The Guardian Votes Half-Life 2 Game of the Decade

[Evo]

Readers of British paper The Guardian have voted Half-Life 2 as being the Game of the Decade. There is a lovely little piece on the site about the game. The closing words in that article are my favourite:[br]

Half-Life 2 is the game of the decade, not just because it's good, but because it encapsulates so much of what mainstream gaming has been trying to do for the last ten years; the aspiration to create believable, physically accurate worlds, then to make us a part of them. The narrative and technical achievements of this game and its episodic follow-ups have been equaled, perhaps, but not significantly bettered. We may see Half-Life's usurper in the coming decade – we may witness the next quantum shift in the medium. It will be fun getting there. This is why we play videogames, after all.

[br]Half-Life 2 - Game of the Decade. It just sounds so right.

 

[Barnz]

wow, a newspaper talks about a non-hyped game - unbelievable

 

[Scydow]

It sure deserves the title

 

[<RJMC>]

hell if you consider the games that came before and after half-life2 you will see the ones that came before where influenced in one way or another,from phisics to more elaborate scripted events and such

 

[Shift]

Tell us something we don't know lol.

 

[Asknoone]

Truly deserved.

 

[Darkside55]

But only because it's a game we like.

 

[Warbie]

Not my choice, but not a bad candidate for the best of this decade.

 

[Eejit]

Democracy fails to fail shocker!

 

[Barnz]

Not my choice, but not a bad candidate for the best of this decade.

burn the nonbeliever!

 

[Mong0!]

Not my choice, but not a bad candidate for the best of this decade.

BLASPHEMER

 

[ríomhaire]

Hurray for all the good press Half-Life has been getting recently (ie, this, the crispygamer poll and the gamespot game heroes poll and also I'm sure L4D and L4D2 has made a couple more people aware of Valve). Maybe some people will take notice and get what they've been missing out on.

 

[Reginald]

Definitely the game that has influenced my life the most this decade. Heck, half of it has been spent on this forum and it's a game that I still play to this day. Definitely my game of the decade.

 

[Ennui]

My game of the decade too, but obviously I've been posting on a HL2 fansite for longer than its been out and well more than half the decade, so I guess that's a gimme.

Still, even by non-biased non-fanboy standards, I'd say HL2 is a pretty damn good choice.

 

[Crazy_killer]

When the first official Episode 3 media is revealed by Valve the whole world will turn upside down.

 

[Acepilotf14]

A big eh, really.

 

[MiccyNarc]

Can anyone think of a better candidate? I guess the most culturally relevant game is Halo, but that's not because of good game design.

 

[knut]

mon the Guardian.

 

[the cow says moo]

Meh, it's definitely up there, but I don't know if it deserves game of the decade. Maybe it does though, guess I'd have to think about it.

 

[flamingdts]

Can anyone think of a better candidate? I guess the most culturally relevant game is Halo, but that's not because of good game design.

Halo is a good game, but also a severely overhyped game. Halo did not bring anything especially new or special to the genre, but it does deserve it's respect for saving Xbox.

Half Life 2 innovated and re-invented. The first game that takes in so much consideration into virtual physics as well as human facial animations and emotions. Not to mention, the graphics of Half Life 2 was incredibly advanced for it's time, and to this date still looks better than many other games out there.

I think the whole culture spawned from HL2 is enough to put it as game of the decade.

 

[lefty]

MORROWIND

wait wait no

HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS

 

[Nibwoddle]

Meh. Definitely didn't deserve the absolute best game, but it's better than a lot of other stuff that came out. My game of the decade would have to be Ratchet and Clank 1 (for nostalgia and obscurity reasons).