A game truly worthy of the Half-Life title and a faithful sequel.
Half-Life 2 picks up sometime after the original Half-Life, assuming you made the choice with the infamous G-man that you'd work for him (if you chose to resist, you died anyways). The game immediately thows you into a place.. a city rather, that is far from what you are used to in Black Mesa. The story begins with you (Gordan Freeman) getting off of a train in City 17. The game doesn't lead on as to why you are here or what exactly is going on, but you can clearly tell that there is some kind of serious oppression going on there. Right down to the Gestapo-like Combine who will go so far as to beat you if you get too close to them. From this departure, your adventure begins to find out what exactly is going on, and how you will manage to get out.
Half-Life 2 sports a very impressive new graphical engine to pump out some extreme detail and realism into this game. All though the graphics are top of the line, the real star of the show is Half-Life 2's new Havok physics engine. Nothing adds realism to a video game better than bodies and objects set to this engine to give almost everything in the world of City 17 a life-like feel. Another thing that you may or may not notice is that in addition to physics engine, is the fact that eveything supported by it also has a unique mass. Sometimes you may find yourself trying to break your fall by landing on some boxes, only to find out that Gordan's weight is greater than the boxes can support, and you'll go crashing through them. Half-Life 2 sounds absolutely amazing. All the sounds are believable, everything is as it should be. Although Half-Life has never had background music throughout the length of the game, it has always had short scores play at key moments of the game to add a somewhat cinematic experience without taking you out of character. This still holds true for Half-Life 2. The game's score is magnificent. The music in intense as ever and always chimes in at the most perfect moments.
What should also be mentioned about Half-Life 2 is the value of the package. Half-Life 2 will probably take most people 15-20 hours to beat (unless you rush through it, but what fun is that?). When that's done, Half-Life 2 comes with one of the biggest updates to the biggest online FPS of all time, Counter-Strike: Source. CS:S is Counter Strike brought up to today's standards using the Source graphic engine and the new Havok physics engine. It adds a whole new experience to the original CS and is all around better than the original (unless you are a 1.6 faithful). So all in all, Half-Life 2 is pretty much a must have for any Half-Life and FPS fan. A truly great game worthy of the title and a faithful sequel.