Favourite Video Games #4 - Half-Life 2

I can't think of a first person shooter franchise that's better than the Half-Life series. Half Life was a brilliant and challenging game ahead of it's time, trying to tell a story without pulling you out of the gameplay. The second game continued that and surpassed it, but I'd like to talk about both.

In the first game, you assume the role of the voiceless theoretical physicist Dr Gordon Freeman, a research associate at the Black Mesa Research Facility. An investigation into a mysterious mineral causes a 'Resonance Cascade' which opens a portal between Earth and the alien world of Xen. Gordon is tasked with escaping the facility, navigating structural weaknesses and fighting off aliens from Xen while being monitored by the mysterious G-Man. However, things get complicated when the military take over the facility to deal with the alien threat - which also involves covering up the incident by eliminating anyone associated with the project. Gordon's mission soon changes to helping the Lambda team try and close the dimensional portal. For 1995, the game was innovative.

Anyway, Half Life 2 takes place twenty years later. The earth has been invaded by an alien empire known as The Combine. Gordon, who has spent the past two decades in temporal stasis, is pulled out to become a messianic revolutionary. The sequel features an all new physics engine to add more ingenious puzzles and sometimes allow you to use the environment to your advantage - with a special Gravity Gun to accomplish this. There was a lot of creativity, which was continued with the episodic follow-ups, but after a while the set pieces do tend to repeat themselves.

It's such a shame that Half-Life 2: Episode 2 has been on a cliffhanger for ten years now. While the action is repeating itself by this point, the story was beginning to get interesting. Another Half-Life to me is just as mystical and foreboding as winter is to the Starks.