I went down to the stores and got a regular copy of HL2 after work as well as shopped for a Gainward 6800GT Golden Sample. I know I'm severely low on cash this month, but the desire to grab that trusty crowbar and crack some headcrab was so strong I couldn't resist. Because of all the spending I had done, I'm prolly going to lunch breads, dine breads, skip breadfast, and drink from canals. Installation of the game was a slow and painful process. Now only if I'd gotten the Collector's Edition DVD I won't need to seat through the installation of 5 cds. Then I had to update the game via steam... did I mentioned it was a bad time to get on steam? Valve released HL2DM on the same time I need to decrypt the game. When I heard that HL2DM was released I was like: \o/ After waiting for 45 minutes getting no responses from steam I went like: T_T So after an hour of installation and waiting I finally got into the game. First thing that any player will notice is the incredible facial animation of the G-Man, and the detail textures used for the model and the great looking gameworld. I feel Valve had pretty much hit the nail in the head with character models and animation with HL2. Instead of overdoing, exaggerating player movement, what HL2 present to us was pretty seamless. Keeping image detail high, soft realistic lightings and keeping the field of vision at 75 makes a realistic and very believable gameworld. HL2 is a fantastic first step by source into what DirectX 9 have to offer. The gameplay in HL2 is pretty linear, and probably won't impressed the more demanding fps gamers till you get hold of the gravity gun, which is the highlight of HL2. HL2 gameplay focus on the engine incredible physic system. Player by default are allowed to carry an object and use them as shield, with the gravity gun you can pull an object towards you, and throw it at high velocity towards enemies. You also have other weapons in your arsenal. I always feel HL series have one of the most effective single player inventories ever, and HL2 is even better. Weapons are often mimic of realworld counterpart, to crazier things like the Pheromones that control antlions to assist you in fighting and Combine rifle extinguisher. You won't believe it till you see it. Unlike most fps where a player often got transported from locales to locales, HL2 focus on the amazing journey of Gorden Freeman. You won't be teleported from scene to scene, rather if you need to walk across the street to get to wallmart, you'll have to walk across the street. And the brilliance of the level design behind HL2 is that in every portion you got to is believable and always have something interesting to keep player busy. You’ll really feel the length of the travel and the giganticness of this world of Half Life, but never a moment is the feeling dull. I honestly feel HL2 is the game that got all the music timing right. The feeling an epic battle that is about to happen always opens with a adrenaline pumping soundtrack. And these boss battles are all so memorable and incredible. The sounds in HL2 in general is great, when it comes to level ambiance and weapon sound, the sounds of footstep on the rooftops of riverholm makes you wonder when are those zombies going to pounce on you. The game come with awesome dialogues and voice acting that’s hard to beat. Coupled with good lip-syncing and animation, it really adds a lot of life into the characters. HL already had the biggest online community of any games ever. The incredible thing is the community won’t stop there; modifications will appear, user maps will be everywhere and new community supporting these mods will form. Four years down the road, no matter how old and dated this engine will be, HL will still be alive, and still be known as the most active and popular gaming community ever.
1998, half life comes out, rocks the planet. Six years later, half life 2 comes out, rocks the galaxy. Gordon is back and so is perfection. For six years the world has been waiting, and now it is here. The game play ... Read Full Review
First person shooters changed forever in 1998 when an unknown gaming developer known as Valve released a game known as Half-Life. It revolutionized the genre with cinematic gameplay, intense combat, and a story filled wi... Read Full Review
