To say that I was looking forward to the release of Half-Life 2 is a major understatement. The original Half-Life was the FPS that finally made me a fan of this type of game. I had played the DOOMs and Quakes and Duke Nukems that had come previously, but none of them sank their claws into me the way that Half-Life did when it was released. Everything else up to that point had been pretty light on story beyond what was mentioned in the manual and the game play consisted largely of if-it-moves-then-shoot-it until you find the switch or key card that unlocks the next level. Half-Life, however, felt like you were right smack dab in the middle of a movie. Sure there were plenty of enemies that mindlessly came right at you like in the previous games, but that’s what made the marines you encounter about halfway through the game such a big surprise. Likewise the multiplayer aspect of the game was also the first I really liked mainly because of the option of playing team deathmatch and then later the mods such as Team Fortress Classic and Counter-Strike.

The sequel had big shoes to fill; especially after taking 6 years to come along. Valve didn’t even announce it until they felt they were within a year of releasing it and the hype that flew up around it seemed like it would be impossible to live up to. Then the source code theft happened and the game was delayed another year while games such as DOOM 3, Unreal 2004, and Far Cry hit the shelves and left gamers wondering if perhaps HL2 might end up not being quite so spectacular once it finally saw the light of day. I’m happy to report that those doubts were unfounded as Half-Life 2 was everything they had promised and more.

The story has the unlikely hero of the first game, Gordon Freeman, being wakened by the mysterious G-Man that he agreed to work for at the end of the first game. As he comes around Gordon finds himself in a train car with a couple of other folks as it pulls into a station. As you disembark from the train it’s clear that something is amiss as there are strange looking guards patrolling the station and some sort of flying robot that zips around taking people’s pictures as they head toward the gates. Turns out you’ve been MIA for around ten years or so and in that time the Earth has been invaded by an alien race known only as the Combine and turned into one big military state. It doesn’t take long before you bump into old friends that are now part of a resistance and end up back in trouble as the whole of the alien race engages in a massive manhunt to track you down once they figure out you’ve reappeared in their midst. You’ve become something of a legend after the events at Black Mesa and are revered by the rebels as well as feared by the aliens. As well you should be as you’re about to tear the Combine a new asshole all over again.

Let’s start with the obvious stuff first. The graphics in this game are, without question, amazing. In particular a lot of the outdoor areas will have you standing around and appreciating the beauty and realism of it all. The light cast by the sun can be amazingly real and the textures used throughout the game are very realistic. There’s a real sense of distance and substance to the outdoor settings that makes it easy to believe you’re standing in the middle of a big city or on a winding beach. Not that the indoor environments are any less impressive. Another aspect of the graphics engine that’s impressive is the facial animation system used to bring the characters you meet to life. The range of expressions and emotions possible on the faces of the characters makes them feel like real people that you will care about as the story progresses.

Audio is equally as important and as impressive in this game. Every surface you can walk on will generate appropriate sounding footsteps. When the bullets are flying fast and furious and smacking into the walls around you you’ll hear the wood splinter and the tiles shatter depending on what materials those surfaces are made of. When you set that head crab zombie ablaze he’ll moan like, well, like a zombie that’s been set on fire. The voice acting is topnotch as well and there’s even a celebrity or two tossed into the mix. One touch I really liked was how several of the sound effects from the original game made an appearance in the sequel making it feel familiar at the same time as entirely new.

Special mention must be made about the Havok physics system used in Half-Life 2. I believe that DOOM 3 used the same physics engine, but one of my big complaints with D3 was the fact that it only seemed to be used for the rag doll physics on monsters that you killed and it only worked on the zombie as most of the demons would burn up when you blasted them.  It was ridiculous that you’d come across a room full of boxes and shelves with ammo or other needed goodies near the top of the shelves that you had to figure out how to jump up to because you couldn’t move the boxes or knock over the frigging shelves.

