Half-Life 2 : Games : Web Wombat

For six long years we have waited and finally, finally, despite being more delayed than the death of a Dr Evil henchman, Valve’s monster sequel is amongst us.

Picking up where the original left off, Gordon Freeman, badass extraordinaire, MIT graduate and hero of the Black Mesa encounter, comes in on a train bound for City 17, a small rural town cordoned off from the rest of the world by the Combine.

These guys are a highly trained and equipped army of psychotic shock troops bent on crushing the locals into oblivion, on the order of one Dr Breen, your old Black Mesa supervisor, who has apparently decided to take on the role of Absolute Dictator of This Here Planet.

Which is, of course, where you step in, hero of the Rebellion and the biggest badass to ever wear Buddy Holly glasses.

Familiar Faces

Joining you in your quest for freedom and tacos are most of the original Black Mesa crew, including the one and only Barney the Security Guard, as well as a full cast of vortigaunts (the lightning chucking aliens from Black Mesa, who have aligned themselves against the Combine for reasons we won't go into).

Along for the ride are Alyx Vance, sassy scientist-type and possible love interest, Dog (a six foot tall robot built from spare parts), the shotgun-toting Father Grigori, and many and various technicians, soldiers and zombies.

As with the original, a big cast is nothing without a tight script, and HL2's is one of the tightest around. Swinging wildly from pathos to humour to heart-pumping action, there's basically never a dull moment, and this is helped no end by one of HL2's biggest assets, the proprietary Source engine.

Already sold to numerous companies before HL2's release (including Troika Games for integration into their upcoming Vampire: The Masquerade “Bloodlines” - review soon), this is the bee's knees, the ant's thorax and the cicada's pericardium.

In Half-life 2, the crafty vortigaunts
(the green dude on the left) are now
on your side, fighting the Combine

Sporting amazing facial animation (this is Pixar-quality, people), great pixel-shader and modeling work and the best implementation of Havok ragdolling and physics ever, HL2 urinates upon Doom 3 and it's tiny corridors from a truly impressive height.

Every environment brings something new to the fore, and what's more, it runs wonderfully, even on a mid-powered PC.

Where Doom 3 plodded, HL2 sprints, and moments of chug are few and far between.

More importantly, the vast scaling necessary for this to work so successfully is done in such a way it's almost never noticeable, and only occasionally does something look out of place or strange.

Level With Me

The flow and design of a level can make or break your gaming experience, and here HL2 really shines. From the moment you step off the train, one is struck by the vivid clarity of Valve's nightmare-future vision, and from there it just gets heavier.

Through abandoned rail yards, polluted canals, over rooftops and through broken-down apartments, everything flows. Scripted events occur with regularity and make you believe you're taking part in something a lot more special than any old game.

When you get through to Ravensholm, a town populated by zombies, there are some moments there that genuinely spook you right out of your braincase, particularly if you, like I, have taken to playing games in the dark, with the sound turned up, at 2.00am in the morning.

Admittedly, however, some areas fall a bit flat. The buggy-driving sections of Highway 17 can feel a little sparse, and occasionally you'll have to circle around a couple of times before it's really clear what the Hell it is you have to do. By the same token, some points in the game are laid out in a manner some may consider a tad confusing, and so you must carefully examine every nook and cranny so as not to be continually walking in circles.

Regardless, the good far outweighs the bad.

Let's Get Physical

The environments are huge and
have an incredible level of detail

There is no doubt in my mind that Havok physics have never been implemented so well as in HL2. Nearly everything in the game world not nailed down can be picked up, thrown around, smashed or used in some nefarious scheme.

Bottles can be broken, paint cans kicked, barrels rolled and Combine henchmen shot in the head and hurled off an embankment into the local canal.

For instance, at one point early in the game you're holing up in a hotel while the Combine scour the city for you. A security buggy pulled up outside, two stories down, and, being the anti-authoritarian bastard I am, I felt compelled to hurl a kitchen chair through the window and bounce it off the buggy roof.

Admittedly, it achieved nothing, but cool it was, nonetheless.

