Half-Life 2

Half-Life 2 is a first-person shooter computer game and the highly anticipated sequel to Half-Life, developed by Valve Software. It was released on November 16, 2004 to very positive reviews {{ref|reviews}}, following a protracted five-year development cycle during which the game's source code was leaked to the internet. The game utilizes the advanced Source game engine, coupled with a heavily modified version of the Havok physics engine, and was critically acclaimed for ground-breaking improvements in computer animation, computer graphics, artificial intelligence (AI) and physics. Since its release, the game has sold about 3 million copies so far {{ref|sales}}.

Story

Plot

The original Half-Life largely takes place at a remote underground laboratory called the Black Mesa Research Facility. In the course of conducting an experiment, researchers at Black Mesa accidentally cause a "resonance cascade," opening a doorway to an alien world (Xen) and releasing a flood of strange and deadly creatures. The player takes the role of Gordon Freeman, one of the research scientists, guiding him in his attempt to escape the facility. At the end of the game Gordon is "extracted" by a mysterious figure known as the G-Man who offers him future employment. Half-Life 2 picks up the story an indeterminate number of years after the Black Mesa incident in City 17. (However, a story fragment written by author Marc Laidlaw for the development team puts the intermission at ten years.) {{ref|raisebar}}

Related Topics:
Black Mesa Research Facility - Xen - Gordon Freeman - G-Man - City 17 - Marc Laidlaw

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Chapter sequence

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• Chapter 1: Point Insertion
• Chapter 2: A Red Letter Day
• Chapter 3: Route Kanal
• Chapter 4: Water Hazard
• Chapter 5: Black Mesa East
• Chapter 6: "We Don't Go To Ravenholm"
• Chapter 7: Highway 17
• Chapter 8: Sandtraps
• Chapter 9: Nova Prospekt
• Chapter 10: Entanglement
• Chapter 11: Anticitizen One
• Chapter 12: "Follow Freeman!"
• Chapter 13: Our Benefactors
• Chapter 14: Dark Energy

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At the start of the game, the G-Man speaks to Gordon Freeman as part of a hallucination, telling him that his "time has come." Freeman then finds himself riding a train into City 17, unarmed and without his HEV suit. Details begin to slowly emerge: City 17 is under the rule of a totalitarian Administrator named Doctor Breen, the former administrator of the Black Mesa Research Facility in Half-Life. However, Breen is merely a puppet ruler who is carrying out the will of the aliens known as the Combine. It seems that the events of Half-Life were enough to attract the attention of the Combine, who soon after mounted a brutal assault on humanity in which the forces of Earth were completely overwhelmed in just seven hours (appropriately referred to as the 7-hours War). The Combine now has near-absolute control of the entire planet, with only a few pockets of human resistance remaining. Doctor Breen enforces his rule (and, by extension, the Combine's rule) through armies of intimidating "Civil Protection" units (also called "Metropolice" or "Metrocops") and Combine soldiers (referred to as the Overwatch).

Related Topics:
HEV suit - Totalitarian - Doctor Breen - Half-Life - Puppet ruler - Combine - 7-hours War

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Once he gets off the train, Gordon eventually meets up with his old friend Barney Calhoun from Black Mesa who now has infiltrated Civil Protection, for the resistance. Barney shows Gordon the way to get to Dr. Kliener's lab, but along the way, the Civil Protection detects Gordon and he has to flee. Fortunately, he runs into Alyx Vance, the daughter of Dr. Eli Vance, who takes Gordon to Dr. Kliener's lab. At once, Gordon is outfitted with his trusty HEV suit. Next, Dr. Kliener wants to teleport Alyx and Gordon to Black Mesa East, where Alyx's father is waiting. Although Alyx makes it to her father's lab, Dr. Kleiner's pet headcrab Lamarr wrecks the teleporter in mid-sequence, breifly transporting Gordon to the office of Doctor Breen twice. He then ends up outside Kleiner's lab, where Barney gives Gordon his old crowbar. The entire city is on high alert for Gordon, and he has to find a new way to get to Eli's lab.

Related Topics:
Barney Calhoun - Alyx Vance - Dr. Eli Vance - Black Mesa East - Headcrab

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Gordon then navigates the city's canals, being chased by Civil Protection and finding small resistance bases populated by both humans and Vortigaunts, who are now allies.

