Half-Life 2: Difference between revisions
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The book ''Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar'' {{ref|raisebar}} revealed many of the game's original settings and action that were cut down or removed entirely from the final game. ''Half-Life 2'' was originally intended to be a far darker game where the Combine were more obviously draining the oceans for minerals and replacing the atmosphere with noxious, murky gasses. This quote from the book, from an early draft of the introductory sequence, gives a feel for what the game would have been like: |
The book ''Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar'' {{ref|raisebar}} revealed many of the game's original settings and action that were cut down or removed entirely from the final game. ''Half-Life 2'' was originally intended to be a far darker game where the Combine were more obviously draining the oceans for minerals and replacing the atmosphere with noxious, murky gasses. This quote from the book, from an early draft of the introductory sequence, gives a feel for what the game would have been like: |
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<blockquote> |
<blockquote>Off to one side, you see another train hurtling through the dusk. It gives you some sense of the train you are riding. The nose of the engine car is protected by a huge, deadly variant of a cow-catcher, a sharpened steel plough designed to shear through herds of whatever creatures might stray across the tracks or try to take the train head-on. Something that resembles the old [[Gargantua_(Half-Life)|Gargantua]] looms up from a fissure, lunging at the parallel train, and the engine slices right through the thing, leaving it in gory pieces on the track.</blockquote> |
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In addition, the evolution of Nova Prospekt is described: originally as a small Combine rail depot built on an old prison in the wasteland (the depot model remains in the game, visible from the beach and trash compactor) it grew and grew from a stopping-off point along the way to the destination itself. |
In addition, the evolution of Nova Prospekt is described: originally as a small Combine rail depot built on an old prison in the wasteland (the depot model remains in the game, visible from the beach and trash compactor) it grew and grew from a stopping-off point along the way to the destination itself. |
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Revision as of 01:13, 17 December 2005
Half-Life 2 is a first-person shooter computer game and the highly anticipated sequel to Half-Life, developed by Valve Corporation. It was released on November 16, 2004 to very positive reviews [1], following a protracted five-year development cycle during which the game's source code was leaked to the Internet. Taking place in the fictional City 17 sometime in the near future, Half-Life 2 follows scientist Gordon Freeman and the events that happen around him. The game utilizes the Source game engine, coupled with a heavily modified version of the Havok physics engine. The game has been critically acclaimed for advances in computer animation, computer graphics, artificial intelligence (AI) and physics, although it is controversial among many people for the introduction of Valve's Steam content delivery service. Since its release, the game has sold over 3 million copies [2]. Steam sales account for 25% of overall sales; their exact number is between 750, 000 and 937,500 depending on whether they are included in the figure of 3 million [3].
Story
Plot
Template:Spoiler The original Half-Life largely takes place at a remote underground laboratory called the Black Mesa Research Facility. When conducting an experiment, researchers at Black Mesa accidentally cause a "resonance cascade," opening a portal to an alien world called Xen, 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 while wearing the Hazardous EnVironment (HEV) suit. 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. [4]
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 alien rulers 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 the Seven Hour 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).
Chapter sequence
- 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
Once Gordon gets off the train, he eventually meets up with his old friend Barney Calhoun from Black Mesa who now has infiltrated the Civil Protection for the resistance. Barney shows Gordon the way to reach Doctor Kleiner's lab, but along the way, the Civil Protection detects Gordon and he has to flee. Surrounded and stunned by the Civil Protection, Gordon is rescued by Alyx Vance, the daughter of Doctor Eli Vance, and is taken to Doctor Kliener's lab. After Gordon is outfitted with his trusty HEV suit, 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, Doctor Kleiner's debeaked pet headcrab Lamarr wrecks the teleporter in mid-sequence, briefly transporting Gordon to the office of Doctor Breen twice, among several other locations. 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 Barney tells him to take the canals to get to Eli's lab.
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. 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.
Gordon then arrives at Black Mesa East and meets Doctor 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.
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. Through a transmission, 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.
Finally reaching the old prison, Gordon searches within for clues to Doctor Vance's whereabouts. The Antlions' assistance helps to even the overwhelming odds against him.
Gordon joins forces with Alyx again, and together they find both Eli and Doctor Judith Mossman, the latter apparently found to be a Combine spy. The four meet at a Combine teleportation room, preparing to return to Kliener's lab. While Gordon and Alyx are distracted by a Combine assault, however, 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 Doctor 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 Doctor Vance while Alyx helps Doctor Kleiner escape the lab.
