 
 |
Content review for this game:
Pertaining to content listed in the upper right corner of this site.
|
Intro - Half-Life 2 - Half-Life 2: Episode 1
Half-Life 2: Episode 2 - Portal - Team Fortress 2 |
Half-life 2
is rated "M" for Mature.
Blood and gore: When you or an enemy is shot, thick moderate to extreme amounts of blood jet and spurt out, splattering onto nearby walls and floors. Blood and bodies do linger. There is no option to turn off blood in this game. You also see several bloodied, burned, severely disfigured, genetically altered, severed, and zombified (detailes below) human and Combine bodies scattered throughout the game. Many of the human bodies are so damaged, you can't even see facial features.
There is an enemy alien species in this game called the "Headcrab," and in their default form resemble a headless plucked chicken, with a huge mouth where a stomach would be. They latch onto their victims' heads, (who are mostly human), take over their still living bodies, and essentially turn them into zombies. They scream with agonizingly deep, raspy, but squealing voices, as they slowly drag and lumber their bodies toward you, and strike with close-by objects and their limbs. Also, for unknown reasons; after the Headcrab has been attached for a while, the zombie's body is slit from neck to waist, showing its interal organs and rib cage. Also worth mentioning is, the Headcrabs spurt a mixture of red and green blood, with the green blood being a more gooey consistency. The next Headcrab type uses the same technique, but appears to take almost completely decomposed bodies as their hosts, resulting in them looking more like skeletons, with a small layer of muscle. Because of having less weight, they are extremely fast and will rush at your character, mercilessly tearing at his body with their claws. The last Headcrab type hangs on the ceiling and resembles a huge mutated mouth, with large sharp jaws and teeth. It has a long, thin tongue that hangs from its mouth to the floor. When the prey steps under the tongue, the mouth reels it in with its tongue, swallows it whole, with very bloody results. If you shoot and kill this enemy, it will turn inside out and regurgitate what it's eaten (including bones), in a large bloody, green pile of muck.
Blood & gore specific to Half -life 2 below:
Early on in the game you receive the "Gravity Gun," and can use it to repulse or drag and hold objects with its gravitational force. In one specific area of the game you encounter dozens of zombie Headcrabs. You can make use of several old and loose rotating saw blades and grab them with your Gravity Gun. If you shoot the Headcrab zombies with the combo Gravity Gun/saw blades, you will sever their bodies through the waist, with of course, bloody and gory results. You also have the ability to grab compressed gas tanks with the gravity gun, and if used on zombies, they will explode in flames and scream for quite sometime in agony, before dying.
- One of the chararacters keeps a "reformed" and debeaked (toothless) Headcrab as a pet, much to the chagrin of the other allied characters. The Headcrabs cage does have visible blood stains at the bottom (from who knows what).
- You come upon a scene where the Combine are killing (and have killed) several citizens with a high-powered gun turret. You can see their recently dead bodies, with blood smeared on the walls and floors.
- One area, about a quarter through the game, plays like a horror movie, with countless Headcrab zombies and even a somewhat cliche old priest, who watches over his former congregation (humans who have all turned into zombies), by bringing them to salvation, which pretty much means he kills the zombies in a variety of ways, quoting scripture and laughing in almost jovial tones as he does. The priest has set several makeshift traps for the zombies. Examples: large, sharp fan blades are attached to a upstanding motorized rotor, and when turned on, as zombies walk through it, the device severs them through the waist. He's also attached and hung cars to pulleys, and as the zombies walk underneath the hanging cars, you can crush them by pulling a lever that drops the car. In one area you also see a large bonfire, made of dead zombies, who have, of course, been burned to death; some of them are skewered on stakes. The priest is actually very friendly (to you) at one point, giving you a shotgun, and even risks his life to help you escape the area.
