Half-Life

"Could have been much more"

Having played Half-Life on the PC the only reason I rented this game was for Decay, the PS2 exclusive co-operative mission. First off though I'll reveiw the actual half-life. The story is as follows, you are Gordon Freeman a scientist working a Black Mesa. You are called in to do an experiment, and during that experiment something goes horribly wrong, and a portal to another dimension is opened and in flood strange and violent creatures. The military are sent in and have one thing on their mind, killing all people and aliens in Black Mesa, especially you. This game was fun on PC all that time ago, but on playstation 2 it's showing it's age. The graphics are OK, they could have been better, but the gun models are nice and chunky, and have some cool effects. The character models have been improved since the original was released on PC, and are well detailed. The game runs fast, sometimes to fast, as the controls are very sensitive and the character runs fast. This can make you fall off ledges and other objects, which becomes frustrating. The sound is good, the weapons sound very powerful, and the music comes in at certain key moments. Now onto the 2 player modes.

In a word, the 2 player mode is disappointing. The game runs slower than in single player, the graphics are OK, but in deathmatch its hard to see where all the weapons are, the gun models are removed, which really annoyed me, as I love seeing gun models, and the characters look strange going up ladders, they sort of run on the spot while moving upwards, wierd.
Decay is the all new Half-Life co-operative mission, and in two player it is OK. There are no bosses, save for one at the end, the gun models are removed, there is too much of a relience on cheap puzzles (how about jump from this mine cart thing to the next and if you miss you die). the game runs slowly, but it is fairly good when you get past the first 3 or so missions, as there is more of a reliance on action then. Decay can also be played in single player mode, but this is a sick joke. You have two people, and you can switch between them by pressing select, but they don't follow you, they just stand there. The manual calls the second player a ''bot'' but all they do is shoot an enemy if they come in sight, and even then theyre hopeless. I got to near the end of one mission only to see the bot fire a grenade into a bulletproof glass wall to hit the enemy on the other side. the bot blew herself up and the mission was failed. Decay is average at best. All in all i believe half-life on PS2 is a waste, and your money is better spent on a different First Person Shooter such as TimeSplitters or Red Faction. Don't bother with this one, maybe just rent it.

Graphics: 7 I have seen much better graphics on ps2, as the PS2 is capable of much more than this.

Sound: 9 Great music, and some of the best guns blasts you'll ever hear.

Control: 7 The lock on doesn't really work, but luckily you can set whatever controls you want.

Gameplay: 5 Dated, boring. Good in its time on PC but people expect much more these days. Decay is a step in the right direction though, bring on more CO-OP games!!

Replayablity: 5 You may come back to decay, may.

Rent or buy? Rent. If you never played it on PC and own a PC get the PC version, its better. If not give it a try. Just don't buy this one, it's not worth it, not with games like TimeSplitter and Red Faction out there.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/19/01, Updated 07/12/02