I finally got the chance to play Half-Life 2 on my XBox 360 (it is an XBox title, but one of the few that play on the 360). I was expecting a lot from this game, since the hype and reviews were claiming that it is heads and shoulders above the competition and I must say that I was pleasantly surprised.
Although I cannot say that this game redefines the genre in any way, it is probably the best first person shooter to date. The main draw to the game is how emerging it is. The new engine that Valve made is by far the most realistic that I have seen. You can interact with almost anything and as you walk around, everyone notices you and reacts to your presence. The non-playable characters look at you, walk freely around the levels like they all have their own lives and even react to your actions. The graphics are great, especially for an XBox title and the AI is almost flawless. The enemies hide behind corners, try and wait you out and team up against you. The XBox 360 however does not seem to run the game perfectly, which is probably due to the fact that it uses emulation to play the XBox titles, but the slight hiccups are hardly noticeable.
One feature that is brought in from the PC is the ability to save at anytime. It seems that console games often remove this element in place of auto saving, which is also present, but you can stop at anytime, since your exact progress can be saved by simply pausing the game.
Being such a high quality game, there is a decent amount of loading, which is understandable; however it is often in the wrong place. As you are getting more and more into the game, a loading screen pops up and takes about forty seconds to fully load. This takes away form the game, but I guess it is the cost of having such graphics.
This is also a puzzle solving game. Yet it is not the same puzzles you see in action/adventure games. You simply have to find ways around objects or enemies and they are well integrated into the game. There are also no slow moments in the game and no endless mazes or ridiculous puzzles, so the action is continues. The sounds are also just as good as the graphics and sometimes startle you.
One thing I found odd, was that there is no auto ladder climbing. You must go up to a ladder and press a button, which is not common for shooters and would really slow things down for multiplayer maps, but, and here is the kicker, there is no multiplayer. I understand that the single player game is the main focus for Half-Life 2 and as great as it is, replay value would be greatly added if there was some multiplayer. And with XBox Live, why would this not be available.
There are also a lot of vehicles that you can use and although, like any game it takes a few minutes to get use to the controls, I find that they did a great job. Some of the vehicles are also upgraded as you play, like guns being added on. The playability is up there with all the other great shooters that I have played. They kept the controls the same and for a console shooter, to change the standard controls around would be a terrible idea. One problem I had with the controls is the throwing of grenades. In tight spots, they don't always go where you expect and it took a while for me not to have them bounce off a wall and fly back in my face. The weapons are varied and the Gravity Gun lets you toss anything around you.
I will not mention any of the story line here, since it is definitely worth checking out for yourself. If you like shooters, especially those that do not simply focus on shooting everything that moves, you should definitely have this game in your collection. It takes about 12 to 20 hours to complete, depending on your skill level.
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