Just like in the first game, Gordon Freeman doesn't speak a word in Half-Life 2 either. We can probably assume, though, that he nods his head in acknowledgement as he gets ordered around by the various allies and colleagues he meets during his quest. Valve would have been very brave indeed if they'd decided to give our hero a voice this time round, but there would have been the risk of offending the Half-Life faithful if Gordon had turned out to sound too gruff or geeky.
And just what could a physics professor with a gun be expected to say?
Maybe something like "Quickly Alyx, hand me the energy manipulator - I need to vaporize those hostile entities"...or
"I believe my crowbar is the appropriate tool to disassemble these destructible containers and determine their contents"...
How about "When all this is over, Dr Mossman, may I suggest we grab some drinks down at the Black Mesa pub and discuss the practical applications of your physics theory"?
Clearly, the use of dry wisecracks a la Far Cry's Jack Carver could have backfired badly on the Half-Life 2 developers and they wisely avoided doing something like that. Personally, I don't have a problem with a mute Freeman - it allows the player to constantly improvise his own dialogue throughout the game, e.g. saying "Yeah, right" when Alyx reassuringly remarks that she won't leave your side again - just after letting you deal with a murderous motherlode of Combine soldiers on your own.
Gordon Freeman lets his weapons do the talking...
Gameplay
Which brings us to Half-Life 2's gameplay. No matter how pretty a game looks or nice it sounds, gamers are ultimately concerned with how well it plays - how challenging, involving and entertaining the experience is. As with its audio-visual presentation, Half-Life 2 starts off a bit slowly, even low-key, but once things pick up the thrills come at a decent pace and kept me captivated most of the time. Weapons are not immediately available, so the first minutes are spent throwing around a few random objects and trying out some evasive running manoeuvres with masked security guards. Soon, you have to escape from pursuing Combine troops and attempt to link up with the human resistance fighters. From there the action gradually picks up and it's not long before you get your trusty crowbar and a pistol with which to start kicking some alien ass: what follows is mostly "shoot first and ask no questions later".
So how is this different from the kinds of FPS games we've seen so many times before? You basically just wait a little longer to obtain your first gun and from there it's familiar gaming territory. Really. Strip away all the fancy high-tech trimmings and Half-Life 2's kinship with oldies like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom is clearly evident. The way you control your movements and weapons is also virtually identical to Half-Life - including the somewhat finicky weapon switching which requires a scroll-click mouse combo. I had to really ask myself what all those reviewers were raving about. Sure, there is some good pacing and variety in your encounters with various adversaries - but Far Cry did at least as good a job, if not a better one. Even in comparison to older games such as Medal of Honor I don't think that Half-Life 2 represents any major advancement in FPS gaming. The game does not in any significant way stand out from the many memorable action shooters I've seen and played over the past decade. If anything, it comes across as a "best of FPS staples" medley due to the variation in its impressive set pieces and more slow-paced shootouts.
So, if you've never played an FPS in your life, this might be the one game to try first - it'll give you a good cross-section of all the main genres we've seen so far, from war zone firefights to survival horror. Here Half-Life 2 has gone almost the complete opposite direction from Doom 3, which focusses on essentially one type of gameplay and only offers subtle progression in the overall style as you make your way through similar settings and situations. Half-Life 2 lets you get used to a specific type of combat, then throws you a new challenge to keep things interesting. It doesn't always work, though, as the many transitions and huge spectrum of themes do make the overall game feel somewhat disjointed.
The gravity gun is fun - but not revolutionary.
But what about the famous and much-lauded gravity gun the player gets hold of about a third into the game? What about it? It's a nice toy to play around with and comes in handy for some of the relatively simple physics puzzles (which thankfully replaced Half-Life's frustrating jumping puzzles*). But is this "new" weapon any reason to lose one's head over Half-Life 2 and declare it the greatest game in the universe? I think not. So we'll probably see some games feature similar physics weapons in the near future (Doom 3's expansion pack already has one), but I don't see core FPS gameplay changing anytime soon due to Valve's influence. Whether you're using a rocket launcher or high-velocity barrels to kill your enemies, it's still a case of "run and gun", "lock and load" etc. The gravity gun is certainly one of Half-Life 2's most interesting gameplay additions, but it's hardly revolutionary. For that matter, I also don't see that the novelty of commanding a squad of giant ant lions will really catch on and change FPS gaming as we now know it.
By comparison, Doom 3's subtle but significant innovation of interactive point & click menu screens seems to offer much more potential as a new gameplay tool for use in future titles: Imagine, for instance, a first-person game in which everything in your immediate environment becomes "clickable" as soon as you hold down the Alt key - monitors, doors, objects and even NPCs. Something like THAT would truly open up new possibilities in games that simulate the real world. But back to the present and Half-Life 2.
*Half-Life also had several illogical "use your head" puzzles, my favourite being the one where the player has to jump onto a gently rotating fan and let the "blast" of air carry him upwards - I had to resort to a Half-Life walkthrough for the solution, after spending quite a while running around with mounting frustration as I searched for the exit to that particular stage... Thankfully, Half-Life 2 is more benign when giving the player an occasional tricky thing to do in order to progress.
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