Posted 2019-01-14, evaluated by the judges panel
Wow. After a quiet 2017 & 2018, Redg (Brent Wollman) hits us with his heaviest, most accessible mix to date, embedding his signature sound design tricks into a badass metal take on Half-Life 2's 'LG Orbifold' theme:
'Some cool leads and solid production. This was one of the first tracks I sat down with and really focused on the mix. I spent a stupid amount of time tweaking this thing trying to learn the secrets of M/ production. I think it probably makes the cut.'
I think the judges had an easier time grokking & approving this mix than Brent's more avant-garde/experimental pieces, and I'm guessing he'll find some new ears with it as well, as the presiding aesthetic is a relatably aggressive & dark metal cut. In-game vox/fx are sprinkled about, mostly in the intro, and he still works in some slick psychoacoustic warps & transitions, but the bones are more familiar and orthodox than many of his previous arrangements. It's a good look, and it gives his sonic attention to detail & knack for twisted, tortured, metallic textures a more familiar context. Gario writes:
'To be honest, I think this a a great arrangement for such a limited source, and the production values are really good, to boot (some great use of stereo seperation throughout, making the track sound very full). The performances are great, and the SFX are well used.'
Sir_NutS hits all the highlights:
'Damn, this song has a perfect buildup to some face-melting goodness at 0:56. I wasn't expecting this going in that hard but I was pretty happy it did. There's an ample expansion of the original source here, and I'm honestly impressed that you managed to make such a long track and it never gets into repetition or staleness issues. The soloing is intense, and I loved that ending. Production is clean and full, the drums are punchy and each instrument has their own space to fill.'
What he said. Just to be clear, I'm a big fan of Redg's more difficult, less traditional material as well, but I think he strikes a nice balance here which maintains his sound design strengths but pairs them with genre-forward structure & flow. Great stuff, takes you for a ride, and creatively extends the source into a brutal maelstrom of metallic mayhem!
― djpretzel
Half-Life 2 | |
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Developer(s) | Valve Corporation |
Publisher(s) | Valve Corporation |
Artist(s) | Viktor Antonov |
Writer(s) | Marc Laidlaw |
Composer(s) | Kelly Bailey |
Series | Half-Life |
Engine | Source |
Platform(s) | |
Release |
|
Genre(s) | First-person shooter |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
Half-Life 2 (stylized as HλLF-LIFE2) is a first-person shooter video game developed and published by Valve Corporation. It is the sequel to 1998's Half-Life and was released in November 2004 following a five-year $40 million development. During development, a substantial part of the project was leaked and distributed on the Internet. The game was developed alongside Valve's Steam software and the Source engine.
Taking place some years after the events of Half-Life, protagonist Gordon Freeman is awakened by the enigmatic G-Man to find the world has been taken over by the alien Combine. Joined by allies including resistance fighter Alyx Vance, Gordon searches for a way to free humanity using a variety of weapons, including the object-manipulating Gravity Gun. All retail copies of the game, as well as all initial digital versions, were bundled with Counter-Strike: Source, which some game journalists referred to as part of Half-Life 2's 'multiplayer component.'[1]
Half-Life 2 received critical acclaim, with praise directed towards its advanced physics, animation, sound, AI, graphics, and narrative, and is widely considered to be one of the greatest games of all time. The game won 39 'Game of the Year' awards and the title of 'Game of the Decade' at the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards, in addition to sales of 12 million copies by 2011. It was followed by two episodic sequels: Episode One (2006) and Episode Two (2007).
- 3Development
- 4Release
- 6Reception
Gameplay[edit]
A screenshot of the player engaging a group of antlions with a pulse rifle. Along the bottom of the screen, the player's health, suit charge level, and their ammunition are displayed.
Like its predecessor, Half-Life 2 is a single-player first-person shooter broken into several chapters, permanently casting the player as protagonist Gordon Freeman. The sequel has similar mechanics to Half-Life, including health-and-weapon systems and periodic physics puzzles, except with the newer Source engine and improved graphics. The player also starts without items, slowly building up their arsenal over the course of the game. Despite the game's mainly linear nature, much effort was put into making exploration rewarding and interesting; many optional areas can be missed or avoided.
A diverse set of enemies is present, which usually require being approached with different tactics: some coordinate in groups to out-maneuver or out-position the player; others, such as the Manhack, fly directly at the player through small openings and tight corridors. Others use predictable but powerful attacks, while others hide before swiftly attacking the player. Gordon can kill most enemies with his weapons, or make use of indirect means, exploiting environmental hazards such as explosive pressurized canisters, gas fires or improvised traps. For some portions of the game, Gordon can be joined by up to four armed Resistance soldiers or medics, and can send his team further from him or call them back.
Many of the game's new features utilize its detailed physics simulation. Two sections of the game involve driving vehicles. Instead of button-orientated puzzles from Half-Life, environmental puzzles are also introduced with makeshift mechanical systems, revolving around the player's new ability to pick up, move, and place objects. Solutions involve objects' physical properties, such as shape, weight, and buoyancy. For example; In chapter three, 'Route Kanal', the player is required to stack cinder blocks on a makeshift see-saw ramp to proceed over a wall. Alternatively, the player can build a crude staircase with the blocks, so the puzzle may be solved in multiple ways.
Part-way through the game, Gordon acquires the Gravity Gun, which allows him to draw distant objects towards himself or forcefully push them away, as well as the ability to manipulate larger and heavier objects that he cannot control without the weapon. These abilities are required to solve puzzles later in the game, and can also be used to great effect in combat, as any non-static object within proximity to the player has the potential to be used as a makeshift defense, such as a file cabinet, or a deadly projectile, such as a gasoline can or buzzsaw blade.
The game never separates the player with pre-rendered cutscenes or events; the story proceeds via exposition from other characters and in-world events, and the player is able to control Gordon for the entirety of the game. Much of the backstory to the game is simply alluded to, or told through the environment.
