Game Review: Half Life 2
I know I am really behind the times here, just now writing a review of Half Life 2, but with all the buzz right now about the upcoming additional level Lost Coast and the expansion pack this fall Aftermath, it seemed like as good a time as any to talk about why I am so damn excited.
It would be no exaggeration to say that it is the best game in the First Person Shooter genre that I have ever played and one of the best games I’ve played across all genres. It is hard to pinpoint exactly why I feel this way, but I think it comes down to two things: extremely thoughtful level design and engaging in-game storyline. First, level design. There were levels that absolutely blew me away. I thought the Ravenholm level was out-and-out scary and nerve-wracking. I think the first and last time I felt that way was playing the original Doom, years ago. I felt like there was nowhere to hide and that I had to constantly be watching my back. It honestly felt like stepping into a horror movie. Meeting Father Gregori was a strange feeling of relief. The only way games achieve this feeling is through incredibly thoughtful design. The level under the bridge was similarly thoughtful – although not scary exactly. That was maybe the most impressive single level I have ever played in any game. The sound of the wind blowing by and the strange solitude of it all, along with the real feeling of depth in the scenery changed forever what I expect from games. The rattling of the bridge when a train passed overhead was exactly right. It seems like some companies would have been content with something that awesome as their entire game. Again, that level showed an unbelievable amount of thought and careful design. Similarly, I thought the level with the crane operation, while not so overwhelming, was super-cool. Who would have thought to insert a crane into an FPS game? It was really fun to realize that I could pick up a multimodal shipping container with it and wail on the bad guys with it. Very nice gameplay.
Regarding story – it wasn’t that the story made sense, really. Frankly, I hadn’t actually played the first Half Life (although now I intend to play it as Half Life: Source as soon as I can figure out how to get it from Steam), so the whole Black Mesa thing didn’t even really have any preconceptions for me. When I say “story” what I really mean is that the game had more character development than anything I’ve seen previously – and without cutscenes. It was good voice acting and built into the gameplay. Never in a game before have I felt lonely in any sense, but the emptiness of some of the levels did an incredibly good job of making me feel that way. At different points I was actually glad to run into various NPCs. It’s a strange feeling to feel relieved at the sight of a computer generated character (such as Alyx or Barney), but there it is. Also, the subtlety of the whole thing was impressive. I noticed the G-Man in the distance at various points before I even read online about the comprehensive list of sightings.
The graphics were impressive, but really, my hardware (nVidia GeForce 4200 Go on a Dell Inspiron 8500) couldn’t push it very far. I’m desperately hoping to upgrade my video card on my desktop to play it at full tilt, along with the upcoming expansions. On the downside, compared to Far Cry, Half Life 2 is pretty linear. You don’t get much of a chance to find your own way to solve a problem or move around the maps. Obviously, it is pretty hard to have both open-endedness and a well-told storyline, so I can forgive them. Besides, the physics did allow a remarkable amount of variation. For example, in Chapter 10 (Entanglement), you are in a prison and you have these automated guns on tripods, or “turrets” that you can place to help you defend yourself against attackers. There are two points at which you’re in a position to use them. In the first case, you have two and the second case you have three. The first bit is pretty easy but the second is quite hard. When I played through the game on the hardest difficulty setting, I just grabbed one of the turrets from the first time with the gravity gun and carried it with me through the rest of the level. This let me have four turrets the second time around – and the game totally allowed me to do it.
As far as negatives go, I only had two complaints. One, a pretty common complaint, is that I thought it was all a little short. Maybe that speaks to the immersiveness of the game, but I wouldn’t have minded playing it a while longer. Second, there was never any real stealth death-from-a-distance sniping type stuff. I like that aspect of FPS games quite a bit, but Half Life 2 didn’t have it. Anyway, the game was great without it, and it is highly recommended. Here are some screenshots, too.
June 26th, 2007 at 9:23 am
Pass on Half-Life: Source; it’s no improvement over the original Half-Life; not worth the money.
Do yourself a favour and find the original in a Radioshack for $10, and activate it on Steam.