Half-Life 2

The Good
To me, HL2 is the best first-person shooter ever - and I rarely get this excited by an fps. The original was already out of this world, and HL2 did the impossible - it's even better. Despite being linear and mostly ordinary at first glance, the levels are often humongous and offer plenty of room for exploration. Graphically, the game is gorgeous even years after its release. I especially appreciate the vibrant colors and the excellent facial animations of the NPC's, at least the important ones.

Half-Life 2 may not be a horror game, but it still managed to instill jumpiness and paranoia in me during my very first playthrough. Few games have achieved such immersion, and few games have such an incredibly detailed, realistic-feeling yet still extremely interesting world. The physics engine in particular improves the experience a lot. The Gravity Gun we get around halfway through the game is easily the best weapon in gaming.

One of the things Half-Life gets but many other shooters, like Doom 3 and Call of Duty fail to get, is that it's all about the pacing. It shouldn't be all "action extreme yeah!" all the way through, but there needs to be quiet moments as well. The shooting, the exploring, the puzzles, everything works perfectly in this game and after shooting a couple of dozen enemies it always feels nice to draw a breath and do something lighter for a change. And the vehicle segments are some of the best I've ever seen.

The story may not be overly original and its connection to the first game feels shoddy at first, but it's still intriguing and is perfectly bound into the game without action-stopping cutscenes or long buckets of exposition. The game is more like a road movie, with the scenery constantly changing to keep things interesting. And Alyx Vance might just officially be my favorite character in all of gaming.

The Bad
Despite what somewhat overly glowing reviews (like mine) may claim, HL2 is far from perfect, and has some design flaws, chief among them that there's only one power meter for the flashlight, sprinting AND oxygen while underwater, so performing any of these activities at the same time will prove to be frustrating - fortunately Episode Two fixed this.

Being the sequel to a game that was praised for its AI, HL2's AI is rather bad. The enemies are no worse off than in any other fps, but I expected more from Valve. The rebel teammates, on the other hand, are just terrible, always blocking doorways, running headfirst into a swarm of bullets and freaking out over one headcrab which they take forever to kill due to running around too much. The fact that non-essential NPC's have only two voice actors and about a dozen faces is also pretty obvious towards the end, but it never really bothered me too much.

The Bottom Line
Half-Life 2 is an immersive, extremely entertaining adventure with tons of gameplay variety, an appropriate length and an interesting story that should not be missed by anyone, even if you don't normally enjoy first-person shooters.