Plot[edit]
Some years after Gordon Freeman and other scientists accidentally opened a portal to a dimension of hostile aliens at the Black Mesa Research Facility, Freeman is awoken from stasis by the mysterious G-Man.[2][3] The portal attracted the attention of the Combine, a technologically superior multidimensional empire which conquered Earth in seven hours. The Combine have implemented a brutal police state by biologically assimilating humans and other species, and preventing humans from breeding via a 'suppression field'. The G-Man inserts Gordon into a train arriving at City 17, site of the Combine Citadel, where Dr. Wallace Breen, the former Black Mesa administrator who negotiated Earth's surrender, governs as the Combine's puppet ruler.[4]
After eluding Combine forces, Gordon joins resistance members including Barney Calhoun, a former Black Mesa security guard working undercover as a Combine police officer; Dr. Eli Vance, former Black Mesa scientist and leader of the resistance; Alyx Vance, Eli's daughter; and Dr. Kleiner, an eccentric Black Mesa scientist. After a failed attempt to teleport to the resistance base, Black Mesa East, from Kleiner's makeshift laboratory, Gordon progresses on foot through the city's canal system. He obtains an airboat and battles his way to Black Mesa East, several miles from the city.[5][6]
Gordon is reintroduced to Eli and meets another resistance scientist, Dr. Judith Mossman.[7] Alyx introduces Gordon to her pet robot D0g and gives him a 'gravity gun', an instrument which can manipulate large objects. Black Mesa East comes under Combine attack, and Eli and Mossman are taken to Nova Prospekt, a Combine prison. Separated from Alyx, Gordon detours through the zombie-infested town of Ravenholm, assisted by its last survivor, Father Grigori. Escaping the town, Gordon discovers a resistance outpost, and uses a customized dune buggy to travel a crumbling coastal road to Nova Prospekt, encountering Combine patrols and helping the resistance fend off raids.
Gordon lays siege to Nova Prospekt by using pheromone pods to command the hordes of alien antlions that infest the coast. He reunites with Alyx in the prison and they locate Eli, but discover that Mossman is a Combine informant. Before they can stop her, Mossman teleports herself and Eli back to City 17's Citadel. The Combine teleporter explodes as Gordon and Alyx use it to escape Nova Prospekt.
Returning to Kleiner's lab, Gordon and Alyx learn that the teleporter malfunctioned and that a week has passed; during their absence, the resistance had fully mobilized against the Combine.[8] In battle, Alyx is captured by the Combine and taken to the Citadel; Gordon fights his way inside with the aid of D0g and Barney.[9] Gordon is then caught in a Combine 'confiscation chamber' that destroys all his weapons except the gravity gun, which is inadvertently supercharged by the forcefield, allowing Gordon to fight his way up the Citadel.
Gordon is eventually captured in a Combine transport pod and taken to Breen's office, where he and Mossman are waiting with Eli and Alyx in captivity. Breen explains his plans to further conquer humanity with the Combine, contrary to what he told Mossman.[10] Angered, Mossman frees Gordon, Alyx, and Eli before Breen can teleport them off-world. Breen tries to escape through a portal, but Gordon destroys the portal reactor with the gravity gun. Just before the Citadel is destroyed in an ensuing explosion, time is frozen. The G-Man reappears, praising Gordon for his actions in City 17. Making vague mention of 'offers for [Gordon's] services', the G-Man places him back into stasis.[11]
Development[edit]
A square in City 17, showing the Source engine's lighting and shadow effects
For Half-Life 2, Valve developed a new game engine, Source, which handles the game's visual, audio, and artificial intelligence elements. The Source engine comes packaged with a heavily modified version of the Havok physics engine that allows further interactivity.[12] When coupled with Steam, it becomes easy to roll out new features. One such example is high dynamic range rendering, which Valve first demonstrated in a free downloadable level called Lost Coast for owners of Half-Life 2.[13] Several other games use the Source engine, including Day of Defeat: Source and Counter-Strike: Source, both of which were also developed by Valve.[14]
Many elements were cut from the game. Half-Life 2 was originally intended to be a darker game with grittier art direction, where the Combine were more obviously draining the oceans for minerals and replacing the atmosphere with noxious, murky gases. Many environments were changed during development as well. City 17 was to resemble Industrial New York as opposed to the retail release's Soviet Europe influence (designer Viktor Antonov said to have been inspired by his childhood in Sofia under communist Bulgaria)[15] and Nova Prospekt was originally intended to be a small Combine rail depot built on an old prison in the wasteland. Eventually, Nova Prospekt grew from a stopping-off point along the way to the destination itself.[16]
Leak[edit]
Valve announced Half-Life 2 at E3 in May 2003, where it won several awards for best in show. Originally scheduled for release in September 2003, it was delayed in the wake of the cracking of Valve's internal network.[17] The network was accessed through a null session connection to a server owned by Tangis, which was hosted in Valve's network, and a subsequent upload of an ASP shell. This resulted in the leak of the Half-Life 2source code and many other files including maps, models and a playable early version of the game in early September 2003.[18] On October 2, 2003, Valve CEO Gabe Newell publicly revealed on Half-Life fan forums[19] the events that Valve experienced around the time of the leak, and asked users to help find the perpetrators.
