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Six years after reshaping the first-person shooter genre, Valve released one of gaming's most anticipated sequels in Half-Life 2 for the PC. The original Half-Life was acclaimed for its fusion of tight game play mechanics and cohesive storyline coupled with its memorable characters and action-packed scenarios. You take on the role of Gordon Freeman, an MIT. Graduate in theoretical physics, who accidentally opens a portal to another dimension flooding the Black Mesa Research Facility with unspeakable horrors.
Half-Life married story with action, elements left out of most first-person shooters of the time, and has long since been considered a classic in gaming. If Doom is the most important FPS of the early-to-mid 90s era, Half-Life is undoubtedly the most important FPS from the era leading into the year 2000.
Picking up an untold amount of time after the original, Half-Life 2 was the long awaited return of our favourite silent hero. Grab your crowbar and come in swinging to find out why Half-Life 2 is a winner of THEBBPS.COM: Editor's Choice Award. (Spoiler Warning: Half-Life 1 spoilers included, but spoilers of Half-Life 2 are omitted from this review)
 When the game begins Gordon Freeman is awoken by the mysterious G-Man, the same figure that forcefully enlisted his services at end of the original Half-Life. Dr. Freeman comes out of his trance and finds himself on a train headed toward City-17, one of the last bastions of civilization enforced by the brutal alien-race known as the Combine. City-17 acts as a camp for the surviving human race where insubordination is not tolerated and residents are harshly policed. Very quickly you are greeted by familiar faces and join the ranks of a resistance group who want to release the Combine's grip on humanity. On the outskirts of City-17 is Ravenholm, a dead city that is flooded with creatures from in Half-Life. Ravenholm is home of zombies and headcrabs (in the vien of the Alien movies and comparable to Halo's Flood) that prowl in search of prey to add to their own ranks while putting fear into the hearts of the fearful. Luckily, you're Gordon Freeman.
Most titles released in 2004, even those with superior technology for the time, do not hold up well graphically. In the case of Half-Life 2 nothing can be further from the truth. Valve's proprietary SOURCE Engine was a stunning innovation then and has been updated through various patches and upgrades since (HDR lighting introduced in Half-Life 2: The Lost Coast). Not too long ago my fellow BBPS writer Andrew Hayward called out a certain website for reworking a preview as a review, and inorder to convey my absolute admiration of the graphical prowess that is Half-Life 2 I will steal a line from that psedo-review... Graphically Half-Life 2 is a looker (such a terrible line...). Terrible, but true. Half-Life 2 is stunning in every respect and although some of the animations seem stiff at times, sup swinging the crowbar?, the game runs solid on a good machine.
 
At the time of its release Half-Life 2 expected quite a rig from it's user. But today you can run it on almost any low-end Dell gaming machine (at low settings mind you) or purchase a relatively cheap video card that will enhance your experience exponentially... as an added bonus you don't need Windows Vista to make it work! The sound of the game is fantastic and although music is subtle for much of the title, the audio queues work well to pace the action.
The controls feel perfect and are well balanced during the multiple gun-fight areas scattered throughout the game, I played the game on default settings as never felt the keys were mapped awkwardly. The game includes your standard FPS gun-porn fare such as; pistols, shotguns and automatic weapons, but includes unique additions like the Zero-Point Gravity Gun. Essentially a device to showoff the physics within the world, the gravity gun acts as a hand in the world. Picking up objects and flinging them toward enemies adds to the strategic elements that can be employed during battles. A perfect example is the ability to grab saw blades from the ground in the booby-trapped town of Ravenholm or playing hot-potato with the Combine by delivering their live grenades back to them. Most of the game is spent on foot battling via various weapons but driving is introduced to the series with the addition of the Speedboat and the super fast Buggy that help breakup the action and are added to get to Point B-from-Point A reasons only.
 
The story is told within the confines of the beautiful engine but unlike titles that do the same, such as Halo, Valve never removes you from first-person view. Much speculation has been thrown around about why we never hear Gordon Freeman speak. Hardcore fans prefer it, as Gordon never uttered a word in the original game. Some even claim that G-Man is actually Gordon from the future... and hearing Gordon speak will reveal that distinctive voice we all came to love (or hate) from the G-Man himself. Regardless, this element does bother me. Valve tries so hard to place you into the experience and give so much life to its characters with incredible face mapping technology and amazing voiceover work from actors like Louis Gossett Jr. and Robert Guillaume, but the silent hero has virtually no emotion or identity.
One can argue that Valve's point is to place you in the scenario so you can react with your own emotions as Gordon Freeman but with games like Halo and Metroid putting so much stock into building a persona for its characters that make you want to be them because they are so lively, Half-Life 2 falls short in this respect.
Half-Life 2 shipped along with Counter-Strike Source, a remade version of the popular Half-Life Mod in the new Source engine. Half-Life 2 is a linear story and while the gun battles are expansive and can be approached using different methods the game itself is very tightly scripted and only true lovers of the title will find reason to play through the single-player campaign again. Counter-Strike Source is a welcome addition but is only a re-skinning of the popular title with no elements added from Half-Life 2's unique game play. Half-Life 2 Deathmatch was released via Steam and makes the inclusion a better proposition but for the sake of this review it has not been considered because of its late release.
An amazing continuing story, tight game play, gorgeous graphics and sound and memorable characters both new and old make Half-Life 2 the first game ever graced with the distinction of being given THEBBPS.COM Editor's Choice Award. Now, go and play it already!
BETTER THAN: Halo 2 (Xbox)
NOT AS GOOD AS: Half-Life (PC)
WHERE THE HELL IS: Half-Life 2:Â Episode 2?!
 
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It was annoying enough when I realize Gordon doesn't have hands (Seriously, would it have killed Valve to actually show his hands when he picks something up?), but the speedboat section just killed my interest in the game. I thought it didn't control too well, and I gave up near the end of that section of the game.