its the perfect game ever made
Story:
If you've played Half-Life then you most likely remember the mysterious atmosphere of the game, Half-Life 2 is much the same way. In Half-Life a disaster occurred in the Black Mesa Facility which caused a residence cascade, which allowed aliens from the planet Xen to transport themselves to Earth. These aliens began to destroy the facility and Gordon was a simple physicist, who had to take matters into his own hands to stop an alien invasion, and he proved to be quite the capable soldier. Not to far into the game the United States government sent in the military to clean up the mess, but unfortunately for Gordon and his fellow scientists they were sent to kill not just the aliens, but you as well. In the end after fighting against countless marines and aliens, Gordon travelled to Xen to bring the fight to the invaders and destroyed their leader Nihilanth. After this Gordon was confronted by the mysterious G-Man, who was following Gordon throughout his adventure. Gordon was given the choice of dying or working for the G-Man, thus he was put into stasis, awaiting the unknown.
Half-Life 2 begins in the same way Half-Life ended. Gordon wakes up to the mysterious G-Man telling him that his time has come again and places him back into the world. Without any idea of what is going on, or how much time has passed (presumably ten, maybe fifteen years), Gordon quickly learns that the entire planet has been taken over by alien invaders known only as the "Combine". All of the humans are now controlled by the Combine and it appears as if Earth is doomed. It would also appear that the Vortigaunt aliens who were your enemies in Half-Life are also slaves to combine and now your allies, and they now praise Gordon for freeing them from the control of Nihilanth. Gordon must now take crowbar in hand once again and set off to free the Earth from new invaders and lead an uprising to begin the downfall of the Combine.
Gameplay:
What makes Half-Life 2 so successful is the fact that it wonderfully combines multiple gameplay styles into a first person shooter. Not only do you run around with a big arsenal of weapons, but there are many other ways of destroying your enemies. One of the most amazing additions to the Half-Life universe is the gravity gun. Because of Valve's new source engine, gameplay in Half-Life 2 has reached a whole new level. The gravity gun allows the player to do almost anything they want to in the environment. If there is a group of combine shooting at you, you could easily pick up a grate with the gravity gun and protect yourself from the bullets, allowing you to close it on the enemy and launch the grate into their face, thus killing them. Many other objects in the environment can also be manipulated. There are many times when you can use the gravity or an explosive to break an object, cause a chain reaction of destruction, such as tons of debris falling down once the wooden support is broken, thus crushing your enemies. The gravity gun is also capable of doing many other useful things, it can be used to quickly grab weapons and health packs which are out of your reach and it can also be used to move things more quickly or break objects quicker than your crowbar. It can even be used to grab grenades and other projectiles thrown at you, so you can launch them back at your enemies.
Besides the gravity gun, Half-Life 2 has many other useful firearms at your disposal, if manipulating objects in the environment isn't really your thing. You will find many of the same weapons you found in Half-Life make a return, however most of them will have gone through some changes. All of the weapons are: the crowbar, the gravity gun, a pistol, an MP7 sub-machine gun, a shotgun, a revolver, a plasma rifle, a crossbow, a rocket launcher, grenades and pheropods, otherwise known as "bug bait" which will be covered momentarily. You may have noticed there are no "experimental weapons" ala tau cannon or gluon gun from Half-Life, but I'd say that the gravity gun more than makes up for that. All of the weapons fit into the game perfectly, and each weapon has a particular use. Even the weak pistol you receive early on in the game will remain useful even at the end, and it is particularly useful for taking care of those pesky headcrabs.
Many of the weapons also have secondary functions. Such as the sub-machine gun which has an attached grenade launcher, exactly like the MP5 from Half-Life, and the plasma rifle has an attached plasma ball launcher, which shoots out a big ball of plasma that bounced all over the place that instantly evaporates any living creature it touches. And there was nothing more satisfying than running around with the .357 magnum revolver which sends people flying after their death, Clint Eastwood style.
