Half-Life 2

"I've waited a well earned year for this release, and as someone who's never played the PC version, this game is extraordinary."

I'm going to frank here. I am a Xbox owner. I don't own a high-end pc. I got Halo 2 when all the PC owners got Half Life 2. I loved Halo 2 and played the heck out of it. Unfortunately, the game remained in my Xbox for the next few months. It became the only Xbox title that I could play anymore. This was a disappoint. As someone who craves for original entertain, I found the answer to my problems: Half Life 2 for Xbox. Unfortunately, I had to wait, and wait, and wait. It finally came, and I just finished playing the entire game a while ago. It was such an amazing experience, I decided I NEED to tell everyone about it. However, never playing the PC version, I'm not going to make any comparisons to it's original platform. Just talk about the game itself.

Presentation 10/10

After a confusing intro with the G-Man, the player is thrown onto a train where he/she must try figuring out what the heck is going on. The train comes to a stop and a robot flings into your face, flashing pictures left and right. Then, after exploring the train station, the player quickly realises everything is interactable. The first thing I did after getting off the train: Picked up a suitcase and keep on throwing it at a guard, who then chased me around the station only to beat me with a stick. After exploring more, I'm scanned for approval and then taken to a bloody chair in a interrogation room. The only guard in the room removes his helmet and it turns out to be one of your friends. Surprise, surprise. Let's jump about 40 minutes later. Inside an generating teleporter, a vent crashes down on a wire, causing me to be shot to different location to location, for about 7 seconds each....all in real time! Everything, and I mean, everything, takes place within the gameplay itself. It's amazing. One thing I take note of fast: Half-Life 2 is a movie that I would make it. It has all the eerie atmospheres and feelings that I would put in a movie of my own. Games like Halo 2 can make perfect movies, but only a few games can make you feel like something that you've already made. It's a major plus.

Graphics 9/10

Let me start the problems first, cause it will only take a couple of seconds. There are very small jagged edges early on and there is a small framerate issue. Let me stretch how minor this framerate issue is: I only noticed it four times for about four seconds, my first time through. It's so unnoticeable it wasn't worth mentioning so much as the critics did. Let's move to visual style now: Holy crap again. Photo-realistic art style. The character models, wow, perform and appear lifelike. Enemies were created from brilliance. From combines to giant spider like crawling robots, it all works so well. It's amazing. Level design is genius. I am a killer for level design, among other things. Level design is the variety of gaming, and Half Life 2 delivers. It intentionally tries to make you feel like your on the greatest adventure ever. The sandy shores, the creepy facilities, the crowded cities, it's all so great.

Controls 10/10

Controls is given for practically every game. If a game has controller issues, it's probably not worth mentioning. However, Half-Life 2's takes the game the next step up and vamps it with the perfect familar Halo 2 controls and a new very accessible weapon selection.

Music 9/10

Loved it. I've heard some absolutely incredible music in videogames before, but I jumped on this music right away. It sounds just like the music I would put into a movie of mine. Perfect techno beats and cinematic tunes. Only problem: There wasn't enough. The game relies on a lot of sound rather than music, so there are some scenes where it's just background sounds taking over. However, the music is still great.

Sound 10/10

Nice. Perfect example: Kill one combine. He'll shout in pain and once you hear his radio hit the floor, you'll hear a sequence of ambient beepings and talking through the system. The guns sound extremely real. They are obviously the loudest sounds of the game and do a great job of doing so. You really feel the blast right in your face.

Voiceovers 10/10

Professional voiceactors doing their thing, adding that special character to each person you meet. Standout performances: Everyone. They don't overact or do anything very cartoony. They just sound very realistic, like actual people you would meet in the Half Life 2 world.

Gameplay 10/10

Yes. Just yes. The game starts out as a standard run and gun first-person-shooter, which, trust me, is much more satisfying as it sounds. The game's fun factor is basically set early on. You'll have a blast just killing one zombie as you will shooting down a gunship or killing a combine. It's amazingly fun, but that's just the beginning. From that point you'll be racing across waterways in speedboats, defying gravity, controling giant cranes, speeding across highways in dune buggies, and solving old-school adventure game puzzles, something else I'm a killer for. (Except there's a twist: Their all environmental based.) This game knows when and where to be creative, and it's exciting just exploring everything they did right.

Story 8/10

The story is well done, and excellently presented. There a couple of plot-holes and questions that remain unanswered in the game's entire course, but everything is relatively solved...sort of. Still, it seems much more like the storyline I would make in a movie of mine own, rather than most other games. The sci-fi vibe holds strong on this one.

Ending 6/10

Lowest factor for me. I'm going to try to keep this spoiler free, but the game cuts off faster than any other game I've ever seen do it, and they do it in a pretty sneaky way. You really have to watch out for it, because it sort of just hits you. Unfortunately, as bad as that sounds, it also makes no sense. The game could have gone on for an extra 45 minutes with a better explanation and would have gotten the perfect score it deserved. But it doesn't.

Let me tell us you this though: Before I hit the ending, Half Life 2 was definitely one of the greatest videogame experiences I have ever experienced. It amazed me on many, many factors and I expect to replay it many times. I can easily say it's on my top 5 games list, and without a doubt, definitely on my top 10. This game deserves to be played by everyone who has access to it. It's worth an Xbox alone if your not going out to buy a PC anytime soon. There are loading screens too, but they're only like 10-15 seconds long. Ignorable, especially in the second half. I recommend this game to anyone. It's brilliant.

Buy/Rent

Buy. Without a doubt.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/13/05