Best single-player shooter. It never felt like the "move up 100 yards shoot,move up 50, shoot, move 100, shoot" which is what the newer shooters feel like.

I still remember defenidng that prison. Wow... just wow.

Best FPS ever - in fact through the power of Steam I'm replaying it on my laptop while travelling around Europe, and it still looks good even downscaled a little so the laptop can handle it.

Playing it again has slightly depressed me though, as suddenly Gears, Killzone, etc. seem rather pale by comparison to the SP campaign in Half Life 2. Why can't developers get such great SP campaigns out the door anymore? Is it the additional cost of needing a killer MP side to the game as well? I wish I knew, and I wish someone would try and top Half Life 2 - apart from Valve that is as they're busy trying that in installments and doing an pretty good job so far.

I've been saying that for YEARS now (actually 9 months, which is when istarted posting).

hl2 was an all round solid shooter. my only complaint really is the hovercraft driving sequence and buggy driving sequence. they went on for too long for me (not as bad as Doom 3's never ending alpha labs gah!). once valve put out episode 2 they achieve flawlessness (don't repeat that rapidly over 60 seconds lol).

Great game.. I'm playing this on my mac with "crossover games"... Doesn't support a lot of games.. but Half-Life 2 support was worth the price!

I'm buying a new PC mainly to play the cinematic mod !

I agree with the whole list.

On #4, the game really does feel open! They subtly guide you to follow the proper path, and only when you deviate from that path do you feel it is closed. They did the same thing with Half Life 1.


One more thing: The variety of gameplay. On an airboat, in a dune buggy, fighting a flying ship on a bridge, and one of my favorites, crushing baddies with a huge crane (I know it was only for a few moments, but it was fun because the physics engine is so awesome), fighting zombies, etc etc etc. This is one thing that's a little bit missing from the new episodes (well, I've only played Ep1, I still have to play Ep2).

Half Life 2 was an incredible game and I only hope the hold-up on HL3 is to make it just as incredible as 2 and 1.

It's probably because Valve knows what kind of game they want to make. Singleplayer games are for singleplayer and multiplayer games are for multiplayer. I don't think they muck around trying to include the both worlds in a single game (not counting adding bots to games like Counter-Strike or Left4Dead).

Gravity gun and use of physics that never feels like a gimmick!!
Variety of gameplay.

It did annoy me how the console versions of the Orange Box got an updated engine for ALL the games but the PC version did not! But then the PC version has plenty good quality mods like using the Portal gun etc!!

http://www.hl2mods.co.uk/find.php?genreString=&modeString=Single+player&downloadString=&

Cinematic MOD looks real nice.

I'm gonna have to try that out. 9.1GB for the full pack!!

http://www.fileplanet.com/196013/190000/fileinfo/Half-Life-2---FakeFactory-Cinematic-Mod-V9.5-HD-Mod-Complete

Sans the changed character models (just delete them anyway and the game will automatically use the old ones), the cinematic mod gives Half-Life 2 a little breath of fresh air.

Still the same game, but it's more detailed and lacking as many muddy looking surfaces.