In June 2004, Valve Software announced in a press release that the FBI had arrested several people suspected of involvement in the leak.[20] Valve claimed it was leaked by a German black-hat hacker named Axel 'Ago' Gembe. After the leak, Gembe had contacted Newell through email (also providing an unreleased document planning the E3 events).[21] Newell kept corresponding with Gembe, and Gembe was led to believe that Valve wanted to employ him as an in-house security auditor. He was to be offered a flight to the US and was to be arrested on arrival by the FBI. When the German government became aware of the plan, Gembe was arrested in Germany instead, and put on trial for the leak as well as other computer crimes in November 2006, such as the creation of Agobot, a highly successful trojan virus which harvested users' data.[22][23][24] At the trial in November 2006 in Germany, Gembe was sentenced to two years' probation. The judge took into account such factors as Gembe's difficult childhood and the fact that he was taking steps to improve his situation.[23]
Release[edit]
A 1 GB portion of Half-Life 2 became available for pre-load through Steam on August 26, 2004. This meant that customers could begin to download encrypted game files to their computer before the game was released. When the game's release date arrived, 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 entire game to download. The pre-load period lasted for several weeks, with several subsequent portions of the game being made available, to ensure all customers had a chance to download the content before the game was released.[25]
Half-Life 2 was simultaneously released through Steam, CD, and on DVD in several editions. Through Steam, Half-Life 2 had three packages that a customer could order. The basic version ('Bronze') includes only Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike: Source, whereas the 'Silver' and 'Gold' (collector's edition) versions also include Half-Life: Source (ports of the original Half-Life and Day of Defeat mod to the new engine). The collector's edition/'Gold' version additionally includes merchandise, such as a T-shirt, a strategy guide and CD containing the soundtrack used in Half-Life 2. Both the disc and Steam versions require Steam to be installed and active for play to occur.[26] The retail copies of the game came in two versions, standard and Collector's Edition; these had identical content to the 'Bronze' and 'Gold' packages respectively.[27]
A demo version with the file size of a single CD was later made available in December 2004 at the web site of graphics card manufacturer ATI Technologies, who teamed up with Valve for the game. The demo contains a portion of two chapters: Point Insertion and 'We Don't Go To Ravenholm..'. This demo is currently available on Steam. In September 2005, Electronic Arts distributed the Game of the Year edition of Half-Life 2. Compared to the original CD-release of Half-Life 2, the Game of the Year edition also includes Half-Life: Source.[28]
Cyber café dispute[edit]
On September 20, 2004, GameSpot reported that Sierra's parent company, Vivendi Universal Games, was in a legal battle with Valve over the distribution of Half-Life 2 to cyber cafés. Cyber cafés are important for the Asian PC gaming market where PC and broadband penetration per capita are much lower (except Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan).[29]
According to Vivendi Universal Games, the distribution contract they signed with Valve included cyber cafés. This would mean that only Vivendi Universal Games could distribute Half-Life 2 to cyber cafés — not Valve through the Steam system. On November 29, 2004, Judge Thomas S. Zilly, of U.S. Federal District Court in Seattle, Washington, ruled that 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. 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.[30]
On April 29, 2005, the two parties announced a settlement agreement. Vivendi Universal Games would cease distributing all retail packaged versions of Valve games by August 31, 2005. Vivendi Universal Games also was to notify distributors and cyber cafés that had been licensed by Vivendi Universal Games that only Valve had the authority to distribute cyber café licenses, and hence their licenses were revoked and switched to Valve's.[31]
Ports and updates[edit]
On December 22, 2005, Valve released a 64-bit version of the Source game engine for x86-64 processor-based systems running Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows Server 2003 x64, Windows Vista x64, or Windows Server 2008 x64. This update, delivered via Steam, enabled Half-Life 2 and other Source-based games to run natively on 64-bit processors, bypassing the 32-bit compatibility layer. Gabe Newell, one of the founders of Valve, stated that this is 'an important step in the evolution of our game content and tools', and that the game benefits greatly from the update.[32] The response to the release varied: some users reported huge performance boosts, while technology site Techgage found several stability issues and no notable frame rate improvement.[33] At the time of release, 64-bit users reported bizarre in-game errors including characters dropping dead, game script files not being pre-cached (i.e., loaded when first requested instead), map rules being bent by AI, and other glitches.[34][35]
Valve partnered with Taito to release Half-Life 2: Survivor, an arcade game version of the game for the Japanese market in 2006.[36][37] During Electronic Arts' summer press event on July 13, 2006, Gabe Newell announced that Half-Life 2 would ship on next-generation consoles (specifically, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) along with episodes One and Two, Team Fortress 2, and Portal[38] in a package called The Orange Box. The Windows version was released on October 10, 2007, as both a retail boxed copy, and as a download available through Valve's Steam service. The Xbox 360 version was also released on October 10, 2007. A PlayStation 3 version was released on December 11, 2007.[39]
On May 26, 2010, Half-Life 2, along with Half-Life 2: Episode One and Episode Two, was released for Mac OS X.[40]Portal was made available for the platform on May 13, 2010, and despite the notable absence of Team Fortress 2 on the platform, Valve began selling The Orange Box for OS X on May 26, 2010. OS X support for Team Fortress 2 was added on June 10, 2010, completing the package.[41] In May 2013, Valve released a beta update to Half-Life 2 which included support for the Oculus Riftvirtual reality headset, with a full release of the feature coming later that year in June.[42]
