Have You Played... Half-Life 2?

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.

Okay, now we're nearly 300 deep into these recommendations we're clearly getting a little obscure, a little desperate, but it's still possible that a few people will have played this oddity. Half-Life 2 came out in 2004, but as there's been no Half-Life 3 in the eleven years since one can only assume it didn't sell well.

I recently replayed through Half-Life 2, because I find that games as totemic in our memories can often become distorted. Is it really one of the best games ever? Does it still stand up as the best FPS of all time? Surely that can't really be true?

It turns out it can, although it's hard to know how much is due to the slow, miserable demise of the genre over the decade-plus since. It's still an absolutely essential game to play, and while it seems impossible that someone might not, here's yet another appeal to suggest you do. It's £7 on Steam, but you can be sure it'll drop to almost nothing in the forthcoming Holiday Sale.