Another significant part of Half-Life's gameplay comes from the vehicle sequences, which is the airboat and the buggy. The airboat sequence happens fairly early on and is weapon-less for quite some time. During this time period there is a lot of helicopter dodging and sequences where you need to get off and go inside a building to open a gate so you can proceed on the airboat. However, eventually when you get to a certain rebel base a Vortigaunt gladly attaches a combine turret onto the airboat, which leads to a pretty fun boss fight against a Civil Protection helicopter.
The other vehicle sequence, which is the buggy, is perhaps one of the best parts of the game. There was nothing better than speeding a long the coast on the highway with the tau cannon from Half-Life 1 rigged onto the side of your buggy, blasting combine and antlions to their doom. One the things that made the buggy sequence so amazing was that there were many opportunities to stop and explore some abandoned houses on the coast which were sometimes infested with zombies, headcrabs or Combine soldiers.
After the buggy sequence is over it also leads into one of the more interesting segments of the game. There is brief area where hordes of antlions will burrow out of the ground and completely pulverize you, unless you carefully hop across the gaps and ledges avoiding falling on the sand. There is also a part where you need to use the gravity gun to position crates and other objects to create a path across the sand, which was a really tense moment. However all of this antlion dodging finally pays off, when you get to control an entire antlion army of your own. The pheropods (bug bait) lets you control a small army of antlions who will do your will. This is one of the most fun portions of the game, when you infiltrate Nova Prospeckt with a group of antlions which completely decimate the Combine forces.
There is also another similar sequence where you will be fighting in the streets of City 17 with a group of rebels at your side. This is where you will fight many of the gargantuan "Striders" which are gigantic tripod creatures with a big plasma gun that can only be taken down with rockets or grenades. The strider battles are perhaps some of the most challenging portions of Half-Life 2.
For those who love fighting the zombies, Half-Life 2 hasn't forgotten about you. There are many zombie infested areas, and even an entire chapter, dedicated to fighting zombies where the shotgun becomes particularly useful. Half-Life 2 isn't about to let you go off easy though. Everyone remembers that the zombies from Half-Life were pretty easy to dispose of, and those zombies are back, but they have friends this time. This is thanks to several new headcrabs as well. Besides headcrabs, there are also fast headcrabs, and poison headcrabs, which lead to fast zombies and poison zombies, which are possibly one of the most horrifying enemies in a game. Fast zombies are exactly what the name implies; disturbingly fast zombies that can jump 40 feet gaps across rooftop buildings to completely decimate you. Thankfully the shotgun will be in your possession when these guys roll around. One of the most horrid enemies ever is the poison zombie. The poison zombie is a slow moving zombie that carries several poison headcrabs that it will literally launch at you. These things are horrifying because they drain you to 1 hp instantly with their venom. (You will slowly recover from it) and to make matters worse any other enemies in the vicinity and easily take advantage of your new found low health and kill you. The poison zombies are even more disturbing than they should be though, because of their horrifying moans, and the fact that they have breathing sound which is disturbingly similar to Darth Vader, yet a lot freakier, so you always know they are there, but you don't know exactly where...
Graphics:
Valve's source engine is an amazing creation, and a superb advancement in graphics and technology for games. Half-Life 2 has the most life-like video game characters in any game. Every character you meet is full of tons of different facial expressions and body language that really makes them feel like a real person, more so than any other game out there.
Besides the amazing character life-likeness Half-Life 2 has the best environments and graphics as well. The environments are huge and are amazingly detailed. Just going along the coast of highway 17 is a true sight to behold. Not to mention the source engine creates the most realistic blood and explosion effects yet.
One of the best features is the ragdoll physics and the physics in the environment. Every time an enemy is killed by an explosive they literally go FLYING. And if someone is killed on a staircase their body will slowly slide down the staircase, or if someone is on a ledge the body will hang half way down or in most cases even fall off if the weight is too much. All of the objects in the world also feel like they should. When you pick up and throw an object with the gravity gun you can really feel its weight when you throw it, or when it hits something, or someone. When a car falls and hit the ground it lets of a really loud thud, which really gives the feeling that it weighs tons.
