by Mr. R-P-G

First let me preface this by saying that I LOVED the first game. If it were a woman I would marry it, if it were a man I'd call myself gay and get married to it. It set the standard for games to come for a long time. Now six years later and a lot of heartache and martial disputes with it over when our love child would be born, I stand before you a happy man. I can say without a doubt that I have played this game inside and out and I feel like I just found out my first born is retarded.

The game begins much in the same vein as the first: you are riding a train. The difference begins immediately though. You don't have to wait for the second comingof Christ before the game really starts, and there was a small intro before the train. You walk through the basic tutorial level that teaches you about the environmental interactions (that poor briefcase), and of course it treats you to so much eye candy that you'll need insulin eye drops to treat your diabetes.

From there everything proceeds as one would expect, you meet up with old friends and make a new one. Then, because Valve likes to follow a pattern in their games, shit goes wrong and you start getting hunted again. From here things get difficult for me, because my past experience colors how look at this game and I want so badly to speak nothing but good about it. The reality is that I find it difficult to do so without blatantly lying. There are only 3 major goals in the game: meet up with someone, rescue someone, rescue two people. They stretch it out over several chapters and throw you curve balls to confuse you, but that is the gist of it.

PLUS they make you use this horrible virus called Steam to even play the game. Steam is a virus. It sets itself up to be the first thing running after Windows starts, and then refuses to be shut down ever. Then if you have any old Valve products on your system it will try to force you into running them through Steam. Yeah right, I'll do that right now........ psych! Plus, I have it on good authority that the main purpose of Steam isn't to prevent piracy, but to jack Vivendi Universal out of money that they rightly deserve as for their exclusive distribution rights agreement. I love all the drama that plays out between these companies too. Valve bitches that VUG took advantage of them, well guess what? That's what a publisher does. VUG is pissed because Valve pulled some fast ones on them and now they are in court over the whole thing. Personally, I have inside information that puts me on the side of VUG, but while they are in the midst of a legal battle my lips are sealed.

Back to the game: the physics are hella tight and the action is always intense. Levels like Ravenholm and the ruins of City 17 give the game a creepy feeling that wont go away. Highway 17 offers some fun times with the gravity gun as well as a few impressive vistas. All in all the game delivers more than it's fair share of fun and beauty. The weapons are a step down from the first game in power and ammo limitations, but it does help make the game harder than it would be otherwise. Storyline shortcomings are obvious and blatant to anyone who has only played the game. You shouldn't have to read online extras to find out what happened "while you were gone." And while you are offered small hints here and there as to why you are back in action again it's never explained, and it seems like we'll have to wait another six years maybe longer to find out if they'll tell us more about this man we know Gordan Freeman.

My opinion is not overly high for this game, and sadly the more I played it the more I found wrong with it. It'll make a good gift for anyone who is a first person shooter fan. Hell, you might even like it yourself. Go play it yourself, you might think I'm a wack job who deserves time a mental institution. All I know is what I tell you. The game is like a highly polished quartz crystal; It looks beautiful and to someone who doesn't know better you might even think it's something better than it really is. But ultimately, something is what you think it is. If you think it's the best game ever, then to you it is. You'll be robbing yourself of an experience at least it you don't give it half a chance. As for me, I'll be waiting for Half-Life 3 just like everyone else.

Mr. R-P-G out

-Mr. R-P-G is the one of the many video game junkies here on WorkingSnug.  Look for his 'Metroid Prime 2' review coming in the near future!