Half Life 2 (a review and a comparison to the original)

Half Life 2 is the 2004 sequel to the critically acclaimed original Half Life (my review) and set fifteen years into the future. Since Gordon Freeman's victory, things have taken a turn for the worse and the earth is now under the totalitarian and dystopian rule of the Combine. These Combine, in addition to running a quite normal totalitarian police force, also employ a few alien monsters/creatures you will recognize as well as a few new ones, which they unleash onto the resistance.

In Half Life 2 you run, you jump, you shoot, you platform, you drive, and you solve physics based puzzles. The puzzles are actually quite good, if far too infrequent and being physics based make the game seem really down to earth and immersive. The platforming, and in particular the driving, is also quite well done and entertaining, but I think more of it could of been done without the constant pressure of enemy fire; Which is really my biggest gripe with the game, the near constant action.

For the most part you are in firefights, and while I think that Half Life 2 handles this action better then the original I sure enjoyed the greater amount of peaceful and non-action sequences in the original. Additionally, while the plot of the of the original had a few mysterious unexplained sections you had a basic idea of what was going on and what you did not know; This is not at all present in this sequel; You are working for the still completely mysterious G-Man; Fighting against an enemy that you have never seen before and other then the obvious observation that they are some sort of totalitarian police force you only know their name, you know absolutely nothing about where they come from, what they want, or even what they have been doing; And the rebels, you suddenly appear after fifteen years and everyone takes it in stride, does not even bother to get you caught up in recent events, and apparently have recruited the vortigaunts, a common enemy from Half Life who apparently have become a race of Yodas (incredibly wise and powerful) in your absence.

For the graphics I am somewhat divided, Half Life 2 still looks great and has even better graphics then the original is a few ways but I also think that a few things look significantly better in the original. Overall, I would say that Half Life 2 is superior but it is not quite as cut and dry as you might expect, but no matter where you think it stands with regard to the original it still holds up even to today's standards in attention to details and high resolution realism (while it is obvious that the original looks dated).

Overall, played basically back to back with Half Life original, it is simply not as good a game as the original. It is still a great game, and different enough that I hesitate to say it is objectively worse; I sure enjoyed the original  more, but I am sure that some people will enjoy Half Life 2 just as much or even more. But Half Life 2 does not really need to be compared to it predecessor and standing with the other games of its era it looks quite good, and it is undoubtedly one of the top FPSes of its decade.

Limbo

Limbo is a very famous indie XBLA platformer that recently got ported to the PC, giving me and many others the ability to finally play it. At its core it is simply a platformer with some puzzles but what makes it great is its style.

It is wonderfully dark, and I am not just talking about the graphics. The giant spiders, zombie worms, murderous children, and effective traps are all fantastically realized and delightful cruel, made all the more poignant because you are playing as a child. And while the officially explained plot is minimalistic I think it is safe to say that it all takes place in a dream that he has after falling asleep in a forest.

Dig-N-Rig Released

Dig-N-Rig is the latest release from the esteemed college of DigiPen. And in it you control a mining robot in what could only be a future world filled with red necks, where all usages of the word "and" has been removed and replaced with "N". In the game you dig (to liberate the precious minerals from the earth) and you rig (to create machinery that will transport these minerals back to your base), both of which I believe red necks enjoy. But you will not be decimating the natural landscape all the time, sometimes you get to take a break from this to kill off the local wildlife (another pass time of red necks).

I have only been playing this game for a few hours but I have to say that it is quite enjoyable, an enjoyment that is only further enhanced by occasionally shouting Git-R-Done at the computer screen (something I imagine the fictional lab workers whop control your mining robot do all the time), and cannot wait to get back to playing it. So I would highly recommend you all go Git-R-Done and download this indie gem.

Gallery: NightSky

My mini-review of NightSky.

Descent

Descent is the first in the series of games set in the Abyss. It has many similarities and differences from the other two games. One similarity is the setting, while certain allowances had to be made because it is a completely open world game, it is still very consistent to the overall feel of the abyss. The main difference is with the gameplay, which is in the style of a free form platforming game.

The main feature that really makes it seem like an Abyss game is the ever present, and creepy as always, Evil. While overall the story is quite lacking in content Evil's constant comments do a wonderful job of adding some story and the proper tone while never interrupting the gameplay. Which I think was a wonderful choice, because any more invasive techniques of story telling would of interrupted the flow of the game and deteriorated the wonderful feel of the gameplay.

The gameplay is very fun, addicting, intense, and very hard. After a leisurely trip down a cave system you encounter rising lava and have to race back up as quickly as you can. I never was able to beat the game, but got pretty close and even found a secret shortcut along the way, which really helped. It is a very short game, probably only taking about 5 minutes from start to finish if you do not make any mistakes, But it was designed to be played over and over again before you could possibly beat it.