Half-Life 2: Prima Official Game Guide

by David Hodgson

Half-Life?: Full Strategy *Essential strategies and maps for all 14 mission chapters *Complete bestiary tactics, including how to take on the monsters and Combine forces *In-depth evidence of all... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0761543627
• ISBN13: 9780761543626
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: Prima Games
• Length: 319 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 8.5" x 10.9"

Customer Reviews

Extremely Helpful Guide

Had I not purchased this along with my copy of The Orange Box, I would be in the same dilemma as every single one of my friends is: confounded by the maze-like levels, and frustrated at my inability to solve what eventually turns out to be a simple puzzle. This book helped to pull me out of mental ruts where I simply had no idea how to move on, especially in Portal. The guide doesn't spoon-feed you everything however, it leaves the lucky jumps and guesses to you, and thus I have yet to defeat the third to last level of portal. Overall, it is a fantastic guide, and along with the helpful walkthroughs are well-written descriptions of the characters and enemies in each game.

Great Game Guide

This is very well written and helpful if you get stuck while playing all the games in the Orange Box.

If you have Half Life 2, you should have this guide

This is a great guide. It is over 300 pages thick with detailed information about every location. It covers Half Life 2 as well as Counter Strike - Source. The entire guide is in full color and printed on heavy paper. In addition to explaining gameplay details, the guide also covers some basic information that would normally be in a manual. Since HL2 does not come with a manual, this is very nice. It is not something I would normally expect from a strategy guide, but I appreciate that they went the extra mile there. This is also the kind of game that makes a strategy guide important. HL2 is not a mindless shooter, so you are likely to get stuck at some point. This guide is a great tool and will help you out when you need it. Note that this guide is not the same is the "Official Hint Book" that ships with the collector's edition. In fact, the booklet that ships with the collector's edition is really just an advertisement for this book. Get the real thing and ignore the collector's edition.

Excellent guide!

First let me say that the HL2 Guide does have tons of spoilers in it. So if you really want to be surprised don't look at it until you get stuck. But having said that it is a great guide. Also it is in glorious full color. The HL2 Guide is broken into five sections: First is an overview of all the weapons in the game. Full color illustartions and good info. The second is an overview of all the characters you will encounter. Again, full color illustrations and good info. The third section is the real meat of the book and contains the walkthroughs of each mission. What makes this section so nice is that a great map of the level is provided, which is better than the ones they did for Doom3, and full color screen shots that take you step by step through each mission. In addition, great tips and other goodies are highlighted for each level. If you get stuck on a level this is the place to look. Also, it is a great read AFTER you finish a level to pick up some tips and maybe see a few things you might have missed. It also narrates the story so you can actually read through this section almost like a book. The fourth section of the guide covers Counter-Strike. Lastly the book includes all the cheat codes you could ever want. Overall it is a very well done guide that will help you through a few tricky levels and has excellent production values.

Don't read before playing - Use it to find what you missed

As is to be expected with any review guide, Prima's Half-Life 2 Strategy Guide contains **alot** of spoilers. In fact, most every plot detail is outlined within these pages. If you are still playing Half-Life 2, have a look at the first several chapters (detailing your adversaries and how to dispatch them) and then put it aside, referring to it only when you are hopelessly stuck on a puzzle or an action sequence. However, once you've gone through Half-Life 2, you should read to your hearts content. Prima does an exhaustive job of detailing every nook and cranny of the game - from each appearance of the G-Man to each public service announcement made by Dr. Breen, from each ammo cache to each interesting newspaper clipping tacked to a wall. Its a fount of information and one of the few FPS strategy guides worth owning. This will help you get your money's worth out of Half-Life 2.