Half-Life 2 needs no introduction. A
massive fan base of loyal supporters has
closely monitored it since the sequel
was announced and production began on a
follow up to the revolutionary Half-Life
- a game that was awarded a phenomenal
number of "Game of the Year" awards.
We've waited six years since the
original's 1998 release and since then
the game has had countless add-ons
including the likes of Opposing Force
and Blue Shift, not to mention a massive
mod community following. The Half-Life
engine has done remarkably well to last
in popularity for more than 5 years.
However, times have changed and PC games
are truly moving into the next
generation. We’ve all had an agonizing
wait -but now, for it is time. Move over
Half-Life, after a lengthy delay your
older brother is in town (or should we
say City 17) and it means serious
business.
Much like the first game, Half-Life 2
begins with arrival into your
destination by train. This time around,
you arrive at the Eastern European city
called City 17 where it's time to catch
up with old colleagues and stumble
across many newfound enemies and
dangers. Many old characters return and
it’s great to see how they make
references to their backgrounds and have
stories to share with you during the
game.
As you commence your journey through
Half-Life 2's breathtaking and
extraordinary world, you quickly realize
how interactive, immersive and stunning
to look at that world is. The NPCs
around you are so finely detailed and
beautifully animated, you soon find
yourself picking up briefcases lying
around the train station and enjoying
the wonders of throwing them at
passers-by or just to see how
realistically they react with other
objects such as cardboard boxes, which
will be knocked out of place so
gracefully. The new Havok physics system
used in Half-Life 2's Source engine
means that many of the objects you come
across in the game can be thrown around,
moved, dropped and can be expected to
react in very lifelike and believable
ways.
After spending unhealthy amounts of time
just staring at the computer screen and
messing around with the game's physics
system, we happened to realize there was
a story to be told. Hardly surprisingly,
you find yourself in a spot of trouble
and quickly discover that the
inhabitants of City 17 are being driven
away from their homes. Before long, as
the famous Gordon Freeman, you find
yourself in the thick of the action,
fighting an on-going war against the
Combine. The storyline is fired into
action with the classic return of a
scientific experiment gone wrong. It's a
bit less horrific this time around but
without giving too much away, the way
it's presented is simply marvelous.
The physics technology used in Half-Life
2 isn't something entirely new in games,
but has become a lot more commonplace
among many recent games, particularly
first-person shooters. However, games
we've seen to-date haven't used physics
in quite the way Half-Life 2 does - or in
such a wonderful way for that matter.
The game capitalizes on this technology
for the purpose of interesting and
original game play and is perhaps one of
the first reasons why we love Half-Life
2 so much and how it sets the game apart
from its predecessor and other games of
the genre.
Half-Life 2 subtly encourages you to use
physics to make game play more
interesting and to encourage your
tactical, non-linear thinking during
action sequences. For example, you can
block the pathways of enemies by picking
up objects and placing them in the way.
Later in the game this takes an even
greater step forward when you gain
control of the gravity gun, the
possession of which takes game play to a
whole new level, allowing you to grab
heavier objects and launch these objects
at enemies with the force of the weapon,
or even cunningly redirect enemy
grenades back in their direction. If you
fire an object at an enemy, the weight
of the object will determine what amount
of damage your foe will take and in what
way they will physically react.
It doesn't stop there. Although perhaps
the main emphasis of the game is on
action, puzzles stopping you from
advancing further into the game also
offer variety and the physics system is
brilliantly taken advantage for this
purpose, too. For instance, in an early
part of the game, you find yourself
unable to go any further down a river
and have to place buoyant barrels under
a ramp in the river to make the ramp
rise before you can progress. The world
you journey in is, in some ways, very
linear - but the combination of game play
and physics is quite the opposite.
As you progress through the game, you
find yourself venturing into
wide-ranging settings and just as you
grow ever-so-slightly weary of a section
of the game, you get something
completely new thrown at you with
ever-increasing difficulty and variety.
The game is split up into twelve
chapters and sometimes you find yourself
working in teams with fellow human
combatants, at other times you travel
alone on foot and at other times you get
control of vehicles to help you across
more risky terrain. Speaking of
vehicles, the control of which is what
you could hope to expect from a racing
game thanks to each vehicle physically
reacting like the other non-static
objects do. The structure of the game
seems to have a near perfect balance so,
whilst there’s not too much action,
there is enough to keep your trigger
finger from itching. Breaking up the
action and giving you some relief are
safe points where you may meet friendly
characters who help you out - or you must
help them out in some way.
As you meet friendly faces along the
way, the game does a great job of making
you feel like a truly heroic character
for the most part. It is perhaps down to
the amazing atmosphere created in the
game that goes one step further in
creating this sense of reality. This is
backed up by excellent voice-overs from
characters that sound genuinely pleased
to see you and be in your presence
throughout the game and speak very
fluently and naturally. As you make your
journey you will encounter characters
that help you out and allow you to learn
more about the story and background to
the game. Overall this makes for a much
greater sense of engagement with the
storyline and engrosses you in the game
world a great deal more.
