Half-Life 2 was released on November 16th, 2004 and received acclaim for its advanced physics, animation, sound, AI, graphics, and narrative. A year before release, a hacker stole an unfinished version and leaked it online. Valve announced Half-Life 2 at E3 2003 and released it through its new distribution service Steam after delaying it by over a year. Valve president Gabe Newell set his team the goal of redefining the FPS genre, focusing on advanced physics systems and non-player characters. Development lasted five years and cost US$40 million.

The game was created using Valve’s Source engine, which was developed at the same time. Players control Gordon Freeman, who fights the alien Combine with allies including resistance fighter Alyx Vance, using weapons such as the object-manipulating gravity gun. Like the original Half-Life (1998), it combines shooting, puzzles, and storytelling, and adds features such as vehicles and physics-based gameplay. Half-Life 2 is a 2004 first-person shooter game developed and published by Valve.

They can assess threats, navigate tricky terrain, and fashion weapons from whatever is at hand. AI: Neither friends nor enemies charge blindly into the fray. Graphics: Source’s shader-based renderer, like the one used at Pixar to create movies such as Toy Story® and Monster’s, Inc.®, creates the most beautiful and realistic environments ever seen in a video game. Physics: From pebbles to water to 2-ton trucks respond as expected, as they obey the laws of mass, friction, gravity, and buoyancy. Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition With 40 distinct facial “muscles,” human characters convey the full array of human emotion, and respond to the player with fluidity and intelligence. Source provides major enhancements in Characters: Advanced facial animation system delivers the most sophisticated in-game characters ever seen. The intense, real-time gameplay of Half-Life 2 is made possible only by Source®, Valve’s new proprietary engine technology. The player again picks up the crowbar of research scientist Gordon Freeman, who finds himself on an alien-infested Earth being picked to the bone, its resources depleted, its populace dwindling.

By taking the suspense, challenge and visceral charge of the original, and adding startling new realism and responsiveness, Half-Life 2 opens the door to a world where the player’s presence affects everything around them, from the physical environment to the behaviors even the emotions of both friends and enemies.

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