Excellent Game of Half-Life series

User Rating: 10 | Half-Life 2 PC
By arashyt | Review Date:
Half-Life 2 plays similarly to its predecessor. The player navigates through a linear set of levels, fighting off transhuman troops known as the Combine as well as hostile alien creatures. Puzzles and sequences involving vehicles are interspersed throughout the game, breaking up moments of combat.

Since Half-Life 2 is a first-person shooter, the gameworld is always presented from Gordon Freeman's perspective. A heads-up display at the bottom of the screen shows the player's health, energy, and ammunition status, while a toggle screen shows available weapons at the top. Health and energy can be replenished by picking up medical supplies and energy cells respectively, or by using wall-mounted charging devices.

The player defeats enemies with an assortment of weapons. The game's available arsenal consists of modern-day projectile weapons, including a ubiquitous pistol, shotgun, and submachine gun, though more elaborate, fictional weapons are available, such as a crossbow that shoots hot metal rods, a pheromone pod that guides certain previously hostile alien creatures, once acquired, and pulse rifle that shoots glowing pulses and a secondary "Dark energy ball," which disintegrates enemies on contact. The Source engine's physics capabilities extend into combat via a special device called the Zero-Point Energy Field Manipulator, or "gravity gun." Using this device, the player can pick up objects and either hurl them at enemies or hold them in place to create a makeshift shield. The gravity gun can also perform a variety of non-combat functions, such as grabbing out-of-reach supplies, forming bridges across gaps, and flipping overturned vehicles.

Many puzzles use the game's physics engine. For example, one puzzle requires the player to either turn a seesaw-like lever into a ramp by placing cinder blocks at one end, or to stack wooden crates to form a crude stairway. Puzzles are frequently solved with the gravity gun. One puzzle has the player clear a highway by using the gravity gun to push numerous abandoned vehicles out of the way.

Another major development from the original Half-Life is the introduction of vehicular sections; while the original featured several sections on trains, the sequel features sections where the player makes use of fully functional vehicles such as cars or boats.

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