Half Life 2

The game

5 long years after Half Life release, the most widely revered First Person Shooter and after a shunted release date, the gaming community had a massive void just waiting for a game like Half Life 2 to fill it.

Half Life 2 starts in much the same way as Half Life ended, with a conversation with the G-man, prompting more confusion that anything, and then the obligatory train ride without which so many fans would have been dissatisfied. The first thing to note is the graphics, which can't be faulted. Actually I could fault the way they wreak havoc with my FPS I suppose. It looks top notch though, and the facial expressions, along with the character movement are unrivalled.

The G-man, god knows what this guy is up to..

The world which you find yourself in is quite clearly a different place since the Black Mesa incident. The streets are being policed by a force known as the Combine, and people are being herded around without much explanation. You clearly have been incapacitated for a considerable amount of time, the exact time is undisclosed - you sure as hell can't expect any straight answers, this is a Half Life game! You're soon reacquainted with your H.E.V. suit after some introductions to various characters, old and new. You're then about to follow one through a transportation device (which conveniently had just been finished making) to see an old friend when disaster strikes.

The H.E.V. suit

Alyx being transported to see her father, Dr Eli Vance, who you can see on the monitor.

Cue another botched experiment with Gordon Freeman. The mans a liability if you ask me.

This screw up leaves you outside in a Combine infested city, endeavouring to make it to Eli Vance's place on foot. Another convenience is you getting the crowbar. The crowbar is a handy weapon, especially since the main enemy to begin with is a group of combine who are thick as hell, and are only carrying pistols. Once you have a pistol you'll find your combine 'buddies' have a tendency towards initiating gunfights whilst they are beside explosive barrels. As if shooting for their heads was too difficult or something. This is a worthy introduction to the sort of battle you'll be involved in, and is quite enjoyable.

You'll be accompanied by some NPC's through various points of the game, but they soon desert you to carry on with your antics in the way only Gordon Freeman  can. Lets not forget what happens to people who follow Freeman around - they usually last long enough to open a locked door before some beast devours them, so they'll tend to leave you to your own devices this time around.

After a few hours of play you are rewarded with the Gravity Gun. The Gravity Gun is the one distinguishable feature that this game has which sets it above the rest. Within reason, you can hurl anything at an enemy, paint cans, radiators, fridges, tables, and much more. Also, its useful in certain puzzles, seemingly dropped into the game just to show off the physics, such as a see-saw style obstacle, where you have to pile up bricks on one side so as to walk along its plank to reach a higher area, stuff like that. Not exactly rocket science, and happily not ruining the flow of the game. As you play through you'll meet more and more enemies, and you'll be given more weapons to fight them with - in standard First Person Shooter fashion. My only gripe with the weapons is that you aren't given enough Magnum ammo, but with the Gravity Gun this is easily forgotten.

The G-man, if you look closely enough.

A level which has to be referred to is "We don't go to Ravenholm", the second you hear those ominous words you get the feeling you'll end up there and you certainly do. In this level you'll have a few more different beasts running around after you - but you'll see no combine, even combine don't go into Ravenholm. The new enemies have their own strengths and weaknesses, so you'll have to find different ways of putting down, its all good. Ravenholm is a dark and suspenseful level, not too different from Doom 3 I suppose, but this game doesn't just have zombies spawn behind you when you go over a health pick up. Ravenholm is a cool level, with some intense moments and an overzealous Priest, making this level very fun, and my favourite. It's real edge of your seat gaming, and makes me jump even now, playing it through a third time. This one is the standout level of the game in my eyes, and I enjoy it greatly.

The three varieties of Zombie, normal head crab zombies, super fast head crab zombies, and the zombies which give poison head crabs piggy back rides.

Father Gregori, overlooking his sinful subjects. Much like the Pope on mass.

There's two driving levels in total and each one starts to get repetitive and boring, the second one being the worst. I was seriously despairing before I got to the end of them. I know one person who gave up playing the game here, but he's a console bumboy, so I guess he left to play something 'better' like Crash Bandicoot.

The air boat, one of the 2 vehicles you'll be able to man personally.