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After being helped through an underground railroad system, Gordon is provided an air boat, allowing him greater expediency. However, the air boat is soon spotted by the Combine and relentlessly pursued by a Hunter-Chopper assault helicopter. At another resistance base, a Vortigaunt affixes a weapon to the craft capable of downing the helicopter, which Gordon eventually does.

Related Topics:
Underground railroad - Air boat - Helicopter

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Gordon then arrives at Black Mesa East and meets Dr. Judith Mossman. Alyx gives him a new experimental weapon called the Zero-Point Energy Field Manipulator (also known as the Gravity gun) and instructs Gordon on its use while also introducing Dog, Alyx's pet robot. In the middle of playing "fetch", the lab is attacked by the Combine, forcing Gordon to escape along an old tunnel leading to Ravenholm. Alyx and the rest stay behind.

Related Topics:
Dr. Judith Mossman - Dog - Ravenholm

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Gordon quickly discovers why Ravenholm was abandoned; the town was shelled by the Combine, causing Ravenholm to be overrun with headcrabs and zombies. Father Grigori, a slightly-insane priest and likely the last human resident of Ravenholm, helps him survive the deadly town and escorts him to an abandoned mine which eventually leads to the dockyards outside City 17. Gordon then finds another resistance base under assault by Combine troops. Alyx tells him that Eli has been captured and is being held in Nova Prospekt, an old maximum-security prison, now a factory where the Combine creates Overwatch Soldiers and Stalkers. Gordon travels the coast road in a dune buggy, helping down a Combine gunship after meeting Colonel Odessa Cubbage at another resistance base, who gives him an RPG launcher. After battling small pockets of Combine soldiers along the road, Gordon finally arrives at the Lighthouse Point resistance base and must continue the journey to Nova Prospekt on foot following a large-scale skirmish between the Combine and his allies in the resistance. The journey is made more difficult because it's spawning season for the insect-like Antlions, which swarm the area and are hidden underground, emerging to attack at the slightest footstep. After defeating an enormous "Antlion Guard", Gordon is given pheropods (aka pheromone grenades or bugbait): a gland filled with pheromones that pacify the smaller Antlions and allow Gordon to command them, by a Vortigaunt.

Related Topics:
Father Grigori - Nova Prospekt - Dune buggy - Combine gunship - Odessa Cubbage - RPG - Insect - Antlion

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Finally reaching the old prison, Gordon searches within for clues to Dr. Vance's whereabouts. The Antlions' assistance helps to even the overwhelming odds against him.

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Gordon joins forces with Alyx again, and together they find both Eli and Dr. Judith Mossman, who is apparently a Combine agent. While Gordon and Alyx are distracted by a Combine assault, Mossman teleports herself and Eli into the Citadel, the Combine's base of operations. Gordon and Alyx barely manage to teleport themselves to Dr. Kleiner's lab before the teleporter explodes, but a strange malfunction in the equipment has caused them to arrive at Dr. Kleiner's lab a week after they teleported. Meanwhile, Gordon's struggles against the Combine have brought new life to the resistance, plunging City 17 into chaos. Resistance fighters led by Gordon travel towards the Citadel to free Dr. Vance while Alyx helps Dr. Kleiner escape the lab.

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After rescuing Barney, who has been pinned down by snipers, Gordon shuts down a suppressor field blocking access to the Citadel. A pack of powerful Combine war-machines, the Striders, attack until they are finally destroyed by Rocket propelled grenade (RPG) fire.

Related Topics:
Striders - Rocket propelled grenade

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Gordon enters the Citadel through an underground passage. Faced with a dead end, he is forced to enter a rail-driven containment apparatus. After a long trip through the Citadel, all his weapons are destroyed by a Dark energy-powered "confiscation field." However, the gravity gun survives (due to its zero-point energy nature) and is more powerful than usual. It can now manipulate organic matter, instantly killing Combine forces, and its lift strength is greatly increased. Armed with only the new gravity gun, Gordon wreaks havoc upon the Citadel until he is again faced with a dead end. Once more, the only way to progress is to voluntarily enter a containment apparatus, which brings him face-to-face with Doctor Breen, who takes the gravity gun while Gordon is immobilized. Dr. Judith Mossman is with Breen, and he summons Eli and Alyx, who are being held in similar devices. As Breen threatens Gordon, Judith finally turns against him: she had only "betrayed" the resistance to get an opportunity to infiltrate Breen's inner circle. He manages to escape and flees towards a huge teleporter that will take him to the Combine's world. Freed, Gordon and Alyx pursue him and destroy the teleporter, triggering a massive explosion. However, the G-Man appears and seemingly "stops time" and saves Gordon from the ensuing explosion.

