It's difficult to give games a perfect score, there's always something wrong with a game which keeps it just short of a 10. But the only thing I dislike about HL2 is so nitpicky and only applies in some sections.
Sometimes the route forward isn't clear. That's it, only sometimes I had to spend 5 minutes figuring out what was next. Like three times tops.
That aside, Half Life 2 is a masterclass in games design. This game is 16 years old and I am hard pressed to think of games that do a linear, story driven FPS as good as this one. Every encounter is a puzzle, the environment is your weapon, even the enemies can be your weapon. There's so many ways to tackle encounters and they make you feel like a genius.
And like design aside how has barely any dev team managed to match the physics of this game, the ragdolls alone feel absolutely perfect. Ravenholm is a complete masterpiece of physics-based game design that feels fun throughout.
And everytime I reached a puzzle I was absolutely expecting the dreaded "place a janky path and do your own hellish jumping puzzle" which a lot of these games are guilty of, but it happens ONCE, and it's a SUPER EASY puzzle, because Valve know how to make FUN.
That's it, everything I have to say is just gushing about this game, it's incredible, its barely aged, it deserves the pedastal it has been on for nearly two decades now. It is Half Life.
Sometimes the route forward isn't clear. That's it, only sometimes I had to spend 5 minutes figuring out what was next. Like three times tops.
That aside, Half Life 2 is a masterclass in games design. This game is 16 years old and I am hard pressed to think of games that do a linear, story driven FPS as good as this one. Every encounter is a puzzle, the environment is your weapon, even the enemies can be your weapon. There's so many ways to tackle encounters and they make you feel like a genius.
And like design aside how has barely any dev team managed to match the physics of this game, the ragdolls alone feel absolutely perfect. Ravenholm is a complete masterpiece of physics-based game design that feels fun throughout.
And everytime I reached a puzzle I was absolutely expecting the dreaded "place a janky path and do your own hellish jumping puzzle" which a lot of these games are guilty of, but it happens ONCE, and it's a SUPER EASY puzzle, because Valve know how to make FUN.
That's it, everything I have to say is just gushing about this game, it's incredible, its barely aged, it deserves the pedastal it has been on for nearly two decades now. It is Half Life.