The people calling this game a tech demo aren't necessarily wrong. Half-life 2 runs on a (at the time) brand new proprietary engine, one that Valve is 1000% confident in. The Source Engine would, in fact, come to define the aestethic and brand of most of Valve's titles. Technology-wise, Half-life 2 is one of the greatest successes a single company could hope for, one that partly built the Valve we know today.

It would be dismissive to call the game just a tech demo, when it is a complete experience; one that is propelled forward by the new tech. The gravity gun is the perfect example. One can play the game entirely by only busting it out during puzzles (Citadel aside, even Ravenholm could be beaten without using it to throw a single sawblade against a zombie) but the fact that it can become one of Freeman's most lethal weapons makes it incredibly fun to use.

That said, it may be a bit puzzling as a sequel to 1998's Half-Life. That game was very action-focused, putting the player in situations where thinking fast and applying the right tool to the right situation was necessary for survival. In that game human enemies were bloodthirsty, cunning and lethal, which coupled with their robotic patterns of speech, made them somehow more terrifying than 2's Combine. The latter are scary at first, when they chase you around City 17 while you are unarmed; but as soon as you pick up a weapon they are revealed to basically be meat puppets, losing all sense of presence as soon as their health drops to zero, their bodies flopping to the ground in an unintended comical way. 2 must know this, as it relies mostly on (very strong and memorable) setpieces that take center stage and where the enemies are just a part of it. Half-Life 1 had plenty of setpieces (the fights against black ops assassins, the bridge and cliff sections in Surface Tension spring to mind) but in 2 they are more varied, thanks in great part to the inclusion of drivable vehicles.

Story and characters change drastically in the sequel. Where 1s plot and characters were in large part flat and one-dimensional, 2 fleshes out its supportive cast, flexing its impressive facial expressions of the Source Engine.
The character who instead loses the most from this exchange is Gordon Freeman. Where in the first game he had complete freedom to act in the structure he's given (the messiah that saves scientists and guards alike, the psychopath who murders his peers with glee, the opportunist who will kill a guard in cold blood for ammo or a gun) is now flattened into an infallable saviour of humanity. I won't argue it is bad for the story, but for ceratin players it may hurt their immersion, which is bad in itself.

There is also a throughline between the two games, the hallmark of a good series: the iconography. It's no accident that something as simple as a black and red crowbar has become an iconic symbol; not simply because it's an unorthpdox fps melee weapon, but as a tool that both games give you plenty of targets for, whether they be boxes, planks or headcrabs. It also smartly maintains the amazng sounds of the first game: the medic and HEV stations and the original voice actors for Kleiner, Barney and G-man.

I want to conclude this by talking about the latter figure. He (they? It?) is the only character that has a consistent and consistently compelling writing in both titles. The first game's blockiness and voice performance made him even more alien than the rest of the cast and the game's quirks only amplified that. Half-Life 2, despite its marked improvements in the graphics and fidelity department, continues the tradition by finding even more visual tricks to maintain the mystery of his character, shedding just enough light in his plans while not revealing all of its hand regarding the big monster and puppeteer of the franchise.

Half-Life 2 is a triumph. One that Valve is still scared to follow up properly. Hopefully Alyx is a sign of things to come. Hopefully we can all one day play Half-Life 3.

Yo, listen up here's a story
About a little guy
That lives in a blue (shift) world
And all day and all night
And everything he sees is just blue (shift)
Like him inside and outside
Blue (shift) his house
With a blue (shift) little window
And a blue (shift) corvette
And everything is blue (shift) for him
And himself and everybody around
Cause he ain't got nobody to listen to

I'm blue (shift)
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
I'm blue (shift)
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di

I have a blue (shift) house
With a blue (shift) window
Blue (shift) is the colour of all that I wear
Blue (shift) are the streets
And all the trees are too
I have a girlfriend and she is so blue (shift)
Blue (shift) are the people here
That walk around
Blue (shift) like my corvette its in and outside
Blue (shift) are the words I say
And what I think
Blue (shift) are the feelings
That live inside me

I'm blue (shift)
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
I'm blue (shift)
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di

I have a blue (shift) house
With a blue (shift) window
Blue (shift) is the colour of all that I wear
Blue (shift) are the streets
And all the trees are too
I have a girlfriend and she is so blue (shift)
Blue (shift) are the people here
That walk around
Blue (shift) like my corvette, its in and outside
Blue (shift) are the words I say
And what I think
Blue (shift) are the feelings
That live inside me

I'm blue (shift)
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
I'm blue (shift)
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di

Huge disappointment. I was prepared to defend this, but nope. I liked this even less than Opposing Force. Barney is my favourite character from the HL2 games, so this was very sad.