An NVIDIA Shield-exclusive port for Android was released on May 12, 2014.[43]
Soundtrack[edit]
The Soundtrack of Half-Life 2 | |
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Soundtrack album by | |
Released | 2004 |
Recorded | 1997−2003 |
Genre | Electronic,[44]ambient[44] |
Length | 60:18 |
Half-life 2 Portal Gun
Album ratings | |
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Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
IGN | 7/10[44] |
Purchasers of the Gold Package[45] of the game were given (among other things) a CD soundtrack, titled The Soundtrack of Half-Life 2, containing nearly all the music from the game, along with three bonus tracks. This CD was available for separate purchase via the Valve online store. The soundtrack was re-released in 2014 for use in Steam Music.[46]
Tracks 15, 16, 18 and 42 are bonus tracks that are exclusive to the CD soundtrack. Many of the tracks were retitled and carried over from the Half-Life soundtrack; the names in parentheses are the original titles. Tracks 34, 41, and 42 are remixes. The composer of the soundtrack is Kelly Bailey.[47][48]
Track listing | ||
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No. | Title | Length |
1. | 'Hazardous Environments (Valve Theme [Long Version])' | 01:22 |
2. | 'CP Violation' | 01:43 |
3. | 'The Innsbruck Experiment' | 01:05 |
4. | 'Brane Scan' | 01:38 |
5. | 'Dark Energy' | 01:30 |
6. | 'Requiem for Ravenholm' | 00:31 |
7. | 'Pulse Phase' | 00:45 |
8. | 'Ravenholm Reprise' | 00:50 |
9. | 'Probably Not A Problem' | 01:24 |
10. | 'Calabi-Yau Model' | 01:44 |
11. | 'Slow Light' | 00:42 |
12. | 'Apprehension and Evasion' | 02:15 |
13. | 'Hunter Down' | 00:13 |
14. | 'Our Resurrected Teleport' | 01:09 |
15. | 'Miscount Detected' | 00:46 |
16. | 'Headhumper' | 00:06 |
17. | 'Triage at Dawn' | 00:43 |
18. | 'Combine Harvester' | 01:23 |
19. | 'Lab Practicum' | 02:52 |
20. | 'Nova Prospekt' | 01:55 |
21. | 'Broken Symmetry' | 00:53 |
22. | 'LG Orbifold' | 02:50 |
23. | 'Kaon' | 01:09 |
24. | 'You're Not Supposed to Be Here' | 02:39 |
25. | 'Suppression Field' | 01:01 |
26. | 'Hard Fought' | 01:13 |
27. | 'Particle Ghost' | 01:38 |
28. | 'Shadows Fore and Aft' | 01:24 |
29. | 'Neutrino Trap (Hurricane Strings)' | 01:33 |
30. | 'Zero Point Energy Field (Cavern Ambiance)' | 01:40 |
31. | 'Echoes of a Resonance Cascade (Space Ocean)' | 01:36 |
32. | 'Black Mesa Inbound (Vague Voices)' | 02:11 |
33. | 'Xen Relay (Threatening Short)' | 00:37 |
34. | 'Tracking Device (Credits / Closing Theme)' | 01:01 |
35. | 'Singularity (Traveling Through Limbo)' | 01:17 |
36. | 'Dirac Shore (Dimensionless Deepness)' | 01:24 |
37. | 'Escape Array (Electric Guitar Ambiance)' | 01:24 |
38. | 'Negative Pressure (Steam in the Pipes)' | 01:55 |
39. | 'Tau-9 (Drums and Riffs)' | 02:03 |
40. | 'Something Secret Steers Us (Nuclear Mission Jam)' | 02:00 |
41. | 'Triple Entanglement (Sirens in the Distance)' | 01:30 |
42. | 'Biozeminade Fragment (Alien Shock)' | 00:30 |
43. | 'Lambda Core (Diabolical Adrenaline Guitar)' | 01:44 |
Reception[edit]
Critical reception[edit]
Reception | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Half-Life 2 received critical acclaim upon release, gaining an aggregated score of 96/100 on Metacritic.[49] Sources, such as GameSpy,[57]The Cincinnati Enquirer,[63]The New York Times,[64] and VideoGamer.com,[62] have given perfect reviewing scores, and others, such as PC Gamer,[61]IGN,[59]GamesRadar,[58] and Eurogamer,[53][54] gave near-perfect scores, while the game became the fifth title to receive Edge magazine's ten-out-of-ten score.[52] Critics who applauded the game cited the advanced graphics and physics.[55][64]Maximum PC awarded Half-Life 2 an exaggerated, unprecedented 11 on their rating scale which normally peaks at 10, calling it 'the best game ever made'.[60]
In the United States, Half-Life 2's computer version sold 680,000 copies and earned $34.3 million by August 2006. It was the country's 17th best-selling computer game between January 2000 and August 2006.[65] It received a 'Platinum' sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA),[66] indicating sales of at least 300,000 copies in the United Kingdom.[67]Forbes reported on February 9, 2011 that the game had sold 12 million copies worldwide.[68]
In a review of The Orange Box, IGN stated that although Half-Life 2 has already been released through other mediums, the game itself is still enjoyable on a console. They also noted that the physics of Half-Life 2 are very impressive despite being a console title. However, it was noted that the graphics on the Xbox 360 version of Half-Life 2 were not as impressive as when the title was released on the PC.[69] GameSpot's review of The Orange Box noticed that the content of both the Xbox 360 releases, and PlayStation 3 releases were exactly alike, the only issue with the PlayStation 3 version was that it had noticeable frame-rate hiccups. GameSpot continued to say that the frame rates issues were only minor but some consider them to be a significant irritation.[56]
Several critics, including some that had given positive reviews, complained about the required usage of the program Steam, the requirement to create an account, register the products, and permanently lock them to the account before being allowed to play, along with installation difficulties and lack of support.[64]
The editors of Computer Gaming World nominated Half-Life 2 for their 2004 'Single-Player Shooter of the Year' and overall 'Game of the Year' awards, although it lost to Painkiller and World of Warcraft, respectively. They wrote, 'Half-Life 2, everyone's default pick to win this year, is indeed a fantastic roller coaster of a ride, not as great as the original but still leagues above most other shooters.'[70]
Awards[edit]
Half-Life 2 earned 39 Game of the Year awards,[71] including Overall Game of the Year at IGN, GameSpot's Award for Best Shooter, GameSpot's Reader's Choice — PC Game of the Year Award, Game of the Year from The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, and 'Best Game' with the Game Developers Choice Awards, where it was also given various awards for technology, characters, and writing. Edge magazine awarded Half Life 2 with its top honor of the year with the award for Best Game, as well as awards for Innovation and Visual Design. The game also had a strong showing at the 2004 British Academy Video Games Awards, picking up six awards, more than any other game that night, with awards including 'Best Game' and 'Best Online and Multiplayer.'[72]Computer Games Magazine named Half-Life 2 the fourth-best computer game of 2004. The editors call it 'a masterful single-player experience that plays a constant game of one-upmanship with itself.' It won the magazine's 'Best Technology' and 'Best Writing' awards, and was a runner-up in the 'Best Sound Effects', 'Best AI' and 'Best Voice Acting' categories.[73]
