Half-Life 2 is a First Person Shooter game in which your goal is to help the resistance fight off the controlling forces that took over the world after the events of Half-Life 1. Just like the first game, Half-Life 2 has excelled to a point where its place in history is set to stone as one of the best games ever made.
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| Moving can be challenging when done right! |
The gameplay mechanic is very simple and no different from the first game. You control your character around the world and have to eliminate the challenges by shooting at them and solving puzzles. Nothing extraordinarily original, but just like the first game, what lies underneath is nothing short from greatness. What really makes this game shine is how every challenge is created around the use of one or more mechanic, be it a weapon, movement or just interaction with the environment. And every subsequent challenge or puzzle will gradually increase in complexity and difficulty. When you get to feel comfortable with one mechanic the game will throw something new at you. In particular the Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator (also know as Gravity Gun) play a big role, but that is just because it is not your regular shooting weapon, which opens a lot of possibilities that were very well used.
Half-Life 2 takes everything that worked well in the first game and makes it better. Sound, voice over, scripted events, plot, graphics, you name it... Well, not the User Interface, that one had little improvement. Despite this minor set back Valve managed to intertwine all mechanics so well together that most games still have not figured out how to reproduce their successful formula. Although being just a shooter game, Half-Life 2 manages to be much more than just a shooter game.
Final Score: 10 out of 10.