"Exceptional game."

Let me be perfectly honest,

This is one of the best games I have ever had the pleasure of using bar none. From the atmosphere of being in a futuristic city overrun by an evil dictator to a village tainted by the walking dead - it will stay with you.

~Graphics~

The weapons, characters, and environments looks beautiful. One of the most fantastic pleasures is being out in the open during the vehicular missions. The hovercraft is especially a pleasure, as you can marvel at the visuals and effects. Ravenholm, the zombie infested town, is what the classic game "Nocturne" would have been had the technology been available. It is scary, creepy, and most of all - just realistic enough to enthrall even the most skeptical, realism-loving FPS fan. The game is also perfectly coded, which means that despite the beautiful visuals my computer (which barely handled FEAR) let me play this game with no stutters, at high graphics settings and a high framerate too. Each level has one cool place, enemy, or obstacle that makes it noteworthy. These range from hotels to aquaducts, but no matter what they are - they look gorgeous.

~Audio~

Again, the team behind Half Life 2 must have devoted much of their time in the recording studio. Everything sounds like it should, and eventually you will learn to tell apart different types of enemies (undead or otherwise) by the sounds they make. I found it strange how the soldiers' radios were so loud and gave away their positions very often, but again it all feels too realistic. Some of the levels with larger battles mix together many sound effects creating a satisfying, action-packed atmosphere.

~Gameplay~

Better than graphics and audio combined times a million. You can pick up somebody's television set, ripping the cord out of the outlet, and chuck it out the window. I spent hours just tossing people's possessions out of apartment windows. The guns are lots of fun to use, and while it could have used better gore effects, the physics and death animations (rag-doll) were just plain exciting. You cannot understand the fun of picking up a soldier with a futuristic gravity gun, and then propelling their body into a group of enemies, finally seeing the whole bunch die on impact. Some repetitious boss creatures are a pain to have to defeat over and over again, but this is an extremely small complaint. This is where games like "FEAR" have their downfall, but not Half Life 2! You will encounter so many different types of people, soldiers, alien creatures, and zombies that you will still remember some long after you've finished the game. The amount of weapons is also very wide, and luckily you can carry anything you pick up. This, although not realistic, is a good touch. While many new games want to restrict the weapons you carry, doing so seems to make the overall enjoyment level suffer. Not here, you can weild a bazooka, shotgun, and even a gravity gun all at the same time.

But what is this gravity gun? It is the single most cool thing to be incorporated into a first person shooter since the knick-knacks in Cate Archer's purse. You can pick up any moveable object (and believe me, there are plenty) and hold it with the gun. Then, once you press the trigger, you can discharge the item at extremely high speed into your enemy. So, for example you can TVs out of windows at an extremely high velocity. But what makes this fun is that the game has certain items specifically made for use with the gun. These include exploding barrels, and my favorite - saw blades. Once you pic up a saw blade with the gravity gun, you are walking machine of death and decapitation. You can tear apart anybody in your way with the click of a mouse. Stress relief? You bet!

~Story/cinematics~

The game takes place entirely from the eyes of the hero: you. There is not a single moment where an event triggers an out-of-body cutscene. You can walk about, look around, and engage whoever you want during meetings with friendly characters. This really helps immerse players into the game world, as using cinematics makes a game feel more like watching a film then simulating the actual experience of fighting a legion of the undead.

The story is very important in the game, but often leaves you with only vague clues to know where to proceed through a level. The actual story of the game is very intriguing, but sometimes you can get stuck in the oddest of places without a clue as to how you should proceed. At one point, I ran around a huge outdoor terrain on foot and eventually reached a dead end. It turns out that I should have done the level with my vehicle, but I was convinced it was to be abandoned! was frustrated, but did enjoy the extra challenge.

~Technical~ (Ease of installation/menu navigation/bugs)

Here is where I couldn't give this great game a perfect ten. After talking with a number of other people, it seems as though my game was a lemon - because very few have ever mentioned these issues. I will list them here for clarity:

1. Enemies would not move after loading a savegame. This was easily repaired by typing "ai_disable" into the console before the loading of each new game. However, eventually certain scripted meetings would refuse to take place. This was repaired by re-loading the previous level, and doing it over again. It was a pesky nuisance, but not a huge issue.

2. The game would not load the last 2 levels. I would click the savegame, and it told me that a connection with the server was lost. I bypassed this by accessing the last through levels through the "level select" page instead of the "savegame screen.

3. The savegames would, for some reason, appear in skewed order. They would arrange themselves not by date but rather randomly - different upon each load. Again, I bypassed this by playing the game for long periods at a time, and finally when I was ready to save I saved it about 5-times. Then, I would have a much easier time going back to the main save points. (This problem is very hard to describe in print, and I don't want to go into detail here. Suffice to say it was not a major issue by any means.)

But, the installation was a breeze and the menus were easy to navigate. Another great feature was that the game is adapted to work with widescreen monitors, specifically, those running on a 1440x900 aspect ratio. Very few games use this, but in a game like this it was a perfect combination.

~Conclusion~

Half Life 2 is a game that no first person shooter-liking gamer should play. The minor glitches I encountered were easy to fix with some elbow grease and brain power, and there are some levels I never get bored of playing. The game deserves to be applauded for achieving such excellent graphics and smooth framerate. Just, watch out for the headcrabs!

To recall:

///Graphics:

-Good visuals combined with solid performance.
-Accurately modeled enemies, weapons, vehicles, and environments.

///Audio:

-Just like above, well-polished, great.
-Mouths of characters move along with voice. This is often sketchy in some games.

///Gameplay:

-The best part of the game. So many things to do, so little time to do them.
-Cool weapons and interactive objects make for a really fun experience.

///Story:

-FPS view throughout whole game, a definite plus.
-Engaging story whose comprehension is not required for a complete enjoyment of the game.

///Technical:

-Easy to install.
-takes up quite a bit of hard drive space: 5+gb
-I experienced some irritating problems, most of which were easy to fix.

A well-deserved 9/10 from me.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/14/06