Guinness World Records awarded Half-Life 2 the world record for 'Highest Rated Shooter by PC Gamer Magazine' in the Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008. Other records awarded the game in the book include, 'Largest Digital Distribution Channel' for Valve's Steam service, 'First Game to Feature a Gravity Gun', and 'First PC Game to Feature Developer Commentary'.[74] In 2009, Game Informer put Half-Life 2 5th on their list of 'The Top 200 Games of All Time', saying that 'With Half-Life 2, Valve redefined the way first-person shooters were created'.[75]
Half-Life 2 was selected by readers of The Guardian as the best game of the decade, with praise given especially to the environment design throughout the game. According to the newspaper, it 'pushed the envelope for the genre, and set a new high watermark for FPS narrative'. One author commented: 'Half-Life 2 always felt like the European arthouse answer to the Hollywood bluster of Halo and Call of Duty'.[76]Half-Life 2 won Crispy Gamer's Game of the Decade[77] tournament style poll. It also won Reviews on the Run's,[78] IGN's[79] Best Game of the Decade and Spike Video Game Awards 2012 Game of the Decade.[80]
Mods[edit]
Since the release of the Source engine SDK, a large number of modifications (mods) have been developed by the Half-Life 2 community. Mods vary in scale, from fan-created levels and weapons, to partial conversions such as Rock 24, Half-Life 2 Substance and SMOD (which modify the storyline and gameplay of the pre-existing game), SourceForts and Garry's Mod (which allow the player to experiment with the physics system in a sandbox mode), to total conversions such as Black Mesa, Dystopia, Zombie Master or Iron Grip: The Oppression, the last of which transforms the game from a first-person shooter into a real-time strategy game.[81][82] Some mods take place in the Half-Life universe; others in completely original settings. Many more mods are still in development, including Lift, The Myriad, Operation Black Mesa, and the episodic single-player mod Minerva.[83] Several multiplayer mods, such as Pirates, Vikings and Knights II, a predominately sword-fighting game; Insurgency: Modern Infantry Combat, which focuses on realistic modern infantry combat; and Jailbreak Source have been opened to the public as a beta.[84][85] As part of its community support, Valve announced in September 2008 that several mods, with more planned in the future, were being integrated into the Steamworks program, allowing the mods to make full use of Steam's distribution and update capabilities.[86]
Sequels[edit]
Since the release of Half-Life 2, Valve Corporation has released an additional level and two additional 'expansion' sequels. The level, released as Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, was meant to take place between the levels 'Highway 17' and 'Sandtraps'.[87] It serves primarily as a showcase for high-dynamic-range rendering (HDR) technology. The first expansion sequel, Half-Life 2: Episode One, takes place immediately after the events of Half-Life 2, with the player taking on the role of Gordon Freeman once again and with Alyx Vance playing a more prominent role. Half-Life 2: Episode Two continues directly from the ending of Episode One, with Alyx and Gordon making their way to White Forest Missile base, a hideout of the resistance. A third episode is set to be released in the future, completing an intended trilogy.[88] In a June 2006 interview with Eurogamer, Gabe Newell revealed that the Half-Life 2 'episodes' are essentially Half-Life 3.[89] He reasons that rather than force fans to wait another six years for a full sequel, Valve Corporation would release the game in episodic installments.[89] Newell stated that a more accurate title for these episodes would have been 'Half-Life 3: Episode One' and so forth, having referred to the episodes as Half-Life 3 repeatedly throughout the interview.[89] In a May 2011 interview with Develop, Newell stated that the episodic model had been replaced by even shorter development cycles and continuous updates via Steam.[90]
References[edit]
- ^Thorsen, Tor. 'Valve readying Half-Life 2 bundles; Counter-Strike: Source available next week.' Gamespot. September 29, 2004.
- ^Bell, Joe Grant (1998-11-25). Half-Life: Prima's Official Strategy Guide. Prima Games. ISBN978-0-7615-1360-5.
- ^Valve Corporation (2004-11-16). Half-Life 2. Microsoft Windows, Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Mac OS X. Valve Corporation. Level/area: Chapter 1: Point Insertion.
The G-Man: [at the start of the game, over a psychedelic series of images calling back to Half-Life and forward to the final chapters] Rise and shine, Mr. Freeman. Rise and..shine. Not that I wish..to imply that you have been sleeping on..the job. No one is more deserving of a rest, and all the effort in the world would have gone to waste until..well..let's just say your hour has come again. [..] The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference..in the world. So, wake up, Mr. Freeman. Wake up and..smell the ashes..
- ^Valve Corporation (2004-11-16). Half-Life 2. Microsoft Windows, Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Mac OS X. Valve Corporation. Level/area: Chapter 5: Black Mesa East.
Dr. Eli Vance: [when Gordon looks at a board of news clippings involving the Seven Hour War] Doctor Breen. He's the administrator of this whole, vile business now. He ended the Seven Hours War by managing the Earth's..surrender. The Combine rewarded him with power.
- ^Valve Corporation (2004-11-16). Half-Life 2. Microsoft Windows, Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Mac OS X. Valve Corporation. Level/area: Chapter 2: 'A Red Letter Day'.
Isaac Kleiner: What do you mean, 'he's not there'?! / Eli Vance: He didn't come through! / Dr. Kleiner: Then..where is he?! / Eli: [noticing Gordon just outside of the window] Behind you. / Dr. Kleiner: [turns] AH! / Eli: Shut it down, shut it down! / Dr. Kleiner: Gordon! You must get out of here! RUN! / Barney Calhoun: Get down outta sight! I'll come find you!
- ^Valve Corporation (2004-11-16). Half-Life 2. Microsoft Windows, Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Mac OS X. Valve Corporation. Level/area: Chapter 2: 'A Red Letter Day'.
