|
|
|
Half-Life Portal's Review - Return to the Man in the Orange Suit
Half-Life 2…. I can expressly utter out those words knowing the gratification of having played through a sequel to a game that didn’t raise the bar; it obliterated it. It’s been six years since the chill-sending genius that was Half-Life was unbounded, and six years since it caused a whole new era of gaming structure making anew and modifications due to the community, no less, to come to fruition. It was only 1 year and around 7 months ago that the sequel was announced; creating such a catalyst that ‘immense’ is not the proper term for such aroused expectations. And after the hooplah that was September 30th and any other woe VALVe might have suffered but eventually brushed off, I can explicitly come to terms with saying that Half-Life 2 is one of the best shooters to come around in all aspects, in a long, long time. VALVe Software? I commend you. For Half-Life 2 is quite the prospect, and quite the shooter, indeed.
That is, of course, my opinion; and not what many term ‘fact’. You should know that pertinent fact whilst reading these pixels. That aside, I’ll “cut to the chase” and get onto detailing out how the game plays for those who are curious and have not have the pleasure of grasping the game yet, but are willing to wade through spoilers. The game begins with already including the strong presence that is the G-Man; already boasting the game’s 40-muscle skeletal bone / layered animation system that, yes, even looks awesome on something as low as a DirectX 7 graphics card (such as a 64MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce 4 MX 440). That aside, already in the immediate sense, I felt that same indescribable chill that sticked by while playing the original when the G-Man’s rather trivial yet not so worldly “Rise and shine, Mr. Freeman, rise and… shine.” Barely came out of my speakers.
That’s right, the game starts off with a rather posh yet eerie vision of the G-Man (boasting all kinds of Pixel Shader 1.x-2.0 effects for those who have cards that could run just that, post-processing effects to normal maps that the Source Engine has to offer), hinting to the change of the world and that it was Freeman’s time to come aboard, with rather nicely accompanying music. Within this vision, we see many things: the Test Chamber of the Anomalous Materials laboratory as it was in the original; pods of the Combine in a hellaciously humunguos structure known as ‘the Citadel’, and other somewhat vague locations. Only then does it eventually degenerate into the shrill scream of a train’s wheels, where your fellow ‘citizens’ in urgent whispers look up sharply at you with uncertainty, where only then you can come to the realization that you have… stopped… in, yes, City 17.
INTRODUCTION PAGE
DELVING DEEPER INTO CITY 17
THE CRUX
|
|
