Half-Life 2 is a first person shooter video game created by the company Valve Corporation and released in 2004. This game is the sequel to the original Half-Life video game which came out in 1998. It is sold through the Steam platform also developed by Valve. It is also available in The Orange Box, along with Half-Life 2: Episode One and Half-Life 2: Episode Two (sequels to Half-Life 2), Portal, and Team Fortress 2. Half-Life 3 is currently in development. Half-Life 2 is based on a game engine called Source. There have been many other Source-based games, such as Portal, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, and Garry's Mod.
Half-Life was a very popular video game, and Half-Life 2 was also very popular. Many reviewers believe Half-Life 2 is better than Half-Life and one of the best games ever made. It took six years to create Half-Life 2 (from 1998 to 2004). It was supposed to be released in 2003, but it was not ready. Many fans were very angry and said Valve lied to them. However, it did release the next year (2004). It had much better graphics than Half-Life. It also had more complicated non-player characters and more of a story.