It's true. I am apparently the only person in the whole world who never played the first Half-Life for the PC, which places me even further outside the loop than that guy that hid in the jungles of Vietnam for almost two decades, not realizing that the war had ended. After all, Half-Life seems to have been clearly accepted as the greatest of all mankind's inventions, with the wheel and antiseptics as a distant second and third respectively. In my defense, I didn't have a powerful enough PC at the time of Half-Life's release, and after I got an Xbox as a gift, I just kind of got caught up in the whole Halo craze. In the cold, metal embrace of the Master Chief, it was pretty hard to even look at another first-person shooter.

   Regretfully, I seem incapable of mending my sick and sordid ways, as I'm sure the score at the upper-right demonstrates. Even though the gaming community as a whole seems unified in uproarious adulation of Half-Life 2, I have to admit that it just didn't fill me with as much pants-wetting glee as it apparently did everybody else. So, without further ado, let's get my complete and utter ostracizing by gamers everywhere underway.

Great Beginnings

   Things started off promisingly enough; a haunting monologue by a strange and mysterious man, ending with your (and by, "your," I mean "the illustrious Dr. Gordon Freeman's," of course) apparent materialization on a somber, gray subway car. From there you are left to wander confusedly between security checkpoints and observe the desperate, terrified populace around you come to terms with the apparent military occupation that is taking place. I enjoyed this at first. The feelings of uncertainty and confusion really drove me to keep playing in the hopes of finding out what was going to happen next. However, when I was a couple hours into the game and I still had no idea why I was riding a hovercraft down a river of radioactive poop and taking pot shots at dudes along the banks, I started to feel tendrils of tedium creeping into my brain. And pants. The following statement may be considered a spoiler for some of you, so if you're not sure, cover your eyes before you read this next part: at the end of the game, when I was using a gun that manipulated gravity to shoot down bio-mechanical helicopters with balls of pure energy, I STILL had no real idea what was going on. [Is it just me or is this freakishly reminiscent of teenage sex? - ed.] Ultimately, this seriously affected my enjoyment. [I can just see it now: Mike, blue in the face, writhing on the floor in agony as Tendrils of Tedium cement their death grip around his chest and neck. Yes, that will affect your enjoyment all right... - ed.]

Oh boy, more soldiers and zombies...

Laser Loser Correction, Inc.

   After finishing the game, I spoke with a friend who knew a lot more about the first Half-Life than I did [you guessed it - he played the first game! - ed.], and by giving me a quick synopsis of that game's plot, he suddenly cleared up almost all the confusion from the second one. That being the case, I am left to conclude that if you played the first Half-Life the plot of the second will probably make perfect sense and be really engaging. If you haven't though (loser), then, like me, you're going to be totally lost, because there are not nearly enough clues, even if you eavesdrop on every conversation (weirdo) and listen to every television broadcast (junkie), in a doomed attempt to piece the events of the first game together and make the connections to the sequel.

Stay in formation!

   The game's second big problem is its' linearity. Granted, most FPS are pretty linear. It's not like Halo or Doom 3 have complex, branching paths you can take through the game. However, the game is even fairly linear in your confrontations with enemies. Most enemies can really only be overcome in one way, or (as with the soldiers and zombies) only one way will really cut it in each given situation. Try and improvise something different and you're likely to get your balls shot off (or your love-bags, for you sexy ladies) or you'll waste a ton of precious, precious ammo [given the options the official advice is to still go for the ammo loss - ed.]. For instance, helicopters can only be shot down by six VERY carefully aimed rockets, and since Dr. Freeman can only carry three rockets at a time, basic math would imply you're probably not shooting down any helicopters until the game puts a crate of endless rockets in your path. Try and kill a group of zombies with guns when the game wants you to throw exploding barrels at them with the gravity gun and you're definitely going to be out of ammo when you need it for the really fast zombies [and don't even ask me about the really, REALLY fast zombies - ed.]. This eventually leads a fair number of enemy encounters to be either frustrating or boring.

A silver lining inside every gun barrel.

