Half Life 2



Why is this the biggest game of the year? Simple: Half-Life revolutionized first person shooters not only for the PC, but for pretty much every single platform out there. It had fantastic graphics (for the time that is), story, and a creepy, ominous atmosphere that kept pulling you forward and forward.

Now the sequel comes along, and let me tell you my PC brethren: this could easily be the best FPS ever made. Ever. Some might even argue that Half-Life 2 is the best game ever made. I couldn't contest to that statement. This game is about as flawless as flawless can get. Even after that year delay, it's still well worth it, and I mean well worth it. Stop reading this review and buy the game right now! Well…it would be nice if you could read my review.

Good things

Where things left off…
Now let me warn you that there's going to be a spoiler or two of information on what happens in the game. I'll pledge that I won't reveal any surprises, but for people who want the ultimate experience should play the game first. Also, I'm pretty much going to talk about the plot of the first game as well. If you haven't played that game yet, you should get to it, you bum! This review is also rather large, but I think you'll be rewarded of the full awe earned by this game if you stick with it. You've been warned.

Where did we leave off in the first Half-Life? Oh yes, who could forget? On that floating train in the middle of oblivion with the G-Man giving you an offer you couldn't refuse…for if you did refuse, the Xen aliens would gobble you up. So you accept his offer, tentatively, only putting you into a coma that would last for a few years.

And now you're awake. The GMan beckons, "Wake up, Mr. Freeman…wake up and…smell the ashes…"

Sending shivers down your spine yet?

The credits roll in the beginning of the game as you ride a train to some place, an introduction eerily similar to Half-Life's. But eventually you step off that beautifully textured train, and the game starts.

Included Stuff
Since I don't have an 'effin DVD-rom, I wasn't able to get the special platinum edition, but the only other thing of interest that I wanted to get with that was the book, but you can pretty much buy that separately. Anyway, after cuddling with the box for a few minutes, I opened it up. The box was surprisingly light, and for a reason too: there's no manual! There was just a little card explaining the movements and stuff, and a card advertising the X800 pro graphics card. I was a little disappointed with an absence of a manual, but little things like that don't really bother me too much.

If you got the CD version of Half-Life 2, it comes on 5, count them, 5 discs. And it takes a long time for the whole thing to load onto your computer too. But you're not only installing Half-Life 2. You've got Counter strike source, which I'll get to. You've also got Steam, which is that internet security/buying thing from Valve, which you need to install, or else you can't play Half-Life 2! Thank goodness I had cable installed up in my room this summer, or else I wouldn't have been able to play, since after you're done installing the game, you need to register the CD key online to unlock the game. At first, it may aggravate you off, but it's just an extra security precaution against piracy. Damn pirates!

After it was all done downloading and registering and all that jazz, just installing the game took a good 30-40 minutes. So be patient.

The story in a semi-nutshell
Once again, you reprise the role as that famous Gordon Freeman. After the opening impressive sequence of the Gman telling you to wake up and smell the ashes, you're on a train going to a city called City 17.

When you step off the train, you're greeted to a big television screen. Why, it's Doctor Wallace Breen, the former leader of Black Mesa. What is he doing here preaching about City 17 being his home? But soon after that, you meet everyone's lovable security guard…Barney! And most of the others make their entrances soon enough. You've got the lovely Alyx Vance, the daughter of Dr. Eli Vance, who is also a scientist from the first game. Also, you have Dr. Kleiner, who was another scientist from the first game, who this time around has a pet headcrab (my headcrab rant will come soon enough!)

The first two levels are short, mainly since they act as an introduction. It's only till you get the coveted crowbar is when the levels start to expand. Some of the levels took me a good 2+ hours to beat, so if you think you're going to gun quickly past the games 14 levels, think again. Overall, the game took me about 17 hours to beat, and probably a single hour of that time was me just sitting around admiring those eye popping graphics.

Okay, the graphics! Sheesh!
Alright, I'm not going to be brief with the graphics, so be warned that the next few paragraphs are going to include me salivating over the graphics. Okay, here we go!

To put it short…THE GRAPHICS ARE PHENOMENAL!!!. The Source engine is simply beautiful to behold. Everything is so elaborately detailed that you'll just spend to first minutes just standing there in complete awe, because that's what I did.

The next thing you'll notice are the people. When you're on the train in the very beginning, there'll be two people sitting there. When you approach them, they'll talk to you, and for a second you'll think it's still a cut-scene. You'll be like, "Wait…their words match their mouths? Impossible!" But it's true! The words do fit their mouths, a feat that really could be only found in cut scenes of previous games, but now you won't have to endure the pain of "kung fu" dubbing. This mouth lip thing brings the game to a more multimedia level; it's fantastic.

The people also look ghastly realistic. Just look at the people's faces when they talk, and it actually feels like that there's muscles behind that face that are moving, and not just an animated texture. These people are the most realistic looking people ever to be found in a game.

