Recent reviews by mply

Half-Life 2 managed to do things that few sequels do. It actually fixed many of the issues I had with the original as well as get even better in other areas. It isn’t perfect but it is a damn fine game even almost seventeen years after it’s initial release at the time of writing this. In the original Half-Life I found climbing ladders to be a chore because you sped up them too fast as well as took a lot of fall damage when you shot off them and landed. Well in Half-Life 2 you climbed ladders at a normal speed and fall damage was much better and more in line with what I would expect. I had also criticized the difficulty curve which I would say was far improved in the sequel. I didn’t feel at any time that things got much easier or harder, it was very consistent. On top of those fixes the voice acting was far improved. As well the sound effects were fantastic as were the physics and graphics for it’s time. The game offered an incredible atmosphere and world and many ways to interact with it. The battle scenes were fantastic with parts of buildings exploding and comrades coming to join the fight. I never minded that Half-Life took place in one facility but for those who did you traverse over a varied landscape with many locations and places the story takes you. Speaking of story the game was just as good as the original with a great cast of returning and new characters. As for non technical issues there was really only one: the controls on the air boat you drive was very loose and was a pain to control at times. There was the same enemies and weapons as before as well as several new types of both.

I played Half-Life 2 on Linux. It never crashed on me. There were a few technical issues. One was texture pop in with grass. Another was the AI for comrades was just terrible. They were constantly getting in my way and blocking me in when indoors or in tight spaces which caused my death a few times. There was also one instance when driving a buggy where I had to park in a garage of a house and this proved to be impossible because the car wouldn’t fit. I got half way in which not only qualified as parking to complete the objective but I lost a bunch of health when I bumped the side of the garage going in. There were 4 AA settings; 6 AF settings; a V-Sync toggle; 9 other graphics options and an FOV slider that went from 75-90. You could change the difficulty level at any time as well as manually save at any time. Performance was fantastic which wasn’t surprising given the game’s age.

Graphics Engine: Source
Graphics API: OpenGL

Graphics Settings: All Highest; 8x AA; 16x AF; blur off; V-Sync on; multi core rendering on; HDR full; 90 FOV; 1920x1080
GPU Usage: 11-40 %
VRAM Usage: 1064-1398 MB
CPU Usage: 4-13 %
RAM Usage: 2.5-3.3 GB
Frame Rate: 129-144 FPS

Half-Life 2 took the good parts of Half-Life and expanded on them while fixing what little warts the original had. It had a few stumbles along the way but nothing serious and in no way did they impact the fun of the game. It is a great game and worth every penny of it’s current asking price of $11.49 CAD. Just like the original it has several memorable moments and characters that stand the test of time. I finished the game in 12 hours and 56 minutes on the hard difficulty setting.

My Score: 9/10

I bought this game for the "best BJ" and thats exactly what I received.
Its quite hard to find good BJ's on steam, thanks to Zax we now have one.
We need more challengers on the leaderboards, so why don't you check it out
for yourselves?

i jump

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as for the title of the game, your expectations were correct.
even though I've been through dozens of VR deaths I did like it,
it's got a great sense of humour, well made commentary and
although I fell off my chair twice, the game mechanics are great-

a must buy if you own a VR headset! short game but great story

just another example of valve doing an excellent job

I bought this to learn how to swim, it only taught me how to get disinherited very quickly though..

normally you get paid for doing work.
in this case it's the opposite-

you will spent thousands of $ on

•a pc that can handle vr
•a vr headset
•controllers
•base stations

and then, after you bought all that;
this game manages to trick you into
paying $20 just to work for literally
nothing.

what a scam- I still enjoyed it though

this game hurts my brain

it doesn't even load in.. why would you put that trash on sale?