Half Life 2: Great! But worth the wait?

Author's Rating:

Pros: Realistic graphics and physics, this game puts you THERE!

Cons: No sniper rifle, last levels are short, not much replay value.

The Bottom Line: 
One of the best games of 2004. Worth the wait!

Author's Review
After a looooonnnngggg wait with numerous delays, beta code leakage, missed deadlines and other obstacles, Half Life 2 finally made it to the shelves at stores everywhere before Christmas 2004. But was it worth the wait? Possibly one of the most hyped games ever was it fated to be a letdown just like Doom 3? Or is HL2 destined for greatness?


Installation

Installation is fairly smooth with the game consuming about 3GB of hard disc space. Internet access will be required in order to link up with the "Steam" servers in order to verify product authenticity. Some people have gotten steamed at Steam over such copy protection issues and I can understand why. Even with the Steam software, the game runs seamlessly. For some reason every reboot brought some popup from Steam about my account and I had to manually fix this by running MSCONFIG.EXE from the run box in Windows and changing the startup options. I don't think this will be an issue for too many people though.

Also included with HL2 is CounterStrike: Source which is the sequel to the original CounterStrike. CS:Source is an online FPS, I have yet to try it out as I got this game for one thing and one thing only...HL2. However, looking back on how popular the Counterstrike/HL1 engine was for online gamers, I'm sure it will receive the attention it deserves.


Gameplay

Like its predecessor, Half Life 2 starts you off in a strange environment with you getting taken for a ride. Luckily it doesn't last NEARLY as long as Half Life 1 and after not even a minute you're at your destination: City 17. City isn't really the appropriate word as it is more a wasteland than anything. You can start to roam around although the game does keep you confined on a linear path to progress the plot.

City 17 really makes an impression on you because of the rich detail Valve software put into the game. From detailed facial expressions and movements to how a cardboard box reacts to being throw against a wall. It's very realistic--Valve even brought in a specialist company called Havok for their physics engine, and simply put...WOW! Objects react in near perfect simulation with interaction from the player or even interacting with other objects nearby. For instance, early on you encounter a soda machine. Push the button and a soda drops, push it again and another one drops, push again and another one drops pushing the first soda can onto the ground and rolling away from the machine.

I won't go into any of the plot so as not to ruin the game, but the main part is, yes you will be able to use a crowbar again!!

The game uses the typical WASD keyboard layout with the mouse used to aim. WASD for those unfamiliar with it means that the W and S act as forward and backwards (respectively) and A and act as strafe left and strafe right. (Or side step left/side step right). The mouse is used to aim/look while the left mouse button fires the primary weapon and right fires the secondary. The middle scroll button (if you have one) cycles through the different weapons in your inventory.

Controls are fairly easy and there are only a handful of extra keys used--Reload, Crouch, Jump and a general 'Interact' key. This Interact key will pick up/put down an item, turn on or off switches, call elevators, use wall mounted Medi-paks and so forth. Anyone who has ever played a fairly recent First Person Shooter game should have the hang of it in no time.

That's not to say it's easy, even with the game difficulty at the most puny setting there are still plenty of puzzles to work through. Some of the early ones are fairly simple and obvious, almost more to show off the complexities and subtleties of their new Physics Engine than anything. However, later on they can get a little difficult and sometimes even hair-pulling (for a minute or two at least). You might have to add some weight to a scale or teeter-totter in order to get things into reach. Or possibly even take away weight to lower a cage full of goodies. Later on they can get a little more in depth with one having to run around collecting floating barrels to place underwater to raise a platform.

Vehicle interaction is fairly simple, early on in the game you get a water jet type apparatus and zoom along the city's dirty sewer system (yuck!). You can get out at times to operate switches, pick up supplies or even shoot at enemies. The real fun is driving the thing with the pedal to the metal and flying over ramps with some great hangtime. There is later a sand rail which drives almost the same as the water jet, although it does handle slightly differently.

Even when you get vehicles with weapons, it isn't too difficult to manage steering and acceleration/deceleration, weapon aiming and where you're looking at. Actually it's a little easier when you do have a weapon since the aiming crosshairs typically follow where you look. When you don't have a weapon sometimes where your vehicle is turned to is 90 degrees off from where your looking. The learning curve isn't too bad, and within 20-30 minutes any gamer worth his salt should have the hang of it.

Sounds and music are first rate and realistic. You can hear the static and pops of radio chatter from enemy Combines get louder as they zone in on your position. Zombies moan as they lunge at you and headcrabs squeal wickedly. The game will make you jump at points with their timing of music or get you rocking as your adrenaline pumps with every shotgun blast and blood spatter. Like other recent FPS games the constant blaring of music has been instead replaced with snips and bits of music at more appropriate times which works out quite well.


Conclusion

After playing the game completely through I rate it an A. Not an A+ , but it does definitely get a very solid A. It is one of the most intense, realistic first-person shooter games I have ever played. From driving around in all sorts of vehicles, operating heavy machinery to just plain old killing tons of enemies, this game has it all. And at times you're not even playing the game so much as you're COMPLETELY immersed in it.

That's not to say it's perfect. There are quite a few things that did bug me throughout the game. The main one is that there is no sniper rifle in the game. While a crossbow weapon does have a fairly good zoom with 1-shot kills, it's quite lacking in the fun department. Where's the sniper rifle??? At some points in the game you actually have to switch to your pistol to shoot enemies from far-away simply because it is the most accurate. Try it out if you don't believe me. Stand 20 paces back from a target, and unload 18 rounds of the pistol. Then pick any other weapon and compare spread patterns.

Another annoyance is the fact that every single box with goodies is marked. Literally...it says supplies on the box. So alllll those other boxes strewn around in the game don't contain squat. What's the point of that? How about hiding some goodies in other boxes? Or even in drawers or cabinets. Occasionally you will find items laying around or hidden away, but never in any of the SEVERAL large boxes left all over the game.

Lastly, the ending was rather weak. I won't go into detail, but let's just say, don't set your expectations high when it comes to the ending. Actually, the ending isn't just weak, but the last 2 levels leading up to the ending are rather bad. After playing out some VERY large and lengthy levels, some of which take a long time to play through, you hustle through 2-3 levels in about 45 minutes. What gives? Some of the other levels take HOURS and HOURS the first time. Anyways, that's it for the real complaints, all-in-all it's a magnificent game and I'd highly recommend it for anyone who's a fan of FPS type games or even if you're not, you might want to give it a whirl.

Let me finish by saying that I didn't play this game on one of them super-duper high end computers either. I purchased my system nearly 2.5 years ago and have not touched it since (video card, CPU, or RAM) and it ran just fine. That's not to say that every old computer can play it, but any decently specced one can.

I run a P4 2.0GHz (Northwood core) w/1024 MB DDR266/PC2100 RAM and a GeForce Ti4200 64MB AGP card running XP Home SP1. I was using the latest NVidia drivers (make sure you are too) and was able to play the game at a very respectable frame rate. That's not to say there's no point in owning one of those Geforce Ultra 6800 cards, as the game scales well the better your computer is. It will use DirectX 7 to 9.0 depending on what software you have installed and what DirectX version your video card supports. With a fast running CPU and a decent video card (I would have to recommend the GeForce 6600 GT as the best bang for your buck) you can really appreciate what Half-Life 2 has to offer.