Half-Life 1 charmed audiences in the late 90's and again in the early 2000's God Bless. But does it punch up to their predecessors? We'll find out. And in celebration of Half-Life Alyx we'll do this review of Half-Life 2.
STORY
Half-Life 2 is set in a dystopian future where you Gordon Freeman after surviving Black Mesa. He could not save the world from Nialanth. The world has been taken over by the combine however so it's a great loss this happened anyway.
The story is like no other. Not only does it tell you a story through scripted set piece but also lets you interact. It's fully in first person and there is no black bars or nothing to ruin your 100% pure immersion. The world has different set pieces. It helps the flow of the gameplay really well. All this environmental storytelling.
You meet some nice comfortable cute casts of characters including the fem fatale Alyx Vance and the Dr.Kliener with the noble southerner Barney. You meet all these characters.
But really the story is quite dumb in general as they all love you like you're Jesus Christ or something. It all feels so scripted. I don't like this "chosen one" kind of storytelling. Too lovey dovey. But even if we are in control over our fixed fate we can't control others which leads to some nice drama. Overall good story.
GAMEPLAY
Half-Life 2 has some really good gameplay. It's one step forward one step back.
-Lots of Guns
- fun simple puzzles
You have a gravity Gun where you can warp physics at your will. You can move boxes and crates and throw them at enemies. You can cut zombies heads off with saw blades.
The enemies are amazing to. How they are essentially the same enemies from the first game but different. Different classes for soldiers. You get head crabs, you get head crab zombies. You get Zombines. Some robots. Some helicopters. All this and more. It feels the same but different. Also there are these things called Striders which are absolutely devastating. They are basically long legged crab creatures and they shoot at you. They stomp on you with one deadly blow.
You will get many vehicles like a car that is old or a buggy. It's really fun to play at times. Frustating but fun.
Now the biggest draw back is the Gunplay. It's quite loose compared to HL1. Not as responsive. Plus the levels are super linear but are rather well designed.
Best of all which games these days are too sissy to do is the loading screen. It never interrupts gameplay. No showing of any dumb tips or nothing. Just a classic loading symbol.
Half-Life 2 may not be a perfect sequel and that's subjective but it's perfectly dynamic and that's what counts.
Let us not forget the mods that made this game a wonder.
GRAPHICS
This game pushed all the PC back in 2004. Now a days you can play it on a smartphone. HL2 was a major upgrade from Half-Life 1's graphics. Gone are the days of blurry textures, and low poly models. We now have Half-Life 2. With characters who's mouth's moves as they speak, emote, wrinkle, and are generally attractive to look at and are well animated.
The lighting effects are really realistic as they bounce everywhere, Shadows dance, Sparks fly.
Water ripples and reflect.
The environments are sharp as all hell. A lil' blocky but I can see that as they are working with a engine that is just a overpowered ID Tech 2 engine. And it works well with that angular style with Victor Antonovs art style. Gritty and full of propaganda posters. The environments are rather noteworthy on they make you feel. Oppressive and cold eastern European streets and locations. Weapons and vehicles look good to. It's as good as it gets in 2004 right next to Doom 3 and Far Cry.
SOUND
The sound in Half-Life 2 a mix of old and new. You will get many old notworthy soundtracks and you will get many new sound tracks and new sound effects. The voices are great and I love it.
OVERALL
Half-Life 2 is an amazing game. Even if it's not as great as Half-Life 1 it still holds up and is fun to play and is exciting and immersive.