I mean the seemingly effortless blending of all the elements into a world that doesn’t give the impression of being designed, it gives the impression of just being that way. Breen, or the clash of Earth’s Eastern European architecture with the cold, angular, slate-grey, dagger-like structures of the all-consuming Combine. And I don’t just mean the trash blowing around in the station, the effect of light passing through corrugated glass, the pervasive and surprisingly developed propaganda of Dr. However, having seen these segments twice now, with the benefit of hindsight the second time, the verisimilitude and attention to realism is quite stunning. The game opens with deceptively quick pass through the world of Half-Life, with a great degree of detail packed into each swift transition: train station to the Combine to the resistance to the courtyard to tenements to the core of the resistance to combat. Don’t read below if you want to play HL2 with an unformed view. There’s so much to cover and so many surprises that I’ll warn you before you continue reading: SPOILERS AHEAD. I’ve beaten the game over 2 times now, and I can see already that I’ll be playing it over and over for quite some time. There’s no way for HL2 to encompass every desire it creates, even after exceeding so many expectations.
HL2 feels like the stunning beginning of something that will balloon into a universe beyond even its creators’ expectations (largely due to their openness to the gaming community and the modders). I want to break the fence and drive over the mountain, smash down a new door and walk an unseen avenue of City 17, or see the rest of the Earth through the eyes of Valve. Valve has created a world bristling with such variety, intensity, struggle, possibility, and life, that I ache for more. It has the crafted, focused thrills of a well-designed game, the gritty, intense roughness of combat, and the bleak, varied immensity of a ravaged Earth.īecause of this, HL2‘s greatest weakness is also its greatest strength. But HL2 exceeds it in almost every way, and not merely because it’s newer. The original Half-Life is probably the only game that offered such a rich, full experience. Half-Life 2 is one of the best games, if not the best, I’ve ever played.
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