It was 2004. Nvidia's 6800 GPU was the new kid on the block, mechanical drives wept at Doom 3's crushing 2.2GB storage requirements, and the Pentium 4 was still the go-to CPU.
Half-Life 2 had finally lurched from the depths of development hell, overcoming source code leaks and a series of costly delays. After struggling to download patches for the game through some weird program called Steam (it'll never catch on), the community would finally see what Valve had been working on for the past five years.
Half-Life 2 was a revolution in gaming, transporting players to a world that barely seemed possible. We trekked across Antlion-infested highways, battled Hunter Choppers on the narrow walkways of a rickety bridge, and toppled a tyrannical government with the aid of a giant canine robot. The adventure was not just complemented by visual splendour but also some groundbreaking simulated physics. Jetsam and flotsam bobbed up and down in canals, explosive barrels peppered enemies with shrapnel, and Combine soldiers tumbled realistically down stairwells and over railings. The graphics were shiny, the guns were new, and the story was thrilling. And yet, I prefer Black Mesa to Half-Life 2.
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