Half-Life 2

"Great Port Of A Great Game"

Intro
This is Half-Life 2. One of the best FPS on the market. I'll waste no time introducing it and instead get right into the review. I'll score the game based on: graphics, sound, story, game-play and re-playability.

Graphics - Score - 9.9/10
What is there to say. The graphics are beautiful. Just amazing. Everything is throughly detailed and textured. You lose a little bit of the detail though on the human faces in the game. But the animations for your enemies and allies is all great, no hiccups or anything like that. There is a small problem though with graphics this good, you will get the odd frame-rate slow down. I'll talk about that later. Overall though the graphics are some of the best available on the X-Box, Valve did a great job of getting it to run this good looking.

Sound - Score - 9.5/10
The sounds are also extremely well done. Every weapon sounds good. The voice-over work is also phenomenal. I think the best voice acting I've heard in a game. The music is fitting but I found that it wasn't on a lot of the time. But when it was on it suited the mood rather well and really made the game feel epic, especially near the end of the game.

Story - Score - 9/10
The story was also well done. All of it is told through a first-person perspective, that is to say you never, ever leave the eyes of Gordon Freeman. You play as a scientist rather than a genetically modified super soldier, which is a nice change of pace. The story is a continuation from the first Half-Life where you had a choice between death and working for the Gman. This game assumes you chose to live and drops you into City 17. If you're not paying careful attention you can miss some things that characters say. For most of the game though I found I was rather confused as to why I was doing what I was doing but near the end it comes together, sort of. Let's just say that it leaves the door wide-open for a third installment. Along the way you meet various characters each of them with their own kind of story. The game does a good job of drawing you in and making you want to see what is going to happen. Overall it is a good solid story told rather well.

Game-Play - Score - 9.8/10
At last we arrive at the most important and one of the most well done aspects of the game, game-play, sufficient to say, it's awesome. The main thing that makes the game-play so awesome is the Havok physics engine that runs the game. Everything has a different weight and different property's that you can use to your advantage. Well, basically this game operates like it would in real life. For example, shooting a two-by-four at a zombie is good but not as good as launching a washing machine at it. Did I mention Valve even made a gun specifically designed to take-adavntage of the Havok engine? Well, they did. It really opens up the doors and turns what would be an other-wise ho-hum adventure into something huge and free form. There is also rag-doll physics which can make for some pretty interesting deaths. Don't think however that the game play is perfect, the odd time. usually right after you load and when a lot of stuff is going on you will get some frame-rate slow-down. Also, while the AI is good usually your enemies don't last more than a few seconds against you. If they do though they will take advantage of the environment and use their various weapons and team tactics to flush you out of a hiding spot. While the shooting is good the gravity-gun is what sets this game apart from every thing else.

Re-playability - Score - 5
Yeah, there is no multi-player or any unlockables in the game. Which forces it to take a hit. Also, unlike the PC version of the game you wont be able to download and install mods to the game. There is a level select though. You will probably play the single player more than once though and there are three difficulty settings but overall the game just doesn't bring any extras to the table.

Outro
Final Score - 9/10
The game is good. Go pick it up. It will last 10 to 15 hours per run through of the story mode, the only mode. The story is fully engrossing and this turns out to be more of an experience than game. However, if you are looking for something packed full of extras this is not the game for you. It is however, one of the best X-Box games of the year and I highly recommend it to FPS fans.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/28/05