Half-Life 2 review

Our VerdictThis is the one unmissable game. It’s time to get that cutting-edge PC system. Sell your grandmother, remortgage the cat, do whatever you have to do. Just don’t miss out.

Our Verdict

This is the one unmissable game. It’s time to get that cutting-edge PC system. Sell your grandmother, remortgage the cat, do whatever you have to do. Just don’t miss out.

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20 years ago, Half-Life 2 was the recipient of two of PC Gamer’shighest review scoresever: 96% in PC Gamer UK, and 98% in the US version of the magazine, which at the time published separate reviews.

“This is the one unmissable game,” UK reviewerJim Rossignolconcluded. “It’s time to get that cutting-edge PC system. Sell your grandmother, remortgage the cat, do whatever you have to do. Just don’t miss out.”

If there was a good reason I was living like a disgraced detective in November 2004, it’s been compressed in my memory to ‘I was in college.’ Maybe I spent all my desk money on Half-Life 2. Whatever the case, after setting up an account with a frustrating new service called Steam, I played through Half-Life 2 lying on my stomach with my neck bent at 90 degrees, as if posing for the ‘what not to do’ section of an ergonomics textbook. We did what we had to do, as Jim said.

20 years later, I’m proud to say that I now own a desk, but I like to think it hasn’t changed me. Half-Life 2 certainly did, though, and along with Steam it set a new course for PC gaming. To celebrate the big anniversary of Valve’s landmark shooter, we’ve republished the original text of PC Gamer UK’s Half-Life 2 review below—enjoy the brief trip back to one of PC gaming’s most exciting moments. —Tyler Wilde, US Editor-in-Chief

Half-Life 2 review - PC Gamer UK, November 2004

It was all in that moment when I just sat back and laughed. I couldn’t believe it was quite this good. I chuckled in muddled disbelief, expectations utterly defied. My nervous fingers reloaded the level, knowing that I had to see that breathtaking sequence one more time. It was then that I knew for certain: Valve had surpassed not only themselves, but everyone else too. Half-Life 2 is an astounding accomplishment. It is the definitive statement of the last five years of first-person shooters. Everything else was just a stopgap.

Half-Life 2 is a magnificent, dramatic experience that has few peers.

Half-Life 2 is a near perfect sequel. It takes almost everything that worked from Half-Life and either improves on it, or keeps it much the same. But that simple summation undersells how the Valve team have approached this task. Half-Life 2 is a linear shooter with most of the refinements one would expect from years of work, but it is also a game of a higher order of magnitude than any of the previous pretenders to the throne. The polish and the stratospheric height of the production values mean that Half-Life 2 is a magnificent, dramatic experience that has few peers.

(Image credit: Valve/PC Gamer)

A clip from PC Gamer’s Half-Life 2 magazine review.

Half-Life 2 isn’t big on exposition, but the clues are there. You’re thrust into this frightening near-future reality and just have to deal with it. Your allies are numerous, but they have their own problems. Your only way forward is to help them. And so you do, battling your way along in this relentless, compelling current of violence and action, gradually building up a picture of what has happened since Black Mesa. The Combine, the military government that controls the city in a boot-stamping-face kind of way, are a clear threat, but quite how they came to be and what their purposes are become aching problems. Once again Gordon remains silent, listening to what he is told so that you can find those answers for yourself.

(Image credit: Valve/PC Gamer)

A clip from PC Gamer’s Half-Life 2 magazine review.

(Image credit: Valve/PC Gamer)

A clip from PC Gamer’s Half-Life 2 magazine review.

Gordon can pick up anything that isn’t bolted down and place, drop or hurl it anywhere you choose. Initially this consists of little more than shifting boxes so that you can climb out of a window, but gradually tasks increase in complexity. Puzzles, ever intuitive, are well signposted and entertaining. If they’re tougher than before they’re still just another rung up on what you’ve already learned. This is immaculate game design. There are a couple of moments in these twenty hours where something isn’t perfect in its pace or placing, but these are minor, only memorable in stark contrast to the consistent brilliance of surrounding events. There is always something happening, something new. You find yourself plunging into it with relish. Just throwing things about is immediately appealing. You find yourself restraining the impulse to just pick up and hurl anything you encounter. (Free at last, I can interact!) Black Mesa veteran Dr Kleiner is remarkably relaxed about you trashing half his lab, just to see what can be grabbed or broken. Combine police take less kindly to having tin cans lobbed at their shiny gasmasks.

Half-Life 2 screenshot

But the core process of this new physics, the key to the success of the game, is to be found in the Gravity Gun. Once you’ve experienced vehicular action and got to grips with combat, Half-Life 2 introduces a new concept—the idea of violently manipulating objects with this essential tool. The gun has two modes, one drags things toward you and can be used to hold, carry or drop them. The other projects them away and can either be used to smash and punch or, if you’re already holding something, hurl it with tremendous force. A filing cabinet becomes a flying battering ram, dragged towards you and then fired into enemies, only to be dragged back and launched again to hammer your foe repeatedly, or until the cabinet is smashed into metal shards. Pick these up and you can blast them through the soft flesh of your enemies.

The gravity gun isn’t just another a weapon, it’s the soul of Half-Life 2.

(Image credit: Valve/PC Gamer)

A clip from PC Gamer’s Half-Life 2 magazine review.

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The Verdict96Read our review policyHalf-Life 2This is the one unmissable game. It’s time to get that cutting-edge PC system. Sell your grandmother, remortgage the cat, do whatever you have to do. Just don’t miss out.

The Verdict

96Read our review policyHalf-Life 2This is the one unmissable game. It’s time to get that cutting-edge PC system. Sell your grandmother, remortgage the cat, do whatever you have to do. Just don’t miss out.

96Read our review policy

Half-Life 2This is the one unmissable game. It’s time to get that cutting-edge PC system. Sell your grandmother, remortgage the cat, do whatever you have to do. Just don’t miss out.

Half-Life 2

This is the one unmissable game. It’s time to get that cutting-edge PC system. Sell your grandmother, remortgage the cat, do whatever you have to do. Just don’t miss out.

TOPICSValve

TOPICS

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Our Verdict#

Half-Life 2 review - PC Gamer UK, November 2004#

Our Verdict

Half-Life 2 review - PC Gamer UK, November 2004