Half Life 2
Half Life 2 is a yet unreleased Immersive Science Fiction First Person Virtual Reality Action Adventure Simulator Racing Game Hybrid RPG developed by Sierra Entertainment. The game is a sequel to the 1998 movie Jurassic Park and will include many returning features from the previous game in the franchise, Jurassic Park: Trespasser, including physics, boobs, dinosaurs, the Latin alphabet, and procedural dungeon generation.
The game entered early access on November 16, 2003 for supporters of the game's Kickstarter campaign. Many aspects of the game's plot have been teased, but due to the developing nature of the game may be subject to change. Several characters included in earlier builds of the game were removed, such as Dr. Coomer, Shovel Knight, and fan-favorite character Grimblo. Half Life 2 is considered an inspiration for other videogames that took too long to come out.
Gameplay
Half Life 2 is only playable with the Playstation Move controller. The player uses the controller in order to complete various short minigames, which the player can either complete successfully, or fail if the conditions for success are not met. Players have a limited number of lives, and lose a life whenever they fail a minigame. As the player successfully completes minigames, the speed of the game increases, demanding more precision from the player in less time. Gameplay continues infinitely until the player runs out of lives.
During minigames, the player holds the Move controller in various different poses depending on the current minigame. In some modes, the player uses only a single pose, or completes several minigames with a single pose at a time, while in other modes the pose the player uses can change wildly during play. Developer Masahiro Sakurai said in an interview, "It's really funny to me personally when a player looks like they're giving the controller oral sex, so we made use of this pose as often as possible."
As the player completes new minigames, they are occasionally provided with a piece of a cryptographic code. These used to be delivered to the player's home by Grimblo, but due to licensing issues, this character was replaced with the faceless man you see in your nightmares. Assembling the complete code is the ultimate goal of the game, but nobody has ever achieved it. Scientists theorized that if players continue to complete minigames at their current rate, the code will be completed by someone on July 3, 2031.
Plot Summary
The player takes the role of Gordon Freeman. The game begins with Gordon's space ship breaking down in Earth's orbit, causing him to crash land on the planet. Throughout the game, the player collects pieces of Gordon's ship, in an effort to leave the planet. Whenever the player manages to completely reassemble their spaceship, the game's antagonist, Alyx Vance, appears and breaks the ship again. Theologists believe this is a reference to Sisyphus.
Development Process
Half Life 2 was announced at E3 2002 to little fanfare. Since its announcement, its trailer has become a cult classic and gained its own fandom, independent of the original game. The game has gained notoriety for never coming out, and has been subject to much criticism for its developer's failure to meet project milestones. The developer is currently subject to an ongoing lawsuit for failing to deliver a good game after generating so much hype.
In 2005, the New York Times reported that Half Life 2 would switch development to an episodic release schedule, hoping to release the first of these episodes, Half Life 2: Episode 1 on Netflix later that year. Since the announcement, none of the episodes have been released officially, and the idea was quietly dropped.
See Also
- Final Fantasy, another kind of video game