Half-Life 2
review by Head Cheeze

Back in 1998, a little game called Half-Life came along and turned the video game world on its ear. The game’s combination of a brilliant sci-fi/horror storyline, gorgeous graphics, and heart stopping first person action made for a gaming experience like no other. As scientist Gordon Freeman, we fought to survive a disastrous mishap at the Black Mesa laboratories, after a portal to a hostile alien world is opened, leading that world’s inhabitants into our own. In the end, Gordon is victorious against the alien forces, but the game ends with Gordon in the custody of a mysterious government agent, leaving the door open for a sequel.

Now, six years later, Valve Software finally presents Half-Life 2, the visually stunning second chapter in the adventures of Gordon Freeman.

Fifteen years have passed, and the country is now under martial law and under the control of the megalomaniacal Dr. Wallace Breen (voiced by Robert Culp). Breen’s soldiers keep a brewing resistance from gaining the strength to overthrow the dictator, but, when Gordon Freeman arrives, there is suddenly hope that the movement can succeed with the help of the legendary “hero” of Black Mesa. Once again, we play as Gordon as he fights his way through zombie-infested sewers, past huge Strider robots, and against countless enemy troops, all in an effort to assist his friends and former colleagues in overthrowing Breen.

Gordon is armed with weapons ranging from his trusty crowbar, to the incredibly cool new Gravity Gun; a device that really shows off Half-Life 2’s new physics engine. Bodies fly around like ragdolls, barrels roll downhill, boxes smash into pieces-and, with the Gravity Gun, one can pick up all matter of materials and fling them with ease; from cars to toilet bowls. The game also looks pretty amazing, with reflective surfaces and photorealistic textures, as well as some of the smoothest and most fluid animation I’ve seen in a videogame. Were it not for the equally amazing visuals of this year’s other big sequel, Doom 3, I probably would have been more impressed by Half-Life 2, but it is still a damned gorgeous game.

However, like Doom 3, Half-Life 2 looks much better than it plays. When the game wasn’t blowing my mind with “Gee Whiz” visuals, it was pissing me off with frustrating puzzles and platform hopping gymnastics straight out of Tomb Raider. These elements felt forced to me, as though Valve threw them in as filler to bulk up the game’s somewhat weak and linear storyline. Still, even when doing something as mundane as stacking boxes to jump over a wall, Half-Life 2’s Source engine still manages to make it all look nothing short of fabulous.

The original Half-Life spawned a fan-made mod called Counter-Strike, which, to this day, is the most popular multi-player game of all time, with tens of thousands of participants online at any given moment. Half-Life 2 includes Counter-Strike Source, a graphically enhanced version of Counter-Strike that features much of the visual goodness of Half-Life 2, but stripped down a bit for smooth online play. In Counter-Strike, you play as either a terrorist or a counter-terrorist, and fight alongside up to 60 other players in locales ranging from jungle fortresses to city streets. Counter-Strike Source is an extremely fun and addictive game, and would be worth the price of Half-Life 2 alone.

A quick note about system specs, as Half-Life 2 is truly a next generation title. You will need a fairly powerful system to run this game, as I experienced some audio stutter issues and drops in frame rate even though I’m running an AMD Athlon 3.0 with a gig of RAM, a 128 Meg ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. Half-Life 2 also features one of the most complex anti-piracy systems I've ever seen, and requires an internet connection not only to install the game, but to play it. This is because Valve has developed its own method of installation and updating called Steam. When you install Half-Life 2, you are forced to create an account with Steam not only for authentification purposes, but also so that Steam may automatically update the game for you as new updates are made available. However, the size of these files, especially initially, are often quite large, and anything less than a DSL connection will tie up your machine for hours. It’s important to make sure your system, as well as your internet connection, are up to speed before you spend the $54.99 (SRP) for the game.

Half-Life 2 is a fun and visually rewarding game, made better by its awesomely addictive multiplayer quotient, and is a must-buy for the first person shooter enthusiast. The addition of an already active mod-making community will only assure those that buy this game that they'll be playing it for a long time to come.