Guide Note

Half-Life 2 is a science-fiction first-person shooter game developed by Valve Software. It is the sequel to Half-Life. The game takes place in "City 17", several years after the original incident at the Black Mesa research facility from Half-Life.

Fast Facts

1. Developer: Valve Corporation | Electronic Arts
2. Genre: First-person shooter
3. Mode: Single player
4. More then 35 Game of the Year Awards
5. ESRB Rating: Mature (M)
6. Release Dates:
   1. PC: Nov. 24, 2004
   2. Xbox: Nov. 15, 2005
   3. Xbox 360/PS3: Oct. 9, 2007
   4. Windows PC: April 11, 2008

Players take the role of Gordon Freeman, which is the same as Half-Life. Freeman must fight both humans and aliens within City 17. Additions to Half-Life 2 include physics puzzles, the ability to drive vehicles, and air boat and a dune buggy. The original release of Half-Life 2 for Xbox 360 did not contain multi-player modes. This was updated and corrected when they released Half-Life 2: The Orange Box for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

On September 20, 2004, Vivendi Universal Games (VUG) and Valve Software were in a legal battle about the distribution of Half-Life 2 through cyber cafe's. Throughout Asia, cyber cafe's are extremely popular for playing online games due to PC and broadband penetration per capita being very low. On April 29, 2005, the parties settled their disagreement stating VUG would discontinue the sale of retail packages by August 31, 2005. They also revoked licenses to cyber cafe's stating that only Valve Software has the authority to distribute the game.