After rescuing Barney, who has been pinned down by snipers, Gordon shuts down a suppression device blocking access to the Citadel. A pack of powerful Combine war-machines, the Striders, attack until they are finally destroyed by RPG fire. In the process, Alyx briefly rejoins and accompanies Gordon in a battle, but is knocked out and captured by Combine forces.
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 strange technology of the gravity gun absorbs the energy from the beam and shorts it out. 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. Doctor 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 for an opportunity to infiltrate Breen's inner circle. Breen 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, seemingly "stops time" and saves Gordon from the ensuing blast.
Narration
Throughout the entire game, Freeman never speaks, and the action is viewed through his eyes only (i.e., there are no cut scenes).
There has been some complaint [4] 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.
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:
- "Far distant eyes look out through yours ... How many are there in you? Whose hopes and dreams do you encompass?"
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.
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.
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 "цимент" ("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 Moskvitchs and Volgas. Also, during the game, Gordon comes to a Resistance settlement called "New Little Odessa." Odessa is a major city located on the coast of Ukraine, approximately 500 miles from Sofia.
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, Romanian, Swedish and French influences also exist, suggesting that the setting is something of a montage of European locations.
Gameplay
Half-Life 2's gameplay is broadly similar to that of the original. Players make their way through a linear series of levels, encountering both human troops and hostile alien wildlife. As in Half-Life, the gameplay is broken up with a series of puzzles; however this time the addition of physics-based puzzles are included. For example, one puzzle requires the player to turn a seesaw-like lever into a ramp by placing cinder blocks at one end.
The use of physics extends into the combat, in the form of the gravity gun. This unique weapon plays a crucial function throughout the game, granting the player an unprecedented amount of creativity in its use, such as picking up and throwing objects at enemies, holding objects indefinitely for use as makeshift shields, grabbing health and ammunition from out of reach places, returning enemies' grenades, building makeshift bridges or manipulate objects through Combine forcefield generators.
Vehicles are another major gameplay addition. The player has the ability to drive two vehicles during the single player campaign; an air boat, which Gordon uses to navigate through the canal network, and a dune buggy which Gordon uses to get to Nova Prospekt. The air boat is initially unarmed, but is later mounted with a Combine weapon from a downed Hunter-Chopper. The buggy is armed with a Gauss Gun similar to the one found in the original Half-Life.
Characters and creatures
Although Gordon battles through much of Half-Life 2 alone, like Half-Life he is assisted in several places by friendly allies. For the most part these are human members of the Resistance, but Gordon is also helped by Vortigaunts and later Antlions. This latter insectoid species is new to Half-Life 2 and is encountered first as a fiercely territorial foe, but is later co-opted into acting as an abundant and obedient ally. At several key locations, Gordon also meets up with, and fights alongside, more significant non-player characters like Alyx Vance, Barney Calhoun and Alyx's robot, Dog.
Many familiar enemies from Half-Life return in this game, such as the Headcrab, Barnacles, and Headcrab zombies, but the majority of the game is spent fighting the Combine, who wield large military forces against Gordon and the people of City 17. Combine forces are varied and consist of modified humans, biomechanical machines, and robot weapons. There are also large, biomechanical, three legged tanks, similar to the classic Tripods found in H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. These are referred to by members of the human resistance as Striders which the Combine uses to help suppress the resistance forces and patrol City 17.
Weapons
Many of the weapons featured in Half-Life 2 are carried over from Half-Life, including the crowbar, SPAS-12 shotgun, .357 Magnum revolver, Gauss Gun, crossbow, and Rocket propelled grenade launcher. Several new ones are also introduced: the Combine pulse rifle, pheropods (bug bait), and most significantly, the "Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator" (or Gravity Gun).
Multiplayer
Half-Life 2 was released without a multiplayer component of the game and was instead packaged with Counter-Strike: Source. This later changed on November 30, 2004 when Valve released the Half-Life 2: Deathmatch component (HL2DM) along with the full SDK as a free download to all Half-Life 2 owners.
Like other deathmatch games, the aim is to kill as many other players as possible, using a variety of means, in either free-for-all or team matches. The player spawns with a gravity gun, a pistol, a sub-machine gun, and grenades. All weapons included in the single player portion of Half-Life 2, with the exception of the pheropod/bugbait, are available and scattered randomly around the maps. Players can be killed in a number of ways, including gunfire, explosions, or through contact with physics objects traveling at high speeds.
