Half-Life 2

"Is the Xbox port as good as the stellar PC game? The answer is a definite "sort of""

Almost a year after the PC version of Half-Life 2 was released; Valve software (or whoever did the port) released the PC classic to the Xbox. The game is a rather spot-on translation of the PC version of the game. But unfortunately it just feels a little bit stale.

Story: (8/10)
The story in Half-Life 2 takes place quite some time after the events of the original game. The world has been seemingly taken over by an alien force known as the Combine. The Combine have basically made the human race their slaves. The game starts out in City-17, the Combine capital. Gordon Freeman had accepted the G-Man's choice from the end of Half-Life 1 to work with him and the organization the G-Man belongs to (which really when you consider it wasn't much of a choice). After you reach the train station you run into a few of the characters from the original Half-Life, like Barney the security guard, and the scientist. You soon find yourself in the middle of a coup against humanity's evil overlords. The game does include a fair amount of twists and turns, but overall leaves you feeling a bit like you've heard this same storyline again and again.

Graphics: (8/10)
While the graphics in this game aren't terrible they just don't seem as good as they really could be. The game looks about the same as if you were playing the game on a PC that could barely manage to play the game on the medium settings. That said the character animations, and facial expressions are top-notch. The game still has it's life-like characters, and the weapons in the game look as good as the ones in the PC game.

Sound: (7/10)
The sound in Half-Life 2 is positively great. The voice acting is very good, and the ambient sound effects are also pretty good. Particularly in the part of the game Ravenholm. Ravenholm is a zombie-infested town, and sounds great. Apart from hearing the random broadcasts from a crazed Russian preacher, to the zombies moaning as you slice them in half with a propeller it sounds really good. The sound effects for the guns however leave a lot to be desired. They sound underpowered and not really that good. Even when there's an intense gunfight going on it doesn't really get you all that excited. At least not to the level of what Far Cry Instincts or Doom III do.

Gameplay: (6/10)
This is just a great disappointment to me. The gameplay in this game didn't seem all that good to me. The game has a lot of those "fight your way here, just to have to backtrack" type of missions. I guess I just don't see too much fun in having to run to the end of one hallway, die one or two times, restart, flip a switch at the end of the hallway, just to have to go all the way back to where you were originally just to have to find some random hallway off to the side. Which you probably wouldn't be able to find, until you've spent roughly an hour searching for the slightest hint of where to go next (I speak from experience). Although the game does pick up a bit toward the end I just felt it was too little too late. Although the game has the gravity gun, which is fun by the way, it just doesn't make up for the rather boring gameplay of the earlier levels.

Overall, the game isn't really all that bad. It's just that with the rather poor framerate, the boring level design, the dumb as a box of rocks AI, and the fact that the game doesn't really get going until the last three hours, the game is sort of a disappointment. Which is sad because I played it for the PC and thought it was fabulous. I suppose not every port can be as great as Far Cry Instincts. By all means play this game, but you should probably rent it. It may save you the disappointment of having spent your hard-earned fifty bucks on this over-hyped game. If you have a PC capable of playing this game definitely buy it for the PC, because the Xbox version just can't compare to the masterfulness of it.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/19/05