Half life 2 Review

The Story

Once again, you play Gordon Freeman, the scientist from the original Half-life that saved the world from an alien invasion. You start with G-Man in your face (you remember him don’t you? The guy who said ‘join or die’?). So you head to City 17, a place where humanity is being gathered into a concentration camp-like atmosphere. An enemy called the Combine have taken over the planet. Combine police-things control the world like Big Brother wannabes.

I figured the story would be nearly as strong as the first Half-life, but the sequel fell short in a couple ways. Hardly any unanswered questions were resolved and some of the plot holes were extremely noticeable, like Valve just took out major storylines just to get more gameplay and levels in. Not good.

The Gameplay

This game is intense. Half-life 2 gives you nearly non-stop action from the beginning to the end. The action is continuous and one thing you’ll notice is that there are no breaks in gameplay. No cutscenes whatsoever. Unfortunately, Half-life has to load in certain points of a level so you can move on. It can get frustrating at times, but in order to keep the story moving, this had to be done, I suppose.

Once you get the gist of the story and start your new journey, you’ll find all the familiar elements that made the first Half-life successful. Some of the same enemies are here, like the headcrab, but there are new ones that give you thought for new strategies. You have some of the same weapons as before — shotgun, crossbow, and the lovely crowbar — with a couple new ones to add just a bit of flavor.

The Graphics

In terms of the basics, the graphics of Half-life 2 are amazing. Unfortunately the Xbox has a hard time running it. Frame-rates drop dramatically during all-out shooting or when things explode. One of the best moments in the game is hindered by the worst frame-rate ever. At some point in City 17, you come up on a major battle of humans versus Combines. The battle is large-scale and continuous. People dying, Combines falling: it was like a scene out of War of the Worlds (the book). I was drawn in to the mood of the battle... until everything slowed down. I was moving at a snail’s pace and couldn't aim properly to help my comrades. That was annoying.

The Controls

Half-life 2 uses the same basic configuration as Halo. Two main differences are an easy way to select your growing arsenal of weapons and an auto-aiming mechanism. Any first person shooter who doesn’t use the configuration set up for the Xbox by Halo is asking for failure. I didn’t really need the auto-aiming feature because it distracted me from finding the aliens.

Thompson’s Two Cents

The first Half-life heralded in a new breed of FPS. It’s too bad, Half-life 2 couldn’t continue the legacy. Though playable to the end, there’s nothing else to do. There’s no multiplayer, so once you beat it, that’s it. The action is great and the graphics are excellent (despite the slowdown), but if you have to play Half-life 2, do it on your computer.