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Review:

25th November 2004:
Half-Life 2
Wake up Mister Freeman, wake up and smell the ashes.
Posted by Chris Snook - PC - UK and Europe

It has been six years in the making, the victim of an electronic mugging and the winner of a 2003 Vapourware award. Now finally Half-Life 2 is on the shelves and ready to battle for humanity once again.

HL2 first and foremost feels like your first love you who meet once more at a reunion - familiar, recognisable, despite the years and yet more mature, more sophisticated, better looking with an air of dangerous tension as you try to get reacquainted. It exudes a minimalist attitude of quiet assurance, you know why you have it and that is all you need to know.

Packaging wise it is a simple DVD style case with a picture of Gordon Freeman on the front, looking broody and all anti-hero. Inside is a disk and a sheet explaining how to install the game and what the main default keys are. No manual with detailed back story, no credits no nothing. Zip, nada, zilch. Which is fair enough as those who have waited the last two months for the Steam system to open up and unlock their versions don't get a manual either. Steam, Valve Software's funky new game delivery and authentication system is integral to the way Half-Life 2 works, you cannot play until you are authenticated on the system, the CD Key has been checked and the remaining files installed decrypted. All of which means that if you are one of the very few gamers who has no internet connection you are going to be very disappointed, as until all that is done and finalised you are unable to play at all - even offline.

Story wise there is practically none, after a short opening scene where the G-Man from the end of the original Half-Life makes a mocking speech that set you wondering what is going on, you are dumped right in at the shallow end and there is seemingly very little development from there. You do not know exactly where you are, what you are doing there or anything else, as you walk around unarmed into a vision that would have chilled George Orwell to the bone. Not just an autocratic, propagandist run state, but one with alien supervised Quislings at the top. It is here that the reason for no manual becomes evident, it is not needed. Eventually as you explore you are escorted to a room by one of the Civil Patrol - a thug like militia - who reveals himself as Barney the Guard from HL1, he then proceeds to contact Dr. Kleiner, a scientist at Black Mesa, before he tells you to go and get to Kleiners lab. The next few minutes are almost pedestrian, as you follow the only path available that is free of CP members. It is only towards the end of this segment that the action begins to crank up as you are faced with a rooftop chase that does get the adrenaline moving. At the end you are 'saved' by Alyx Vance, who is the daughter of another Black Mesa scientist, not to mention pretty good looking for a collection of pixels.

Once you enter the good Doctors hidden lab, a bit more is revealed. They have been running an underground exit route for those escaping City 17 through the canals. Now they hope to use a new system, a working teleporter, still untested but that is only a short time away. But before that it is time to change as the HEV Mk 5 is introduced, your old HEV adapted to work with Combine power sources.

Finally now that you are suited and booted you get to cause some mayhem as things go horribly wrong with the teleportation of yourself. Now with crowbar in hand, thrown to you by Barney, it is time to go combine harvesting.

With out a doubt the graphics are the best I have seen on my system. Period. Everything is smooth and realistic with enough griminess and devastation to take the sheen away from everything and it looks all the more impressive for it. Shiny and new is easy to do, old and damaged is a lot, lot harder. Trees, whilst not the most prevalent of scenery are also nicely done, in a sparse and bereaved way. A tip of the hat to 'Forever Autumn' perhaps. Lip synch is for the first time nigh on perfect with the dialogue and adds again to the mounting look and words flow easily. As does the water effects, reflecting and rippling and refracting, again the best I have seen. All this on a less than top spec machine which is the real achievement. The only time things grind to a halt are when there is an inordinate amount on screen and frankly all but the best systems would struggle to cope with things.

The world is also very much alive. There is practically a sound for everything, radio messages and PA announcements are amongst the more entertaining things to listen out for, as are the surveillance drones and later Man Hack attack drones. Every sound has a source, and Doppler effects - the further away you are the softer they sound and the less noticeable they are, not to mention the safer you are. This is a game that rewards keeping your ears open for audible clues by giving vital time to prepare for something, whilst also keeping that adrenaline coming as the 'oh no' feeling occurs when you hear the sound of a shopper in the distance. This feeling is intensified with atmospheric and well timed snippets of music that weave in and out of the action, adding in at the right moments and fading out when required to do so, often to no obvious on screen cue. Voice acting is tight and there is not a single wasted line, it is also very self-knowing with the opening speech by the G-Man being one of the best set of opening lines. Other quotes that linger include Alyx saying, "Not a man of many words are we?", Barney explaining that "I am already behind on my beatings this month" and Doctor Kleiner absent mindedly saying, "There it still fits you like a glove� well at least the gloves do.". This gives things a patina that is missing from similar titles. For added entertainment I spotted at least one cameo by a Star Trek actor's voice.

There is a vast playing space, with actual areas ranging from the very wide to the claustrophobic, each providing their own challenges to getting through the segments. There are no levels per se but stretches of the game that are roughly linked together each with a name to distinguish them, interestingly the title screen changes to reflect which section you are on. The one major problem is that despite the often large open spaces to explore and pootle about in, the actual progression is completely linear, you have objectives 'Escape by the canals', 'Go to Black Mesa East' and so on, with only one route to them. In the age of free form play areas and open ended exploration, the initial development and planning shows, this is a strategy that six years ago was acceptable but now it looks dated and routine. Still a lot of time will be invested moving through the sections, by solving puzzles, avoiding or occupying alien enemies and basically trying not to get killed, it is possible to finish rapidly but that would not do it justice. In addition, the online options (parsed through Steam) and the higher difficulty levels will keep the more jaded amused.

Half-Life 2 is again also not just a shooter and it retains the core elements that made the original stand out from the rest. There are the usual puzzles, turn this valve, press that button and so on. In addition the physics engine is showcased by the addition of new style puzzles based around physics principles, balance points and the like. The one downside is that there is still a reliance on jumping a factor that in Half-Life at times made it more a first-person platformer. Thankfully it is lessened but still there are times when the only way to make any progress is to bounce from one place to another, less pixel perfect than before and due to the background auto-saves, often less frustrating when you fail to get it right for the fifth time. Controls are simple and gain marks for being able to assign all the mouse buttons and wheel to something, everything is definable and remap able another boon. Control is crisp but can catch on the scenery at times and can leave you bewildered as to how to continue onwards and more often than not is lethal.

There is an unusual assortment of weapons. They seem almost tame and normal compared to some of the more recent crop of FPS title and there seems to be an odd game balancing issue. You can tote around up to ten different types of weapon, including a WW2 style Rocket Propelled Grenade launcher and yet you are restricted in ammo levels. Just seems bizarre, maybe the HEV has more straps than pockets. Combat is fast, frenetic and varied, with rappelling enemies, aliens and other nasties lurking you do keep on your toes, paranoia is you best buddy, listen to him.

Is Half-Life 2 an instant classic? Probably not, whilst there are good elements they are not enough to swamp the weaknesses that exist and have been carried over from its elder sibling. However it is a fine game, with a visual look and sense of self-knowing ness that does suck you in and then chews you over whilst you consider what next. There is much to commend it and the flaws that do exist are inherent in the expectations of the majority. The linearity whilst noticeable does add to the drama at points coupled to the lack of story development and the way that lack of development occurs you almost have to ask the question. Is Half-Life 3 nearly complete already?

Chris Snook

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Review Summary:

Suave and sophisticated, with a surrounding aura of calm familiarity allows Half-Life 2 to be instantly playable despite a wafer thin storyline and a sense of linear progression. Packed with delightful graphics and audio it delivers the experience that those who have been waiting all the years have been waiting for. More style than substance but there is a lot of substance to boast about.

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