I have a guilty secret: I never managed to actually finish the original Half-Life. No such problems with the sequel though.

I pre-ordered HL2 through Steam, having been impressed after entering my CD key from the original HL and finding it downloaded the latest version. I pre-loaded the HL2 files and when the offers came up, plumped for the Silver package, which is basically all the gaming goodies and none of the merchandising crapola.

Like many, I encountered problems getting into Steam on the day of release. But years of MMOG playing has hardened my to launch day logins, so I just gave up and came back the next day when it all worked spiffingly. Five minutes of hash-checking and I was in.

The first screen you see is almost a revelation. In the background of the game menu is as good an approximation of reality as I've seen in a while: it depicts a peaceful-looking town square with a modicum of activity. As you progress through the game, this scene changes to other locations along your path as the reach them, each with their own little activities.

On beginning the game-proper, you're thrown right into the weird as a besuited individual (known, apparently, as the G-Man and who had something to do with the ending of the original HL) lectures in his oddly cadenced way about what you're going to do. This gives Valve's new facial animation system it's first workout and it does work pretty well, though in the middle of a trip of some sort is perhaps not the best time to define realism. As the G-Man fades out with the line “wake up and smell the ashes” you then appear on a train - thankfully for a shorter journey than in the original - along with two very dispirited fellow travellers dressed in identical blue overalls.

Talking to them (that is, walking up and pressing the use key - you never say a word yourself) will elicit complaints about their situation. The train then arrives at where you'll be spending a lot of the future: City 17. It's worth looking around here, as in the later stages you'll have little time to sightsee. Obviously there's been a great amount of time spent in getting the place to look real, even down to the dust floating in the air where the sunbeams cut across a room. The whole place feels dispiriting and the overalled characters around add to the ambience - one girl plaintively explains her husband was taken from the train they were on by Civil Protection and she was told he be on the next train. The self-same Civil Protection - Fascist-style guards dressed in armour and gas-masks, and carrying shock sticks - keep order around the station. Get too close and they'll order you back, then whack you with the stick if you don't obey. Throw a piece of litter at them and they'll try for a three-fold beating, though they are relatively easy to dodge and give up easily (a bid of ennui even in the troops it seems). You're pretty much immortal at this point, and on a couple of occasions I was able to get into a game of guard tennis by getting one guard to bash me into another, who would respond, knocking me back into the first.

Hovering over the proceedings are the other prerequisite of your average modern fascist dictatorship: the propaganda screens. On them, Dr. Breen - the erstwhile Administrator for Black Mesa in the original, now apparently leader of the world - welcomes everyone to City 17, “one of the few remaining cities ... where its safer” and lectures on the evils of instinct, which is something to avoid these days. He also talks about how he likes this city so much, it's where he's head quartered in the citadel kindly supplied by “our benefactors”.

Anyway, the scene set, if not exactly explained (How did we get to this state of affairs? How long has Gordon been gone? Why do none of the clocks have hands?) the station plays out how much of the game will: you're led down a single route, which often twists back on itself and you're going to be fighting the fascists. Though not yet, unless they're more susceptible to broken bottles than they appear to be. As you're making you way through a checkpoint, you're ordered at stick-point into a side corridor. In one of the rooms someone is heard explaining they have the correct papers, but if you peer in, one of the CP slides the window closed. Meanwhile, your guard orders you into an adjoining room and stows away the camera in there “for a little privacy”.

Fortunately, a beatdown doesn't ensue, though Barney (for it is he, the security guard from the original) does admit to being behind on his beating quota. He explains he's been working undercover and was shocked to see you. He contacts Dr. Kleiner (also from HL1) and they decide to send you over to the lab with the help of Alyx Vance. Unfortunately, at this point he's interrupted by a knock on the door and sends you off into a back room with instructions to pile some stuff up to climb out the window. This is another recurring theme in the game, where one of more of your friends will turn up, advance the plot, then throw you to the wolves (Barney on several occasions with “you're the one with the HEV suit”... which, I may point at has been sitting in Kleiner's lab for a few years... why didn't you use it before if it's so wonderful...)

Anyhoo... still bereft of a weapon beyond a plastic bottle and without your suit, you can wander through the rest of the station (during which a bored guard amuses himself by forcing you to pick up a can he knocks over - see if you can get it in the bin by bouncing it off his head for the love and respect of your peers). Outside, there's a nice square (as seen on the game menu) which has been marred by one of the propaganda screens and has its exits blocked by forcefields. Approach one of these and your picture will be taken. In fact, to add to the aura of oppression, floating cameras often stop to take a few snaps of you.

There's only one way out of the area and from here the game proper slowly ramps up. As you work you way along (past a deserted playground where some of the game's use of the Havok physics engine is shown off) you'll get caught up in a house-to-house search and find yourself dashing over the rooftops trying to escape. Eventually, just as you're about to be shock-sticked to death, Alyx turns up to save your bacon and take you to Dr. Kleiner's lab. Here, you'll be given your HEV suit back, introduced to Kleiner's pet headcrab (fortunately de-beaked, but still capable of freaking out Barney) and offered a once-in-a-lifetime chance to test out the new teleporter. Unfortunately it goes wrong, and you're thrown back outside the lab where Barney throws you your crowbar and tells you to make it on foot through the underground canal.

Thus, finally be-weaponed (albeit of limited ability) you start to play HL2. Two CP harassing a couple supply you (eventually) with a pistol and some bullets and you're on the run. The route is generally straightforward (this is no Farcry) and any choice of routes has one leading on and one leading to a small cache of supplies (sometimes with a surprise). Initially, you're bugged only by CP troops who, like yourself, have only a pistol for protection. They're not averse to chucking flaming barrels your way though. Fortunately, you can return the favour with a few well placed shots.

