Half Life 2 (Favorite Games) [Telegrams re-request]

Half Life 2 and its episodes will always have a special place in my heart. I remember seeing a friend playing it on his computer in 2004 and was mesmerized. I saved every penny I could from my first job at a golf course and finally in 2007 I built a pc with a Cooler Master Centurion (black and blue) case, a socket 939 Athlon X2 4400+ and Nvidia 8800 GTS. That was my first build and I was extremely proud that I could use something I put together. The first thing I did was download HL2 from Steam and played it over and over, along with the episodes. That was the last AMD based system I built until 8 months ago. Back to team red with a Ryzen 3600 and RX 5700 XT, I've played through HL2 a couple of times since. Half Life 2 is the reason I gravitated toward and fell in love with computers.

I was first introduced to Half Life 2 on the Xbox and finally got to play it on the Xbox 360 (orange box). Although I didn’t grow up with Half Life (Halo Boy growing up). I know that many said the physics, gameplay, and etc. was revolutionized. Do you feel personally that gaming changed as a whole because of Half Life 2? And how do? And what in Half Life made you be in awe?

DeusNightFire

Why have so few games since then had as good of physics? Whenever I happen to open up HL2 again I'm always struck by how well it's held up, 17 years later now! It blew my mind when I first played it, being able to pick up every single thing I saw (like the mutually exclusive conformist or rebel (something like that) steam achievements for putting the coffee cup in the trash when the soldier told you to). I thought that was the future of games, but not many since then have been so detailed in that regard.

Alexander

yeah, installing Steam (back when it was a sickly army green) was a major pain and it really did not run well. The concept of game downloads over the internet wasn't new but i don't think anyone thought it would be a practical way to deliver new games. Basically at the time we all thought of it like we think of heavy handed DRM now.

Chuck Emmett

If memory serves, yes, i believe it did annoy me, as it was mandatory to installing the game. Looking back it was such a clever move from Valve. Way ahead of the curve

Gordon Freeman

I remember thinking at the time, that the graphics were out of this world since I don't recall having seen anything quite as realistic, interactive (gravity gun!!) and atmospheric. Plus this was Half-Life 2 for crying out loud and it was going to rock and then it went episodic (pog!) Why would a game go episodic unless there was so much content that they could stretch out and build an entire freaking universe around it and show that they didn't really need to rush into a Half-Life 3... sadly, we know how that ended, but HL3 was going to wipe the floor with everything else out there (it still might, one can dream). These were times when you could actually bet your money on certain games being good and not be left disappointed with a buggy mess. Good times indeed! PS1: I just reinstalled HL2 and EP1 and EP2. So. much. nostalgia. PS2: Orange Box ❤❤

Amiablechief

Did it annoy you all, having to use Steam? Honestly, I am curious what you thought back then.

Moore's Law Is Dead

Such a monumental game and time for me as gamer. My first introduction to steam and preloading a game from the internet (how novel at the time!). The excitement regarding hardware - glad i had my 9800 pro at the ready. The game was just amazing for it's time. The gravity gun, the way materials and physics were put together. Graphics and animations were fantastic.

Gordon Freeman

This was the first "collectors edition" of a game I ever owned. PC Gamer got me hyped as heck for it. It looked so far ahead of anything we were playing at the time. The levels looked like actual places, the characters looked like actual humans, the ant lions looked like real...wait I think I lost the thread here. But despite all the hype the game actually delivered and was a transcendental gaming experience. I just wish I still had the shirt that came with my collectors edition. It was pretty much my go to shirt back in high school. Doubt I'd fit in it now, lol.

Chuck Emmett