Half-Life 2

In Vectorpark’s Sandcastles, you build fantastic towers and watch the waves erase your work every 10 seconds. It’s a very direct metaphor for the global climate crisis that threatens to flood coastal cities and exacerbate natural disasters. Sandcastles confronts us with our totally predictable watery doom, but we also find fun and expression in our totally foreseeable destruction. When the planet dies, at least we’ll…

Tagged with feature, Arma 3, BioShock, Fate of the World, Frostpunk, Half-Life 2, Sandcastles, Sea of Solitude, Sid Meier's Civilization II, Sid Meier's Civilization VI, Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm, The Long Dark.

Half-Life 2 is nearly fifteen years old now, and despite Valve's sequel plans seemingly fizzling out, it doesn't look a day over ten thanks to the efforts of modders. Chances are that Half-Life 2 and its expansions have been gathering dust on your Steam account for years now, so here's a quick refresher -- mostly focused on the past five years -- on what's available,…

Tagged with Breadman, Craig Beattie, Damian Duda, Deppresick, Dolmo, feature, Filip Victor, Gunship Mark II, Marnamal, Modder Superior, mods, Phillip Marlowe, RunThinkShootLive, Spymaps, Valve Software, White Noise Team, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-life 2: Episode Three, Half-Life 2: Episode Two.

"Toss a toilet at your friend today!", goes the Steam blurb. That does rather capture the spirit of Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, doesn't it?

Tagged with feature, Have You Played, Valve, Half-Life 2, Half-life 2: Deathmatch.

I’m not sure anyone at Respawn has properly busted their ass on the curb. It hurts. The last time I cracked my rear off the concrete in a moment of skating hubris, I was limping for days. Fortunately for the fifty million folks flying around in Apex Legends, a billowing cushion of air has turned what should be an embarrassing accident into the most compelling…

Tagged with Electronic Arts, feature, Respawn Entertainment, Apex Legends, Half-Life 2, Titanfall, Titanfall 2.

Then the bus EXPLODED. Hello, this is the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, and we are here to talk about the best game openings and intros. Whether they are cold opens or slow burns, we love a good first impression.

Tagged with feature, Podcast, The RPS Electronic Wireless show, BioShock, Dead Cells, Dragon Age: Origins, Half-Life 2, No Man's Sky, Portal 2.

Ah, the non-player character. Stoic endurer of all our sadistic whims. It’s time the monsters on the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, made tribute to these humble little robots, whether they’re annoying companions, side characters, or disembodied human heads. Let’s talk about some of our favourites.

Tagged with Beyond Good and Evil, Broken Sword, feature, npcs, Podcast, The RPS Electronic Wireless show, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Half-Life 2, metal gear solid, Papers Please, Red Faction Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered, Starman: Tale of Light, The Crew 2, The Curse of Monkey Island.

The best shooters endure. While the state of the art moves on in other genres and leaves old designs in the dust, it's as fun to fire a well-made shotgun from an early 90s FPS as from one released today. For that reason, this list runs the gamut from genre classics to those released in the last year. There's bound to be something for you…

Tagged with Aliens versus Predator Classic 2000, Aliens vs. Predator, best games, bestest games, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Crysis, feature, Halo Combat Evolved, Metro 2033 Redux, Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter, Star Wars Jedi Knight - Mysteries of the Sith, Star Wars Republic Commando, The Marathon Trilogy, Unreal Tournament 2004, Alien: Isolation, Arma 3, Battlefield 1942, Battlefield: Bad Company™ 2, BioShock 2, Bulletstorm, Call of Duty 2, Call Of Juarez - Gunslinger, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Day of Infamy, Devil Daggers, Dishonored, Dishonored 2, Doom, F.E.A.R., Far Cry 2, Far Cry 3, Far Cry 4, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Marathon, Natural Selection 2, no one lives forever, PlanetSide 2, Playerunknown's Battlegrounds, Prey, Quake, Quake III Arena, Rage, Rising Storm, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, Shadow Warrior 2, Star Wars: Dark Forces, SWAT 4, Team Fortress 2, The Chronicles Of Riddick: Assault On Dark Athena, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, Wolfenstein: The New Order.

The Orange Box is one of the strangest quirks of gaming history. Never before had a developer released three brand new, entirely separate games at the same time in one package, and thanks to digital distribution, it probably won't happen again. What makes The Orange Box truly remarkable though is that it contained two of the most-anticipated games of 2007, and what proved to be…

Tagged with confused retailers, Half Life 2: Episode 2, Steam, The-Orange-Box, Valve, work psychology, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Portal, Team Fortress 2.

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time. I know what you’re looking for. You’re looking for a game that let’s you be a janitor in a school riddled with drug dealers and class clowns. But also a game that will let you be a cop fighting robbers. But also a…

Tagged with feature, Have You Played, source, Valve, Garry's Mod, Half-Life 2.

Did you know that in 2004 Valve launched Half-Life 2 [official site]? And did you know that Episode 1 followed two years later and Episode 2 a year after that? Did you know it's now been ten years and besides a mass of rumours, bad jokes and conversations with unverified sources, Gordon Freeman's elusive third Half-Life outing - be that Half-Life 3 or HL2: Episode…

Tagged with best mods, feature, mods, Valve, Half-Life 2.

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time. Gearbox's Barney-starring add-on is the black sheep of the Half-Life family, although at the time I never encountered any reason why that should be the case. My teenage tastes were perhaps less discerning then, but more importantly any return to Black Mesa was…

Tagged with feature, Half-Life: Source, Have You Played, Valve, Black Mesa, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Half-Life: Blue Shift.