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Review : Half-Life 2 for Xbox
This week I rented Half-Life2 for Xbox. I like millions of gamers all over the world absolutely loved the first Half Life on PC and PS2 and I was bummed out to find out that the long awaited sequel would not even come close to being able to run on my old PC notebook and they have not made a Mac OSX version so I could not try it out on my iBook G4. So I was doubtful that they could pull off a good version on Xbox 1 and I was quite pleasantly surprised. The PC game pushed machines harder than they have been pushed in a long time and thousands of gamers shelled out thousands for new PCs and graphic cards for Half-Life 2. The Xbox is based on a Pentium 3 CPU with a GeForce 3 GPU so Valve Software had a man's task in making an Xbox version of their masterpiece.
The story centers around Gordon Freeman scientist with a crowbar and several years after the first game's events. The first game unleashed aliens from another dimension onto the world and this game is set in a post apocalyptic dystopia run by a tyrannical government and the constant threat of nasty head sucking monsters from far far away. Half-Life 2 is just as cinematic and story driven as the first game and it offer a wonderful dark action game with a great story line. There is still a dark dead pan black humor in the game but unfortunately you can't take your crowbar to people that are on your side.
The graphics are mind blowing on Xbox. They were able to pull off all the shaders, complex geometry, skeletal animation, facial animation and huge streaming environments on the aged Xbox 1 hardware. Sure it is not running in 1024x786 but it is incredible that they were able to pull it off. The Xbox is focused on the resolution of standard TVs and 480p HDTV and they pulled off all the loading places as the PC and did not have to make major changes to the game. There is some sacrifices to frame rate in some places but it does not really affect one's enjoyment of the game.
The sound is perfect and needs to be played with good speakers to create the slightly disturbing environments. There is good music when needed and the character acting comes across in great interactive 3d sound. Half-Life 2 has the best in game character acting and the story sequences are pulled off seamlessly inside the game engine.
There is no Xbox Live support and there is no multiplayer game play. Sure the true Half-Life fanatics will scoff at the Xbox version because of this but it delivers one of the best first person shooter stories and a truly immersive experience.
I am going to have a hard time turing this back in to the rental store on Wednesday and I might pick this up and add it permanently to my collection. I am glad that because of this version that I am not left out getting to enjoy Half-Life 2. This one is for all the Mac fans out there. I consider this a first person shooter action RPG that is so much beyond a typical twitch action game. This make first person shooters look good. I would crap my pants if I saw this game on Xbox 360.
Jake at January 23, 2006 
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