Blue Shift simply has nothing going for it. The story's fine, and honestly it has a lot of potential (being a security guard during a containment breach in a top-secret research facility has certainly been the impetus for some awesome stories in the SCP universe), but the game is too short to take advantage of it. Halfway through, I got the sense that I might be evacuating people, unlike Freeman and Shephard who take a more direct approach to the alien incursion, but Barney only really saves a handful of people. There's little to differentiate the plot from that of the other two games. You get the guns, you shoot the military and the aliens, and you do what you can to get out.

Additionally, the gameplay kinda sucks. It has all the same problems that the other games do with the clunky controls but not enough cool combat encounters to compensate for them. There aren't even any new weapons. You get the missile launcher towards the end, but I didn't use it once because you simply don't need to. It's not even as if there are any interesting puzzles, either; just some annoying platforming sections that would fare much better in a game with smoother movement.

Half-Life: Blue Shift feels like nothing more than a tacked-on epilogue to Half-Life and Opposing Force. Hardly anything about it stands out (except for the brief trip to Xen), it's not fun to play, and the atmosphere is a step down from the other games. It's only worth playing through for the sake of getting Barney's side of the story (which isn't even referenced in the later games as far as I'm aware) and because it's so short.

This is very much an improvement over the original Half-Life, to which I thought was good. Not incredible or anything, just good. This game however, improves on mostly every aspect the original game did. I think I'd still prefer the lonely, claustrophobic feel of the original, but that's just me.

Firstly, gameplay has seen a vast upgrade in every department. There is so much nuance to the combat that it would be difficult to explain well in my limited review, but just know that every fight feels unique and satisfying with much more awesome weapons at your disposal. The movement feels so much better than Half-Life one. The game also throws in some different vehicles to spice up the gameplay. And while I think these sections go on for far longer than they have any right to, they can still remain somewhat fun. Puzzles are also very satisfying and exploring the world is also a treat.

Speaking of the world, the world and story might be my favorite thing about Half-Life 2. Without going into spoilers, Half-Life 2's story is very satisfying to see play out, even if it doesn't try anything new on the surface at least. Half-Life 2 shows its characters, story, and world all through visual storytelling. Sure, there are those sections where stuff is explained to you but those pale in comparison to how the game truly lets its tale play out, Half-Life 2 is a huge fan of show don't tell (most of the time), and I love it. The combine are never stated to you to be actually awful aliens, but you can tell how fucking repulsive they are just by looking around. I heard the devs wanted you to experience the story without ever taking control away from you, and that approach worked 100%. The gameplay is constantly in your control allowing you to experience rich gameplay with incredible visual storytelling. It amazes me that the game is able to do this without ever having a single cutscene.

Half-Life 2 is a landmark title in gaming. It's not without its faults (mainly the sometimes wonky pacing), but these faults are easily overshadowed by a game that feels so perfectly crafted. You owe it to yourself to play this.

My favourite game of all time. The only issue I have with this game is that it has a cliff-hanger that's unanswered even 16 years after it came out, Half Life Alyx did change a few things but its still a cliffhanger. But back to the review. Half Life 2 Episode 2 has the best atmosphere in gaming, even better than Half Life 2, and that game has an amazing atmosphere, there were no bits where I thought it was dragging on, it had challenging moments that got on my nerves but not because they were bad, and you can definitely see the improvement in the source engine with an increase in the graphics quality and many things being done that weren't possible in half life 2 or episode 1. This game also experiments with larger, more open levels, which makes me want half life 3 to be open world so bad. The game also introduces us to new enemies such as the hunter and the advisor (who were technically in the prior two episodes but more as background things). This also introduces us to many plot points which still remain unresolved such as the Borealis and the whole Mossman situation in the artic. Overall this is an amazing game and a must play.