HALF-LIFE 2

PN Review continued... If that's all that Half-Life 2 really expects of the player, I don't know why the Valve boys really bothered with the many details they put in there to convey a deeper yet somewhat obscure story: the newspaper clippings, graffiti on walls, comments by NPCs, voices over PA systems. Whether you bother to take note of all that or not, the game plays along almost on auto-pilot. It's similar to the E-mails and audio logs in Doom 3: the player doesn't have to absorb any of the back-story to play through that game either - he might just end up enjoying it a little less. You don't "beat" games like this by finding clues in the storyline to devise the correct strategies - rather, you just follow your nose, which the level designers keep pointed in the right direction for you. The "story" is just part of the flashy window-dressing, meant to make the same subliminal impact as the ambient sounds and visuals that surround you. The game's grand finale provides little closure... So there's really no need here to go into how Half-Life 2's thin plot didn't hold my interest or failed to build up to a satisfactory climax. I won't go on about the sloppy ending, the unanswered questions, the (in)significance of the enigmatic G-Man, the socio-political subtexts in the scenes of urban decay... At its core Half-Life 2 is a simple shooter pretending to contain literary and dramatic elements that supposedly elevate it above lesser action games. I don't buy it. You should play Half-Life 2 for the action and thrills, little else. And here I want to mention what I found to be the main highlight of this whole experience: the superb Ravenholm episode. That bit of creepy craziness on its own made Half-Life 2 worthwhile for me. Ironically, it's also the least like other sections of Half-Life 2 and bears no comparison to anything in the original Half-Life. It's almost as if Valve brought in another design team to create a separate game-within-a-game. I certainly wouldn't mind if Valve took ideas from Ravenholm as the starting-point for creating a meaner, darker gaming experience - and calling it Dead-Life or something. Conclusion The FPS has come a long way since its origins in the early 1990s - or has it? At first glance Half-Life 2 seems to have the potential to let the player experience something really new. But just minutes into the game I already had a distinct feeling of deja vu. I wasn't just reminded of the original Half-Life, but also plenty of other games. Considering that Half-Life 2 took 5 years to develop I was really surprised to discover how little innovation Valve actually came up with in the end. To me, the game didn't live up to its hype after all - although its many admirers suggest that it does. Half-Life 2 is a good FPS - but not the "Best Ever". As I tried to explain higher up, I think some dynamics around the build-up to Half-Life 2's release took on a life of their own and this largely accounts for all the biased reviews that appeared everywhere. And when I say "biased" I mean just that. Far Cry and Doom 3 are at least as impressive and "revolutionary", yet Half-Life 2 hogged the limelight. Fanboys harped on about minor flaws in competing games, while ignoring similar shortcomings in their chosen blockbuster of 2004. I even read some reviewers saying they "couldn't care less" if Doom 3 had superior graphics and atmosphere, if Far Cry had more player freedom and better AI - when it came to Half-Life 2 we had a game that was worth more than the sum of its parts. But this "worth" was largely projected onto the game and is not inherent in its "unique gameplay" (which it doesn't really have) or the many "jaw-dropping moments" (of which there are actually only a few). Some people even waxed lyrical about the game in expectation of all the mods and maps that the fan community would start producing soon, as with its predecessor. Half-Life 2 was essentially being praised as much for its past heritage as for its anticipated future significance - while eager buyers were still busy unpacking their boxed copies and struggling with Steam registration. Half-Life 2 was put on a pedestal far too hastily, indirectly causing other brilliant games to get less public attention than they probably should have. Whoever thought that Half-Life 2 would single-handedly point gaming in truly new directions is sadly mistaken - the first Half-Life didn't do that by a long shot, and neither will this worthy but over-hyped sequel.

PN Game Reviews: Half-Life 2 > 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9

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