The player also starts without items, slowly building up their arsenal over the course of the game. The sequel has similar mechanics to Half-Life, including health-and-weapon systems and periodic physics puzzles, except with the newer Source engine and improved graphics. Like its predecessor, Half-Life 2 is a single-player first-person shooter broken into several chapters, permanently casting the player as protagonist Gordon Freeman. Half-Life 2 (stylized as HλLF-LIFE2) is a first-person shooter video game developed and published by Valve Corporation.

Patch notes over yonder.Download Half-Life 2 for free on PC – this page will show you how to download and install the full version of Half-Life 2 on PC. This client update also makes a bunch of smaller additions and fixes to SteamOS, Steam Input, and the Deck’s desktop mode. It’s the latest in a string of substantial feature updates Valve have pushed out since the handheld’s launch, something they seemed pretty pleased about when I interviewed them for the Steam Deck’s first anniversary. If you’d prefer to keep your connections locked down, you can opt out of tranfers in the Downloads section of Steam’s settings, though I do heartily recommend this feature to Deck owners and/or anyone who happens to own multiple PCs or gaming laptops. Nearly twice my maximum download speed, then, and Valve reckon you can hit 100MB/s with higher-end connections and hardware.

Using this feature to install games to my Steam Deck via Wi-Fi, I typically get transfer speeds between 27MB/s and 30MB/s, with peaks up to 37MB/s. In my case, the absolute best download speed I can get on Steam – and this is on an Ethernet-connected PC – is about 19MB/s. Even so, it’s a helpful addition for anyone on all-you-can-eat data as well, since local transfers are much faster than old fashioned installs. The biggest benefit seemingly comes to those with monthly data caps (morning, Yanks), as these transfers won’t usually involve any extra downloads. You can even opt into sending/receiving game data from PCs and Steam Decks owned by other people, so long as they’re also connected to the same local network.

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