Half-Life 2 Reader Review

When Valve and Sierra released the original Half-Life, its changed video gaming forever. Many people today believe that it is the best game ever! In late 2004, after years of development, countless release date changes and a legal argument that could’ve spelt disaster, Half-Life 2 was released.

Once again you play Gordon Freeman and it seems that the events of the original Half-Life have led to the creation of an evil police state, I suggest that you play the original Half-Life to find out what happened. Your mission is obviously to escape the horrors of City 17 and bring down the regime that has been spreading terror to all its citizens. But its not just big scary policemen you’ll be shooting. That’s right, the Zombies, Aliens, crazy mysterious creatures are back! Though not the most intelligent enemies, some of them certainly pack a big punch.

There isn’t much in the way of innovative gameplay, but there is one significant feature. The Gravity Gun. As the name suggest, the Gravity Gun allows you pick up objects and throw them. Almost anything can be picked up and towards the end you can even pick up people! Probably the main use for the Gravity Gun though, is as a weapon. Picking up a sharp circular saw blade and throwing it at an enemy, chopping him/her/it in half or picking up a gas canister and throwing it at a group of enemies, blowing them away and setting fire to the rest of them, is very satisfying. There’s also a few missions that involve using an airboat and a land buggy. Although these levels are absolutely huge, the action seems to be constantly broken up, especially in the airboat mission, by having to deal with a gate or another sort of puzzle. In my view, this gets very annoying and a big Hollywood style chase would’ve been more fitting, but then that’s just me! Apart from those two things, it’s just your usual above average First Person Shooter.

What about the graphics? Well its clear that Valve wanted this to be the front-runner for a long long time. This, along with Doom 3, is going to be at the top of the graphics pile for the foreseeable future. But that doesn’t mean that F.E.A.R. or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. isn’t going to give it a run for its money. The attention to detail is amazing. The Textures, especially on characters faces, is astounding. The Animation is superb with Humans acting like Humans and Zombies acting like Zombies would, if they were real. So, not a bad thing to say about the graphics, although it does mean you need a pretty good PC to get the most out of game.

The sound effects are very good as well. Guns sound great; the creature’s noises are excellent and add to the already terrific atmosphere. I’d image that it’s quite tough to create SFX at this level for a game that isn’t based in the real world, so well done Valve! Although you don’t interact with your average human on the street often, when you do its makes you feel as if all are individual, they even apologise to you if they get in your way and shout “Follow Doctor Freeman!” When you give the order to follow.

Once you’ve completed the game, you can move on to play the very fun Half-Life 2: Deathmatch. Does exactly what it says on the tin. You get to use an assortment of weapons from the game, including the Gravity Gun, against people all over the world. Without a doubt, this is one of the best online games I’ve ever played. But, it doesn’t compare to the Number 1 online action game, Counter Strike: Source. Playing against your friends in a Terrorist vs. Counter-Terrorist is still so much fun even now. So with Day of Defeat: Source and Sven Co-op in production and the rumoured Expansion pack in development, the future is looking rosy for one of the best games of all time!