User Reviews (11 - 21 of 51)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

If Half Life 2 was a car, it would be a high-end Mercedes.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: December 18, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Remember when "Doom" first came out? (For younger folks, it may be the first time you saw "Halo") Those were games that changed the status quo, and set the bar high for every game that came afterwards. I have over 25 Xbox games, and even more for the PC. After playing this for a few days, I'm motivated to tell how impressed I am with Half Life 2.

This is a game that will stun you with it's attention to detail. The level design, textures, sounds, physics, and interaction are on a level of perfection that I've never experienced in any game on any platform. There are times when you will get yourself killed on purpose, just so you can play through a part of the game again... recruiting friends and family to watch in amazement. Here are just a few examples:

1. Playing catch using barrels with a giant robotic "Dog" and the gravity gun.
2. Ordering your killer spider/crabs (think of the bugs in "Starship Troopers") to attack the enemy... then watching while they shred the bad guys.
3. Firing rockets at the "War of the Worlds"-ish walking spider bots, then watching them sway from the concussion.
4. Moving crates and/or anything metal from a giant crane/lift... and dropping them on the heads of bad guys. Splat!

I could easily go on an on reminiscing about the realistic rag-doll physics of nearly everything in the game: human bodies, swings, signs, gates and doors, corpses of dead creatures, and more. Everything that moves has a very realistic feel to it. It's not really a big deal as gameplay goes, but the attention to detail and realism just makes this game all the more enjoyable.

Ever played a shooter where you could see the enemy, but couldn't shoot them because your bullet wouldn't pass through a glass window, floor grate, or other object that was in the way? Grrr! In Half Life 2, if you have a clear shot, and they would take damage in the real world... you can shoot them.

The game has so many different playability features, it is difficult to remember them all. You can walk and run, jump, drive vehicles and machinery (hovercraft-ish boat, dune-buggy, shipping container crane/lift). There are times when you work alone, times when you have a single companion, and times when you have a squad of admiring troops along to help. Best of them all is when you get to command the killer bugs (mentioned above). Another nice detail: when you climb a ladder, you push a button to mount, and push it again to dis-mount... which always places you firmly on the proper surface you were climbing to (unlike many games that require a perfectly timed dismount/jump/arrow combination in order to properly move from a ladder without falling to your death or serious injury).

This game is not just a standard mission based shooter. There are plenty of challenging situations where common sense is required. Sometimes you need to drive and jump over ramps. You'll find lots of goodies stashed in sheds, trash containers, buidlings, and crates. You might need to do some climbing, walking across narrow ledges, or even using the gravity gun to lift and/or stack items to reach areas that are otherwise inaccessible. This doesn't mean hours of wandering all over the place looking for keys to unlock doors like many other games. In HL2, every challenge has a logical and realistic solution. For example, you frequently encounter doorways that are protected by a electrical field. In some cases, you have to find another way around. If you are paying attention, there are times when you can use the gravity gun to push/pull/throw things around on the other side of the forcefield that might push a button, kill the power, etc... Sometimes, lobbing or rolling a grenade near the power cable would cut the energy source and open the door. It's not always the same solution, and that's what makes it fun and challenging.

I'm not 100% done with the game yet, but so far here are the cool weapons and gadgets that I've acquired:

- standard pistol
- high-powered pistol (9mm or .45?)
- machine gun
- shotgun (handy indoors for disposing of the head-crabs, zombies and other bad guys)
- energy gun (shoots electrical bursts, kinda like in Halo)
- crossbow (with scope... an instant kill, even from a distance)
- grenades (can be thrown long distances or rolled nearby)
- rocket launcher
- killer bug controller (not sure what it's called, but you squeeze it to get their attention, and throw it to tell them where to attack)
- gravity gun (can pull items toward you and/or pick things up and throw or drop them wherever you wish)
- crowbar (good for smashing items, clobbering bad guys, splintering doorways blocked by wooden planks, etc...)

There's so much more I could say about the details, the freedom to roam and go pretty-much wherever you want, and the quality of the graphics and sound. If you are at all intrigued, then get a copy of this game or rent a copy for hours of engaging fun. Thanks for reading!

Very good, with a few scratches.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: August 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Half-life 2 on XBOX is is better than other shooters like Halo and the like, because instead of simply going in for the kill, you have to be resourceful and quick witted to navigate the levels and overcome obstacles. Not to mention, and I loosely quote one of Halo's developers, Halo is all about the same thirty seconds of fun repeated over and over. He couldn't be more correct. In Half-Life 2, progression usually guarantees new sights, and stimulates interest in playing further. The guns are not anything incredibly original, but they are well balanced and have some cool features. At least none of them need ten seconds to charge to make one shot effective, like 'Covenant' weapons. As for story, the beginning is absolutely riveting as you work to escape the Orwellian cruelty of the Combine's city. The city itself is beautifully rendered and very believable, as are the NPC's. The alien creatures you encounter are a heck of a lot less annoying than Halo's Flood. I think the head-crabs could use work though. They look like animate rotisserie chickens! Awesome game, by far better than most of the competition. My only major complaint is that the vehicle levels are too long and repetitive, and the vehicle controls suck and you can't see a freakin' thing. This won't kill the game for you, but by God in the ski-boat level, it will definitely try. Anyway, if you like shooters at all, buy this one.

A great game, but. . .

