[11/26/04] Half-Life 2

[Gryph]

Game: Half-Life 2

Genre: First Person Shooter

System: PC (Windows 98-XP)

Released: Nov. 16th 2004

---------------

Min: 1.2 GHz Processor (or AMD equivalent), 256MB RAM, DirectX 7 graphics card, Windows 2000/XP/ME/98, Mouse, Keyboard, Internet Connection

 

Preferred: 2.4 GHz Processor (or AMD equivalent), 512MB RAM, DirectX 9 graphics card, Windows 2000/XP, Mouse, Keyboard, Internet Connection

 

Played On: AMD Athlon XP 3200+, 1 GB PC3200 RAM, Radeon 9700 Pro (DX9), Windows XP Pro – Settings: 1024x768, All details set to High, Reflect All, No anti-aliasing, and 4x Anisotropic Filtering. How Did It Run: Very smooth with practically no slowdown (just skipped a bit after loading)

---------------

After more than half a decade of development, Valve Software unleashed Half-Life 2, the sequel to Half-Life which is regarded as the greatest first person shooter ever. Has Valve outdone themselves? I’ll just give the answer here - yes they have. How? Keep reading to find out.

The game starts out with the mysterious G-Man telling you, Gordon Freeman - an MIT educated theoretical physicist – that your time has come to serve the world and “to wake up and smell the ashes.” Of course, even without that speech you know that you’re supposed to put the beat down on some unruly aliens. You are then teleported into a rail car, which unlike the first game does not last very long, and you are given control of the character. As you step off the train, you see a giant screen with Dr. Breen, apparently the human leader there, giving a positive speech on how choosing to settle in City 17, an Eastern European city where much of the game takes place, was the right decision. This speech definitely contrasts with what you actually see, menacing looking Combine, the name of the alien presence, harassing unhappy citizens and threatening them with electric prods. This first part of the game serves as a tutorial which I think is masterfully done. For example, to teach you how to use the pick up and drop function, a metro cop throws a can on the floor and tells you to pick it up and throw it in the garbage and will let you pass only after you do so. This kind of clever design successfully creates a world where you actually feel you are in a city controlled by an oppressive regime. After you reach an underground lab and meet some old friends from your Black Mesa days and Alyx, the femme fatale of the game, you get your Mach V (an upgrade from Mach IV) HEV suit which has a cool new zoom function and lets you sprint in short bursts. A teleportation attempt to send you to another lab goes haywire and you are finally deposited just outside the teleportation chamber. The Combine authorities are alerted to your presence due to a certain someone seeing you when you teleport into a certain place during the faulty teleportation. This is when the action part of the game starts with your old pal Barney, the security guard from Half-Life 1, giving you a trusty crowbar.

One of the greatest aspects of Half-Life 2 is the breathtaking graphics the much touted Source engine provides. I’ll start with the first aspect of the awesome graphics with the extremely lifelike faces since the first thing you see when the game starts is the G-Man’s face. These are definitely the best faces I have EVER seen in a video game. There is just so much detail in them; you can see the wrinkles and the way the eyes glisten are just magnificent. This extremely life likes faces coupled with the facial muscle system creates the most life like emotions displayed by video game characters ever. And the lip syncing technique used creates the most lifelike mouth movements seen outside of 3D movies.

Of course, the rest of the game looks just as good. The levels are large, colorful, and have great character with exquisite details and terrific texturing. They make everything look real, from the dark zombie infested Ravenholm with its creepy torn down buildings to City 17 which looks like something you’d see in a text book about Eastern Europe. The water in this game is the most impressive I’ve ever seen, ever better than Far Cry. Everything reflects and refracts perfectly with the use of their water shaders. But one aspect of the graphics is just not up to par which is the shadows. Even though I wasn’t expecting Doom 3 style dynamic stencil shadows, I was rather disappointed at how they looked in this game. It’s hard to describe but they just look so poorly implemented, you just have to see it in action.

The sound of Half-Life 2 is as impressive as its visuals. The voice acting in particular is superb, possibly some of the best voice acting I've ever heard in a video game. The voices of each of the characters just fit perfectly. The G-Man sounds creepy and mysterious, Alyx sounds sexy but tough, Barney sounds like the lovable guy that he is, Dr. Breen sounds like the asshole that he is, the resistance members sound determined and ready to help you out, and the Combine soldiers sound menacing with halfway coherent radio chatter. The rest of the sounds are rich and detailed. Except for the pistol which I think sounds like a pop gun, the weapons have very satisfying sounds. Other effects like the buzzing of the manhacks, the hum of the machinery, the whizzing of the bullets, and loud thud of the explosions give off the perfect sense of atmosphere. One thing I loved was how gun fire from the Combine who were far away sounded much different from when they are near by and that was just cool.

