Half-Life 2 Flash Version

This is just wrong.I don't know what I find more depressing: that someone took the time to make this piece of shit game, or that I played it three times to get all the screenshots. Regardless, we both wasted too much time on this ridiculous mess.

Much like the last game I reviewed, Zelda Mini Games, Half-Life 2 Flash Version takes inspiration from the phenomenally successful Half-Life games. And much like Zelda Mini Games, this takes its great origins and pisses all over it.

I don't know why it's so hard to make good online versions of console games. For every Portal, it seems, there are a hundred awful knock-offs that do nothing but waste your time and ruin any enjoyment the real game may have given you. Half-Life 2 Flash version is a perfect example of this. It looks and plays like it took the developer twenty minutes to make it.

If its sole reason for existing was to be a little time waster for Half-Life fans, then perhaps it does the job. You have the regular 100 health points and a gun that can carry 45 bullets in its clip. Not that this matters, as you reload automatically and you have a seemingly endless supply of ammunition. Once you start, you'll be presented with a screen that looks pretty much like this:



The enemies are clearly nothing more than cut and paste jobs. They don't move but rather slide into a fixed position and then stand or squat completely still as little flashes fly from the general area of their weapons. You put your crosshairs over them and click the left mouse button to shoot. Then you scroll over to the other side of the playing area:



And here you'll find more cardboard cutout aliens to shoot. You do this repeatedly, scrolling from one side to the other. There are no levels, no power ups and no other enemies. Nor do you have any way to defend yourself from their bullets, so you pretty much just stand there and get shot to pieces. But then they do the same thing, so it would hardly be right to give you an unfair advantage like a shield or a box to hide behind.



Oh, for the love of God... look at that blood! I've seen more realistic pools of claret created in MS Paint. Thankfully the game only lasts around three minutes. Eventually you die, whereupon you receive a final score and the opportunity to play again! Whoooo!



Twenty-six kills. I probably would have gotten more but the aliens had some kind of invisible helmet on that meant it took at least two head shots to bring them down. On the bright side, their alien anatomy meant they had vital organs in their knees, so a few shots to the legs were also deadly. (And yes, before you ask, this is sarcasm.)

As awful as Half-Life 2 Flash Version is, it's not nearly as depressing as knowing there are five more games just like it. Yeah, there's Flash Halo, Flash Call Of Duty, Flash Counter Strike... and they all equally suck balls. It's the exact same game, with few differences other than the surroundings and the enemy. Unlike other games that I've reviewed, there's nothing to commend here in the slightest. Half-Life 2 Flash version looks like shit, it plays like shit, and it's as fun as a dried up dog turd.

It's a really bad game.