Barney: Hey, Gordon! The Citadel's on full alert, I've never seen it lit up like that! Get out of City 17 as fast as you can, Gordon! Take the old canals, right? They'll take you to Eli's place. It's a dangerous route, bu there's a whole network of refugees, and they'll help you if they can. I'd come with you, but I've gotta look after Doctor Kleiner. Oh, and before I forget--[picks up a crowbar]—I think you dropped this back at Black Mesa! [drops the crowbar to Gordon] Good luck out there, buddy! You're gonna need it.
- ^Valve Corporation (2004-11-16). Half-Life 2. Microsoft Windows, Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Mac OS X. Valve Corporation. Level/area: Chapter 5: Black Mesa East.
Dr. Eli Vance: Now, let's see: the last time I saw you, I sent you up for help after the resonance cascade. Heh, I never though it would take you this long to get back to me!
- ^Valve Corporation (2004-11-16). Half-Life 2. Microsoft Windows, Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Mac OS X. Valve Corporation. Level/area: Chapter 9a: Entanglement.
Isaac Kleiner: [shocked] Alyx? Gordon?! My god, how did you two get here? And when? / Alyx Vance: Uh, are you okay? / Dr. Kleiner: My dear, I had given up all hope of ever seeing you again! / Alyx Vance: [to Gordon] I was afraid we might not make it, either.. [to Kleiner] I think the teleport exploded just as we were going out. / Dr. Kleiner: Indeed it did, and the repercussions were felt for miles, but..that was over a week ago!
- ^Valve Corporation (2004-11-16). Half-Life 2. Microsoft Windows, Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Mac OS X. Valve Corporation. Level/area: Chapter 11: 'Follow Freeman!'.
Barney: And if you see Dr. Breen, tell him I said, 'F*** [D0g drops the strut with a resounding crash.] you!'
- ^Valve Corporation (2004-11-16). Half-Life 2. Microsoft Windows, Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Mac OS X. Valve Corporation. Level/area: Chapter 13: Dark Energy.
Dr. Breen: Having both of you in my keeping ensures I can dictate the terms of any bargain I care to make with the Combine.
- ^Valve Corporation (2004-11-16). Half-Life 2. Microsoft Windows, Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Mac OS X. Valve Corporation. Level/area: Chapter 13: Dark Energy.
G-Man: Time, Doctor Freeman? Is it really that..time again? It seems as if you only just arrived. ['walks out' from the explosion] You have done a great deal in a small time..span. You've done so well, in fact, that I've received some interesting offers for your services. Ordinarily, I wouldn't contemplate them, but these are extra..ordinary times. Rather than offer you the illusion of free choice [like last time], I will take the liberty of choosing for you..if and when your time comes around again. / [The G-Man extracts Gordon from the Citadel and re-enters the 'black void' from the beginning of the game.] / G-Man: I..do apologize for what must seem to you an 'arbitrary imposition', Dr. Freeman. I trust it will all make sense to you in the course of..well, I'm really not at liberty to say. In the meantime..this is where I get off.[smiles, then walks away]
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I heard a lot of rumors about Portal series and Half-Life series plots relation but I didn't found any link.
Can you describe which relations exists between this two stories?
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6 Answers
Aperture Science (which is the firm that developed the Portal gun) is in direct competition with Black Mesa (which is the firm for which Gordon Freeman worked) for military contracts
See the section Other facts on this link
Toni morrison, the bluest eye pdf. The Bluest Eye. Toni Morrison is the Robert F. Goheen Professor of Humani- ties, Emeritus at Princeton University. She has received the. National Book Critics.
Aperture Science and Black Mesa were bitter rivals. As seen in the Portal maps 'testchmb_a_15' and 'escape_02', Aperture Science employees were briefed on Black Mesa through slideshow presentations, such as one titled 'Dollar$ and Sense: Competing with Black Mesa for DoD and Government-wide Acquisition Contracts'
EDIT: Here's an excellent guide on Half Life: http://members.shaw.ca/halflifestory/Check out the timeline for an awesome detail of all events in the Half Life saga, and in the bottom a little speculation to its relation to Portal:
The date that the events of Portal take place aren't certain. We do know that GLaDOS says to Chell: 'Are you trying to escape? [chuckle] Things have changed since the last time you left the building. What's going on out will make you wish you were back in here. I have an infinite capacity for knowledge, and even I'm not sure what is going on outside. All I know is I'm the only thing standing between us and them. Well, I was. Unless you have a plan for building some supercomputer parts in a big hurry, this place isn't going to be safe much longer.' This implies that the game takes place during the Portal Storms or afterwards.
This site is not official but it's a great analysis IMO.
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- In the original Portal, just before the chamber containing GlaDOS, there is a projector with some slides detailing that Black Mesa and Aperture Science are in direct competition.
- In the song at the end of Portal, GlaDOS mentions Black Mesa: 'Maybe you'll find someone else to help you. Maybe Black Mesa.. that was a joke, ha-ha, fat chance'
- In HL2:Ep2, there are references to the Borealis, an Aperture Science research boat that went missing.
- In Portal 2 (which takes place in an Aperture facility), they mention a boat-yard where some sort of 'time-travel experiment' went wrong. Later, you find an empty ship-port, with life-savers scattered around that say 'Borealis.'
- This concept art for HL2:Ep3 contains the Borealis.
- In Portal 2, Cave Johnson (CEO of Aperture Science) states his hate towards Black Mesa in a recording, claiming they 'stole their technology' from Aperture Science.
- In Portal 2, (just before you are first introduced to the goo) there is a room in Aperture Science with a bunch of trophies and awards for '#2 Applied-Science company of the year,' implying (along with the projector slides from Portal 1) that the #1 company is Black Mesa.
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This page has a timeline of the rivalry between Black Mesa and Aperture Science
In HL2 Ep 2, You are told about an aperture ship called Borealis, it is suggested that this ship will appear in episode 3.
