Format: PC Publisher: Valve Developer: In-house Our review: E143

Had it slipped even farther from that 2003 release date, sending expectations not just through the roof but into outer space, Half-Life 2 would still have scored that 10. Like Xen, the border world in which life for Gordon Freeman went from bad to catastrophic in the blink of an eye, it exists entirely in a universe of its own. If there’s a reason why envious, lesser games haven’t copied it yet it’s that they barely know where to begin.
Ten years later, it still overwhelms. Simply classifying it can be a game in itself, leaving you with something like ‘big, dumb, ingenious, fun’ and the knowledge that you’ve been bested. Really, nothing explains it better than Freeman himself, a muddle of scientist and soldier who, through exemplary use of anecdotes and basic narrative technique, has ascended into myth. Never seen but reflected in the words of others, he’s a perfect catalyst for the game’s historic events.
His flight through the streets and suburbs of City 17 is at once ominous, bewildering and oppressive. This is a world being wrung out over a drain, and Valve pokes a camera into its darkest corners every chance it gets. Or, to be precise, you do. The ‘directed action’ of Half-Life has evolved into something not just more dramatic, but also transparent. Unlike Gears Of War and its ‘objects of interest’ lock-on camera, Half-Life 2 knows the value of truly ambient events. Worse than the discovery of Overwatch soldiers burning bodies on Highway 17 is the ease with which it’s overlooked, suggesting a background of atrocity that shakes the imagination.
Likewise, most of peeling walls and alcoves feature some kind of window into Combine-occupied Earth, similar in effect to decking a claustrophobic restaurant in ceiling-high mirrors. Anti-establishment slogans wrestle with Dr Breen’s propaganda, newspaper clippings chronicle the fall of Man, and a world is created far bigger than the game that leads you through it. The remnants of human infrastructure, meanwhile, ship survivors into City 17 but never take them out. Given sign upon sign of global peril, you really are the last free man.
Combat forms a significant part of the Half-Life 2 trip, but Valve’s innovations are evident in less obvious areas.

As an announcement of fledgling concept designer Viktor Antonov, it couldn’t have been more effective. Valve’s mantelpiece is full of design awards from bodies as revered as BAFTA and the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, but what’s important is that one man’s vision – of alien architecture literally eating our own, destroying its symmetry and stealing its soul – stood out in an industry averse to headlining talent. Beginning in vehicle design and expanding into full-blown futurism, Antonov’s career mirrors that of Blade Runner designer Syd Mead, and his influence looks sure to follow.
Half-Life 2 refuses to sit within the highbrow genres invented – or indeed reinvented – to describe it. You could call it a work of interactive cinema, a triumph of environmental narrative or a milestone in virtual mise-en-scene, but you’d only embarrass it, not to mention yourself. This is a shooter – a game of guns and gore. Irrational’s Jon Shay says much the same of BioShock, the spiritual successor to System Shock 2: “We’re adding non-linear exploration, choice of tools, deeper interactions with AIs and so on. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to be able to aim and pull the trigger.”
It’s not enough to say that Valve’s happy to yank a buzz-saw blade from a wall and fire it through a zombie’s guts; it delights in doing these things. It cheers the barrel that pitches multiple Combine high into the air and leaves them burning on the ground. The thought of Dog leaping buildings to take down Combine aircraft gives it goosebumps. People sneer at its by-gamers-for-gamers rhetoric – even louder when they can’t sign in to Steam – but the evidence is there in the places where it matters most: Nova Prospekt, The Coast and Ravenholm.
And like an unfortunate victim of its oddly adorable headcrabs, Half-Life 2 is no cannibal. At a time when gaming has to face up to its own insularity, Valve takes next to nothing from its peers, the exceptions being id Software’s blueprints for the FPS and its own seminal predecessor. The firecracker bangs of its explosives, the rasping radio calls of the Combine, the gliding reloads of the Overwatch Rifle and the tinnitus that rings in Freeman’s ears are born solely of its boardroom table.
Half-Life 2 is the only game to be the recipient of two Edge 10s – first time around in our Half-Life 2 review, and then again three years later as part of The Orange Box.

Often cited as the game’s weakest link (usually by fans of more authentic military shooters), its combat is really nothing of the sort. Were it a simple question of AI tactics and ballistics modelling, the critics would be on to something, but killing a man can mean so much more given the right context and a modicum of effort. Every set-piece in Half-Life 2 is logically staged; every trigger pull has meaning.
As for the G-Man, his meaning remains safely locked inside a briefcase. He might just be the most infuriating device a drama could ever have, a placeholder for truths that even Valve has yet to fully imagine. But you have to love him. Is he the puppeteer behind this epic state of affairs? A transdimensional anomaly? A face from the shadows of Black Mesa? Freeman himself? Ashton Kutcher? It doesn’t matter. In fact, it’s best we never know. G-Man works best as the only thing we do know him as: a simple agent of fate, struggling to keep tabs on Freeman’s wild endeavours.
That Valve has kept its own house in order, however, is perhaps its greatest accomplishment of all. Few other developers even have the chance to make as many faux pas, and none, except perhaps GSC Game World, would survive them if it did. That sticky situation with ATI hardware bundles, released a year before the game was even finished, couldn’t dirty Half-Life’s name. Nor could a frankly dreadful stuttering sound issue bodge its marvellous tale. And the continued wait for Half-Life 3? Well, like the Man himself would say, no one’s implying that they’re sleeping on the job.
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