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Narration

Two distinctive elements from the original Half-Life are preserved:

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:* Freeman is a silent protagonist

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:* The entire game is viewed through Freeman's eyes (i.e. there are no cut scenes)

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There has been some complaint http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/halflife2/review-2.html about these holdovers, since they effectively limit how much of the backstory is explained. Due to the lack of cut scenes, the player never directly sees what has happened in Gordon's absence. Additionally, it would seem natural for Freeman to have a great deal of curiosity as to what has happened since the Black Mesa incident. In Half-Life it could be said that the player's bewilderment mirrors Gordon's during the chaotic events following the resonance cascade and alien invasion. By the opening of Half-Life 2; however, Gordon has proven that he can survive in strange and hostile environments, and should therefore be at least somewhat more level-headed and inquisitive.

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In any case, it's not clear to what extent Gordon exists as a separate character outside of the player's influence. Since the start of Half-Life, Valve has made sure that the player's and Gordon's experience are one and the same. Gordon may be nothing more than an empty vessel for someone else (i.e. the player) to inhabit. Some of the Vortigaunts' enigmatic comments in the game seem to indicate this, the most prominent being:

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:"Far distant eyes look out through yours ... How many are there in you? Whose hopes and dreams do you encompass?."

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Adding to the sense of mystery is the fact that while most of Gordon's former co-workers from Black Mesa have visibly aged in the interim, Gordon has (presumably) not; however, only a few passing references are ever made regarding this. The game never specifies how many years have passed between Half-Life and Half-Life 2, but a story fragment written by Marc Laidlaw (featured in Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar) describes the transition as being a full ten years. Fans have speculated that Gordon has been kept in stasis during his absence, and this is reinforced by the presence of a strange "inter-dimensional tram ride" that Gordon finds himself on at the end of both Half-Life games, and the G-Man's repeated emphasis of the word time. Another cited explanation is that Gordon has been transferred using a "slow teleport," similar to the one discovered by the player at the end of the Nova Prospekt chapter, or otherwise sent forward in time.

Related Topics:
Marc Laidlaw - Stasis - Time

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The ending of Half-Life 2 is also very similar to that of the original: after completing a difficult task against seemingly overwhelming odds, Gordon is "extracted" by the G-Man, wielding incredible but unexplained powers. The player is smugly congratulated and told that further assignments should follow. The fate of many of the major characters, such as Alyx, Eli, and Judith, go unexplained. Very few, if any, of the questions raised by Half-Life are answered, and instead several new ones are presented. The identity and nature of the G-Man still remains undisclosed.

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Setting

The environments in Half-Life 2 are varied, ranging from the Eastern European-styled City 17 and surrounding areas, to the massive Combine citadel. There is a general Eastern European "feel" present throughout the human-populated areas, and it has been speculated that City 17 is based on Sofia, Bulgaria, the hometown of the art director of Half-Life 2, Viktor Antonov. This is based on both City 17's general resemblance to Sofia and the frequent appearance of Bulgarian words (written in Cyrillic characters) on signs and graffiti throughout the game (although some of these are words in other Slavic languages as well). One clear example is "??????" ("cement") written across the top of a large building in Ravenholm - the only language that spells this word in this way, using the Cyrillic alphabet, is Bulgarian. Many old cars scattered throughout the game are similar to ones commonly found in Eastern Europe, such as Moskvitch or Volga.

Related Topics:
Sofia - Bulgaria - Cyrillic - Graffiti - Slavic languages - Bulgarian - Moskvitch - Volga

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A prominent character encountered in play, Father Grigori, has a name common to Eastern European countries and an accent that is stereotypically Eastern European. Some believe that the name City 17 itself is actually a reference to the Soviet practice of numbering secret closed cities rather than naming them. However, in addition to incorporating Eastern European elements, examples of Norwegian, Polish and French influences also exist, suggesting that the setting is something of a montage of European locations.

Related Topics:
Accent - Stereotypically - Soviet - Closed cities - Norwegian - Polish - French - Montage - European

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