Towards the middle chapters, when the game introduces the Gravity Gun, the tables are turned, for with it you can lift almost anything and send it absolutely flying. A cinderblock makes a nice paperweight, but just wait until you've seen one thrown through the air at a rough approximation of the speed of sound.

Also, when one starts to encounter masses of zombies, there's nothing like flinging buzzsaw blades at their animated corpses, and it's a hell of a lot more practical than beating them to death with half-empty cans of Dulux.

Still, the thing about physics is you aren't the only one who can use them, and certain enemies have a disturbing tendency to beat you to death with whatever you happen to be hiding behind.

The Guns of Nova Prospekt

Physics are fine, but sometimes you just need to forget the cleverness and shoot something, jah? Which is lucky for you, because Valve have seen fit to equip dear old Gordon with an armoury worthy of any self-respecting MIT graduate arse-kicker.

Most of the old favourites are back, bigger and better than ever, and there are even one or two new toys to play with. The 9mm pistol and .357 Magnum have been revamped (the Magnum now will dispatch almost anything in one or two shots, but ammo is far scarcer than in the first game, since it's not exactly an orthodox weapon), and the established and accepted crowbar is strong enough to be handy in almost any beef.

Sometimes you just gotta shoot everything...

Strangely, but not unexpectedly, the alien weapons from the first game have been removed, which limits your choices a little, but keeps the tone of the game nice and focused on proper firefights, none of this ‘alien goo’ business.

On the ‘newcomer’ side of the equation, there's a standard issue Pulse Rifle, a refurbished SMG and a pheromone grenade.

The former is pretty cool, packing a good punch and the ability to fire balls of supercharged plasma that bounce about like a bonobo on crack, while the latter allows you to use roaming squads of ‘antlions’ (think the drones from Starship Troopers and you're pretty much there) to attack those nasty Combine people. The SMG, however, just does what it's supposed to (i.e. spit lead), and has all the ergonomics of a bucket of squid, to boot.

AI Am Talking To You

You may remember (or you may not, so I'll remind you) the praise the original Half Life garnered for it's militarily minded squad artificial intelligence. The Special Forces grunts would flank you, work together, take cover, flush you out with grenades and generally make your life a misery. Which is where half a clip of FMJ rifle rounds came in handy…but I digress.

This time round, things are much the same, but in a good way. The Combine are rather clever, and so tend to do such irritating things as go around the back, deploy pincer formations and, you guessed it, generally make your life a misery.

Throw a grenade at them, and they're likely to scatter. What's worse, they completely fail to honour conventional gaming traditions, such as getting stuck in doors or against corners, walking into walls, shooting their teammates, completely failing to notice the grenade you just bounced off their noggin, dropping their own grenades two inches in front of their own feet…you get the idea.

Counter-Strike Squared (But Not Rooted)

Of course, not everyone will be satisfied with single player and so, after a solid 20+ hours, will be wondering "what comes next?" The answer is, of course, multiplayer joy, in the form of Counter-Strike Source.

Taking the prettiness and physics of Source and applying them to the Counter-Strike gameplay model seems like a sure-fire idea and, sure enough, it is. Running smoothly, looking sexy and playing like a charm, Counter-Strike Source is all the good bits of Counter-Strike without all the problems.

For instance, don't you just hate bunny-hoppers? Those lame little fools who exploited the ability, in Counter-Strike, to jump up and down with impunity, thereby cheating death? Well, Valve have fixed them right up, by putting in a second or so delay between jumps. Various other issues with the Half Life engine have also been eradicated, and overall the whole affair runs pretty much perfectly.

Tales Of A Bearded Scientist Man...

It took six years, got delayed more times than the Second Coming of Christ, but in the end, it was worth it. Worthy of the Half Life name, worthy of the hype, worthy of Game of the Year, Half Life 2 raises the benchmark for every first-person shooter to come and even manages to pip Doom 3 for the FPS throne, in my book.

There is the door. There is your wallet. There is the Electronics Boutique. Go. Buy. It.

Game: Half-life 2
Players: 1-multi
Online: Yes
Developer: Valve
Distributor: Vivendi Universal

Rating: 100%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)

Half-life 2 is on the shelves now.

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