HL2 doesn’t make this mistake. You can knock the shelves over to get the goodies or stack up boxes to make a way of jumping up and through an open window just like you could in real life. There’s also all manner of debris laying around each level such as discarded gallon jugs or buckets or cardboard boxes all of which you can pick up and throw around and which react like you’d expect them to when a grenade or rocket goes off nearby. Not just little stuff either, there are tables you can shove in front of doors, oil drums you can kick over (some of which contain explosive liquids which you can explode by shooting with your gun) and some bigger items such as rusted out car husks or washing machines that you can’t pick up or move easily without some other means. That “other means” comes in the form of one HL2’s most innovative addition to your arsenal of weapons: The Gravity Gun. More on that later.

All of this stuff is more than just pretty decoration as it gives you the opportunity to do some truly cool things. At one point there’s three or four zombies shuffling towards you past a burned out car frame that has an explosive barrel sitting nearby. You could waste a lot of ammo by shooting the zombies individually or you could do the smart thing and shoot the barrel which explodes and shoves the car frame across the road wiping out the zombies in the process. There’s a lot of those opportunities in this game especially in the Ravenholm level which is a section of the city that’s been blocked off because it’s completely infested with head crabs and zombies that is easily scarier than all of DOOM 3 combined. The only guy living there is a crazy Russian priest who has taken it upon himself to set up all manner of jerry-rigged traps you can make use of as you try to make your way through. This level is also where you really get to have fun with the aforementioned Gravity Gun. Basically this gun allows you to pick up objects and then launch them at whatever you feel like causing a lot of pain. See a buzzsaw blade laying around? Go ahead and pick it up with the GG and then the next time you see a zombie see how well it plays catch the flying disc of death. Remember those explosive barrels? Instead of waiting for a zombie to wander past one just pick it up and throw it at the zombie with explosive results. The Gravity Gun is easily one of the best parts of Half-Life 2 that will have you experimenting for hours on end just to see what kind of mayhem you can cause with it. Heavier items like the car frames or washing machines can’t be picked up, but they can be zapped with the gun to kick them around and shove them into baddies or make barricades with. It also plays a big role during the end game that’ll leave you giggling with glee.

Multiplayer is another area that really shines. First HL2 comes with Counter-Strike: Source which is exactly what you would think it would be: An updated version of the most popular FPS mod of all time to the new engine driving HL2. The classic terrorists vs. counter-terrorists game play is more or less the same, but the graphics upgrade makes the game so much more immersive. The physics engine doesn’t impact the game play as much as you might think, but it does add quite a bit of drama to the action as bodies fall off of bridges instead of sticking off the edge as though performing some amazing levitation technique and grenades can throw quite a bit of debris around that can damage other players. Seeing some of the classic CS levels like de_train redone in the ultra-realistic environments that the Source engine is capable of is a real treat as well.

Secondly, you can also download Half-life 2: Deathmatch which allows for deathmatch or team deathmatch games to be played in arenas that resemble various stages of the game. One of the weapons at your disposal is the new Gravity Gun so the physics engine gets a full workout in multiplayer. There’s few things more satisfying than ripping a toilet out of the wall and using it to bash in the brains of the opposition. Not that you’re limited to toilets. Radiators, shelves, computer monitors and such all work just as well.

I could go on and on about all the stuff that makes this game so great, but suffice it to say that the story is excellent (though some folks weren’t happy with the ending), the graphics and audio are amazing, and the game manages to improve on everything that made the original the classic that it is. I’ve already played through the single player game at least twice more and the multiplayer keeps me coming back for more. The system requirements aren’t as strenuous as DOOM 3 though obviously the newer your graphics card the better the game will look. Folks using older systems will also find that the loading of levels as you move from one stage to the next can take a long time, but the game does manage to run surprisingly well even on systems that are four years old.

One more area of complaint that bears mentioning is the game’s requirement of using the Steam content delivery system even if you bought your copy on CD. Much like Windows XP, HL2 requires you to register the product online via Steam which verifies your copy as legit before it’ll let you play. This can be a big problem for those few gamers who don’t have an Internet connection for whatever reason. Something to consider if you happen to be one of those gamers.