Half Life 2 (PC)

“Wake up Mr. Freeman, wake up and smell the ashes” the first words you’ll here before being thrown into this fully interactive world. It is some time after The Black Mesa Incident, in which an experiment went wrong and the scientists, including Gordon Freeman, created a “resonance cascade” that consequently created a portal that allowed deadly aliens from the planet Xen to attack Earth. At the end of Half-Life the “G-man,” a mysterious figure that appears in various places throughout the game, offers Gordon employment and so assuming that Gordon accepted this offer he is put on a train heading into city 17 where he starts an uprising.

Half-life 2 is the winner of 50 awards and has been voted the best game of all time and it’s easy to see why; Half-Life 2 combines human emotion and the laws of physics to create a sense of realism that can only be felt in this particular game. This revolutionary game is a piece of gaming history, the ground breaking Havoc physics are manipulated throughout the game, the player is usually given 3 puzzles per chapter, each of these puzzles comply to the laws of mass, friction, gravity and buoyancy. These puzzles may be easy but when you are under gun fire it’s a different story. These puzzles also let you get to know the game so you can manipulate the laws physics later yourself with the “zero point energy field manipulator,” or the gravity gun to me and you. The game has also has the ammo and health crates gauged perfectly to make the player run out of ammo at the most awkward of times, which makes it all the more fun to play.

The picture below show the comparison between Half-Life and Half-Life 2, as you can see there is a massive difference between the two pictures. In Half-Life 2 each model has a wide range of facial expressions that adds emotion into the game.

The game has a wide range of enemies to fight; Civil protection, Combine soldiers, Striders, Antilions, Headcrabs, Helicopters, Gunships, Manhacks, Hoppers and Barnacles, so the player is always on their toes and the enemies are usally placed in strategic places e.g. roofs, bunkers, windows etc. so it’s not always as straight forward as it may seem at first but don’t worry you are introduced to each enemy one at a time so at the end of the game where the combine are throwing everything at you’ll know just how to take them out.

But this introduction to the enemies and the way the game balances out the ammo and health is also the games downfall. Most people would argue that this game is far too easy and they’d be right, I would expect someone to have the game finished by the end of the week, the game really isn’t that challenging although it has a lot of strong points but it’s usually remembered for the bad ones.

In conclusion, I give this game an 8/10, great graphics, brilliant game, engine and some excellent monsters thrown in there for good measure. This has more of a cinematic feel to it than a war zone and isn’t a game for those of you that prefer to blow up fuel dumps or take on an entire battalion of tanks with just a sniper rifle and one clip of ammo or some other impossible feat.

If you want to experience the unique feel of Half life 2 and aren’t going to miss huge explosions, then Half life 2 collectors pack goes for around £25 and comes with the almighty number one multiplayer online game Counter-strike source.

- Review by 1r0nm4n