Graet Game
If you are reading this now, it does not mean that I played the game now. I finished this game like a year ago but it keeps bring me back.
The gamelay is normal for a shooter and the game is short and sometimes linear in some cases. The single payer is great and worth checking out and the multiplayer is the catch in this package with counter strike. Half Life 2's game is great in short.
The graphics engine the really the eye catcher in this game. If I want to compare the graphical prowess of this game to another game it would be Doom 3. Although Doom 3 does well in corridors and metallic hallways, Half Life 2 does it all, from corridors to outdoors. The character animation is one of the best I have ever seen. Mouth muscle movement is just mind blowing.
This game is a system hog although it has been optimised for many video cards. One year into the game and it is still one of the most demanding games out there. I am not going to enter the nvidia and ATI debate about which is better.
The sound in the game is awesome to hear especially if you garb one of those balls with the gravity gun and release it to explode. The explosion is spectacular that I do it all the time just to hear the sound. Overall the sound is superb if you have a good sound card and 5.1 system.
The value of this game is in the multiplayer. Nothing more except you want to return back to the single player game and try it out.
I'm just a satisfied owner of Half Life 2 period.