I Am Replaying Half-Life 2

My girlfriend got a copy of The Orange Box the other day for her birthday, and I started telling her about Half-Life 2. And during the conversation, I realized:

I want to play this game now.

See, I’ve beaten this game once already. I got it a few months ago (again, as part of the Orange Box) and beat it, following it up immediately with Episodes One and Two (except that I never really beat Episode Two because of the so-annoying-it-makes-you-want-to-ragequit Strider fight near the end). And then I put it away.

Now, a few months later, I break from my playthrough (I’m currently at the part right after you first get the squad) to tell you: It’s just as good the second time.

Why? I’ll tell you after the break…

First of all, the game’s pacing is top-notch. While some of the standing-in-the-lab-and-watching-people-talk segments can get a little boring the second time, and the loading screens are a frequent occurrence, this game feels like it’s one cohesive beginning-to-end experience. The aforementioned breaks are merely rest stops on the way to the ending.

Often, when I’m playing a video game, a sibling will pipe in clamoring for their turn on the Xbox, and I will cede my controller to them at the next logical stopping point – the end of the level, perhaps. In Half-Life 2, there are no such points. While there may be points where you aren’t shooting anyone, the action never stops. The game never backs you out into a menu, never displays a pre-level cutscene, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen the number 100 in both my health and suit-energy meters. The game gives you a pep-talk, some plot development and a few medkits, and shoves you back into the action.

The level design is also the stuff of legend. While they may be linear, make no mistake, this isn’t a rail shooter in disguise, as many modern FPSs unfortunately are. This isn’t a game where you have one or two amazing setpieces followed by a half hour of walking through corridors and shooting baddies. The setpieces are both awesome and plentiful, and the interludes have a great deal of variety. Whatever you may be doing it right now – be it driving a machine-gun-equipped boat as a helicopter drops mines on you, leading a ragtag group of resistance forces through houses filled with metrocops, navigating your way through mazes with your Gravity Gun, or springing traps on headcrab zombies – you won’t be doing fifteen minutes from now, and yet the game still feels cohesive.

One thought I had earlier today: at no point during my playthrough have I encountered something that was so annoying it made me ragequit. In fact, I have not yet uttered the words “I forgot how annoying this was” (though I probably will, along with others, when I get to Episode 2’s Strider fight). While there may have been some annoying bits, they were just annoying enough to make me want to beat them. The difficulty walks that line between being too easy and having cheap deaths. Even the platform segments are manageable (having the ability to save at any time helps).

Some players who may be more familiar with “modern” shooters – those that ape the regenerating health and limited inventory of Halo – may be put off slightly by the healthpacks and the fact that Gordon can somehow carry a small army’s arsenal. Those people are morons. The game does a great job of keeping you on your toes during fights, while still providing ample health at regular intervals (not too much, though). And you won’t want to put any of these weapons down: Valve did a great job of making each of them feel like the best weapon in the game.

There is no “default weapon” that you’ll always use (i.e. the Halo DMR), and there is no weapon (not even the pistol) that can’t hold its own in the fight. What’s more, Valve accomplished this feat without falling into the trap of giving weapons too-well-defined niches; you can (and will want to) use ANY weapon in ANY situation, based on personal preference… and yet no two weapons feel the same. If you use one weapon the whole game, you’re missing out. (For example, I was an SMG/Pulse Rifle guy the last playthrough, but now I’ve found myself using grenades and the double-barreled shotgun a lot more.)

And then there’s the Gravity Gun, which I was afraid was going to be like the lightsaber in Jedi Knight (the weapon which makes all others obsolete) but which actually fits well in the sandbox. While you can play through most of the game using it exclusively (I am a proud owner of both the Zombie Chopper and The One Free Bullet achievements), or not using it at all, I’m flip-flopping between it and the other weapons because every weapon in the game is so awesome.

There are flaws, though. Weapon selection on the 360 is a bit of a pain (I’ve found that the best way is to use my right thumb on the D-Pad). Loading screens are a bit too frequent, though thankfully not very obtrusive. Some of the tools at your disposal, like the squad mechanic and the hoppers, just feel useless, but maybe that’s because I don’t know how to use them effectively yet. And then there’s the Strider fight of Episode 2. With that said, Half-Life 2 is worth playing, over and over and over again. Followed immediately by Episodes One and Two.