Half-Life Ain't Half-Bad (Half-Life 2 (Xbox))

Member Name: RayWhitney

Product:	Half-Life 2 (Xbox)
Date:	12/01/09 (78 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great design, never fails to be boring, satisfying gameplay

Disadvantages: People walk away from you when they're talking!

Gordon Freeman has got a lot of problems. He's just struggled through the Black Mesa incident - the scientific experiment he was involved in that went terribly wrong and ripped a hole into an alien world, leading to a battle between an alien force and a militant organisation, with Freeman caught in the crossfire. Of course, he survived that. He had you to help him, after all. But the whole adventure ended on a bad note for him. He was placed in stasis, frozen in time. He didn't even get any cake.

Now he's been woken up. Dragged out of stasis and put on a train. Where's he going? How long has he been asleep? It must have been a while, because everything seems a little peculiar. Freeman stumbles off the train. You see the world through his eyes. A giant screen overhead displays a man, welcoming you to City 17. He doesn't sound very sincere. All around you, sinister masked Combine soldiers are beating and bullying your fellow passengers. They huddle together in quiet rooms, afraid to go on. You're not like the other passengers. You move on.

Before you know it, a guard forces you into an interrogation room. He reveals himself to be your friend Barney, and arranges for you to escape. Standing tall, you leave the train station, and suddenly you're a man on the run.

With the assistance of members of the underground rebellion, you escape an apartment block raid and make your way to Dr. Kleiner's laboratory. This is where your real problems begin. Hailed by the rebels as a messiah, you - the Free Man - must rise up against this dystopia and the alien rulers behind it. This involves zombies. It involves helicopters gunning after you, Combine soldiers setting up explosive traps, and alien parasites poisoning your blood. It involves sneaking, sniping, and all-out gun fights. It involves speeding through drained and toxic canals on a modified jet ski. It involves an awful lot of awesome.

As a First Person shooter, the style of Half-Life 2 is pretty standard and should be familiar to most gamers. Information regarding your health, the stability of your armour and your ammo is presented via the Heads Up Display (HUD). Freeman can pick up and manipulate items as standard, and can crouch, jump and sprint. He can even use a flashlight for a brief period of time. Of course, the most exciting element of the controls are the guns - these are easy to switch between and satisfying to use. The first wave of weapons includes a crowbar (used for battering obstacles, boxes and heads), a pistol, a machine gun and grenades. Later on, the weapons get wilder and more dangerous. The highlight of your arsenal will be the Gravity Gun. Wielding this, Freeman can use items of furniture as weapons - flinging them at opponents. It's also a practical tool, effectively extending your reach and helping you solve problems.

The world of Half-Life 2 is extremely well-crafted, displaying some seamless and expert level design. Moving from set-piece to set-piece, you will be asked to use all of your skills to protect Freeman from assassination. This will involve either sniping or crack shooting (with some excellent use of cover and environment-based traps to keep things interesting) or physics-based puzzles, requiring intelligent use of weight, gravity and momentum. Regardless of what your current situation requires from you, there is not a single moment of boredom due to the pace and the constantly unfolding storyline.

Lacking traditional cutscenes, the story is conveyed through the gameplay, so expect to meet a whole cast of NPCs who have something to say to you. They're a wacky bunch, made up of rebels and alien mutants, but the main one is your occassional companion Alyx. Light, breezy and thankfully not hyper-sexual, Alyx is a decent enough sidekick, but she doesn't come into her own until the later Half-Life 2 games. None of the characters are memorable really, apart from the singing freak in the cave and the crazed zombie-blasting minister.

My only gripe with Half-Life 2 - and it's a small one - is the speech. While it's performed well and there's nothing wrong with the acting, the way the lines are delivered can sometimes be irritating as the characters have a habit of walking away from you, therefore sounding quieter. However, you can either follow them around like a lunatic stalker, or just put the subtitles on. And that's it. That's my only problem.

Although Half-Life 2 is fairly old now, it's not showing its age at all. In fact, it looks fresher and smarter than a lot of games released today. It's an action-packed, relentless adventure, placing you in the shoes of an ultra-smart fugitive on the run from everybody. There's a lot of adrenaline, and a lot of satisfaction.

The best way to get your hands on Half-Life 2 is via The Orange Box. This is a compilation available for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. This includes this game, plus the add-ons Episodes One and Two, and bonus games Portal and Team Fortress 2. Possibly the best deal ever. You can also grab the game on its own if you have a PC, original Xbox or PlayStation 2. It's out there for a budget price if you journey into a second-hand computer store. If you don't have any of the above consoles, I feel bad for you. You're really going to be missing out.

Summary: Essential for any gamer's collection. Turned me into a FPS fan!