HL2DM's February 17th update is of particular note as it introducd a new map dm_steamlab and three new weapons that had been missing from the game previously, or cut before it shipped. The crowbar and the stunstick depending on the player model (Rebel or Combine); and the SLAM, or Selectable Lightweight Attack Munition, a real-world weapon which can either be thrown and detonated or planted on walls to produce a 'tripwire' laser which detonates the device when touched.
| Name | Release date | Author | Setting |
|---|---|---|---|
| dm_lockdown | Nov. 30 2004 | Valve (Adrian Finol) | Nova Prospekt |
| dm_overwatch | Nov. 30 2004 | Valve (Adrian Finol) | City 17 (Follow Freeman!) |
| dm_steamlab | Feb. 17 2005 | Valve (Jess Cliffe) | Concrete laboratory |
| dm_powerhouse | Apr. 13 2005 | Third-party (Michael Schulz) | Generic Industrial |
| dm_resistance | Apr. 13 2005 | Third-party (Jonathan Linker) | "Bodies" from Blood |
| dm_underpass | Apr. 13 2005 | Third-party (Scott M Jordan) | City 17 railway |
| dm_runoff | Apr. 25 2005 | Valve (Jess Cliffe) | Water Hazard |
Technical
Game engine
For Half-Life 2, Valve developed a new game engine called the Source engine, which handles the game's visual, audio, and artificial intelligence (AI) elements. The Source engine comes packaged with a heavily modified version of the Havok physics engine that allows for an extra dimension of interactivity in both single player and online environments.
Additionally, when coupled with Steam, the engine can be easily upgraded to include many new graphical technologies. One such example is high dynamic range imaging, which Valve released as a 15-minute free outdoor level called Lost Coast.
Steam content delivery system
Integral to Half-Life 2 is the Steam content delivery system developed by Valve Corporation. All users playing the single player or multiplayer game are required to have Steam installed and an account with Steam to play. The accounts allow customers to purchase games other software straight from the developer and have it downloaded directly to their computer, in addition to having their games updated with "micro updates." These updates also make hacking the game harder to do and has thus far been somewhat successful in staving off cheats and playability for users with unauthorized copies. Steam can also be used for finding and playing multiplayer games through an integrated server browser and friends list, and game data can be backed up with a standard CD or DVD burner. Lastly, Steam and a customer's purchased content can be downloaded onto any computer, as long as that account is only logged in at one location at a time.
Users have had numerous problems with Steam, sometimes being enough to prevent a reviewer from recommending a given title available on the service. In other cases, review scores have been lowered. Long download times, seemingly unnecessary updates, and verification checks are criticisms levelled by critics of the system's use for single player games such as Half-Life 2. Whether or not a customer intends to use any multiplayer features, the computer the game was installed on must have Steam and an Internet connection to verify the transaction.
Release and distribution
A 1 gigabyte portion of Half-Life 2 became available for pre-load through Steam on August 26, 2004. This meant that customers could begin to download encrypted game files to their computer before the game was released. When the game's release date arrived, customers were able to pay for the game through Steam, unlock the files on their hard drives and play the game immediately, without having to wait for the whole game to download. The pre-load period lasted for several weeks, with several subsequent portions of the game being made available, to ensure all customers had a chance to download the content before the game was released.
Half-Life 2 was simultaneously released through Steam, CD (most initial U.S. "bare-bones" retail copies), and on DVD in several editions. Through Steam, Half-Life 2 had three packages that a customer could order. The basic version ("Bronze") only includes Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike: Source, whereas the "Silver" and "Gold" (collector's edition) versions also include Half-Life: Source and Day of Defeat: Source (ports of the original Half-Life and Day of Defeat mod to the new engine) as well as the right to download all previous games by Valve through Steam. The collector's edition/Gold version additionally includes merchandise such as a t-shirt, and a strategy guide. Both the disc and Steam version require Steam to be installed and active for play.
A single-CD demo version was later made available in December 2004 at the web site of graphics card manufacturer ATI Technologies, who teamed up with Valve for the game. In September 2005, Electronic Arts published the Game of the Year edition of Half-Life 2. Compared to the original CD-release of Half-Life 2, the GOTY edition adds Half-Life: Source.
An Xbox version also published by Electronic Arts was released on November 15 2005, but does not feature any multiplayer components.
