RAISING THE BAR

The subtle, hands-off storytelling of HALF-LIFE 2 is still hard to beat.

- Andy Kelly

The magic of Half-Life 2 lies in how it tells its story. In most games developed in the early 2000s, you’re forced to endure endless exposition about the world and the state it’s in— usually in the form of cutscenes. In Half-Life 2, a few scraps of old newspaper stuck to a notice board achieve the same goal; and in a much more evocative way. In the secret laboratory of eccentric scientist Isaac Kleiner, this entirely missable detail refers to a “seven hour war”, Earth surrendering to the invading Combine, and villain Wallace Breen being declared administrator of Earth.