The underground railroad out is manned at various stages by members of the resistance. Unfortunately, they're being attacked today, so your chances of finding live helpers at the various stops along the way are diminished. At one though, you'll find it staffed by a two resistance members, one of whom is a Vortigaunt - the three-armed lightning-firing aliens from the first game - who're now on our side. Anyway, after calling you “The Freeman” and the Combine's downfall, he zaps up your suit's power and they send you on your way.

Eventually, your scrambling through these tunnels will lead you - via being bombed by head-crab bombs, of all things - to getting an Airboat. This is one of those boats you may have seen if you've ever watched a movie set in the Florida Everglades: basically a surfboard with a huge fan on the back. As you make you way down the canal on this, it's one of the more exhilarating rides in the game. CP will take pot-shots at you as you head down the canal, over the various ramps (which prevent you backtracking too I suppose, but a good use of the device) and will eventually call in a chopper to take you out. At a couple of points along the way you need to stop off to take to the land to remove obstacles (such as locks) and on one occasion an entire smokestack is taken out in an attempt to stop your progress.

Halfway down the canal, your boat is given an upgrade in the form of a decent laser bolt weapon. This allows you to have a knock-down battle with the chopper which, if you defeat, you'll have the pleasure of seeing the pilot in the debris. After this you arrive at Black Mesa East, which is the resistance's big lab, headed by Alyx's father, the now-one-legged Dr. Eli Vance (from the original). Here's where you get hold of HL2's new toy, the Gravity Gun. This device allows you to pull and pick-up girls... er... items in the world and then launch them great distances. In a little tutorial, you play catch using it with Alyx's pet Dog, who is in fact a large bipedal robot made from, it appears, ex-Combine parts (his head and eye are from one of the camera drones that follow people in the city). After you've proved at least competent with the gun, combine forces start sweeping the area and you're forced to split from Alyx (first Barney does it... now her) and head into Ravensholme.

Ravensholme, as Alyx told you earlier, is where they don't go. As it turns out, this is because it was attacked by head-crab bombs some time ago. Basically, it's now filled with the damn things and you're probably going to be low on ammo. Fortunately, you have the gravity gun and there are some useful items around the place. Possibly the best of these are serrated wood saw blades. When picked up by the gun, the float horizontally. When fired, they go through a row of zombies like a hot knife through butter. In Ravensholme, you'll also meet Father Gregori, who's not all that on this side of the sanity line. He's not unhelpful though, and if you get far enough through the town he'll help you out, and out of the town.

Back in the city, you'll meet your first snipers, your first Overwatch troops and, when you make it through, your second driving sequence. This time you get a buggy and you get to drive down the beach, avoiding Antlions. This section is similar to the Airboat one in that at certain points you need to stop off on occasion to clear your route. You'll also learn how to take out a Gunship with laser-guided missiles. Useful training for later.

Eventually, you abandon the buggy and make your way through Antlion territory on foot until you encounter an Antlion Bull. Killing this provides you with a Pherapod which, after a small tutorial, you can use to control your Insect Army... bwahahahahahaha! Er... I'm sorry, don't know what came over me... you only get four Antlions at a time. Anyway, you're going to take your new shock troops and enter Nova Prospekt, where Eli Vance has been taken.

From this point on, you've pretty much seen all that's new in the game. It just gets difficult from here. Inside Nova Prospekt, you'll meet up with Alyx, find out who the traitor in the resistance is and find Eli. In escaping though, the teleporter gets blown up, and it takes a couple of weeks for you to arrive. In the meantime, the revolution has started, though it needs you to finish it.

Actually, there are some new things to come I guess. Hoppers and Squads. Hoppers are proximity mines, but you can use the gravity gun to deal with them. During the next section too you get a squad of resistance troops to help you - up to four at a time follow you around and, generally, get in the way and die. They're unfailing polite though, and when they've done their baby duckling act and followed you into a small room, do apologise when you walk into them trying to get out.

Success in this section, which is pretty long and includes several rocket battles against striders, finally leads to Dog finding a way for one person to get into the Citadel. Barney volunteers you. Thanks Barn. Inside, alone, it's you against the Combine. A little jumping around leads to a Monsters Inc-esqe ride through the citadel. Lots of stuff going on here, most of it is left unexplained. Eventually, all your weapons are stripped from you and disintegrated - except for the Gravity Gun, which is now supercharged by the process. This basically means you have one gun, and it can rip things from the walls, drag a full adult across 20 yards and fire them even further away. It's a fun, if limited way to finish up. Eventually, you'll make it to Breen's room at the top of the citadel, where he reveals he's captured Eli and Alyx, and wants Eli to switch sides or he'll kill Alyx. After they refuse, he turns to Gordon, but the traitor switches sides again and stops his plan. Breen does a runner and it's up to you and Alyx to stop him. I'll not reveal the denouement. Suffice it to say it keeps in with the whole story so far.

Conclusions

One of the best FPS's around I think, and the first game I've actually been bothered to finish for a while certainly. In a month when GTA:San Andreas and Halo 2 were released, it's the better of the “Big Three”. The environmental graphics are exceptional, only Farcry is on the same level and the facial animation is very well done. The level design is excellent, if linear. The plot is average (generic post-apocalyptic fascist society #7) but well done nevertheless. Still, I feel though I'm not really involved in it. Towards the end, when I'm tearing down the citadel, I feel I'm doing it more because it's the way to finish the game and less because it's what's right. True, it's a fucked-up regime I'm bringing down - but at what cost and, for who's benefit. Some of Breen's comments as you tear through the citadel are telling: what has Gordon built. Then again, it's just a game