Intense violence: The game takes place in a depressed, near apocolyptic world, where an oppressive dictator and his men, the "Combine," rule the streets, tormenting and controlling its citizens. The violence is moderately graphic, realistic and intense. The majority of the game has you evading the enemy, so it always gives you a sense of urgency, and the atmosphere is involving and immersive, with no cutscenes in between, and supporting characters that feel very real and sympathetic; furthering your attachment to the world, and its violent situations.
Your character will be killing dozens of enemies with a variety of weapons, including a crowbar, shotgun, rocket launcher, Gravity Gun (which I explained earlier), and much more. You will be fighting two seperate factions of enemies, the main being the "Combine," who are the corrupt "Civil Protection" that patrol the city, and are the main villian's henchmen. They wear full body armor, and what appears to be a gas mask that covers their entire face. The mask must have some sort of voice box, because when they speak they sound like they're talking through a heavily distorted ham radio. They (from what can be gathered) are a human/alien hybrid, genetically enhanced for their work.
The Combine also use a device called the "Man-Hack," and it's about the size of a soft ball, and uses very sharp blades to manuever in the air. It uses these blades to knock into the human enemy and cut them, thus being known as the Man-Hack. As for the other enemy, the "Headcrab" species, I already explained them in "blood and gore," because of their more gory nature. The Headcrab are enemy both to the main character and the Combine.
The last enemy type are called "Antlions," and resemble an ant but are as large as lions, hence the name. They are a non- sentient species, meaning they act like wild animals. Your character does gain the ability to control and command them with a device later in the game. But, beyond that, they have no obvious alliances.
Violence specific to Half -life 2 below:
- In the beginning of the game, you're on route to a train station that processes it's arrivals similar to cattle, giving no freewill. As you are being processed for your "release," they take you to a room that appears to be for interrogation, because there are large blood stains around a very uncomfortable looking chair. Once you escape processing, you enter an apartment complex soon to be raided by the Combine for no apparent reason. As they attack, capture and imprison the residents, you see a man consoling a woman, as she says she can't take anymore, and starts to cry bitterly when you're leaving the room. While escaping capture, several of the residents risk their lives to let you escape. These citizens help you throughout the game, as your character is considered the only hope of their future liberty.
- While escaping from the pursuing Combine, you come upon one area where a male and female character are being tormented by the Combine. The man is being beaten on the floor, as the woman is held back by another Combine, while she screams at them to stop. You save them, but as you leave you don't know if the man is dead or just unconscious.
- At one point you come upon a scene where two humans are on a rock sitting on sand. One of the men is heavily injured (with blood splattered on the floor around him). As you approach them, the uninjured man warns you not to step on the sand. It soon becomes apparent why, as the ground shakes, and Antlions burrow out of the sand and kill the injured man. Though, if you don't intervene, the Antlions will kill both men.
- In one later area, a security camera feed shows a Combine body lying on a table, but it's not wearing any armor or a mask. You see a very pale slightly altered once human, with a voice box in its larynx, which explains their strange voices. You also see an unknown creature on another security feed, and it looks like an almost skeletal human, with a metal plate where its face would be. You also get glimpses of this creature in the last part of the game. I will give a more detailed description of them in the Half-life 2: Episode 1 review, as they are fully introduced in that installment.
Something worth mentioning is that NPCs (non-player-characters) can die, and most often will, if you don't protect them. The main supporting characters can also die, but if they do, it's game over and you have to start from the last save point. Also you cannot shoot, hit or kill any allies in this game.
Language (specific to Half-life 2): There are 10 uses of d**n, 11 uses of h**l, 1 uses of s**t, 1 uses of b****rd, 1 uses of a**, and 5 misuses of God. There may be one full use of the f-word, but it is drowned out by background noise, and if you have the subtitles on, the word is there, but it's censored.
Closing comment: This is one of the best in gaming history, with stunning graphics, incredible story, fantastic gameplay--well, pretty much every area is near perfect. However, as listed above, it comes with plenty of blood, gore, and intense violence, and the overall atmosphere is probably the most realistic in any video game, making you almost feel like you're there, so it's in no way appropriate for kids. So, I recommend this game for ages 17+.
