Half-Life 2

Valve used the Havok engine for the physics and built its own Source engine alongside the game. Work began in June 1999 and took five years. A team of 82 made it, and it cost 40 million dollars.

The game was shown at E3 2003 with a release date of 30 September that year. Also in 2003, a hacker stole the source code, and a playable build leaked online. The date was missed, and Half-Life 2 only came out on 16 November 2004.

At launch several critics complained that Steam was required, even for the disc version. Critics praised the graphics, physics and story, and IGN later named Half-Life 2 the best game of the decade. Players leave 97% positive out of 204,810 reviews, critics give it 96 on Metacritic. By our Recommended Score it is #3 of 4,736 games.

Liked it? Next comes Half-Life 2: Episode One, the first of the episodic sequels, released in 2006. And Black Mesa, a fan-made remake of the first Half-Life on the Source engine, shows where it all began.