The original H A L F - L I F E is considered to be one of the greatest games of all time. It won countless Game of the Year awards, spawned several expansion packs, and became the target for some of the modding community's greatest contributions (such as the World War 2 modification Day of Defeat or the extremely popular multiplayer slugfest Counterstrike). Heart-pounding action is crossed with intriguing, scripted events (and ever-worsening situations) which helped turn the experience into a truly memorable one and served to inspire many first person shooters to come (such as the heavily scripted but equally great Medal of Honor games). Gordon Freeman, the always silent MIT graduate-turned-scientist and main character, became a video game icon as he rose from first-day-on-the-job science nerd to gun-toting savior of the universe in no time flat. The mysterious, suited G-Man popped up in random places throughout the game, and fans speculated as to whether he was friend or foe.

Just after H A L F - L I F E was released in 1999 it became a HUGE hit and Valve, the team responsible for making it, began work on the inevitable sequel. Fans would suffer through many delays, lawsuits, hacker troubles and other difficulties. So, is it worthy of the H A L F - L I F E name?

H A L F - L I F E 2 starts you off, in fine tradition, on a train heading for a strange city. The G-Man, in what looks like some trance-like state, appears and "welcomes" you back just before you disembark. You step from the train into some sort of inexplicable police state. Gasmasked guards with leather outfits and electric night sticks patrol the area. The terminal around you is rather dingy, bits of trash, boxes and other refuse is strewn about. Get a little nosey as you walk around and you may just catch a one of the guards dealing out a beating. You have no weapons, but you can pick just about anything up and toss it. Just be sure not to hit one of the uptight guards or he will practice his clubbing skills on your face.

It is not entirely clear where you are or why you are there. As you walk about, monitors on walls and ceilings constantly broadcast "messages" from the Administrator, a' la Equilibrium, who is actually the same administrator from Black Mesa, locale of the first H A L F - L I F E. The denizens of this strange city are apparently slaves of some sort, and all speak in hushed paranoid tones and dress in "'inmate" style coveralls. They are usually being senselessly bullied by police guards.

You make your way through the terminal and open a door to step outside into the sunlight. The city is old, European in style with short brick buildings and stone roads. Flying camera drones dart about and a military chopper occasionally flies overhead. The city is quiet, save for some birds and the footsteps of leather clad guards. Another monitor overlooks the square and continues to transmit messages from the Administrator. The most eye-catching thing about the city, however, is the massive building that stretches high into the clouds above the city. Its ominous presence dominates the blue skies. Its sleek silvery appearance, quite in contrast with the old architecture style of the surrounding buildings, makes it look more like a machine than a building, and the lack of windows reinforce the bad juju you have about it. Whatever it is, it cannot be good.

You continue around the city occasionally stumbling onto a police raid or roundup. Making your way into a building, you wander into people's rooms. Rooms in which most of them are complaining about their treatment or despairing over the sad state of their terrible lives. As you go from room to room, you startle people because they thought you were "one of them." They gaze out the window as a military vehicle pulls up and armed guards pour into the building. Suddenly, alarms go off and a PA system issues a warning about an intruder within the city (you). The building's denizens loudly suggest that you make a hasty escape, particularly as the staircases echo with the sound of approaching troops. You dash for the rooftop as troops pour in from every entrance. And things only get worse.

So, is it worthy of the H A L F - L I F E name? I am pleased to say that H A L F - L I F E 2 is indeed worthy of its forebear. Once again, we are Gordon Freeman as he silently makes his way through a strange and ever-changing environment. Valve has made this environment absolutely breathtakingly real. This time around, Gordon is not an unknown guy trying to survive, but instead a revered hero and perhaps a savior whose destiny seems to involve liberation of this monstrous city. But for what and why and how is something that is purposely left unanswered. That, however, does not take away from the incredibly engrossing game-play.

