Half-Life 2 is a masterpiece, and it's one of the best games in a long time

User Rating: 9.7 | Half-Life 2 PC
Half-Life 2 is a masterpiece, and it's one of the best games in a long time. There, I said it. It's an absolute marvel of storytelling, technology, interactivity... every part, except the same-old multiplayer, is nearly flawless. The game drops you back into Gordan Freeman's shoes, in the run-down, high-tech City 17, run by a former Black Mesa administrator. You meet up with old friends, meet new friends, and make your way through the whole city while fighting Combine, headcrabs, zombies, barnacles, and other things old and new. The first thing you will notice is the graphics, which far surpass any game to date in terms of artistry, realism, and detail. The textures, models, lighting, enviroments... it's all top-notch. This is the only game that puts Doom 3, the former best-looking-game-ever, to shame. Everything is jaw-droppingly beautiful, and only helps to make the game more immersive. The game once again has no cutscenes past the brief introduction from the G-Man, who once again haunts your every step. Only this time, he doesn't look like a constipated plumber- he looks like an old, creepy man who won't put up with crap. Anyway, the gameplay is the real shining part of HL2. The puzzles, the vehicles, the gunplay... every part is perfect. Even though the game is only about 15 hours long, you will want to play it again on a higher difficulty, and there will be plenty of mods coming along soon. Mods. Usually they help a game's value, but here, they hurt it- one of them, that is. Counter-Strike: Source- a remake of the classic realistic shooter mod for the original Half-Life done on the new Half-Life 2 engine, keeps the gameplay the same, but improves the graphics greatly and makes them look just as good as Half-Life 2. The gameplay, the realistic gameplay that it's famous for, is still great. What ruins Source is the community. All the whiners, cheaters, brats, obnoxious spammers, team-killers, people who flash their own team, people who don't plant the bomb when they get it, people who don't take out the bomb-carrier when they can. These people were in the original, but now they've duplicated. Every server has at least one of these obnoxious asses, and quite simply, they will ruin the game for you. Or else you can play in a clan, which almost always have hardcore, annoying players who make fun of anyone who can't get a headshot with no time to aim with a pistol from across the entire map and guard themself at the same time. The community, yes, ruins the game. This makes the multi-player almost unplayable, and as such, HL2's value suffers for it. It's a shame- I'd love to give the game a 10, as the single-player is long enough to keep everyone happy, but they had to include Counter-Strike: Source with the game, so it's part of the game, and so the game isn't perfect. One thing that sets HL2 apart is the physics. Valve made, or used, an EXTREMELY detailed physics engine, and integrated it into the gameplay almost seamlessly. Every object reacts accordingly to you, and is destructable. Every object of a fairly small size can be picked up by hand, and bigger objects can be picked up and hurled around with the kick-ass Manipulator Gun, which you get fairly early on in the game. There are puzzles, gameplay situations, and enemy tactics that use physics. From balancing out ramps over water by putting barrels under it to using cinder blocks as stairs, the physics engine is just part of the experience, and can't be ignored. You can block doorways, drop boxes on enemies, blow up barrels to take out large clusters of enemies- the possibilites are nearly limitless. Plus, this gives modders a huge opportunity to make physics-based mods or incorporate physics into their mods- they could, for example, have a mod where you can only attack by picking up barrels with the Manipulator gun and throwing them at enemies. Could you do that with any other game? No, you can't. One more reason why Half-Life 2 is an amazing game. Overall, the entire game is so close to being flawless that you'd be a fool to not pick it up if you have a PC from the last three years. Half-Life 2 is everything you've waited for, everything you could want, everything you could ever dream of, but the one thing that you really didn't ask for (Counter-Strike: Source) is the thing that keeps the game from absolute perfection. No matter. Half-Life 2 will still go down as the best FPS on the PC and one of the best games in years.