I’ve always been 2-4 years behind in the gaming scene due to never having an adequate computer to play the newest releases. If I’m lucky I may get to play HL2 sometime in 2007. So what can you tell me about the game without spoiling surprises? I don’t need a blow-by-blow of the plot, but can you tell me things that you would know from reading the help files or features that don’t give away plot points? Things like ways you can manipulate the virtual world that you couldn’t in HL1?
Well, one cool thing about HL2 is that you can pick up random objects (bottles, boxes, barrels) and huck them around. Sometimes this is just for random amusement (hurling bottles at NPCs to piss them off, Penny Arcade did a strip about this very issue 
). This also factors into some of the puzzles.
The singleplayer levels are really engaging, and from what I saw (I got all the way to midway through the speedboat part of the game) you spend much of the first part of the game getting chased around by badguys- imagine a ‘chase scene’ in most action films, that is what is going on. So its not just like a ordinary FPS where you wander around till you find the exit. Bad guys are chasing you, helicopters swooping around forcing you to huddle in sewers to avoid being spotted, having to deal with zombies that just BURST OUT OF THE GROUND :eek: and other neat stuff. There are also some puzzles in the game associated with all the stuff you can manipulate- carry floats under this ledge to make it buoyant enough to shift, forming a makeshift ramp which allows you to do a dukes of hazzard type jump.
I found the physics of the game very impressive; I shot a guard who was standing at the edge of a canal with my pistol, and he clutched his chest, then toppled off the ledge he was on and tumbled into the water! :eek: very dramatic!
Now now, you’re spoiling some of the cool bits of the game (though, to be honest, it gets way cooler than that).
If you want a non-spoiler idea of some of the cool things HL2 can do for gaming, just know that within days of release, there was a mod out that allowed you to weld together game objects: people were armoring their vehicles with all sorts of scrap metal, attaching CO2 canisters to things and then setting them off so they worked like jet engines, and so on. The physics system truly has to be experienced to be believed.
In Multiplayer Deathmatch, you can beat people to death with toilets that you ripped out of the wall. Or you can just throw wrecked cars at them. 
Non-Spoiler stuff you should know about Half-Life 2:
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It’s one of the best, if not the best videogame ever made.
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It uses a 3rd-party physics engine made by a company that works on the engine exclusively, so it’s very advanced. (Don’t know if I’d call it “realistic” exactly). Towards the beginning of the game, it’s just a gimmick, used for throwing trash around and riding on see-saws. Later in the game, though, it’s very cleverly used for puzzles, and there’s at least one weapon (I’m only halfway through as of this writing) that takes advantage of the physics engine.
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You spend as much time thinking about how to get through situations as you do shooting. IMO, the balance is perfect.
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You do drive vehicles, and there are whole sections of the game devoted to the vehicles, and they are hella rad. Some of the motorboat stuff is the most fun I can remember ever having with a videogame.
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The installer and copy-protection scheme is one of the worst, if not the worst ever made.
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HL1 made a big deal about being immersed in the story; HL2 does it much better IMO. Everything happens to you, in real-time, and it happens for a reason. The “gamey” bits are very few and far between; even the gimmicks are given some explanation by a line of dialogue or some other set-up. It’s still very linear, and it still feels like levels that have been set up by someone with a single correct path and a single correct solution to every puzzle, but even that is given a basis in the story (the resistance has already cleared a path for you).
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It must not be very difficult on the default setting, because I’ve died very few times and I suck at FPS games.
It’s bliiiiisssssss…
In the Xen levels, is there any object in the Xen universe that serves an an energy source you can charge you suit with? (Other than the batteries you find). All these years and it only just now occurs to me to even look for such a thing.
It’s been a while, but I thought there were some shallow pools that would slowly charge up the suit while you stood in them.
The shallow pools did health. The only way to get suit power is from the dead people in HEV suits surrounded by equiptment that seem to be everywhere in xen.
HUGE MEGA-SPOILER FOR HALF-LIFE 2 :
It’s got guns in it.
I finished the game in a disappointingly short time, but was using the easier level. The graphics are amazing and the interaction with the environment is unequaled. It’s also very intuitive in the way you are sort of forced into where you need to go.
My only problem? My fear of heights. Yes, the graphics are that good. Queasy stomach, breaking out in sweat, muscles tensed. Holy crap, that bridge was a bitch!
Only play on hard, even if you suck at games. Even on hard, it’s not very hard, but you’ll at least feel like its pushing you a bit. Far better to struggle and replay sections over and over that to rush through.
The only disappointment I had with the game is that I knew all the incredibly cool stuff they cut out in order to release. Other weapons, other physics tools and objects, other enemies. Still an incredible game, but it has obvious potential beyond even what is there already.
You can now try it out. Valve released a demo today.