   And yet, the game does manage to have some pretty great moments. When the head-crab zombies first start crawling out of the burned-out buildings in the abandoned city you'll definitely start to feel unnerved. Or horny, if you're a necrophiliac. The part of the game where you storm the heavily fortified prison with a pack of obedient bugs, a la Starship Troopers, is hard not to get a kick out of. They're just so cute the way they toss the slaughtered guard's corpses around like toys. And even though driving the dune buggy really sucks, watching the ruined countryside roll by as you head towards what's left of the Black Mesa research facility, you can't help but feel sucked into the game's world. Actually, the game's two very lengthy driving sequences are rather unique in comparison to the rest of the game. While the driving parts themselves are awful, being able to pull over to explore random houses, or make last moment decisions between rushing through guard posts or attacking them in the hopes of finding more ammo and health, are really the game's only departures from rigid linearity.

   The fact that shortly thereafter the game fell into an undeviating lockstep significantly contributed to the lowered score I gave it. During these segments I really felt like I was just on the cusp of something awesome, obstructed only by driving crappy vehicles that handled like a double-decker bus with four flat tires and sixteen dozen repeat attendees of the World Ice Cream and Cheese-Covered Taco Convention. Spending the last half-to-two-thirds of the game creeping through burned-out buildings and factories with no real emphasis on individual tactics or strategy just felt like kind of a let down after what the first chunk promised. Sure, combat is comfortable and has its' moments (although switching weapons in the midst of battle never felt quite right). Rushing into a room and blowing away tons of enemy soldiers with a shotgun while you're A.I. controlled teammates stream in behind you and get shot to pieces is exhilarating regardless of the context [and they say there is no "I" in "Team"! - ed.]. It's just that the feeling that the game is carefully monitoring me over my shoulder at every second after the freedom it had whispered into my ear about earlier on really felt like a tease.

And everything else you could possibly need to know.

   So, yeah, everything else about the game. Well, the graphics, especially from a slight distance, are pretty impressive. Characters run, duck, shoot, and die with an impressive degree of fluidity. Environments looked pretty good as well, most sporting that rusty, rundown appearance that seems to have become popular with games and movies sporting a degree of horror influence. It's not really my favorite look, but it succeeds at what it's trying for. And if shattered, rusty buildings and corpses charred beyond recognition are your thing, then forget about it! Up close I did feel like some textures, especially the skin on people's faces, had a sort of muddiness to them that sort of pulled me out of the experience momentarily. Not a huge deal, but I noticed it.

   Sound-wise the game is equally solid. Guns have full, appropriate sounding rapports, and other effects (crackling fire, dripping water, grumbling monsters, [and the occasional call for mommy - ed.] ) are equally fitting. There's barely any music in the game (a bit of a shame), but the couple of times it comes up, it's satisfying and serves to accentuate whatever part you're playing. The voice acting is top-notch and really brings the largely likeable cast to life.

   The controls are smooth and serve their purposes adequately, so if you've played any other FPS for the Xbox, you should have no problem operating this one.

Multi-what?

   One thing that I did find bizarrely absent was any hint of multiplayer. That's right, there is no multiplayer whatsoever. Considering after how huge a hit Counterstrike was on the PC, this seemed sort of like seeing your customarily well-dressed neighbor smilingly exit his house sans pants on one fine morning. The only possible explanation that comes to mind is that it just wouldn't fit on the disk [M$ is so going to hear this one ad infinitum in the next few years, mark my words! - ed.]. The periodic slowdown issues and copious loading times imply that the game is already pushing what the Xbox can handle, so I suppose the fact that they managed to port even just the single-player campaign from the PC relatively intact is an achievement in and of itself.

   Overall, Half-Life 2 is far from a bad game. It's got some solid shooting action and even a bit of non-frustrating puzzle solving, but it also doesn't really break any new ground and can feel seriously restrictive at times. If you're really into first-person shooters where the lone gunman must face down a hoard of invading aliens, needless to say, this one will definitely tickle you in all the right places. If, however, you're sick and tired of shooting alien heads off, or prefer shooters which emphasize tactics, you're probably going to be kind of bored for most of the game's last half.

   Let the hate mail commence!

       ... Mike Zeller