Review: Half-Life 2 (XBX)

Waking from its 15-hour totalitarian dream, Gamestyle struggled to make sense of its mental notes; the secret police of City 17 were known as the Combine. Flash forward. Were it not providential that Zoetroped images of a Combine Harvester began to flicker in Gamestyle's mind? Subtext: awake is the new sleep for the benefactors of tomorrow.

Translation can mean many things to many people. The ongoing saga of Gordon Freeman, the everyman physicist caught up in a maelstrom of intrigue, has been perfectly translated to Xbox - however, in deference to the score, it's by no means a 'perfect' game. On a purely cosmetic level, there are hiccups with framerate (congenital lag attached to loading points), level-of-detail glitches that were reminiscent of Halo 2 (open a door and the world before you suddenly blinks into existence) and visible flaws in the gameplay ceiling (some maps, like Route Kanal and Water Hazard for example, allowed exploitation of No-go zones - whereby unfinished vectors and non-Z-buffered textures could be inspected).

For every perceived deficit, however, Valve have lifted the transliterative bar; also ported lock, stock and incendiary barrel to Xbox has been the proprietary Source code, which allows for true physical and aural properties. Glass can be intricately shattered; impact craters appear naturally under hail of gunfire; and objects reflect their volumetric weight when immersed in water. It's a truly persuasive sideshow, but what are we actually seeing?

Half-truths viewed through the prism of a reactionary hero, or proof positive that Gordon Freeman's hapless half-life has been atoned in the afterlife? It's a crisis of conscience that holds sway for every waking moment of Gordon's journey, and players will be pushed and pulled like ploughshares on the road to enlightenment. But time is of the essence, and there's just enough time to dissect its classic body parts; a brief history of gameplay elements that actually quantify its score.

Gamestyle isn't the font of boundless knowledge, but it does draw heat from the dead stars of gaming's firmament; in 1997, ill-fated US publication Next Generation isolated six quintessential ingredients found in every successful game throughout history. If hindsight is 20/20, then Half-Life 2 is the thousand-yard stare.

1. "A game with balance never leaves players sputtering 'That wasn't fair!', but instead doles out appropriate challenges and rewards on the way to its conclusion."

Gordon is awakened by the inscrutable G-Man en route to City 17. He arrives empty-handed and is pushed and pulled (like a ploughshare) until his Black Mesa colleague Barney Calhoun rewards him with a crowbar. Crash, bang, wallop - the very clank of steel on wire-meshed fence speaks to the game's solidity (or 'balance').

2. "If game designers want to keep players' attention, they will have to think of new and creative ways to challenge them."

On its first playthrough, Gamestyle drew a blank in the holding cells of Nova Prospekt. Obstructed by an energy field, and knowing full well that we needed to cut the power, our best efforts with the Gravity Gun were fruitless. Slumped on the faux concrete floor, we idly toyed with our grenades. Because there is a 'creative' difference between throwing a grenade (R trigger) or rolling it along the floor (L trigger), we inadvertently solved the problem: the gentle thrust of the grenade, having breached the barrier, simply blew out the fuse.

3. "Focus: decide what's fun about the game and make sure the player is exposed to it at all times."

Gamestyle hedges. It liked the steady acquisition of arms (Crossbow, anyone?) but equally whooped and hollered at the exposition of events. Half-Life 2 is like a box of chocolates. Or firecrackers.

4. "Games with fully developed character (including, when appropriate, fully developed characters) are the ones we remember and revere: they are the games that smack of care, planning and vision."

Gordon Freeman is a cad. He'd have to be - not to acknowledge the comely advances of Alyx Vance; to not melt like butter at her warm humanity. But that's the thing: it doesn't have to be Alyx, nor Gordon (nor even the oppressive Dr Breen), it's the ensemble cast - polygons infused with 'character' that actually backstep (and maintain eye contact) when they talk to you; forever cognisant of your role in their world.

5. "Make the player care about the goal of the game and then threaten to take it away - a great designer knows how to place players in this situation and how to provide that last trick or tool necessary to resolve the tension."

It's not exactly rocket science, but Gordon knows the transit pods in the Citadel will be taking him "somewhere". As his Gravity Gun is confiscated and his destiny entombed, the 'tension' rises. But equally, spare a thought for those do-or-die moments with the tripedal Striders: the air is wrought with tension as the last of their number is brought down; a mournful wail of lament as they expire.

6. "Energy in videogames is all about movement, momentum and pace; probably the most exciting and challenging method of introducing energy is from fine-tuning the AI to the point where players begin to feel that the game is truly reacting to what they are doing."

Indeed, as Gordon's path is plotted like clockwork throughout the game, the sights and sounds of his oppressors are everywhere. Even as Gamestyle waded through the murky Water Hazard for the third time, our ears pricked at the automated address system which belched: "Anticitizen reported! Status: malignant." Oops, we were the cancer in this woebegone society, we were the curse. And as the Combine Harvesters(!) of Thought Central raced to purify our soul, we retaliated.

Real 'bullet-time' isn't ballet; it's no-holds carnage that ends with a radio-transmitted flatline. It's one man making a difference; it's one game making a noise. Half-Life 2 is all that - and more

Rating: 10 / 10

Words by Steven Wrangell