So both games take place in the same universe, and Valve seem to be intertwining the two stories. There has also been rumour of a portal gun appearing in episode 3
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In Portal 2, when Chell gets out at the end, it shows the outside for a brief moment and it almost looks like this must take place after the Half Life saga and after the Apocalypse. There is nothing but the Aperture Science lab, so i think Aperture Science must be the Combine's; if it wasn't, they would have destroyed it, right?
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JonathanJonathan
At the end of Half-Life ep 2 the borialis has a cargo contaner thith th aperture logo on it I replayed the game and saw it again also near the end they reply to go to th borialis
user83216user83216
I found something extremly cool! One day i went on the internet and then went on YouTube, i wached a videa about Cell and the fan made theres about her and even though i have played Portal 2 it was the first time i saw the picture of caroline. The next day i bought Half Life 2 Ep 1 and 2 and saw the video clip of the ship that was apertures ship and i was stunned that and looked for news for Ep 3 adn then i hade a brainstorm..
Search for 'Family Picture half Life 2' and 'Caroline portal 2'
See anything alike?
AlexAlex
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged half-life-seriesportal-series or ask your own question.
Just how far are we away from the day when we will be able to play games that reach last-gen console graphical quality on our mobile devices? From a technological standpoint, the arrival of chips like Tegra K1 and a fully featured Trine 2 port suggest that the time may be near. In the meanwhile, processors like Tegra 4 and PowerVR Rogue inch ever closer to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 standard in terms of raw processing power. This makes the arrival of Nvidia-sanctioned Android ports of Half-Life 2 and Portal - out now on Google Play for $9.99/£5.99 - of remarkable interest.
The classic Half-Life 2 arrived in 2004, with Portal arriving almost three years later, both receiving decent enough - if not exactly exceptional - ports onto the Xbox 360 in 2008, and in the here and now we should be expecting great things from these titles running on Tegra 4, which remains one of the most capable mobile processors on the market. The games have been released with Nvidia Shield marketing in mind - the handheld having been slashed in price to a rather attractive $199 - but we strongly suspect the games will work on any Tegra 4-enabled device, though you may need a USB joypad.
We bought both games as soon as they were released, running them on Shield's console mode. This disables the in-built display, piping through video output via a mini-HDMI port, and ensuring that the full power of the chipset makes it through to the external display (mirroring both screens together causes bandwidth problems, and lowers frame-rates in demanding 3D games - something common to all tablets and smartphones we've tried this on).
First up, the bad news. Loading up Half-Life 2, we discover a game that is very much a stripped-down version of the PC original, bereft of the Lost Coast enhancements and running with the equivalent of what appear to be low settings. There's no anti-aliasing whatsoever, resolution is pared back to 600p, texture filtering is pretty hideous with no anisotropic support, while the lack of shadows in some areas can be quite disconcerting.
Playing the game on a small, five-inch 720p Shield display reduces the disappointment of the image quality somewhat, as these issues are less visible on a smaller panel with high pixel density, but we did expect better from the hardware. In a sense, we are reminded of how the game may have played on mid-level hardware back in 2004 when it was originally released. One more positive element we should point out is that audio quality - often pared back substantially on mobile games - is refreshingly decent on both Half-Life 2 and Portal.
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'Inconsistent frame-rates and some brutal graphical compromises impact the quality of the mobile Half-Life 2 experience.'
Half-Life 2 frame-rates are also disappointing, as you can see from the analysis video - in common with many Android games, Half-Life 2 runs completely unlocked, with anything from 20fps to 60fps action depending on the complexity of the scene. Most of the time the game runs north of 30fps, which sounds great in theory, but keep an eye on frame-time - here we see a frequent lurching between 16ms, 33ms and 50ms updates, producing a highly inconsistent, juddering effect. The end result is a game that doesn't feel particularly good to control - even though the actual hardware end is well taken care of owing to the excellent Shield pad design. We also note occasional fleeting freezing issues, characterised by split-second repeat audio.
On the positive side, Half-Life 2's brilliant game design still holds up. Hailing from an era where iron sights weren't a first-person shooter standard, where regenerative health was confined to leaning against a wall in The Getaway, and where a single-player game wasn't called a 'campaign', the fact is that Half-Life 2 still works, playing well by today's standards. It's just that in this case, the quality of the gameplay is seemingly held back by the platform it's running on. But it is still recognisably Half-Life 2, and in many ways proof-positive that true gaming class doesn't age.
This is also borne out by Portal. All of the graphical compromises we saw in Half-Life 2 appear to be much the same, but the somewhat stark level design combined with the simpler layout produces a look that feels a lot more true to the original game, especially when played on the smaller screen. There are still the same jarring dips in game fluidity - especially evident when you open a portal into a more complex area - but the fact that the action is generally a lot more sedate than Half-Life 2 and that frame-rates are generally higher ensures that this port hangs together a lot more effectively.
'Portal relies less on graphical loveliness, while the gameplay is less impacted by the inconsistent frame-rate.'
Overall then, a mixed bag. On the one hand, we expected Tegra 4 to handle these games more adeptly than the end results seen here, which lag significantly behind the standards set by last-gen consoles in 2008. We gave Half-Life 2 and Portal a go on an Intel Bay Trail based system (essentially revised Atom architecture with a pared-back Intel HD 4000 implementation - used primarily on tablets) running native Windows 8, and while we found ourselves GPU-bound pretty quickly on Half-Life 2, there's no doubt that we could run the game with similar performance levels at higher settings - and at 720p to boot. With Portal, we could even hit 720p60 with high settings.
So, can current mobile hardware run old PC games? The Bay Trail tests suggest that we should be able to, and while Tegra 4 may not hit last-gen console standards it is still a capable mobile part, so we do wonder why the quality of the games isn't better. Admittedly, we have little idea of the games' provenance. Comments from Valve's Doug Lombardi suggest that Nvidia handled the game itself, but it's not a company that tends to develop full-blown games, or indeed port others' work, so we wouldn't be surprised if the conversions were carried out by a third-party developer.
