Half Life 2 10th Anniversary - Has Valve's Classic Been Bettered?

Monday, 25 November 2024

Half Life 2 10th Anniversary - Has Valve's Classic Been Bettered?

Added: 16.11.2014 13:11 | 8 views | 0 comments

Hype can be a dangerous force of nature, but meet and exceed lofty expectations and there's no surer way of becoming a classic. Few games ever live up to such anticipation, but six years on from its genre-defining original, Half Life 2 managed to do exactly that. Sunday (16 November) marks a decade since the release of Half Life 2 and in those 10 years the series has taken on an almost mythical quality. In part this is because of the lingering lack of a follow-up to 2007's Half Life 2: Episode 2, but also because of the undoubted quality of the sequel and the small matter that no game since has matched it. The first person shooter (FPS) genre is a busy one. So busy that it's hard for any one game to stand out as truly special. Only two come close to matching Half Life 2's cultural impact over the past decade: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Bioshock, but neither is as perfectly designed.