The graphics are amazing, light undulates as if viewed underwater, human characters have emotional depth, walls are worn and water shimmers and flows. Furthermore, objects have a real mass to them and little details like birds flying in the sky or power lines swaying in the wind help create a nearly-tangible environment. Valve should be commended on their attention to fine details. Valve should also be commended for the fact that their graphics run well on most modern systems!

The sound is similarly impressive, with a lot of old H A L F - L I F E sound effects in order to better re-immerse the player in the H A L F - L I F E world. Radio chatter, which was so ominous in the original H A L F - L I F E, reappears here as the means of communication for guards. Sound, as with the first game, portends only the worst. That is, unless you recharge your suit or health, then you get that comforting old sound effect, a sound effect that almost sounds like someone saying, "Thanks" or, "You're welcome." Your HEV suit, as with the original H A L F - L I F E, gives you auditory warnings of damage and environmental hazards. The voice acting is similarly top-notch, featuring actors like Benson's Robert Guillaume, Star Trek's Michelle Forbes and Oscar-Award winning Lou Gossett Jr. [ed. - Robert Guillaume is "top notch?"]

The physics of H A L F - L I F E 2's game-play, however, remain the most important, and striking, thing. In no other game have physics played such a huge part in both environment and game play. Just about anything (except, of course, buildings and the like) can be manipulated with something else. Need to get over a fence but unable to do so? Just pick up some bricks and make some steps! Trying to get away from pesky guards? Toss some objects in their path! Later on in the game, you get a "grav gun" that allows you to either push or pull objects within the environment. See a saw blade lying around and some zombies approaching? Use the grav gun to fling the saw blades at the zombies! If your aim is good, you will effectively cut them all in half. You can also start chain reactions with certain groups of objects. Say you shoot a support beam on a wooden scaffold. The whole thing may come tumbling down! But physics here are more than a gimmick. The many puzzles and obstacles throughout the game require strategies of physics to overcome. The puzzles are generally pretty simple, especially once you come to realize how the game works, and mostly consist of adding ballast to one end of a lever in order to make the other end go up.

Interaction with the environment is also top notch. As noted, most things can be picked up and thrown or pushed and pulled. It makes for a lot of guilty fun just to muck with the environment to see what kind of destruction you can wreak and to see how detailed the physics of the game are. The NPCs (non-player characters) also react to your behavior. For example, I beaned a guard in the head with an old empty beer bottle and he proceeded to give me chase.

While all of these things can help make a game good, it is the quality of the action that can make a game great. And H A L F - L I F E 2 does not slack in this department either. It is pretty standard first person shooter fare, but this game manages to really add to the genre with some expertly crafted situations, weapons, and enemies. While the enemies are rarely impossible to defeat, they do seem genuinely intelligent and demonstrate some impressive AI. Enemies duck and cover and retreat and double back and generally do a good job of evading or opposing you. Weapons in the game are pretty standard as well, but the look, motion and sound of them help give them a unique feel. But there are some weapons that transcend the common weapons scheme of a lot of FPSs, such as the aforementioned grav gun, and help H A L F - L I F E 2 stand out. Other weapons include standard genre gear like pistols, machine guns, and heavy weapons like laser-guided rocket propelled grenades. Of course, it would be remiss not to mention the Half Life staple melee weapon which is the great and versatile crowbar. Mainly used to smash apart crates for power ups or to clear paths, its inclusion in this game is more of a wink-nudge to its place in Half-Life lore. Not satisfied to be merely a run and gun shooter, H A L F - L I F E 2 actually allows you to control a limited number of vehicles. Some of the best moments of the game involve skimming across a water tunnel on a small hovercraft type vehicle as a helicopter chases you and fires machine guns while dropping mines. Dodging enemy fire with some hard turning while trying to return fire makes for some very fast paced action. There are a lot of ramps set up throughout this level too, so things can get very "Hollywood" very fast, but it really gets your heart pounding and makes for a great time. Another moment finds you zipping across some pretty desolate and deserted landscapes including beaches and through huge road tunnels in a spiffy dune buggy equipped with a strange pulse laser type thing. The whole vehicle skimming across a barren wasteland environment scenario is very reminiscent of the Mad Max films.

