Other than the game’s lack of conclusion, there is not much for people to whine about. Steam was effectively broken at release and for all I know remains broken to this day (you still gotta love it if you missed the game in stores though). The sound skips occasionally for some people (I experienced it, but I know others who have not). But other than these problems, Half-Life 2 is an outstanding game.

It takes place in a futuristic, negative utopia called City 17 several years after the incident at Black Mesa. The world was taken over by an alien force known as the Combine during the “Seven Day War” and now the remainder of the human race is forced to live in small ghettos ruled by a puppet government established by the invaders. Huge holographic projectors around the city spew propaganda. Men try desperately to console their loved ones as black-clad, mask wearing Combine soldiers torture the city’s residents and take them away never to be seen again. The situation is dire indeed, and Valve does an incredible job of capturing it that way in the game. The fear and feelings of hopelessness are palpable. The atmosphere is absolutely convincing.

Once again, you assume the role of Gordan Freeman, the renegade theoretical physicist slash arms specialist. You start out with nothing except your skivvies and get to navigate through City 17 doing your best to stay out of the way of the Combine soldiers. You meet up with some rebels who recognize you and the action takes off from that point. With the exception of the brief interludes of story at different areas, the game is basically non-stop action. Like the original game you start with the crowbar to bash down doors and clobber enemies and pick up their weapons to use against them. There are a few new weapons, like the gravity gun and the ant lion perfume, but quite a few didn’t make the cut from the original Half-Life. You won’t see the Guass Gun, Satchel charges, Trip mines, or the two alien weapons. You will see a newer version of the Crossbow gun and they kept the Magnum too, so it’s not a total loss.

Like the old-school weapons, much of Half-Life 2 is a throwback to the style of its predecessor. The health stations sound the same; you fight the same head crabs and infested zombie-like humans and have to solve the same sort of puzzles. It’s obvious that when you have an award winning, game of the year formula like Half-Life you’ll tend to stay in the general area with the sequel. In doing so, Valve has created a world that is distinctly “Half-Life” yet new in many ways.

The two original weapons in this game are the Gravity gun and the Ant-lion sacs. The former has two modes of operation. The first emits a gravitational pulse similar to the gauntlet in Quake 3 Arena. This mode can be used for destroying crates or moving broken down vehicles from your path. The second mode allows you to pick up objects (boxes, ammo clips, barrels) and drop them in place, fire them off into the air to move them out of the way or hurtle them towards unlucky assailants. Having a Gravity gun is a no-brainer when you have a physics system that accurately simulates forces, but the result is incredibly fun. Almost everything in the world is represented by geometry and almost everything can be picked up and launched at everything else. Metal bookcases can be used as shields; radiators can be ripped up from the floor and flung at Combine soldiers. You’ll even use your power over gravity to solve some of the various puzzles that show up in the game.

The second weapon is not really a weapon, per se. At a certain point in the game, you acquire a pheropod (“phero” implying pheromones) that lets you control giant ant lions as if you were their leader. Squeezing the pod calls your ant lion brethren to you, while throwing it will cause them to swarm all over the area where the pod lands. These guys come out of the woodwork and rip apart anything in their path. They can even fly to areas you can’t reach to take out snipers or other hard to get to bogeys.

New weapons aren’t everything this game has to offer though. At two points during the story you have to cover large spans of distance. And in both you have some form of enemy chasing you whether it’s a helicopter full of Combine or a swarm of giant ant lions. Naturally Gordon is going to need some transportation. The two vehicles you’ll use to thwart the Combine are an airboat and a high-speed dune buggy. Both can be difficult to get used to because they require the use of the mouse to aim the gun or look around and the keyboard to move. But once you get used to the controls and get her out in the open it is a total blast.

The only other thing you can really call a new feature is the ability to have rebels join you in the revolt against the Combine. These guys are so impressed by your elite reputation that they decide to follow you around thinking that you are somehow their savior. It really is too bad that none of them have hazard suits. They’re very frail without them. Some of them are medics and you have some limited control over their actions, but I didn’t find them overly useful. For the most part, they get in your way in stairwells, get mowed down by sentry guns or get themselves sniped as soon as they step outside. Don’t be too hard on yourself when they all end up dead. It’s not your fault.

That’s basically what Half-Life 2 has to offer functionally as a first person shooter. Where it goes beyond a typical first person shooter is in its story telling. The graphics engine is so realistic that you feel like you are participating in a movie. The character’s facial animation is incredible. It’s done so well, you can get a sense of how the characters are feeling. The game is seamless from start to finish with just minor loading screens in between zones. You never feel like you are unplugged from the cinematic experience you are taking part in. When you finally see what is being done to the citizenry by the Combine you’ll be aghast. As any good story will, this one will evoke a whole range of emotions throughout the game. The most poignant of these is likely the fact that the game leaves you hanging until the next installment.

There's not much more I can say about the story without giving it away other than that I liked it. It definitely provides all the elements of storytelling: Characterization, Setting, Theme, Conflict and Plot. The one up for debate is apparently Plot. I maintain that we haven’t seen the whole story so we can’t judge the whole story and am content leaving it at that. I know others disagree. Well, to each his own.