blustrkr's Half-Life 2 Review Xbox 360, 50-100 hours played

I first experienced this game via The Orange Box on Xbox 360, and I'm glad I did! It easily goes up there with the original Halo games as some of the best first-person shooter games of all time. It was basically my introduction to Valve as previously I had been pretty obsessed with Halo, Battlefield, Gears of War, and even the OG Call of Duty games.

It takes place in a very dystopian authoritarian society, but it feels so different compared to other games with the same theme. Valve just has their own style that they excel at and I really dig it.



The soundtrack is very creepy and eerie sounding (even with some jungle thrown in), which really adds to the vibes you get playing the game.

The graphics still hold up today in 2025 easily, despite the game now being 21 years old. Speaking of being over two decades old, Valve released a pretty significant update for Half-Life 2 last year in celebration of its 20 year anniversary that addressed some long-standing bugs and improved the lighting. How many developers out there support their games 20 years later?



One thing that sets this game apart from others in its genre is some of the thinking you need to do in order to progress through the levels. It's not always just mindless running and gunning (although there is plenty of satisfying gunplay and action). You often have to use basic physics principles to solve puzzles, which is so badass and really shows off the strengths of the Source engine.



One minor annoyance I had was that the AI companions, while supportive in battle, tend to get in your way a bunch in the later levels. I died many times because they were blocking a doorway and wouldn't move. The game is so good that I didn't care though, I just tried again and eventually passed said levels.



Honestly, this game just kicks ass and far surpasses most of the crap that gets released today. If you like shooting games, you just have to play this all the way through.