Now before I get to the very small amount of flaws for this game, I have to address one issue that has probably marred this game's release like no other. Piracy is a bad thing for the gaming industry, and a lot of publishers are going to great lengths to protect their assets, as they should. Valve is no different. However, Valve stepped really over the line that separates protecting assets while not inconveniencing customers. You can either download the game or buy it traditionally in retail. It sounds simple, but it is anything but. I bought it retail because I like having a hardcopy, but it proved to be the most frustrating install procedure ever. You buy the game and load it via 5 discs. THEN you have to have an internet connection so that you can open a Steam account (which is the new method by which you can download and purchase the game and serves as an updater to the game) to verify you have a legitimate copy of H A L F - L I F E. Then you have to authenticate your CD key that was included in the box. Then Steam has to unlock your files which could take 15 minutes to over an hour. THEN you may have to download updates before you play. Of course, on the release day, the servers taking care of all of these "procedures" become overloaded, and even after waiting for the above mentioned procedures which could take hours according to numerous reports, you may not be able to play the game at all because of some communication error between your copy of H A L F - L I F E 2 and the Valve authentication servers. Some unfortunate souls were unable to play for DAYS! I was lucky in that I was able to finally play after repeated tries which did not last longer than a half hour or so.

The actual in-game flaws are not nearly as frustrating. Just like the original H A L F - L I F E, this game loads bits of a level at certain intervals instead of loading all of the level at one time. Sounds good in theory, but in practice it takes a lot longer to load than you would think. We are talking thirty seconds or more. The effect was to create one huge, almost seamless, level instead of 15 to 20 like most games of this sort. The frequent loading and excessive load times, however, almost defeat this purpose and can be frustrating when you decide to backtrack and it triggers another load.

I really love the music in this game. Creepy techno that wavers between upbeat and downbeat underscores the bizarre situations you will come across. Most of the game is silent as far as score, so during the rare moments you hear a theme of some sort play, it is usually as a prologue to a new environment. For example, when you acquire the dune buggy and begin your high speed traversal of desolate territories, some quite catchy techno spins up and nicely parallels the fast pace of the new situation. The only problem is that the tracks are short, never lasting over two minutes, and they do not loop. So just as you get a nice symphony between audio and visuals going, the music may just end. This is a shame as the score is very exciting and well done.

In keeping with tradition, H A L F - L I F E 2's story is very player driven. There is virtually no prologue and narrative is pretty much thrown to the wind, so to speak. So if you are big on story, this game may disappoint. The ending is rather to the point and just as mystifying as the first, but this shows a true dedication to the integrity of the source material. I, however, guess I was being optimistic in assuming that questions would be answered and revelations made. No such luck. Finally, the ending is satisfying in a "H A L F - L I F E" sort of way, but it could have told us A LOT more of what is (and has been) happening.

All told, H A L F - L I F E 2 is brilliant. The awe-inspiring graphics pull the viewer into an easily imagined world. Furthermore, physics of the game only serve to more fully immerse the player in the H A L F - L I F E world. The action is non-stop and rarely fails to get your heart pounding, especially through the expertly crafted vehicle sequences. The weapons, especially the "grav gun," are nicely imagined and are effective in helping you deal out lethal punishment to above average AI enemies who are really out to get you. The story may be a bit lacking, depending on your preference, but it unfolds in true H A L F - L I F E fashion (which tends to leave a lot to both imagination and speculation). While the horribly executed registration/activation system may put an early bad taste in the mouths of many a gamer, once everything gets going it is not something you will remember, especially as the sheer quality of this game will keep you hard pressed to think about anything negative at all. This is one of the best games ever, and I cannot recommend this game any higher. Good job, Valve. You have not only managed to exceed our expectations, you have taken a crowbar to them.

Rating: 5