It's almost impossible to describe the amazing-ness of Half-Life 2's graphics and physics, it is simply the best looking and feeling game I have ever played or experienced.
Sound:
After playing Half-Life 2 every other game's voice acting seems as if it is horrible, even when it is good. The amazing voice work combined with the super life-like reactions and emotions of the characters they almost feel as if they are alive. What is most disturbing is Half-Life 2 is the first game I've ever played that actually made me feel emotionally attached to a video game character because they seemed so real. Not to mention the script in Half-Life 2 is very well written and the conversations between the characters are humorous and have plenty of clever dialogue.
The sound effects are also wonderfully done. There are so many sound effects in Half-Life 2 it is almost ridiculous. Every single object in the game sounds exactly like it is supposed to. A pop can, a piece of garbage, a small cardboard box, garbage cans, door handles, wood splinting, water splashing, walking on grass, walking on chain link fencing, walking on wood, every single possible sound is in this game. There is too many to even imagine, but every thing sounds exactly like it should. A perfect example is in Doom 3, pretty much everything you hit with the flashlight makes the same sound. In Half-Life 2 everything you hit with the crowbar sounds completely different.
Half-Life 2 features a pretty varied soundtrack, while the majority of it is mostly techno-rock type music it all comes into play at the perfect time. Right when you are running into the street fighting a big group of Combine some good techno music will pop up making the fight seem really intense. When you destroy the last gunship with a rocket launcher some dramatic music will play, when you first step foot into a zombie infested area disturbing music will kick in to let you know something unnatural is waiting to try and rip your arms off. When you are on the run from a helicopter in the airboat while it's dropping bombs in the water at you at the same time that your flying off of ramps getting 30 feet of air dodging collapsing structures, super fast techno rock will kick in to get your adrenaline pumping. All of the music comes in at exactly the right time, and is the perfect fit for the current moment.
Value:
Never before have I played through a first person shooter as many times as I've played through Half-Life 2 (well maybe except Half-Life 1) and it is just as enjoyable the second and third and fourth time as it was the first time. Half-Life 2 is a fairly long game, after knowing pretty much everything the game takes me about 14 hours, so apply not knowing what to do in the game to that time, and you've got at least 16 hours of gameplay. Not to mention that Half-Life 2 comes with several different multiplayer modes, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch and Counter-Strike: Source which is a remake of the highly acclaimed Half-Life: Counter-Strike. Half-Life 2: Deathmatch pits the player in either free-for-all deathmatch or Combine vs. Rebel teamplay in a variety of maps, which includes all of the weapons from the single player, including the gravity gun. And let me tell you, there is nothing more satisfying than killing one of your friends with a toilet you launched at their head with the gravity gun. Counter-Strike: Source needs no explanation. It is the remake of the original Counter-Strike and it has source engine graphics and ragdoll physics, and is a must upgrade for any Counter-Strike player. Both of these games are highly addictive and have given me hundreds of hours of enjoyment.
Besides it's own multiplayer Half-Life 2 has a huge mod community behind it, and there are already a handful of Half-Life 2 mods out, including Dystopia, GoldenEye: Source, The Hidden: Source, and many others on the way, such as Natural Selection: Source, Sven-Coop 2 and even a remake of Half-Life 1, which is called Black Mesa: Source. Putting aside the fact that Half-Life 2, and it's multiplayer modes have given me tons of hours of gameplay, all of these mods are completely free and can give anyone hundreds of more hours of enjoyment.
Overall:
Half-Life 2 is a rare type of game. Rarely does a game contain so many different genres blended together so wonderfully in such an amazing experience. The gameplay variety, the life-like characters, the amazing graphics, the superb voice acting and all of the available mods, make Half-Life 2 an amazing package. If you have never played Half-Life 2 before, and you think you've already played a better first person shooter, open your mind a little. Forget about your Halo's, your FarCry's and your Doom's for a bit. Go and play Half-Life 2, and have a wonderful time, you won't regret it