In the final analysis, these releases are indeed full-content replicas of the Valve classics, but seem to lack the care and attention to make them must-have mobile purchases - especially at what is a premium price point for an Android product. It's all the more surprising because, in theory, this would be one of the few Android titles where the developer could concentrate optimisation on a single platform - Shield.
Of the two, Half-Life 2 is the game we really wanted to be special, but the feel of a quality FPS relies upon a consistency in update and input latency that isn't really here, while the graphical downgrades can be brutal. The general style of gameplay and the less arduous technical requirements make Portal the better experience - but $9.99/£5.99 still feels too expensive for what is a fairly short game. In the meantime, we can't help but wonder whether enhanced versions for the much more capable Tegra K1 are in the works. This week, our favourite Chinese Android maker, Xiaomi, revealed the MiPad - effectively a Retina iPad Mini competitor based on the K1. Benchmarks suggest a 2x performance boost compared to Apple's A8, suggesting that the mobile graphics may finally compete with the last-gen console standard..
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Half-life 2 Portal Mod Download
New in town?
Forgotten your details? Half-Life 2 turns 12 this year, and thanks to its powerful, if a bit creaky Source engine it remains as popular with the modding community as ever. Over the years we've seen all manner of excellent mods emerge, adding co-op or competitive multiplayer, shiny graphical updates, new story content, and even full conversions that bear little or no resemblance to the original game.
It's the latter two we're going to focus on today, as we round up the best single-player Half-Life 2 mods. We've chosen mods that stand up as separate adventures, sometimes set in worlds far removed from Combine Earth.
The Stanley Parable
This is the story of a man named Stanley. Or rather, it's the story of the story: a deviously clever, reactive adventure that second-guesses your every move. As Stanley—or, perhaps more accurately, as the player controlling Stanley—you're free to follow or ignore the various instructions the wonderful narrator bellows over you, resulting in a tangled, branching story that rewards your curiosity, imagination, and defiance. The original Source mod was later expanded into a full game, one our Phil thought extremely highly of in our review.
Download:ModDB, Steam.
Minerva: Metastasis
Adam Foster's Minerva comes close to the quality of Valve's own Half-Life 2 Episodes—in fact, Valve was so impressed Foster joined the company. It's a sizeable story, about the length of an official chapter, with considered level design and a high level of polish. You begin the game strapped to the underside of a helicopter, before being dropped on a mysterious island with a sinister secret.
Download: Steam.
The Citizen
Gordon Freeman ends the Half-Life series as a crowbar-wielding superhero, a figure of legend in the Half-Life universe. Two-part mod The Citizen provides a new angle on the world, casting you as an ordinary oppressed citizen of City 17. Obviously, said ordinary man soon acquires a gun and starts killing people, but you might snap too if you called that dystopia home.
Download: ModDB.
Get a Life
This lengthy, ambitious mod swings from horror to all-out action. Occasional cutscenes tell the story of a subway technician suffering from leukaemia, but Get a Life's unlucky hero Alex also has to contend with the mod's new limb damage system, which causes effects like dizziness and limping, depending on where he's hit by enemies.
Download:ModDB.
Mission Improbable
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to step into the sneakers of Gordon Freeman and set off to repair a Resistance listening post. This impressive Episode Two mod begins with Gordon rowing to a distant coastline: a coastline that reminds you just how pretty the venerable Source engine can look in the right hands. The right hands in this instance are a couple of established game devs, and their experience shines through pretty much every crevice of this slick, well-paced adventure.
Download:ModDB.
Research and Development
Thanks to its then-revolutionary ragdoll physics, a lot of time in Half-Life 2 was spent throwing chairs at NPCs, or flinging teacups with the gravity gun. In that spirit, Research and Development does away with offensive weapons altogether, leaving just a couple of secondary tools to let you manipulate gravity or order Antlions about. Puzzles are the order of the day here, and it's surprising just how easily Half-Life 2's toolset translates to this new focus.
Download:ModDB.
Nightmare House 2
Where there are modding tools, horror mods are sure to follow. You don't need to have played the original—in fact, it's included as a prologue, giving you the chance to explore both a haunted house and a spooky hospital. The horror on offer here is mainly of the jump scare variety, so if you were hoping for the psychological horror of Silent Hill, move on to the next item in the list. Nightmare House 2 is basically FEAR—it even features its own creepy ghost girl—but more FEAR is hardly a bad thing.
Download:ModDB.
Silent Hill: Alchemilla
The impressive Alchemilla drops you in the world of Silent Hill, endless fog, Dark World and all. Not only have the developers nailed the grimy aesthetic of Team Silent's classic series, they've matched its colour palette, borrowed its sound effects, and recreated its lonely atmosphere. It's such an uncanny representation that it may take you a while to notice there are no enemies traipsing around, but then those games were hardly known for their satisfying combat.
Download: Alchemilla mod.
Half Life 2 Portal Mod
Water
Until now everything we've featured has been strictly first-person, but Water bucks that trend. In fact, it bucks a lot of trends, given that it's a third-person puzzley adventure starring a mermaid. Yes, a mermaid. While you're (initially at least) limited to a fantasy city's waterways, this smart mod soon finds ways to get you exploring land too, using a number of innovative systems. The developers of Water went on to make From Earth, another, similarly inventive Source mod.
Download:ModDB.
Black Mesa
Well, we couldn't ignore Black Mesa, could we? For the unaware, this recreates the original Half-Life in its sequel's shinier engine, and it's been in development since dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Much more than a simple port, Black Mesa updates Valve's game with fancier assets, new voice acting, a reworked campaign and more. The team have also excised Half-Life's much-maligned Xen section, albeit only temporarily until it's been remade to be, somehow, good. While the older mod is free, you'll find the newer version on Early Access, accompanied by a price tag.
Download:Official site.