Hello everyone. This my third request for Half Life 2, this time just the base game without Episode 1 and 2 so I hope you’ll hear me out. Now to start off, I thoroughly enjoyed playing Black Mesa which was pretty much a reimagining of the original Half Life but with better visuals. The game begins with the predictable “Aliens have entered our world after the experiment went wrong “story but ends off with a huge cliffhanger with the introduction of the mysterious G-Man although he can be seen throughout the game spying on you. This obviously spiked my curiosity in Half Life 2 and I really can’t wait to play the game to find out what happened to Gordon and delve into the story and I’ve of course heard of the overwhelmingly positive reception the game gets which only fuels my interest even more.

Black Mesa was one hell of a game and what made it so great was its epic soundtrack, fantastic level design, and enemy and weapon variety. The mission that I’d say exceptionally meshes all of that together is Xen which is that mysteriousness and beauty that I’d like to see in Half Life 2.

For the gameplay side of things, not much is different from Black Mesa or the original game for that matter. Black Mesa combat was fun and thrilling and follows that Doom formula where you have to keep moving to avoid death and I felt like the level design was fair and not too complex. The missions also provided a bit of challenge because of that and not to mention, it’s always satisfying to find a healing item after breaking a stack of boxes. The boss fights were pretty exciting too, especially the final boss and the transitions between the missions were smooth and all the easter eggs and the different ways you could beat bosses were welcome additions.

With all that said, I’m unable to get this game because of my financial situation as Lebanon has been having a drastic inflation since late 2019 and the coronavirus also played a part in it considering the Lebanese economy relies on tourism. Basically, the dollar exchange rate is unstable and as of today it’s 17500LBP for $1 when it used to be 1500LBP for $1 which really sucks. Electricity isn’t doing any good either. Just yesterday, it came back for a short duration of only 2 hours. I hope that shows you how corrupt this country has become.

Thanks for making it here and even if you just skipped, then I’m thankful to you for checking this post. I only hope that I’ll be able to play this game and experience it for the first time and I’d be very grateful during these difficult times. Thanks again for reading this.

My Steam account: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561199090171324/