Mods and expansions
Since the release of Half-Life 2, Valve has announced plans to release an additional level and an expansion pack. The level, "Lost Coast," takes place between the levels "Highway 17" and "Sandtraps" and is primarily a showcase for high dynamic range imaging (HDR) technology. The expansion pack, Half-Life 2: Aftermath will take place shortly after the events of Half-Life 2, with the player taking on the role of Gordon Freeman once again. Alyx Vance will also play a more prominent role.
Several mods have been developed by the Half-Life 2 community. This includes partial conversions which allow players to manipulate the physics engine (Garry's Mod), add new weapons, or even new levels to expand the story from different points of view. Some total conversions have also been developed, which introduce completely new settings, multiplayer modes, or entirely new and original types of games.
Cuts from the game
The book Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar [5] revealed many of the game's original settings and action that were cut down or removed entirely from the final game. Half-Life 2 was originally intended to be a far darker game where the Combine were more obviously draining the oceans for minerals and replacing the atmosphere with noxious, murky gasses. This quote from the book, from an early draft of the introductory sequence, gives a feel for what the game would have been like:
Off to one side, you see another train hurtling through the dusk. It gives you some sense of the train you are riding. The nose of the engine car is protected by a huge, deadly variant of a cow-catcher, a sharpened steel plough designed to shear through herds of whatever creatures might stray across the tracks or try to take the train head-on. Something that resembles the old Gargantua looms up from a fissure, lunging at the parallel train, and the engine slices right through the thing, leaving it in gory pieces on the track.
In addition, the evolution of Nova Prospekt is described: originally as a small Combine rail depot built on an old prison in the wasteland (the depot model remains in the game, visible from the beach and trash compactor) it grew and grew from a stopping-off point along the way to the destination itself.
Promotional shots and gameplay videos released before the game became available showed parts of these scenes, and also showed enemies which do not appear anywhere in the final game, such as a hydra-like enemy. The hydra was apparently cut because its AI proved troublesome: while impressive when attacking NPCs, it was less interesting and frustrating for players to fight.
It remains unknown if most of the cut Half-Life 2 scenes will eventually be completed and released, or if they are lost forever. A removed section of the original Half-Life was eventually released as the Half-Life: Uplink demo; a similar situation was in place with the HDR technology demo, Lost Coast, which was based on a cut scene from the sequel. It is possible or even likely that more removed sections of HL2 will be seen in expansion packs such as Half-Life 2: Aftermath.
Further reading
References
- ^ "Half-Life 2 reviews for the PC". GameTab. June 5.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=and|year=/|date=mismatch (help) - ^ "A primer on HDR and a tour of Valve's Lost Coast". Arstechnica.com. September 16.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=and|year=/|date=mismatch (help) - ^ "Steam's Finances". The Steam Review. October 26.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=and|year=/|date=mismatch (help) - ^ "Half-Life 2 for PC Review". GameSpot. October 10.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=and|year=/|date=mismatch (help) - ^ a . ISBN 0761543643.
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External links
Official
Fansites/communities
- Halflife2.Net - Largest Half-Life 2 community
- Half-Life Fan Network - Half-Life StealthHouse is a Fan Network for the Half-Life Series Games.
- HLFallout - A popular Half-Life 2 fansite.
- HL2 Central - One of the oldest Half-Life 2 fansites.
- HLForums.com - A popular Half-Life related community along with Half-Life related news.
- Half-Life Portal - A Half-Life site
- Half-Life 3d Animations - A Half-Life mini movie site
- Planet Half-Life
Development communities
- sourceWiki - For Half-Life 2 mod developers
- Half-Life 2 Wiki. A complete knowledge base and tutorial dump for Half-Life 2.
- Valve Developer Community - A wiki made by Valve to aid in the editing of Half-Life 2
Related resources
- interlopers.net A site that collects tutorials for Hammer mapping as well as texturing and other Source SDK related content.
- VisualWalkthroughs.com - Screenshot-based Half-Life 2 walkthrough
- 3DBuzz Offers several free video tutorials on how to use the Hammer editor
Individual articles
- Half-Life Saga Story Guide - A speculative timeline of the Half-Life games' plot as a whole.
- Pidgeon's guide - A guide for console commands that can be used in Half-Life 2.
- Half-Life 2 tweak guide at TweakGuides.com
- MobyGames' entry on Half-Life 2
- Half-Life 2: Under The Surface - NTSC-uk examines Half-Life 2.
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