There's also times where you encounter Ant lions. They look suspiciously similar to monsters out of Starship Troopers and can knock you around. and easily swarm you, much different to the combine play style. There's also a level where you have rebel fighters accompanying you, keeping the lone ranger feeling down to a degree, although as of yet there isn't a multiplayer co-op offered by Valve themselves, nor do I expect there will be.

Give me my FPS back, you pesky ant lions!

You'll also battle various vehicles in the game, such as dropships, and gunships.

Shot down!

Once you reach the end of the game, you'll be left feeling much the same as you did at the end of Half Life. In my case, cheated, or maybe looking forward to Half Life 3, maybe some questions will get answered in the next! The only suggested shocker in this game I guess was the turn-coat behaviour of someone, but since I had read on a forum that someone was going to betray you, I kept my eyes peeled and it was no surprise who it was, or the fashion it was done in. Another interesting concept with Half Life 2 is that there are no cut-scenes. Or not as we know them. There are moments when you are focused in on things which you otherwise wouldn't but you aren't taken out of the game to do it. That means the game has a much greater flow than others in the genre.

Loading times and Steam

A major problem I had with the game was the loading times, and the variety of loading types there were. There is a loading screen before the game opens, then when it does there is a loading screen, then you have to load your game, then there are loading screens between areas of each level. That makes 4 loading screens. I can't express my frustration at going through a loading screen to another area, getting in a battle, backing up a bit and having to reload the old area, only to be forced to go forward again through the same loading screen. People with faster computers will find this less of a problem, its still a problem for me though.

There's also the problem of low FPS, my PC couldn't really run this game optimally and the only lacking feature of the computer is the 2400+ XP processor, which is hardly old. I actually thought Doom 3 ran better, although it has smaller areas in general. My computer certainly struggles with this though, but its more than playable. I still lament the lack of scalability in graphics, which would have made it run all the more smoothly.

And then there is steam. Steam is THE problem with this game. I swear this game is tainted by it.

You are forced to use steam to play a game you have purchased a copy of, which annoys me. Then you have to unlock your game content and depending on how fast your computer is, combined with how fast your internet connection is, it can take hours. Below are some of the problems with Steam:

1) It serves adverts when you are updating your games.

2) You cant play Half Life 2 single player when you are downloading and updating CS:S, or Codename Gordon, as the screenshot shows.

3) The steam servers aren't always capable of serving all the people they FORCE to use their system.

4) Sometimes you aren't able to connect to the servers at all. That's nice, just make me unable to run my games which I paid for.

5) You are obliged to play the newest versions of your games, and there is no two ways about it.

I can honestly see Steam, and copycats that it will no doubt inspire pushing people towards console gaming. I dread the day when  Steam replicas for other games, with worse adverts (along the Cydoor lines), and high CPU usage come out, and it seems to be on the way.

Conclusion

Even with the problems of steam, and the performance issues on lower end PC's (although I object to my PC being categorised as lower end, its hardly old, nor has it been cheap), Half Life 2 is still a great First Person Shooter, and certainly the best of the recent slew of them (FarCry, Doom 3, etc), it plays with the same feel of the first game which they have clearly done all they can to emulate and build on, and keeps the player hooked to a greater extent than all of its competitors, by varying the gameplay sufficiently. There are elements of simple moving on foot and shooting, elements of vehicular movement and shooting, and elements of (albeit it simple) team based battle. Couple that with the different environments you do battle in; one well lit town full of combine, a dark and brooding town teeming with various forms of zombies and a prison just to mention a few areas, and you have a varied and balanced game, which far surpasses any consoles offerings, and any other PC games to date in the genre. If you ask me it leaves the original Half Life in the dust, and not just graphically, (considering Half Life won 50+ Game of the year awards, is fondly viewed and still selling copies and being played today) then Half Life 2 is in excellent standing it's already picked up 10 assorted awards, so its future looks secured in gaming history. Its worth mentioning here, Doom 3 has only won 1 award, and that was before Half Life 2's release.

HL2 is the best single player first person shooter yet, and earns 85%. This would have been bunked up above 90%, if it wasn't for Steam.