Half-Life 2

Last night afforded me the opportunity to play Half-Life 2 for a couple of hours, so it's somewhat inevitable that I'm going to have to wax lyrical about it here.

First off, I know a fair few people had issues with Steam and unlocking the game yesterday, but for me the whole procedure was flawless. I actually ended up unlocking it twice on my two systems, the first at 8:00am as soon as the game became available, and the other at around 1:00pm - Both working flawlessly. I didn't get to fire up the game on either system until the evening, but again it worked on both occasions with no problems. I can't speak for anyone else, but for me personally the whole process was impressively smooth.

So, on to the game itself. The first thing of note is the graphics - The background to the opening menu screen looks stunning, but when you fire up the game you might find yourself a little underwhelmed. I know I was briefly, until I realised why - This game isn't designed to look jaw-droppingly pretty like Far Cry or the like, it's made to look realistic. That means (with the odd exception) no stupid, plastic-looking characters and surfaces, everything has an understated, grittily realistic look to it. And it works very well indeed, to the point where sometimes you want to just stop and admire how right everything looks even in the middle of a firefight.

Then there's the gameplay. Again, for the first couple of minutes I didn't feel right, or particularly immersed in the game. I was expecting another long intro sequence on the train to acclimatise, but no, that was all over very quickly, which left me feeling a little empty. Empty, that is, until I stepped off the train and wandered to close to a security guard, you have me a sharp shove to push me to a safer distance. A small touch perhaps, but enough to pull me into the atmosphere of the game - All of a sudden, I felt intimidated by my surroundings, and it was onwards and upwards from there.

Much as Doom 3 was very much a reimagining of Doom and Doom 2, so Half-Life 2 holds dear to it everything that made the original the great game that it was. This is something of a relief in this world of ever-decreasing sequels. If anything, the introduction of realistic physics as taken Half-Life 2 into the realm where Half-Life wanted to exist but perhaps didn't quite make it. In most situations you find yourself with two options - Brute force, taking out your opponents one by one (and using a lot of ammo in the process), or thinking smart and using the surroundings to your advantage. Okay, so most of the 'puzzles' (if you can call them that) are simple enough, but it all sits together very well with the game itself.

There's a lot to be said for the characters in the game too - When Half-Life 2 was first announced and Alyx unveiled, I started to worry about what this sequel would hold. But, thus far, to my relief the additional characters add to the game rather than distract from it. Having said that, why did they make Gordon Freeman mute? It was bad enough with the Doom 3 marine, but it makes even less sense here.

Half-Life 2 has also surprised me with its stabs at humour so far - They're actually funny. Normally (with a few exceptions), attempts at jokes in most games fall flat on their face, but thanks to the quality of the graphics, characters and voice actors, it works exceedingly well. I don't remember ever laughing out loud at a game before (Not when the developers intended it, anyway).

From the sound of point of view, it isn't as impressive as Doom 3, but still more than acceptable. It doesn't seem to like running on a generic AC97 on-board sound controller though, the game stutters like crazy sometimes when it access a new sound. I'm yet to try it out properly on my Audigy equipped-rig yet.

So, as of right now, I'm truly in love with this game - It's been a while since I've found a game so difficult to drag myself away from, it really does drag you in like something I haven't experienced since... Well... Half-Life. There's still a long way to go, so I might get bored or have something ruin it.. We'll have to see. But, for now, I'm just going to sit at work itching to get back to City 17...