Who is the Man with the Name that Rhymes?If the name don't rhyme it ain't mine.

When I purchased the first Half-Life back in 1998 I’m not sure what compelled me to the game. Perhaps it was the good things I heard about it. I remember the box has screenshots of the interior of the Black Mesa Research Facility. I thought to myself the place looked very intriguing. Thus I bought the game. It was a purchase well made. What set Half-Life apart from other games wasn’t its graphics or its gameplay, it was its story and the world Valve presented to us.

Let me clarify. Story implies a plot arc, characters, and those sorts of things. Half-Life didn’t have that. Half-Life’s story was more an experience. The game drops you in the role of Gordon Freeman, a scientist who has one bad day at a research facility when an experiment goes completely wrong. Throughout the game you’re trying to make your way out of the facility. Unlike games the current FPS games of the time, there wasn’t a beginning of stage and an exit. It was one complete world that you were venturing though. It was a great experience every step of the way. Living up to the original is a tough thing to do, but after six years the guys at Valve have done it.

First, I have to get a little business out of the way by mentioning Valve’s content delivery system, Steam. It’s not part of the game but whether you get it via the Internet or from the stores you have to use Steam to play Half-Life 2. I got it over the Internet. The actual client interface was reminiscent of ICQ. It has list of games purchased, online friends for multiplayer, and news sections for patches. After downloading some of the game content you can jump right into the game. I, however, opted to wait and have Steam download all the content of the game. Even at speeds of 500Kb/s it took around an hour to download it so I’d only recommend this to someone with a really fast connection. On the positive side however, once all the content is loaded you can play the game in offline mode without the need of your CD drive or Internet connection.

At the start the game the enigmatic G-man from Half-Life tells you to wake up and “smell the ashes” from the now well known Black Mesa incident. The game starts off much like Half-Life. You’re riding on a inbound train. To where? City 17, a city that is as friendly and inviting as its name implies. As soon as you get off the train you find yourself in a world very reminiscent of Orwell’s 1984: propaganda screens and posters, surveillance equipment everywhere, and a ruling police state under the benevolent name of “civil protection.” The Big Brother-like figure, Dr.Breen, is given the ominous title of “The Administrator” of the planet Earth. He also happens be the same administrator who’s referred to in Half-Life. Though there isn’t much exposition about what has happened, you can feel that something definitely has gone wrong since you’ve been away from the world of Half-Life.

I’m not one to care much for shiny new graphics but Valve has done a great job at using them to draw you further into the game. Like the previous game, the textures and models create an environment that you want to wander around in. But what is most impressive is the character animation in the game. The movement and rag-doll physics (courtesy of the Havoc engine) make the human characters feel like people instead of just scripted A.I. bots. And to top that off Valve has created some of the best facial animation I’ve ever seen in a game. You’ll see anger, surprise, fear, and jealousy expressed in character’s faces at points in the game. Eye movements are equally impressive. When I found myself looking at a character talking to me I noticed if I turned my head to focus on something else their eyes would follow mine like they were curious to see what I was looking at. That might have been scripted but it certainly made me feel like the characters had a life of their own.

The audio in Half-Life 2 is done fairly well. It’s on par with the first game. In fact a lot of the music is the same from the first Half-Life with some new tracks thrown in. Like its predecessor, music is mostly used for ambience or to highlight the moment. It’s not overpowering or obnoxious; it’s used at the right moments to intensify the action or atmosphere.

The sound effects are used great as well. There are a few particular ones that stood out in mind that bring the world to life: combine gunships and striders (towering giant walking tanks) make moans and groans like living creatures in pain when shot; killing civil protection agents make an inhuman radio static alarm to alert other agents; Head crabs zombies are terrifying as you can hear the muffled screams of the person underneath the head crab. Also, there’s a novel sound effect that happens when loud explosions go off near your ears. Instead of a loud bang, the game creates a more realistic deafening ringing of the ears that you would actually experience in such a trauma.

As far as game play goes Half-Life 2 isn’t too much different from most FPSs (i.e. you’re a floating gun turret). It still has the standard equipment you’d expect (pistols, shotgun, etc.) and of course the primary/secondary fire control from the first game. But Valve has thrown in a few things that expand your interaction upon the world. Most of which comes through the multiple uses of the use button. In the first Half-Life you could push or pull objects with it. Now you can also pick and throw various objects with it too. Half-Life 2 is still primarily about shooting things but Valve has thrown in a few vehicles, gun turrets, the much hyped Gravity Gun, and a few other objects (including a very fun upgrade near the end) that give its world a more interactive feel than the same old formula of run down another hall shooting things.

Half-Life 2 still maybe another FPS but, just like Half-Life, it isn’t about the game so much as the world it creates to explore in. Like Half-Life, the world feels like a vast place to explore and not just a series of linear levels (even if it really is). Like its predecessor Half-Life 2 is broken up into chapters. An interesting thing I noticed was that every chapter had a theme to it. It looks like Valve decided to make each chapter based on one scene of a certain movie or book: The beginning has a feel of 1984; The boat stage that follows all the text book examples for Hollywood boat chase scenes; The dead town of Ravenholm has an atmosphere inspired by zombie movies like Dawn of the Dead; Cruising in the buggy stage on the deserted coastal highways has a Mad Max (sans desert backdrop) feel to it; There’s even a chapter that feels like it took a couple pages from Tremors and Starship Troopers. All these chapters strung together makes for an experience than anyone should expect from the sequel of Half-Life.

Of course nothing is perfect and Half-Life 2 does have its minor flaws. First off, the A.I. seems to have taken a step back from the first game. Some the biggest highlights of Half-Life were battling with the Marines and the Black-Ops. Each section where you’d encountered them they worked as a team, not like mindless hordes. Trying to hide where they couldn’t reach inevitability meant one of them would flush you out with a grenade while the others kept that person cover. In Half-Life 2 however the human enemies you fight act as individuals instead of a squad. In fact I seemed to notice that the only challenge in fighting them was that they kept piling up until they overwhelmed you.

Aside from that, the only other complaint I had was the lack exposition of the events between the end of Half-Life and the start of Half-Life 2. All the characters in the game talk as if you have a clue what has been going on. Of course calm silent demeanor of Gordon Freemen asked nothing while there was a yelling gamer (me) wanting to ask what the hell had happened in the last few years. I bet there will be other games that feel the same. But these minor flaws are eclipsed by an otherwise flawless game. The $50 price of admission to the world that Valve has created was fully worth it. I expect I’ll be paying it again to return to the world of Half-Life 3.