Everything else is perfect too. The textures are painstakingly realistic, and some areas look like they were ripped right out of a "Kodak moment" photograph. The environments are so incredibly detailed, and not to mention they're gi-normous. The water, if you have a beefy machine, will look and resemble real life water. And of course, you've got dem aliens, which are gruesomely done and highly "polygoninated" as well (that's not a word, but whatever).

Basically put, the graphics in the game are a technological accomplishment. Everywhere you go will be a feast for your eyes, and it's really great on how much the people over at Valve spent to raise the bar, and they're the people that need to raise the bar even further with Half-Life 3, whenever that's going to come out.

Getting off the ground
Naturally, you're going to need quite a bit of hardware to get Half-Life 2 looking at its very best. Right now, I'm running the game on a P4 1.8 (undoubtedly the thing that's crippling my system) with 768 ram, and the thing that saves my computer from making Half-Life 2 look like absolute crap: my X800 Pro.

Supposedly, and I don't want to sound biased or anything, but supposedly the X800 is the card for Half-Life 2. Why? In PCGamer magazine, in an interview with Valve's Software tech guru Gary McTaggart, he stated "The X800 is faster for Half-Life 2 by roughly 20 percent - the 6800 supports standard full precision, but it's more optimal with partial precision. The X800 is designed for full precision from the ground up." So there you go, I guess. If you're on the market to by a graphics card to have the ultimate experience for this game, Valve suggests that you grab the X800 Pro. That said, it still should look fantastic on a 6800, and the 6800 was "the card" for Doom 3. Either one of the new generation cards will run the game great.

When you fire up the main screen and check for video settings, you'll see that the game already selected the settings that it thinks will run the best on your comp. For my computer, it selected this: Shader, shadow detail, models, and textures set to High. Screen resolution was 1024 X 768. Antialiasing at 4X with Anisotropic 8X. Naturally it wasn't maxed out in every category (the game said I should run the water reflection on the lowest one, but I changed it with out too much of a problem). When the game was up and running, I got a little over 30 framerates per second. Not too bad given my system requirements, but when there were big outdoor sequences with lots of bad guys, the game had a hiccup or two. Basically, if you're going to upgrade either graphics card or processor, upgrade the graphics card; Half-Life 2 relies on your graphic board more than anything. Still, if my processor was faster, the experience would've been smoother.

Also, for people out there with less than fortunate system specs, the game has different rendering paths, and will select the best one to suit your system. So needless to say, Half-Life 2 should run smoothly on most systems, but the lower the rendering path (there's four of them: DirectX 7.0, 8.0, 8.1, and 9.0), the less "appealing" the graphics are going to look (mine was DirectX 9.0…again, it's really on account of the X800 Pro). But then again, you're not playing Half-Life 2 for solely the graphics! You're in it for the gameplay!

Gameplay!
The great thing about Half-Life 2, and where it succeeds over any other shooter I've ever played, is the amount of variety there is to the gameplay. One moment you're slowly creeping through the tunnels, waiting for something to pop out in your face. Then you're cruising through the canals in an air boat with an energy gun attached to it. And then you're the leader of a pack of humans going through the streets and killing Combine solders. Half-Life 2 allows you never to be bored with any style of gameplay, so you're constantly interested. There wasn't a single dull moment throughout the entire game for me.

Basically, the game's gameplay is so addictive that you keep on wanting to move forward. The story does help, but it's mostly because you're having so much of a blast just playing the thing. And this experience is enhanced by the great selections of weapons that you receive.

Of course, this game wouldn't exist without your trusty crowbar, and respectfully, it's the first weapon you get. From there, new weapons are added to your arsenal, most of which were found in the old game, but a few new ones. But most importantly is the Gravity Gun (or if you want to be Mr. Technical, the Zero-Point Energy Gun), which I'm sure everyone's familiar with if they've read another Half-Life 2 review, and if you have, then you already know that the gravity gun is fantastic. It's the weapon that the developers put in to showcase their awesome physics engine which is Havok.

With the gravity gun, you can pull pretty much anything towards you that's not bolted to the floor. Even better, once that object that you've grabbed is floating in mid air, you have the option of putting it down slowly, or hurling it with alt-fire. Then this object becomes a weapon and can be used to kill enemies by throwing certain objects. Want to get rid of some pesky combine solders, but don't want to get rid of ammo? Then just pick up an explosive barrel and hurl it towards them for a fun time! Not only that, but the Gravity Gun is actually needed in certain parts, say, for making a makeshift bridge, or moving something heavy out of your way. Plus, it's just great fun to screw around with it. And there are just so many enemies waiting to be killed.

Great…headcrabs! Mother f-king headcrabs!
Let's take a little stroll down memory lane, shall we? It's the first Half-Life and I'm 10 years old, and I'm walking down after that failed experiment, and now all of Black Mesa is going to hell. So here I am, a little 10 year old boy walking with his trusty crowbar. Hey, what's that? Aww…it's a cute little alien! It's making friendly chirping noises! Let's go over to pet-ARRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!! (Cue me falling out of my seat).