When it comes to the look of the
environments you explore, Half-Life 2 is
up there with the very best.
Graphically, the game is strikingly
better than the likes of Far Cry and
Doom 3 in terms of realism and detail,
games that have both been commended for
their graphical appeal and
accomplishment. There is a seamless
blend of outdoor and indoor settings
that appear rich, vivid, and filled with
interactive physical objects. The
character models are notably one of the
greatest graphical spectacles – from the
glossiness of the eyes to the detail and
coloring of the skin. The animation,
too, is irrefutably good with faultless
lip-synching and highly convincing
muscle movements and character gestures.
Water effects are some of the most
realistic we've seen, and beautifully
reflect the surrounding environments.
Meanwhile, lighting effects, although
not flawless, add a huge amount of
atmosphere to the visual experience. The
odd shadow can appear in the wrong place
and looking at textures close up isn't
quite so pretty, but quite frankly we
couldn't care less when everything else
is this good. Screenshots do not do
Half-Life 2 justice; it's not just how
it looks but how it is articulated by
the exceptional animation within this
gaming world.
It’s worth noting, that to really enjoy
the beauty that Half-Life 2 beholds, you
do need a DirectX 9 compatible graphics
card. Although version 7 will suffice,
you won't get nearly as nice shader
effects and the game generally won't
look quite as appealing. Having said
that, the fact that Valve have made the
game in such a way that it can still run
on older technology is great. If you
want to max out the settings, such as
anti-aliasing and antistrophic
filtering, it's necessary to have a
beast of a gaming system, it must be
said, but really this just means the
game can continue to look better in the
future.
Throughout Half-Life 2, you almost feel
as though you're taking control of an
interactive movie, particularly in the
big, overblown action sequences. There
is no element of sound we can fault in
the game - whether it's the sound
effects of the sound of gunfire and
weapons, the brilliant voice acting, the
thud of bodies as they fall to the
tarmac, or the shrill radio calls of the
Combine. It's all there and all captured
utterly faultlessly in lifelike 3D
surround sound. There are also some
interesting effects such as when a
grenade goes off in close proximity to
you – causing your hearing to die out
completely momentarily before it is
gradually restored a few moments later.
The music too is always fitting with the
settings and the pace of the action. It
never feels out of place and seems to
have been very carefully placed in the
game to enrich the experience.
Of course, the focus of Half-Life 2 is
its single player experience. However,
this isn't the longest of first person
shooter games and rushing through it on
normal difficulty it's possible to
complete in around than 10 hours. If you
want to get the most out of the
experience, you've really got to take
things slow in order to appreciate the
amount of work and effort that has gone
into development. The single player
alone is a good challenge, particularly
when played on the hard difficulty, and
there's every reason to replay through
it again in different ways. Having said
that, it's not going to keep you
interested for an overly long period of
time. Rest assured though, in creating
the Source engine Valve have undoubtedly
created a remarkable game engine that
will be capitalized on by mod-makers the
world over. To get the most out of
Half-Life 2 you’re going to look out for
what the modding community has to offer,
with future modifications taking
advantage of the engine in the same way
Half-Life has flourished since its
release -something Valve have always
been aware of. Seeing as almost all
modifications are completely free to
download, there's every reason to enjoy
what the mod community has to offer. To
keep you busy as well, there's always
the official multiplayer side of things
with the inclusion of the fantastic
Counter-Strike: Source to further your
enjoyment.
Counter-Strike: Source is included in
the standard retail version of the game,
and all packages purchased through
Steam. This updated version of the
world's number one online action game
- and one of the most popular and
competitive online games- makes up the
multiplayer portion of Half-Life 2.
Being a separate game and released prior
to Half-Life 2, we've already offered
our review of Counter-Strike: Source. It
is a shame that there's no classic
Half-Life 2 multiplayer similar to the
original but there have been hints from
Valve that there may be something along
those lines coming in the future. If
not, there's bound to be a modification
released at some point to the same
effect.
To put it simply, there is never a dull
moment in Half-Life 2. In playing the
game we could hardly account for a
moment when we didn't have some kind of
excitement or anxiety. The Source engine
is a truly remarkable achievement. Never
have we been able to experience the
level of realism the physics offers -and
not only that, Valve have used it in the
best possible way rather than just
lazily trying to add "realism". Right
down to the real-time menu system,
almost everything in the game has been
crafted so well. What's more is that the
game offers a remarkably deep, intense,
highly atmospheric and unique gaming
experience. It has truly lived up to our
expectation and should be a game
idolized by other developers in the
future.
Half-Life 2 deserves full credit for
being a highly distinguished gaming
experience and is without a shadow of a
doubt the greatest game of 2004, and
quite possibly one of the finest
computer games ever created.
Visuals: 10/10 Game play: 8/10 Technical: 9/10 Overall: 10/10
