I don't think that I'm wrong when i say that Half life was the first FPS game ever to have a story. Half Life 2 is the first ever to have a story that good. Valve hired a professional writer Mark Laidlaw and you can really feel it. I'm not going to reveal the story because that would greatly spoil your game experience, but i can say that it's so good you could make a movie. When the game starts, from the very first moment you are showered in questions and you hope that you will find the answers along the way...but the further you go, the more unclear everything gets...and this is what pushes you forward. I couldn't stop playing it. To fully understand what the creators are trying to say, you will have to complete this game several times and read all the info on the internet. For example. In one level there is a newspaper pinned to the wall. In that newspaper you can find an article about a very important event that explains many things. But chances are you will not even notice the paper. Everything in this game has a purpose. Starting from what the main characters say and finishing with the graffiti on the walls. It's all up to you how much of the story you will uncover.

This game has a very distinct feeling to it. While it's competitors (Doom 3 for example) spent their time developing the graphics and making the monsters look scary, Valve was designing, and creating the story. The location of the game is unknown, but if you looked really closely you could see some posters on the walls saying "Cafe Baltica". This suggests that it's somewhere around the Baltic sea in Europe. Furthermore The city closely resembles those built in The Soviet Union. Perhaps there is a clue somewhere that is still undiscovered? Whatever the location is, The style and the atmosphere of the game is fantastic and very original. The characters are also very detailed in any way posible. You can literally feel revolutionary moods everywhere around you(The world of the game is under command of an alien race). Every single human that you meet in the streets could be a main character of any game. When first saw Alyx (your sidekick throughout the game ) i was in shock. She must be the most realistic virtual human ever. Other characters are also great. finally the game features a fantastic robot called "Dog". One of the best in-game robots ever.

Half Life 2 could still be a good game if it had the graphics of the games from the 90's...but it doesn't :). The graphics are state of the art. It uses normal maps, bumps, everything is very detailed and nicely textured, the models are awesome, very original and good looking. I understand that it's main competitor is Doom 3. Well Doom can do those dark corridors really well, but thats about it. In half life you mostly find yourself in outdoors, and everything really looks very realistic. At the same time, interiors are also just as good as Doom's. In general graphics are good, but nothing to revolutionary here...you can't reinvent the bicycle.

Sound is also very good. Various effects distort and transform the sound in real time. For example if you're in a tunnel your buddy's voice or a gunshot sounds different then outside or inside a small building.

Outstanding! Everything and i mean EVERYTHING is effected by physics. Dead bodies, shrapnel, barrels, guns, med kits...you name it. General laws that exist in our world also exist in the game, for example - barrels full of air will lift under water, and a big old rusty dishwasher probobly weighs more then you do. Different materials react differently and emit different sounds. In most games, whenever you blow up something you can expect to have lots of flames, in Half life it's much more realistic. You will get some flames, but what makes the explosion really cool is that it will rip apart wooden boxes and boards and send them flying in all directions together with metal chairs, med kits dead bodies and whatever else is lying around. This unique physics engine also allows new game play trick and even weapons. Lets talk about weapons