Half-Life 2 is an incredibly immersive first-person shooter featuring almost perfect gameplay mechanics.
User Rating: 9.4 | Half-Life 2 PC
Hype - the word used to define the excitement, rumours and anticipation leading up to a game's release. Not many overly hyped games live up to the hype that has been circulating - not many at all. Half-Life 2 is a rare example; this is a game that lives up to the mountain of hype that had been growing in its favour, that says "**** you" to all its expectations, and simultaneously breaks the barriers of FPS gaming. Half-Life 2, without question, is one of the purest examples of a genre ever seen by gamers; this is FPS gaming turned up to 11, implementing almost perfect gameplay mechanics with an engrossing story and some great technical aspects. Put it this way - this is one of the games that everybody must play or experience before they die. Half-Life 2 more or less continues more or less where its revolutionary predecessor left off, with the world's unluckiest scientist being recruited by the ethereal G-Man once again. This time, at the beginning of the game, he is plonked onto a train leading into the heart of a dystopian city that goes only by the name City 17 - a dismal, run-down city overrun by alienated Combine soldiers and filled with screens that blare down propaganda from the infamous villain and ruler of City 17 Dr. Breen. Once the shooting begins in this game, it essentially never stops - fifteen hours or so of intense gunfights and huge battles between Freeman, numbers of Combine soldiers and zombies and headcrabs jumping into the middle of it. Part of the reason why the battles are so enjoyable is down to the engine that Half-Life 2 runs on. Most of it is down to the amazing physics engine on show here - fire scores of bullets into a soldier, and they will realistically jerk around in pain, before falling to the floor. The physics are best described as ragdoll physics gone crazy, and throughout the game ridiculous scenarios will show up where you will have to showcase the physics engine to your advantage. One of the most impressive moments is where you are speeding down a river on an airboat and a Combine missile hits a huge industrial chimney towering a few hundred feet into the air, and slowly, the chimney veers over and does a spectacular collapse into the river, with massive levels of realism. The gravity gun, which you pick up almost halfway through the game, is another example - a weapon where you can lift up small to medium weight objects and fire them at enemies; as you can imagine, this opens up some great gravity-based opportunities to (for lack of a better term) pwn the opposition. The weapons in the game are so darn satisfying as well. You begin with no weapon at all, and all you can do is pick up objects and throw them at people (even though at first they aren't as hostile as you'd expect) but you will get the crazily famous crowbar about an hour in and then follow that up with a pistol, an SMG, a crowbar, a crossbow, a rocket launcher, and of course the infamous gravity gun. This arsenal is quite impressive and it's great to dispose of your enemies in any way you want. Sure, you can do that in other games, but no other shooter has ever utilised this possibility as good as Half-Life 2 does here. Enemy AI is a mixed bag - on one hand, yes, they will occasionally use cover to their advantage. But on the other hand, most of the time they will be standing around a few neaty stacked explosive barrels / lazing around on the job, and as soon as you enter their sight, they will run towards you and fire whatever weapon they are carrying, without a thought for backup, defensive maneouvres, or cover utilisation, which significantly lowers the level of challenge offered by the enemies of the game. So, yes, the game is unfortunately rather easy; you might want to play through Normal on first run, but you will really want to crank it up to Hard when you've got the hang of the gameplay (which, lets face it, doesn't take too long.)
The main campaign is full of variety and versatility. You'll begin by simply exploring the suburbs and flats of City 17, and then throughout the course of the game you'll be crawling through canals with a pistol in hand, driving an airboat down a winding river filled with rocket launcher-wielding Combine, using the gravity gun to fight through a zombie-overrun horrorville, taking a siege on a prison, and staging a battle in the midst of City 17, between rebels, citizens and combine. Environments and enemies change constantly, so that there is a surprise around every corner - and it's a simply awesome element to the game. Plus, there are a few physics-based puzzles in there too, which provide a sometimes welcome break from the non-stop, intense action.
In the midst of it all is an astonishingly well-told story. The actual plot isn't as engrossing as the voices and scripting that deliver it, but nevertheless its a dark science fiction tale that is miles better than most of the crap featured in first person shooters of this type; there are some quirky, memorable characters here and the digital actors are superbly rendered. The range of facial expressions is vast.
The graphics in Half-Life 2 are some of the best I've personally ever seen on the PC. The environments are quite dull and macabre, but they envoke a great sense of dark claustrophobia. The textures and atmosphere are all just right, and the lighting is as close to perfect as we're ever going to get. The character models are great - although most of the enemies look the exact same as the one thats just around the corner (Well,thats to be expected, to be perfectly honest) the character models are each exquisitely detailed and the ways that the physics engine take reactions on them are hilariously good. The range of expressions the main cahracter's faces achieve, as aforementioned, is quite something. Every single piece of visual in this game is a masterpiece.
The sound reaches the same heights. The music in the game is scarce and far between, but when it kicks in, you know something big is about to happen. It gets the pulse going at just the right moment before a predictably massive battle sequence. The miscallaneous sounds that illustrate said battle really do a great job of achieving a sense that you're in the thick of a suitably hot firefight, what with every bullet making pinging sounds as they ricochet off radiators and the sound of Combine in the distance yelling random cries to each other. The level Ravenholm in particular is an excellent showcase - the music is terribly atmospheric (thats in a good way) and the sound of a zombie coming round the corner inches from your face with an undead wail is quite heart-stopping. Note, you should play that mission in the dark, if only to experience how much the audio contributes to this already immersive experience.
So, all in all, Half-Life 2 is one of the purest examples of a brilliant singleplayer first person shooter the gaming industry has ever seen. A versatile, lengthy campaign chock full of memorable set-pieces and meaty skirmishes set in between an awesomely delivered story, some of the greatest visuals on offer, and a revolutionary physics engine that will no doubt become a benchmark in achieving realistic gravity in videogaming. This is an FPS every developer should aspire to create. This is an FPS that will most likely be used as a training course for said developer. This is an FPS that has simply destroyed all of the hype that has been thrown in its way, and in the end, it achieves its overriding goal : to surpass all expectations set. 
