I played Half-Life 2 for the first time this year—here’s how it went

It’s Half-Life 2 week at Ars Technica! This Saturday, November 16, is the 20th anniversary of the release of Half-Life 2—a game of historical importance for the artistic medium and technology of computer games. Each day up through the 16th, we’ll be running a new article looking back at the game and its impact.

The time has finally come to close one of the most notable gaps in my gaming history. Despite more than a decade of writing about video games and even more years enjoying them, I never got around to playing Half-Life 2.

Not only have I not played it, but I’ve managed to keep myself in the dark about pretty much everything to do with it. I always assumed that one day I would get around to playing this classic, and I wanted the experience to be as close as possible to it would have been back in 2004. So my only knowledge about Half-Life 2 before starting this project was 1) the game is set in the same universe as Portal, a game I love, 2) the protagonist is named Gordon Freeman, and he looks uncannily like a silent, spectacled young Hugh Laurie, and 3) there’s something called the Gravity Gun.

That’s it. I didn’t even know exactly what the Gravity Gun did, only that it existed.

So, the time has come for me to learn what the fuss is all about. I’ve cataloged my off-the-cuff reactions as well as my more analytical thoughts about Half-Life 2, both as a standalone project and as a catalyst for setting new standards in design. But if you’re looking for the TL;DR of whether I think the game holds up, my answer is: it depends.

Beginning a classic with a clunk

A red letter day indeed! Time to experience this iconic piece of video game history. I spend most of the intro sequence in the train station soaking in the atmosphere of the dystopian City 17. A few minutes in, though, I think I’m supposed to sneak past a guard. Because I’m a fugitive trying to escape this freaky Big Brother building, and I swear Barney told me to avoid detection. Instead, the guard immediately sees me and whomps me on the head for not putting a bottle into the trash. Not an auspicious beginning.