Half-Life 2 Is Outstanding ..

[Razor Blaze 0]

I always regret buying my Xbox, modded or not, and usually few reasons why I don't, those reasons: Fable, Doom 3, Strangers Wrath, Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2, and now Half Life 2.I already own Half Life for PS2, so when I saw Half Life 2 was out, I had to decide, Xbox or Computer. Computer would be harder to pirate, since I dont have any money to buy it now, and I had a free game rental coming from Family Video, so I went with Xbox.I can only say this, the game is out standing. Most FPS games rely on just blowing people away alone, shooting stuff, running, getting a key, and shooting more. Half Life 2 is a great balance of puzzles and action, and makes a great game out of it. You won't be fireing your gun the entire time, but your gun wont be forgotten either.The story, in my opinion is pretty good, I like it alot, and the small bits of comedy they add in to it are a pretty good touch, it shows, even when you are in a horrible position, you always have time to laugh.

Edited January 6, 2006 by miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG (see edit history)

[x2crazy4shadyx 0]

Half-Life 2 is one of the best FPS games made with counter-strike source MOD its even better.The grafix are soo amazing.. sucks i can't have everything full and see how nice it is like that. You should try too get it for the comp its great. And enjoy playing the game.

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

Yea I've seen people playing the xbox version and it loks alright but you can tell the hardware wasn't meant to handle that game. The pc version is where its at. Regardless Iw ould agree that the game is indeed outstanding. The atmosphere is great, the story is well done, the voice acting and characters are all great and they managed to tie in bits of the first game without going overboard so that people who hadn't played the first would be lost. The game accomplished everything it set out to do, and did them all perfectly. Some complain that it wasn't revolutionary, well... it probably wasn't trying to be.. seeing as it was a sequel

[cruxbucket 0]

I agree with you guys the only flaw i could see was the ending it left me feeling lost. no resolution to the problem you just get put back on ice so to speak. when your gravity gun gets supercharged do you also get transformed cause it seems like i got taller in the end and that chick seemed shocked by me. not enough explaination for me. still its quite a thrill ride and worth the money whether you get it on pc or xbox.

[Synn 0]

I havn't had the chance to play Half-Life 2 yet but I hear great things. I remember watching the review of it on my cable on one of the Game tv shows on tv. I'm alwasy on one or another. It looked awesome! I have alwasy enjoyed the half life games in the past almost as much as I enjoy my resident evil. I bought my x-box from a friend only because it was 90 bucks for it and Fable. So I know how you feel on the regreting the x-box...not many games are worth it....maybe GTA san andreas, Fable, Doom 3, and Halo.....hopefully I will feel the same way for Half-Life 2.

[NewGuyinTown 0]

MultiPlayer Half Life 2 isn't fun. It's get repetitive after a short while. It's just a small free for all. Some guns are rigged.MultiPlayer Counter Strike > MultiPlayer Half Life

[Herbert1405241469 0]

******************************Mild Early-Game Spoilers****************************************************************For HL and HL2**********************************I just picked up the Game of the Year edition of Half-Life 2 a couple nights ago, and WOW (not world of warcraft, I mean wow as in "wow this is pretty good!" ). I've never played the original Half-Life before, so getting Half Life: Source packaged with HL2 was a great deal. I sat down and played through that first so I had a better idea of Gordon Freeman's background and such. Great game, by the way I thought it was funny having those security guards on your side saying "Boy I'd like to get my hands on the guy that caused THIS mess!" when you know full well that you were the one to push the button I just started playing HL2 last night and was blown away by the graphics. Unfortunately, I had a lot of mouse and keyboard lag, so I found some performance tweaks on the net, and that fixed everything right up with no visible degration in visual eye candy... Man, the physics in the game are great. The puzzles are intuitive and make sense. You're not just running around collecting keys and stuff like in most FPS. The objectives are simple, yet they make sense.I had played Blue Shift years ago, which helped me now when I started playing HL2, because right in the beginning, they brought back one of the characters that I wouldn't have any idea about without playing Blue Shift. The game itself is totally immersive. I feel like Winston Smith in George Orwell's "1984," stuck in an oppressive dictatorship, on the run from the storm troopers and being tracked by flying camera machine thingys Really can get into the character.Yeah, playing the games back to back (Half Life and Half Life 2) really helps. You just spent XX hours trying to stay alive, slaughtering little face-hugger-like creatures, mutants, bugs that shoot out green lightning... and you play HL2 and you see people with those face-huggers as pets, and mutant bugs that shot lightning at you.... talking to you and interacting with humans... It's quite disconcerting. Since I had no idea about anything about the Half Life series before I started playing, I didn't know why some of the scientists mutated like they were in Doom. Well playing HL 2, you can more clearly see that the face-huggers pulled a "System Shock 2" manuever and took control of the people's bodies via ...facehugging. It's creepy to hear the muffled screams of the victims as you are forced to shoot them in the head to save your own skin.Overall well worth $39.99 and some tax. Make sure you have a high end rig though if you have it on computer

