half-life 2 - 6/10
it pioneered so much. it's so fucking overhyped though
a foundational work that inspired and pioneered gaming as a whole after it's release shook the industry to it's core.
but maaan can it be a fucking slog sometimes. i really overhyped this game for myself, to be honest, since i chased it as this golden goose after years of having a pc too poor to run it, and no money to buy the xbox port.
it's a pretty good game, but there are so many sections where i feel like i'm about to fall asleep or about to pull teeth, and those two extremes are so violently enforced throughout the game that it became genuinely detrimental to my health to play at a point.
that being said, there are setpieces that are iconic and amazing every so often - as much as i don't like certain parts of this game, i could never be a ravenholm detractor.
when this game is good, it's stellar. but when the pace drops to a crawl, either due to a hard roadblock or fuck all happening for a bit, it massively dragged the game down in my perception.
