How’s this for a timely review? Sure Half Life 2 came out the same year as
Halo 2, but many gamers (myself included) haven’t played this game yet, either
because our PCs are glorified graphing calculators or we didn’t pick it up on
the Xbox since we were too busy spewing homophobic slurs at prepubescent
children during our Halo 2 death matches.
Well, the gaming gods have given us all reprieve and it’s glorious.
I’ll start off with the issues I had with the game: Without playing the original Half Life, I
felt a bit lost throughout the story.
It’s certainly well acted and fleshed out, but a lot of the in jokes and
references to Black Mesa are completely lost on people not familiar with the
back story. The graphics are a bit
dated, but that’s to be expected for a three year old game. My only other issue is that I really wish I
would have played this game when it came out to truly appreciate its numerous
innovations.
Now that the requisite whining is done with, allow me to
lavish an uncomfortable amount of praise on HL2. This game is loaded with fantastic elements,
from the voice acting, sheer amount of dialogue, enthralling story (even if non
Half Life vets may lose of the oomph) well balanced difficulty and weapons,
perfect pacing and huge variety of environments. Simply put, the game will suck you in and
won’t let go until the haunting ending echoes through your speakers.
Spoiler light plot synopsis:
You are Gordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist and huge player in the
Black Mesa Incident (Dimensional rifts that bring Aliens to Earth, the focus of
the original Half Life) who lives in a world that has been ravaged by
aliens. Teleportation technology is
still being tested and Freeman is tasked with pretty much saving the
world. The storyline, while a bit
confusing to those who didn’t play the first one or read the Wikipedia articles
on Half Life 1, is well executed and includes several genuinely frightening
moments.
The FPS controls are well defined and easy to pick up and
master after a short period of time. The
difficulty seems to be an issue at the beginning of the game, but as soon as
you acquire a few automatic weapons, the difficulty balances out and provides a
healthy challenge while remaining fun.
One aspect of the game that stands out immediately is the amount of
thinking you are forced to do in order to proceed. It’s not just a simple linear quest; you are
forced to use the environment in a variety of ways to proceed through the
levels. Then, just as you’re getting
used to the feel of the weapons and the pace of the game, it throws a very
lengthy and hugely fun vehicle level at you.
These vehicle levels are spread throughout the game and are absolute
joys to play. It’s not simply driving
and shooting, often you have to get out of the vehicle to figure out how to
raise a gate or find an alternate route.
The weapons are mostly standard fare, a mix of pistol,
machine guns, rifles and rocket launchers which we’ve all seen many times
before. However, Half Life 2 introduces
the most bad ass weapon of all time: The Gravity Gun. There is no more enjoyable feeling than
grabbing an enormous saw blade from across the room and using it to slice an
entire row of zombies at once. Once you
acquire the Gravity gun, the environment becomes the most important weapon in
your arsenal. It never runs out of ammo
and there’s never a shortage of things to shoot, topple or reflect back at the
enemies. Truly a brilliant weapon.
Half Life 2 is just another reason to pick up The Orange
Box. You can’t be disappointed with that
purchase.
9.5/10 (An Overview of Half Life’s story would be nice to
help those of us not familiar with the back story)
Mahalo,
Duke