It’s easy to see why someone would be scared of the dark.
You don’t know what’s in it for one. A lot of movies and video games are set in
dark and dreary places, with the goal to give you the willies. However, it
takes something special to make you scared in broad daylight and Half Life 2 is
a game that does this with relish.
As mentioned in my previous blog post, I’d only briefly played
the first Half Life and I’d found it too difficult and a little bit too
unsettling, so I didn’t get very far in it. However, recently I’d purchased the
curiously titled “Orange Box”, which is a disc with 3 games on it. Half Life 2
is one of those games. I started playing it not sure what to expect and within
15 minutes I found myself running across a roof in broad daylight being fired
at by a helicopter without so much as a sandwich to defend myself with.
Half Life 2 wastes no time in scaring the fudge out of you,
that’s for sure. The game starts up with a haunting and frankly disturbing
video where a man encourages you to “wake up and smell the ashes”. You then
find yourself walking through a dystopian train station while armoured guards
smack you with a baton just to pass the time. After negotiating the train
station and the adjourning square outside, I found myself in an apartment block,
which was in the midst of a raid from the Gestapo. I then had to hot foot it to
the roof while being chased by enough members of the law to inadequately police
a 1980’s football match and promptly fell to the pavement below to be met with
a sickening symphony of cracking bone and splitting sinews.
“How come every Half Life game seemingly involves me falling
to my death in the first 5 minutes” I wondered aloud. After a couple more head
first dives to the inviting concrete below, I managed to blunder my way into
another building to be rescued by the resistance.
And that’s how Half Life 2 starts. I’ll repeat, that’s how
the bloody thing STARTS!!!
Half Life 2 is a first person shooter set in a world where
everything has gone to crap. Weird monsters constantly attack you and when the
monsters relent for a few moments, super powered super cops attack you instead.
In fact, one of my bigger criticisms of the game would be how most of the
enemies you fight are so ruddy strong. At first you’re armed with just a
crowbar but eventually you can pick up a pistol and a machine gun to help you
with your villain killing ways. However, the guns are so ineffectual sometimes
you could be confused with mistaking the bullets they contain for being made out of cotton
wool.
At one point I was ambushed by an angry cop at a train
station. Being no more than 3 foot away from him, and armed with my pistol, I
not unwisely pointed the gun right at his head and promptly unleashed some lead
on him. 3 bullets later and he was starting to show signs of fatigue, 5 bullets
later and he looked a bit peaky, 17 bullets later and he finally fell to floor
dead. I exaggerate of course, but seriously, this cop seemed to have a skull
made out of Plexiglas.
Another complaint I’d have is that on more than one occasion
I found my character stuck on the scenery. At one point I actually had to
restart the game as my character got hopelessly stuck on a corner, like a fly
would get caught in a spiders web. I tried crouching, jumping and even tried
shooting at the wall in futile hope that it would release me from its iron
grip, but alas, it would not.
So that’s where you would deduct points from Half Life 2.
That being said, those gripes would be minor on my part. The game is an
atmospheric masterpiece. I found myself getting wrapped up in the action on
more than one occasion. Sometimes a helicopter will come by looking for you. I
leapt behind a crate and felt my heart start pounding as I snuck a glance round
the side to see if the copter had left.
The game has a really nifty physics engine as well. Sometimes
you will be called upon to stack crates on top of a see-saw so that you can
access other areas of the game. It works quite well and I had a lot of fun
trying to work out what I was supposed to do, without getting too frustrated.
Overall, the moody atmosphere and interesting puzzles make
Half Life 2 a great game. Even with the slew of First Person Shooters that have
found their way onto consoles, I would still say that Half Life 2 is one of the
best you can get.
I’d like to discuss the story a bit but I honestly had no
bloody idea what was going on and the game doesn’t really sit down and explain
to you. That being said, the gameplay is good enough that I didn’t really care,
and there’s a lot to be said for that.
I’ll give it 8 out of 10
Buy it
Coming next, Part 3 of the Orange Box Review, Portal!
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