Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

100 or More Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Instant classic"

THE GOOD: improved graphics, excellent soundtrack, the new co-op mode, decent multiplayer, wide range of weapons,well balanced difficulty

THE BAD: no online, decay is short

GRAPHICS: at the time half life was one of the better looking ps2 games, graphics have been upgraded for the ps2 version. with new weapon models and NPC models it looks considerably better than the original. there are about 5-6 charecter models and the animations are smooth and realistic. On the other hand textures aren't very impressive.

GAMEPLAY: there are absolutely not cutscenes in the game your in gordons shoes from start to finish and its very easy to get immersed in the game. Half life offers solid fps gameplay and the only time the action slows down is when you find one of valve's simple but logical puzzles this is normally just find a way over this bridge or open this door. The game starts of slow and builds up throughout the course of the game. You strart off picking up your standard arsenal, a glock, machine gun, shot gun and later on you get a few experimental weapons. you'll occasionaly come across a boss fight

SOUND: the game has an excellent soundtrack that kicks in at just the right moment to deliver a stunning experience when your running through the abandoned facility fighting of waves of enemies. All of the weapons sound powerful and realistic and the voice acting gets the job done even though there is only 1 person to voice all the scientists

STORY: You play as gordon freeman a scientist who assists in an experiment, something goes wrong and now a portal opens from earth to xen an alien planet,soon later aliens start pouring through and its up to you to make it to a lambda complex so you can teleport to xen and close the portal. Half way into the game the milatary is called in to help however they not only kill the aliens they start killing of the remaining scientists including you, when the nihilanth is defeated gordon is offered a job by the mysterious gman

MULTIPLAYER:the game features a head to head mode with about 7 or 8 maps and the new co-op mode decay and this more than compensates for the lack of online found in the pc version

CONCLUSION: this game is an excellent purchase for anyone who is a fan of first person shooters, ps2 or pc itdoesnt matter which the point is that its well worth picking up,although i would recommend the pc version