[Herbert1405241469 0]

*Minor gameplay spoilers*

 

 

 

Well I've just completed Half Life 2. I can see why some people were disappointed in the ending, but overall, the gaming experience was more than enough to make up for that. I truly felt like I made a difference, as opposed to Red Faction 2, where you fight in a similar resistance that left me feeling ill after playing, rather than anything good like HL2.

 

Half Life two made me feel like a character in many movies... To start off, you feel like you're Winston from George Orwell's 1984 (which was not only a book, but they made a movie of that as well ). The feeling you get from being on the run is invigorating and intense.

 

Then you feel like you're in a horror movie when you have to pass through an "abandoned" city filled with people possessed by headcrabs, and all sorts of terrors. I must say, that level alone rivals the Cradle level in Thief 3 for the horrific atmosphere. For example, a guy is found cut in half by a saw blade, with his upper torso laying on the top of the blade stuck in the wall like a shelf.... Wow. Plus the whole "OOH SH*T" factor when you realize you've started a ruckus and all hell starts breaking loose.

 

The whole horror movie feeling goes from, say, Resident Evil, to more like the movie 28 Days Later

(Edit: haha, forgetting the "Later" part of that movie title makes it a drama starring Sandra Bullock )

As you go along the coast-line, you pass derelict cars, that have long since rotted out... the overall sense of isolation and dread really sets in... Until you go up to a seemingly empty house and these metallic balls shooting electricity blow up through the floor and start chasing you as you try to escape

 

Later you find yourself smack dab in the middle of The War of the Worlds trying to evade and sneak past those giant tripods... And at a point, a defense system is shooting lasers at you and your squad members, evaporating them into dust.

 

The last level just plain old kicks *bottom* in that you get an awesome gun, which might have been more fun getting earlier, but better for the last level than never. You are swarmed by a seemingly infinite (but not overwhelming) amount of guards, but with your new and upgraded gravity gun, you can pick up the leader and throw him at the rest and watch them fall like a bunch of bowling pins

 

The ending, though slightly disappointing, didn't leave me feeling unsatisfied like Red Faction 2 did. I went through the whole game (HL2) and at the end felt like I made a difference that changed the world. Other games give you a straight forward epilogue, telling you what your character did afterwards like "and so-and-so became president of the galaxy", which is OK if done right, but in my short time with the Half Life series, the experiences of Gordon Freeman have been my own. Everything I know about what's going on is just as much as the main character... there are no cut scenes, everything that happens does so in real time in front of my eyes. As for the ending, well it only motivated me to want to go out and buy the upcoming expansions Half Life 2: Episode 1, and Half Life 2: Episode 2 to find out what happens to the main characters next.

 

Also I'd like to acknowledge Valve's technology in terms of realistic characters. You really do feel like you can relate to the NPCs, and you feel bad when you lose a team member, even if another one will come along eventually. I remember at one part of the game where I was ambushed by an air raid, and the girl next to me was shot... I actually stopped, knelt down beside her... and proceeded to go ballistic and kill all of those murdering bastards.

 

Lots of unanswered plot questions I had to look up on wikipedia and whatnot, but overall a great game. Heck I wouldn't even pirate it if I could, I encourage you all to go out and support these people for making such a great game.

