Obligatory Game Review: Half-Life^2

[caraig]

This is the obligatory review of HL2. Be warned, it'll be pretty much how you expect.

*ahem*

OMG-OMG-OMG-OMG! @fanboy EEEEE!

G-Man: "Wake up and smell... the ashesss." *smiiiiile* Creepy!

Barney: "Guess that MIT education really paid off, didn't it, Gordon?" And he SMIRKS while SAYING IT!

I don't know about you, but I feel Valve has delivered on the hype. I mean, let's face it... it's a first-person shooter. There's only so much innovation that genre can take. Well, Valve has set the standard. AGAIN. This game is gorgeous and even if the gameplay is run-hide-and-shoot it is very very intense.

I think I'm so excited about it for two major reasons: the expressions of the characters, and the story itself. The fact that the characters HAVE expressions says something about the game. There's a lot to be said about this. It adds depth to the characters. This is in addition to the good voice-acting. Not since HL: Blue Shift have I given a darn about Barney, of all characters. (Speaking of which, I'd like to see Blue Shift: Source.)

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm far too early in the game to make a judgement but I'm pretty sure this is not going to be Emmy-award-winning voice acting, but it's very, very good, especially for a video game. The actors are audibly emotive, and the writing has clearly been done carefully; it wouldn't surprise me if the lines were written specifically for the voice actors in question.

That segues into the second Big Thing for me in HL2: the story. I remember visiting a friend in Texas when he showed me Half-Life for the first time. I was floored. The attention to detail in even the simplest things, and the developing plotline, were highly unusual for a game at that time. Granted, the plot was there just to loosely tie together the various levels, but it was done in such a way as if it seemed like a relatively good story was developing.

HL2 kicks it up a notch, and not just with an Emeril-esque BAM! but with tactical nuclear weapons. The story so far has been very intense, and while you don't get a lot of information at first enough comes to you in due course that it drew me into the game quickly. The excellent quality of graphics and audio help immensely. You don't soon forget a bunch of fascist cops charging up the stairs towards you, heavy boots stomping on cheap wood, with people shouting at you to run for the roof, the chitter of radio com-traffic and the whine of sirens and the roar of helicopters and bots outside. (Mind you, I can only imagine what that situation is like in real life, and I hope I never find out. That being said, somehow Valve tapped into some adrenaline when that scene started developing.)

There's been talk lately about the 'uncanny valley.' I might as well join the squeal, as well: HL2 treds the edge of the 'valley' but doesn't quite fall into it. In other words, the characters are lightyears beyond what they were in the first game, but they're not so realistic as to be disturbingly so. The facial textures are incredibly detailed; that was far far closer to the G-Man than I ever wanted to get. Every other game company is going to have a long way to go to meet this standard.

I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing how the plot of the game develops, even if it's just to hold together a bunch of first-person shooter levels. I'm startled that Valve took this much care to make so involved a plot. But that's okay, because it's Half-Life.


Here ends the geekout. You may now continue your normal lives. Me, I'm off to do the Half-Life Head-Crab Head-Bang for a bit longer. The Crowbar Is Back.

Comments

[ruggels.livejournal.com]

How do you get to the church in Ravenholm?

Scott

[caraig.livejournal.com]

I, ah, haven't gotten there yet. ^^;; Still working on getting through the city after the teleporter incident, and just got to the manhacks.

[ruggels.livejournal.com]

The most annoying things in the game... Well maybe not, but they are a pain in the ass. forget shooting them, it's crowbar time. Get the timing of your swing down good, though and remember to dodge sideways then TURN AROUND, when dealing with them. Batter up!

Scott

[buran.livejournal.com]

The collector's edition has the closed caption symbol on the back of the box, but as I'm still replaying HL1 (which it came with) before moving on to 2, I'm still not sure if that just means it's fully subtitled or what. Does your box have this?

[caraig.livejournal.com]

I didn't get the box, actually. A few months ago, I was lucky enough to have the game gotten for me via Steam, so I don't have any box, unfortunately. Still I checked the Audio Ooptions and they have three options for Captioning: None, Closed Captioning, anf Subtitles (dialogue only). So it looks like they really do have closed captioning. So that should be it, pretty much, they really do have closed captioning.

[buran.livejournal.com]

Just in case you may be wondering, the difference between closed captions and subtitles, generally, is that captions are written assuming the viewer can't hear cues of all kinds, not just the dialogue -- so you may see, say, "[Music plays]" on the screen or "[Speaking in Spanish]" or other cues to tell the viewer that there is something going on in the soundtrack that hearing people will automatically know.

The "closed" part means that you need special decoding equipment to receive the captions (a special chip in the TV that decodes the data embedded in the video signal) and that they are not part of the picture and can therefore be turned off. The term "closed" sort of still applies here, though instead of a TV doing the decoding, your selection of the CC option just tells the software to display the caption data.

Dunno if you knew, but now you do for sure! :>

[buran.livejournal.com]

Ooh, just found this:

http://www.deafgamers.com/04_05reviews/half-life2_pc.htm