Half-Life 2 turns 20
Sat 16 Nov 2024, 10:31
20 years ago me and my brother were pissed at a thing called Steam. Today it’s the only place I wanna buy games on.
Actually, that’s a lie, it was 20 years ago tomorrow. I know that because that’s how old my brother’s Steam account is (Steam conveniently has a community badge for that nowadays). I didn’t get my own Steam account until a little later.
Why were we a day late? I can’t remember the exact details but I do remember my brother came home late on the 16th. I think he had been on a school trip or something. I also can’t remember if we got the physical game through the mail or if he picked up a copy on this trip.
Eitherway, once he came home a Half-Life 2 box appeared somehow and we put the disc in excited to play it. And then we got super pissed because we had to make a Steam account. So we looked online for “fixes” but didn’t find any. And I was 9 so I had to go to bed because it was a school night.
The next day I came home from school and he was playing it. He had caved in and registered for Steam. And that was pretty much the end of it, we never complained about Steam again.
Also noteworthy is that my brother is still using the same exact password he put in 20 years ago. And it’s not a good password! It’s just a crude word you can find in any dictionary. No numbers, no symbols, no mixed case. His account name is more secure.
Lets talk about HL2 actually
The hype leading up to HL2 was big. I remember my brother and cousin watching the E3 video frequently, specifically this section:
I don't think I appreciated at the time the physics that were on display. Nowadays I appreciate it and think Source was really ahead of its time, but back then, I don't remember caring at all about the physics.
As for the game itself, well, it's fine. I don't think its the best game ever or anything. I've beaten it a couple times. I'd probably give the game like a 7/10 overall.
But, there are two chapters that I really love: Route Kanal and Water Hazard. I'd rate these 10/10. They're like my favorite levels of any game ever. Very frequently when I couldn't think of anything else to play I would just start a new game on Route Kanal and blast through it and Water Hazard. And I still do that, I did that just last week when testing a new computer.
The rest of the game? Eh... It's fine. I really dislike the "cutscene" chapters (where you're just listening to other people talking for a while) and I don't like Ravenholm and Nova Prospekt. They're too dark (as in not lit up) for me.
The Highway 17 chapter is decent, but I vastly prefer the air boat over the Jeep.
So yeah, not the biggest HL2 fan, but not the smallest either. It's... fine.
As for the chapters itself, well I wrote about them when I played through them back in 2019:
Valves Celebration
Valve released a bunch of cool stuff today on their YouTube channel. Notably some higher quality versions of old demos that were considered lost media. These were neat to see, and its neat they dug them up from old computers in the offices.
But the main event was the 20th anniversary documentary:
I watched it immediately (stayed up until 2 AM) and it was pretty good, but not great. I feel like they told alot of A, but not B. I felt like there was a ton of stories and anecdotes I didn't get a conclusion to. But it was interesting to hear about the economical situation and lawsuit they were in. Made me appreciate Gabe even more. I really hope Valve doesn't go to shit when he disappears.
They also talked about Episode 3, but frankly, I don't think it was that interesting. I think I've given up on EP3 so hard that I just don't care about it anymore.
Other than these videos they also updated the game with some QoL fixes. From what I gather it's not a huge update though, not on the same scale as the update HL1 got for its 25th anniversary last year.
I think that's it. Now I feel like playing through Route Kanal again.
HBD HL2!