[iGuest 3]

I agree, I've been playing Counter Strike since about 1.3 or 1.4, and the first time I touched it, I was amazed at how people can actually work as a team, ONLINE! That was something new to me back then; working as a team usually meant to me as worthless because no one usually helps back. I spectated how they worked as a team when I first began and wanted to learn more. I saw how they send some to one side of the map, while the others went to another to be the decoy and sorts.Amazing strategies, cunning skills, and abusive shanks were what I loved to see through spectating. Then came the time I just had to be like them. The game's amazing, I could tell a life story about how this game can really help people haha. They say that FPS games help with eye reflexes and sound detection, and man are they right. I'm more aware of my surrounds outside of the game as it. (Don't expect me to run around with a knife to get faster though)So yeah, great game, not worth the download, because it's worth the purchase really. I can't wait for that new Half Life 2 package that's coming out, that chapter 2 or something. Don't want to look at it in detail because I might be spoiled :x1043252/10 (That good)

[pyost 0]

Half-Life 2 outstanding? I would lie if I said it wasn't. Even though many people say that nubmer one is much, I don't agree. It si a bit better, since it started a revolution, but HL2 has continued the revolution.From the beginning of the game you can feel the good old half-life spirit. The second part has everything needed to maintain the quality of the game. The graphics are there just to improve the experience (of course, I'm talking about the PC version). The game itself isn't more complicated than it should be. They've managed to keep the "a lot of killing" part, while maintaining a rather good story.Introducing a few new weapons was a really great move, especially the gravity gun. But then again, the didn't exagurate. I just love to play with it What's more, the story is perfectly fitting into the old one, though I think G-Man should appear more. He was the one that made you play the first part until your eyes pop out. Nevertheless, the new one keeps you attention too.The end? Well.. It's different.. In the first part there was a reason for an end like that, whereas in the second it's a bit sudden.. I don't know.. Well, at least there is more space for the third part, right?

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

I just feel like commenting on the issue of the ending. If you think about it, the first game's ending was quite similar except it wasn't as abrupt. As far as what would continue once the screen went dark at the end of HL1, we did not know. We knew only that it had a connection to the Gman (unless of course you decided to fight it out against the alien horde )This is not much different from the end of HL2. Both left you with some questions... what is happening next? Is everything fine or is there more problems to follow? What will Gordon's future hold? Tune in next time to find out :oPersoanlly I LOVED the end for HL2. It was just such a cliffhanger that it drove me insane and screamed of more HL goodness to come. A definitive end would simply mean the story was over, and frankly I'm glad it isn't. Episodic content may or may not be something I'll enjoy, but regardless more HL is more HL.I like it when games switch things up. Leaving a game unfinished is one thing but when they pull off and obviously planned out cliffhanger, awesome. Generic endings are just that, generic. Games need twists to differentiate themselves nowadays and HL2 had a handful, including the ending Just my 2 cents.

[pyost 0]

(unless of course you decided to fight it out against the alien horde)

I've tried doing that When G-Man told me to decide I just turned on the God Mode and prepared the yellow weapon at number four (can't remember the name) and killed a few aliens when I got teleported. However, my screen fade to black anyway

Persoanlly I LOVED the end for HL2.

I love it too, only because it is so mystic and tells you "Expect the next part!"

[minnieadkins 0]

I played half-life a few years back. I never got into it. So, since Half-Life 2 was out, I decided to beat half-life 1 and try out half-life 2. After a couple of weeks, I beat half-life 1. It's an amazing game. Very very good for it's time. Good story, great action. Everything was cool. I then started playing HL 2. Of course, the graphics were different. I went online and looked up a few images, and found comparisons from the characters of HL1 to HL2, and it showed what they looked like in each game. Amazing how far it's come. The graphics blew me away. Then started the gameplay. Thus far it's been exciting. There's been a lot more guards then aliens so far, but I'm only on level 4 or so. It's been pretty good thus far, and I can't wait to finish it. Hopefully I finish it . I would recommend that anyone who likes a good FPS to give it a go.

[Herbert1405241469 0]

What's more, the story is perfectly fitting into the old one, though I think G-Man should appear more.

Actually I looked up a listing of all the "G-Man" sightings in the game HL2, and he's in it more than you'd notice on the first playthrough... Wasn't that creepy TV with the weird music totally and utterly disturbing? hahaha. The darn thing wasn't even plugged in!

[quert 0]

In my opion half life the second is so bad that it should never been relased in such form. when i firstly installed it in 2 hours i have finished about half of game on medium level! where are these dificulties and problem to slove like in first edition? nowhere. this game was done to show only outstanding graphics and new shaders or other fireworks :/ i have already heard that it is possible to finish the game in almost 2 hours. maybe stalker wich is comming soon will show us real fps game not olny alien killing presenation wich appears almost non stop when we play half life 2.