The music in this game was really good too and came at the proper moments to accentuate an important event. It is really techno-y but it fits really well. There was this one song that I didn’t find on par with the rest because it sounded like something from some cheap 80s sci-fi show; I think when you hear it you’ll know what I’m talking about.

The gameplay department is where this game really shines. The variety of gameplay is unprecedented. It ranges any where from action/adventure to driving to survival horror to squad based combat which is as good as any of those World War II games. And most of the levels had the perfect length. The two driving segments, one with an airboat and the other with a dune buggy, just seemed to be a tad longer than the rest. But all of the levels in this game are superbly designed. My only problem with some of the level design is that it’s TOO linear. It would have been nice if they tried to come up with levels where you could do a certain task more than one way but that didn’t really affect the gameplay since this kind of game lends itself best to linearity. One of the biggest contributors to this game’s awesome gameplay is the seamless integration of the Havok physics engine into the game world. Almost everything can be affected by the physics engine. This is one of the greatest aspects of the game. I can attest to spending far too much time picking up everything that I could and throwing it at something or someone. And the fun only increases when you get the gravity gun which is relatively early in the game. I pretty much used anything lying around as a weapon which was an absolute blast. The gravity gun is what elevates this game above the rest of the competition. It has so many functions and is not just a gimmick: it is used as a weapon, you can defend yourself with it, solve puzzles, and pull important items like health packs and ammo from hard to reach places or during a heavy firefight. I remember once I was under attack by a Combine soldier so I grabbed a metal barrel to stop the bullets and when I got close to him I used the same barrel to kill him.

The action in the game is great because the pace is set so you are never doing any one thing for a long period of time. You start on foot and after going through areas like a train yard and the sewers you get to the first driving part which is on an airboat which is quite fast and zippy. One thing about this game, just like the first one, is the game NEVER leaves Gordon’s first person perspective so the driving is in first person and only in first person. I think it’s absolutely brilliant but some people didn’t like driving in first person since it tended to make them motion sick but Valve is working on a way to combat that. One thing that I did find curious was that you can’t see Gordon’s arms on the handle bars. People try to defend that by saying you’re not supposed to see it because it breaks the immersion. But you can see his arms holding guns so why couldn’t they just extend the arms to grab the handle bars or steering wheels? To keep the action fresh, the driving levels were dotted with areas where you had to do stuff on foot. After the first driving segment you have to go through Ravenholm which feels like a completely different game because it’s very dark and is populated exclusively by zombies and head crabs. There you meet one of the coolest characters in the game, Father Gregori, a gun totting monk who helps you through this dangerous area with the help of his of traps and he even fights along side you for a bit. I really enjoyed this part since you can go through most of it by only using the gravity gun because there are lots of saw blades lying around to cut through the zombies. The next part is the second driving segment which takes place on a beach infested with these bugs called ant lions that emerge from the ground the moment you set foot on the sand. That makes you drive carefully since you don’t want to get out to set your overturned buggy right and then fight off a couple of ant lions who have a nice jumping range. The next part of the game is really fun since most of it depends on using the pheromones on the bug bait that lets you to use the ant lions as weapons. The next part has you fighting along side the resistance to bring down the Combine which is extremely fun. One of the highlights of the game is fighting against the massive Striders with your AI buddies. As you’ve probably heard and read already, the buddy AI can sometimes get annoying since they tend to crowd around you and sometimes don’t follow instructions you give them. Luckily they are rather expendable and not really essential otherwise that would have been a major hindrance. Even the enemy AI, at least in the beginning of the game, isn’t spectacular since I noticed they didn’t really duck for cover much and just went straight for me. Later on in the game the Combine soldiers are pretty tough and tricky. As you can see, there is lots of gameplay variety to keep you going and it never bores you.

The last part to mention is the multiplayer, or lack thereof. There is multiplayer but if you don’t like Counter-Strike then you’re out of luck until mod makers come out with other multiplayer games. There are rumors that Valve is going to roll out with some HL2 deathmatch but I’m not going to hold my breath. But I will say that it would be really cool to have deathmatch with the gravity gun. Ok, back to Counter-Strike: Source. For those that don’t know what Counter-Strike is, it’s a mod for the original Half-Life that has two teams, terrorist and counter-terrorist, and they have to either accomplish certain goals or wipe out the opposing team to win. It’s basic and it’s balanced but I’m bored of it (it’s not bad, I’m just bored of it by now). But Counter-Strike: Source is a nice visual update to an already good game. The gameplay hasn’t changed a bit so I can’t really anything there, it’s still fun if you can play with friends. The maps that I really like haven’t been implemented yet and right now there are only 2 models, one for terrorist and counter-terrorist, and they aren’t the ones I like to use. I’m more interested in Day of Defeat: Source since I really dig Day of Defeat now. But I’m also on the lookout for Deathmatch Classic: Source which will be Quake style deathmatch in the Source engine which can only be a good thing.

