{"id":60,"count":4,"description":"Half-Life 2<\/strong><\/em> is a science fiction<\/a> first-person shooter<\/a> computer game<\/a> and the sequel to the highly acclaimed Half-Life<\/a><\/em>. It was developed by Valve Corporation<\/a> and was released on November 16, 2004, following a protracted five-year,[6]<\/a> $40 million[7]<\/a> development cycle during which the game’s source code<\/a> was leaked to the Internet.[8]<\/a> The game uses the Source<\/a> game engine<\/a>, which includes a heavily modified version of the Havok physics engine<\/a> and was also the first video game to require online product activation<\/a>.[9]<\/a>[10]<\/a> Originally available only for Windows<\/a>-based personal computers<\/a>, the game has since been ported<\/a> to the Xbox<\/a> and Mac OS X<\/a>. The game was a part of The Orange Box<\/a> compilation for Xbox 360<\/a> and PlayStation 3<\/a> video game consoles<\/a>.[11]<\/a>\r\n\r\nHalf-Life 2<\/em> takes place in a dystopian<\/a> world in which the events of Half-Life<\/em> have fully come to bear on human society, which has been enslaved by a multidimensional<\/a> empire known as the Combine<\/a>. The game takes place in and around the fictional City 17<\/a> and follows the adventures of scientist<\/a> Gordon Freeman<\/a> who must fight against increasingly unfavorable odds in order to survive.\r\n\r\nThe game garnered near-unanimous positive reviews and received critical acclaim,[12]<\/a>[13]<\/a> receiving praise for its advances in computer animation<\/a>, sound<\/a>, narration<\/a>, computer graphics<\/a>, artificial intelligence<\/a> (AI), and physics simulation<\/a>. The game won over 40 PC Game of the Year<\/a> awards for 2004,[14]<\/a> and several publications have since named it as game of the decade.[15]<\/a>[16]<\/a>[17]<\/a>[18]<\/a> As of December 3, 2008, over 6.5 million copies of Half-Life 2 have been sold at retail.[19]<\/a> Although Steam<\/a> sales figures are unknown, their rate surpassed retail in mid-2008[20]<\/a> and are significantly more profitable per-unit.[19]<\/a>\r\n\r\nTwo episodic additions to the game, Half-Life 2: Episode One<\/a><\/em>, and Half-Life 2: Episode Two<\/a><\/em>, were released (respectively) in June 2006 and October 2007 as a continuation of the storyline and the events following the original Half-Life 2.","link":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/category\/games\/half-life-2\/","name":"Half-Life 2","slug":"half-life-2","taxonomy":"category","parent":56,"meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/taxonomies\/category"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/56"}],"wp:post_type":[{"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts?categories=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}