Reviewed by: Ebow
Developer: Valve
Publisher: Valve / Vivendi

Hmm, so, the responsibility falls to me to review this and to provide a review from a reviewer's point of view, not someone who was as caught up in the hype as many many others. Yes, I sat there counting down the minutes til 8am GMT on Tuesday 16th November, and yes, I downloaded just about every HL2 video the day before to whet my appetite. Now, 20 hours of gameplay later I'm in a position to cast judgement on the game many of us have been waiting for for 6 years and hoped would mark a new point in gaming.

Does it? Does it deliver? Is it the first of a brave new breed?

Yes, and no.

Once again you become the silent Gordon Freeman, and once again you spend a lot of time being directed to do things by NPCs. Once again there are monsters and soldiers and a vast array of weaponry at your disposal to accomplish your missions. Over various locales you are required to do things to reach your goal, battling huge beasties that will strike you down in a single blow as well as fiendish puzzles that will make you want to eat a bullet just to be rid of them. So far, so Half-Life, right? Yes.

So what makes this sequel any better than Doom 3? Is it just the same game with a new engine? Not exactly.

The initial difference is the Source engine. This allows for beautiful animations, facial expressions and in-game physics. The character elements of the engine provide for a large degree of compassion with some people, and disgust at others. The physics provides the most entertainment away from the plot, as you pick things up and throw them around. The arrival of the gravity gun gives the physics a whole new purpose, as puzzles are presented that require manipulation of items to achieve objectives. In the game's favour, none of these puzzles feel like their just there to demo the technology (unlike the lamp-carrying scientist in Doom 3).

The locations are vast and varied and for me this makes the game a joy. Close up and personal one moment, racing along beaches and canals the next, it's all seamlessly done and presented flawlessly. From the coast to the heart of the Combine, the weird machine advancing across City 17, each location feels different and brings unique gameplay elements to the mix.

The water, with reflect-all activated, is amazing.

The amount of time spent in some of the locations was beginning to grind after a while. Sure, not everyone's going to be playing the game all the way through in 15 and 5 hour blocks, but both the airraft and buggy sections were dragging on towards the end and I really wanted to move on to the next sections. That's not to say these areas weren't beautiful and exciting, just that they were getting a bit samey towards the end. The unfortunate LOADING elements every time you go into a tunnel in the buggy section didn't help, though I'm not sure what could have been done to avoid this. Of the two, the airraft section provided the most eye-candy and exciting gameplay for me, with the buggy section dragging until the bridge, which if you don't have vertigo you may well have by the end :) Both sections allowed for some comedy running over soldier moments, and to have some guy stuck in the grill of your buggy for a few hundred yards is both disturbing and... strangely pleasing.

But it's not just a few vehicles bolted on to the game to make it new. You also have the opportunity to take command of the antlions (Starship Troopers mod please, someone!) and in the later stages, other NPCs who seem to want you to lead them in the fight back against the Combine. There was something very evil about setting the antlions on to soldiers and just watching them work, and the controls to make this happen were very simple. As with the squad stuff later in the game, there were a number of times something I was supposed to have control over either got in the way during crucial moments, like when I was jumping from cliff to cl... oh, no, missed the jump, fell to my death. It's only confined areas this was an issue, as it would be in real life, I guess, but the varying levels of AI on display at these moments was frustrating sometimes. Some nice touches though (people apologising when you try to get past them) and being able to just sit and watch action did even the frustration out.

Enemy AI wasn't as good as the rest of the game parts. Stupid replacement soldiers ("he's been killed there, I'll stand there!") and often very dumb AI cohorts let the game down in a number of places, but other instances of AI (the new beasts climbing up the drain pipes... shudder) evened this out, just.

What I wanted the game to bring me more than eye-candy or physics puzzles was a plot, and I think it did. I say "think" because I'm not sure I can remember what the plot was (another downside of racing through it in 20 hours), but am aware there were some nice twists in there. There were also plot-holes in there (often a problem when the plot tries to be more than "eek, Hell, kill them all!"), but on the whole the plot delivered a fine performance from all the NPC cast. Special award goes to Dog for being such a cool extra. Unlike Doom 3 where the ending only gave me a "IS THAT IT???" sense of displeasure, Half-Life 2's ending provides enough for me to be satisfied, rather pleased, with my actions that have made it happen. With enough to make me want to play it again (on Hard this time, see if the AIs any better).

There have been multiple references to this year's other FPS hot-potato this year, and some of these aren't fair. Doom 3 is an action movie of a game, an Arnie of mayhem. Half-Life 2 is more Spielbergian in it's delivery and mystery. I enjoyed them both, but HL2 delivered more of what I was expecting.

It does feel like being part of a movie. The original felt the same, but this one feels like they've got massive backing and the whole Hollywood machine behind it to create a blockbuster that will have people talking for a long while. This is a good thing. The game remains true to it's roots without planting them for you all over again, and offers enough for the non-HL generation to get their teeth into.

I'd like to give the game a perfect 10/10, but it isn't perfect. The AI lets it down; there's some very poor death moments (see the under-the-map screenie), and many times people who were from the area told me to lead the way to X when they surely would have known where X was, and I didn't. Some of the levels are also mind numbingly tedious in their requirement to spot tiny-door-Z or wander round the whole level again until you do (I was like that with the original as well). There are some very nice homages to the original along the way, and the graphics provide ongoing beauty if you do have to wander aimlessly.

For all the crit from the community about the game delivery method and release dates, the game has done Valve and itself proud. Maybe Half-Life 3 will attain the Holy Grail that is BEST GAME EVAH!!!, but for now let's just stick with this one being the best Half-Life sequel released this year, and the best thinking man's FPS of the year.

Buy 'Half-Life 2' from GAME!

Minimum Spec	Reviewed on
Windows 98/ME/2000/XP 1.2GHz processor 256MB RAM DirectX 7.0 compatible graphics card 4.5GB free hard disk space	Windows XP Pro 1GB Ram ATI Radeon 9800 Pro