Ok, this is where I just say stuff that doesn’t really fit into any of the above paragraphs. I wish that the flashlight didn’t drain the auxiliary power so quickly since it doesn’t allow for prolonged flashlight use, but I like how sprinting took up auxiliary power so that added a nice twist. This game isn’t very hard on Normal and I beat it in about 21 hours because I messed around for a long time. One thing I see people complaining is about the story and how it’s not apparent. I like this style of exposition that Valve chose because it makes the player feel like Gordon since he doesn’t know everything that’s going on either. He only knows what he sees and what he’s told by the other characters in the game. But it would be nice to know more about the back story to how the Combine took over so I hope they make some episodic content that deals with that. Also, I tend to like endings that leave enough an opening for a sequel but this ending was so anti-climactic and nothing was really answered. It was truly a “WTF!” moment but luckily its right at the end so there’s plenty of awesome game before that. It’s truly a bummer…hopefully they explain that in either expansion packs or Half-Life 3.

Conclusion: This game is awesome. Best FPS game I’ve played. Go and buy it. The game looks fantastic, it sounds fantastic, and most importantly it plays fantastic. It’s easy to look past the minor shadow problem and a little tougher to look past the linearity and somewhat inept AI, but the game is just so great that those three things can’t take away from the awesome experience. This game has raised the bar for the FPS genre, kudos to Valve for two successive home runs. The best thing about this is that hopefully other FPS games will be better (I’m looking right at you DNF.) Oh yeah, the gravity gun rules all.

 

Speed: 10/10

Graphics: 9.5/10

Sound: 9.5/10

Gameplay: 10/10

 

Overall Score: 9.75/10 = 97.5%

Grade – A

 

Overall, I say this is the best FPS I have played so go buy it and play it. Definitely a very hearty thumbs up.

 

EDIT: It seems pictures aren't working again. Damn you Imageshack! Again, just go to any real gaming site to see pictures if you already haven't seen enough. If there are any grammatical or spelling errors, I'll fix them later. If I want to add something later, I'll add them in other posts.

Edited November 27, 2004 by GryphonKlaw

[random guy]

I'm looking forwards to playing this game. Of course, I'll probably get it a month or more after all of you do, a la doom 3, but nevertheless, I will play it.

[Agozer]

This game really deserves every praise it has received so far. VALVe outdid themselves. Game of the Year Award (multitudes of them), here it comes.

 

I'm going to go and buy this game today.

Edited November 27, 2004 by Agozer

[Diso]

Great review. I haven't been playing it myself bcuz I don't have time but damn its a game that prolly no one will really criticize

[Skythe]

This game is too perfect. The absolute best FPS that has recently come out.

[sf2_ryu]

i like half life 2 and the graphics are good! but most of all i like throwing bottles and stuff

[darkmage479]

Nice work Gryph, it was indeed a concise and unbiased review. I'm a little busy right now but i'll be sure to get to Half-Life 2 sometime after Christmas.

 

Again, good work.

[kaioshade]

I would have to agree.

 

I am almost ashamed to place my own reviews here. Seems you have created a standard with reviews here.

[Mag]

Good job on the review, pretty much covers everything everyone should know.

 

Question.. Can this spec handle HL2 at it's highest performance:

 

P4 3.0 GHz

512MB PC3200 DDR memory

ATI RADEON 9550 AGP graphics card with 256MB video memory

 

I just like to know about the vid card if this could handle HL2, doom3, farcry, etc. at it's best performance.

[Agozer]

Good job on the review, pretty much covers everything everyone should know.

 

Question.. Can this spec handle HL2 at it's highest performance:

 

P4 3.0 GHz

512MB PC3200 DDR memory

ATI RADEON 9550 AGP graphics card with 256MB video memory

 

I just like to know about the vid card if this could handle HL2, doom3, farcry, etc. at it's best performance.

Your setup should pose a problem.

[Gryph]

Maybe not the absolute highest but you should be able to get away with 1024x768, Trilinear Filtering, No AA, Reflect World, and everything set to High