire can repel most inorganic objects (including cars) with a sparkling burst of energy, and use these objects to harm enemies. The burst itself can also harm some weak enemies, such as headcrabs. The secondary fire can attract mostly inorganic objects (excluding cars and heavier objects): these can then be launched by using the primary fire. In deathmatch, the objects that the Gravity Gun can launch can usually kill instantly. Late in the singleplayer game, it receives an infusion of "Dark Energy" from a beam used by the Combine to confiscate items from captured prisoners. From that point on, it can also grasp or repel organic matter (killing instantly), and pull heavier inorganic objects. The Gravity Gun was originally a tool used by the developers to experiment with and test the Source physics engine.
  • USP Match 9mm: the first gun available. It has an 18 round magazine, with a maximum of 150 rounds in reserve.
  • .357 Magnum Revolver: the second handgun available, with 6 rounds chambered, 12 in reserve. Quite powerful and accurate; coupled with the zoom feature, the Magnum can function as a sniper weapon.
  • MP7A1 Submachine Gun: The first rapid-firing weapon received: with a 45 round magazine, 225 rounds in reserve, as well as 3 contact grenades.
  • Overwatch Standard Issue Pulse Rifle: A powerful assault rifle used by Combine soldiers. Primary fire launches a burst of gunfire. Secondary fire shoots an energy orb. The orb bounces around the environment for 4 seconds, disintegrating enemies on contact, before exploding. The Pulse Rifle uses a 30 clip. It carries 60 rounds in reserve and 3 energy cores.
  • Shotgun: Like any shotgun, this weapon sprays pellets across a wide field of fire, making it useful against zombies and other close range enemies. It has 6 rounds loaded with 30 rounds in reserve. This weapon is modeled after the SPAS-12.
  • Stun baton: Without cheating, this weapon is only available to Combine Civil Protection units. The stun baton is present at the beginning of Half Life 2, and inflicts no damage initially, although it alters the player's view temporarily - causing it to wobble and go red. It seems that in the future the stun baton will be available in deathmatch, as does the crowbar.
  • Crossbow: Can only load one bolt at a time, and can store 10 rounds. Mainly used as a sniper and underwater weapon, it is the only weapon that can be fired when zooming. Also, when firing at distant targets, the player must compensate for gravity's downward pull on the bolts. It can be used to pin dead enemies against a surface.
  • Rocket launcher: Can hold one rocket in the firing chamber, and two in reserve. After a rocket is fired, a laser pointer must be used to guide it in flight. Unlike the RPG launcher from Half-Life, the Rocket launcher does not have a non-laser-guided mode.
  • Grenade: Standard explosive weaponry that can be thrown in an arc. Good for taking out hiding enemies. The player can have up to 5 in reserve. Interestingly, when thrown at the player by enemies, grenades can be manipulated with the gravity gun.
  • Pheropod ("Bug Bait"): These are small pods of pheromones which can be used by the player to command swarms of antlions. While the primary fire throws the pods and commands the antlions to go to the target, the secondary fire squeezes the pod to recall the antlions. Pheropods cannot be used against the larger, more aggressive antlion warriors. When used against Combine soldiers, it stuns them for aprroximately 5 seconds.
  • Rapid-firing Gauss Cannon (vehicle-mounted): This armor-piercing, airboat-mounted weapon is used near the end of the Route Kanal sequence, and can destroy Combine vehicles. It constantly replenishes its own ammo at a rate slightly slower than its firing rate.
  • Tau cannon (vehicle-mounted): This weapon, attached to the buggy, functions similarly to the Tau Cannon from Half-Life. By pressing and holding the secondary fire button, the player can charge up the Tau cannon, exactly as in the first game. The Tau cannon is not available as a hand-held weapon.

Reviews

Awards

  • Spike TV Video Game Award 2004:
    • Best PC Game
    • Best Graphic
  • Gamespy 2004 Game of the Year:
    • Best PC overall
    • Best PC action
    • Best PC Graphic
    • Best Character (Dog)
    • Silver for Overall (Cross-platform)
    • Gamer's Choice
      • PC Action
      • PC Multiplayer
      • PC Overall
  • Gamespot Best and Worst of 2004
    • Best Graphic, Artistic
    • Best Shooter (cross-platform)

Related topics

External links

Ingame Screenshots

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