Masterful. Here's why:
User Rating: 9.9 | Half-Life 2 PC
The Half-Life series lives on, and by far, this game surpasses its mighty predecessors. Half-Life 2 pits you in the orange suit once again, but now you're no longer Gordy, youthful aspiring scientist, you are the older Gordom Freeman. And you have even less of an idea of what's going on. --? But that's part of the charm that the Half-Life Label implies will come with the game, and so far, it's working damn well. Figuring out stuff in this game is done by you, the player, from visual (and the occasional audio) cues recieve ingame like in the first. Before I go on: I ran this game with an AMD 1.99 ghz (translates to about 2.2,2.3 ghz for pentiums), and have 1.5g of DDR RAM. I have a GeForce FX 5200 128mb AGP card as well. And a monitor of some sort. ... And speakers. You begin on a train much like the first half-life, but now you're being whisked away to the arrivals terminal of City 17, some nondescript Eastern European city. The game runs smoothly on my computer, and the video and audio create a mood that puts you right behind Freeman's glasses. Prepare to be awed by the sites of the city, but don't gawk for too long as the action begins right away. Be ready to feel nervous, anxious, and finally marvelous(!), as you quickly get accustomed to the controls and are ready to make your way across the region. The gameplay itself is beautifully run, and although you have that problem of AI OCCASIONALLY acting a little stupid, that hasn't got in the way of my using AI teammates at all. The game is like a theme park ride, with many highs, and a few exciting recessions in the action to pull out that gravity gun of yours to do some tweaking with the environment. Game inside the game: The physics engine in this game is unbelievable! The Hitman Series may have had ragdoll physics, and Red Faction have ridiculous weaponry blowing chunks out of the scenery, but Half-Life 2 takes it up a a few notches. If you want more,aside from the gravitational fun-gun, you can pull up your sleeves and throw bottles at the guards the old-fashioned way, back before we had anything other than the flashlight as our extra gear. Of course the guards will beat you then.