I hate headcrabs. I hate them! Send me any alien monstrosity, send me imps with fire coming out of their eyes, and send me flying skulls that are spawned from hell. Send me any living creature and I'll be fine…but send me a headcrab, and I start freaking out. I hate to admit but seeing a tiny little headcrab gives me Goosebumps, and is by far the scariest thing I've ever encountered in a game.

And there are lots of them, fellow headcrab haters. Matter of fact, there's an entire level simply devoted to headcrabs. We're talking nothing but two solid hours of headcrabs. Not only that, but there are more types of headcrabs to be scared about! Fun!

Okay, sorry about that whole headcrab rant. It's just that I hate them buggers so much…ugh. Alright, besides those damned headcrabs, you've got a few new enemies and a few old ones. Like I already stated, you've got your headcrabs, and you've got other types of headcrabs and headcrab zombies. But there's more! I won't tell them all, but you've got new enemies like the Ant Lion as seen in many previews, and the Combine people, which act sort of like the Gestapo in City 17. But I can tell you what creatures didn't make it in, if you want to read further on. Well, supposedly there was supposed to be some sort of Hydra like animal like that screenshot of that Combine solder getting impaled by a blue sliver like thing. But surprisingly, it's not there. Also missing are the assassins from the first game, which were the biggest pain in the butt to remove, and they're not in the second game either.

The A.I. of the enemies is fairly advanced compared to other games. Combine solders will flank and hide behind barriers, while aliens such as Ant Lions pop out of the ground to attack you on account of you not smelling like them. And you might consider the traditional headcrab zombie to be as dumb as a paper plate. Actually, it still is, but if a table separates you and that ugly looking thing, the zombie will actually throw it at you! How rude!

Sound
The sound in Half-Life 2 is pretty good. Alien noises are gruesome and detailed. Weapons sound realistic too. Just hear the pistol and it will feel like you're firing a real one off. Plus, sound combined with the Havok engine is great. Pick up a beer bottle and throw it against the wall, and it will shatter into several shards. Pick up one of those shards and throw it and it will make only a ting compared to shatter. Respectively, the voices of the humans are well done, even though it is obvious that most of the normal people that you meet sound exactly the same. But when it comes down to the key players in the story, they're done with professionalism. These are real actors and actresses being used, and not that phone in crap. Just their voices bring the game to a whole different multimedia perspective.

And the music is great too, even if it may be under appreciated. Certain events will trigger certain music. Some of the music forewarns that something really bad is going to happen, while other times it is a pumping rock ballad as you run through the streets, guns ablazing, just screaming out "Hell yeah!"

The Cherries on top
After you beat the game, fear not! There's still more to do. For behold, Valve decided to throw in Counterstrike Source with the game as well, and it is truly the cherry on top of this wonderful package. Since it was really the first time I've ever played Counterstrike (I know, where have I been?), it was great addicting fun for the most part. The whole buying weapons scheme is great, and the gameplay is shockingly realistic too…considering I get my butt handed to me on a silver platter from people who've been playing for years.

Another great alternative is the Half-Life 2 deathmatch, which is as addictive as crack cocaine. Here you can get all of the weapons that you loved in Half-Life 2 and battle against opponents online. Even better yet, you can get the beloved gravity gun; it's actually your main starting weapon! It's great fun pulling sinks off of the wall and hurling them at people, and looking up to the death listings to see that the cause of death was displayed by a sink icon. The gameplay is quick and fun, but you do need to download it separately, i.e. it doesn't come in the box. Still, it's a minimal download, and since Epinions hasn't allowed me to publish this review in over five days, I've been chewing on deathmatch for that time.

Not so good things
There's nothing really wrong with Half-Life 2. It's just a fantastic game that actually fulfills its over-the-top hype. Unlike the many complaints of people playing Halo 2 and being disappointed with its single player campaign, I thoroughly enjoyed Half-Life 2's missions to a full extent. I was never bored, never unsatisfied, and always ready to kick some hapless alien butt.

They'll be people out there who moan about the cliffhanger ending…well what did you expect? Half-Life 3 is already in the works, and was announced over a year ago back in July of 2003. So of course there's going to be a cliffhanger ending, because Valve wants to wrap it all off in their third installment. Probably the only bad thing is that Half-Life 3 probably won't show its head for another four or so years. I'll be twenty years old!

The Verdict
Half-Life 2 is one of the closest games that I've played that is near perfection. Not only that, but it was one of the most enjoying and satisfying games I have ever played too. This game is certainly destined to go down as a classic and sets the bar so highly for upcoming games that from now on each review I do about a game will have me boasting on how great Half-Life 2 was. I think the only people that can raise the bar even further are the people at Valve. If the graphics look this impressive right now, how will they look in four or so years? Only time can tell.

So here's the real question: is Half-Life 2 the best game ever created? To the people who say "yes" I won't argue with them. Why, if Warren Spector didn't create the masterpiece which is known as Dues Ex, I'd probably say that Half-Life 2 is the best game ever forged, because it certainly is worthy of a title like that. And I don't think I can give higher praise for a game than that.