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 9
Date: November 18, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Half Life 2, for x-box, is probably the best looking game x-box will ever put out. The physics engine is incredible, allowing the player to pick up almost anything and manipulate it.

There are only two gripes I have with this game. First of all, the intro is really . . . really . . . really. . . long. It was a good twenty minutes or so before I was shooting stuff.

That is a minor gripe compared to gripe #2: no multiplayer. No splitscreen no x-box live, no nuthin'. Nothing extends the life of a great game like a solid multiplayer experience (e.g. halo and halo 2).

Overall, HL2 is a beautiful game with great graphics, gameplay, and intuitive control. If you've already bought HL2 for PC, there's no reason to buy it for x-box. But if you haven't, and you're a fan of FPS's, then I think you'll be very please with this title.

Potentially excellent game but....

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: March 22, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Some huge levels with excellent designs but the graphics seemed a bit hazy/fuzzy/scratchy. Most of the levels are kind of empty of action. There are some truly awesome bits where I was thinking "WOW!" then a lot of other bits where I was going "YAAWWWN!!"

Some cool weapons (especially the gravity gun), and cut-scenes but overall a bit boring. Massive potential but the combat scenes needed to be more intense, longer and more of them. (I like blowing stuff up ok?) Half Life 2 allows you to save at any point which is cool. Lots of puzzles, and you can interact with lots of objects, (check out the tyre swing; whack it and watch the amazing life-like reactions)
Overall pretty interesting but a bit dull, extreme anti-climatic ending. Unfortunately I cannot but help compare any FPS to the Halo games, and in my opinion, this comes close but no cigar...

The best game on Xbox?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: March 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

In my opinion yes. Anyone who has heard about this game but doesn't have a fast enough computer to run it (as was the case with me) should buy this game. The gameplay is inspired. There is only one section midway through the game where I felt that the transition from mouse and keyboard to a console control pad hurt the game. Outside of that one complaint the graphics are amazing (for Xbox). the sound design is girpping with atmospheric music that wafts in and out. The characters are interesting and well acted. Everything about this game is TOP NOTCH. Anyone who says that Halo 2 is a better game is quite simply an idiot. Halo obviously has better multiplayer (as this game has none) but outside of that there is simply nothing on Xbox that comes close to the single player experience. Awesome, awesome game.

wait for the xbox360 version

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: March 18, 2007
Author: Amazon User

i never played the pc version but i imagine it is a smoothly running version of this game. if thats the case then it must be incredible. this game however has a choppy framerate too much of the time. for a guy like me who has been playing games like halo and call of duty it was too much for me, i ended up quiting before i got to the end. the story seemed awesome and the visuals were sweet but neither is good enough to put up with the absolutely lousy framerate issues

So Close To Perfection!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 14
Date: November 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Damn this game was almost perfect. I mean it was teetering on perfection. The first twenty minutes of gameplay I spent weeping at its brilliance.

One major hang-up. LOAD TIMES. I usually don't bitch about load times. Hell, I played "Morrowind" ritually, and God knows they've mastered the art of allowing you to cook a four-course meal between loading screens.

But in Half-Life 2 the load times will actually devastate the pace of the game. At first I overlooked them, after all it's an immaculate game with graphics that surpass anything seen on the XBOX.

Then you get to the airboat, which easily rivals driving the warthog in Halo (die, Halo 2! Die!). The action is intense and you really honestly feel like you're right there, driving that damn thing.

Loading...

You're back---you're soaring through the water channel being chased by a helicopter. You leap a wall of scrap metal and escape the chopper's gunfire into a sewer tunn---

Loading...

You fly out of the tunnel into the open again, but here comes the helicop---

Loading...

And it goes on and on and on, until I literally just turned the damn thing off. I'd already played the level for forty-minutes easily, and every four minutes of gameplay was interrupted by forty-seconds of loading.

Loading killed this beautiful, well-imagined game.

Damn...

Kinda Boring

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: April 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The graphics are great the story is pretty good but everything takes forever. This is an impressive game its just that it gets a little boring and easy. I also don't like first person shooters that don't have two players I need to interact with others I guess. Halo is the way to go

Ridiculously Good

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: November 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game feels like a combination of the Resident Evil Series and Doom to me. Resident Evil in that although this is a first person game and RE was third (mostly) its has very creepy environs, you are killing lots of zombie like creatures, and there are lots of puzzles to figure out (ie flipping switches to access areas etc). Doom in that it is a first person shooter with lots of weird things to kill, though not near as dark as Doom and doesnt have that annoying flashlight issue like doom.

Highlights are:
1 Graphics are incredible. (the underwater scenes with bullets flying by you is my fav) Probably the best on reg XBox so far.
2 Great story that you just get dropped into and slowly figure out.
3 Cool creatures to kill.
4 Great vehicles to drive (airboat definitely rocks)

Lowlights are:
1 Like everyone else has said, the load times and frequency of loads are mind-numbing. Its almost like a computer with a bad hard drive that keeps kicking in. You would think that with a 10G Hard drive, the programmers could figure a way to make the loads much less frequent.
2 No XBox Live. I know this game would be hard to do with a co-campaign (they would have to change it for the dual play experience), but it would be very cool to do it with a friend live, or at least have battles in some of the environs live.

Overall, though, a stunning game with great graphics.

different

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: December 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

that is what makes this great. its simply different then the rest. you expect the enemy is going to do one thing but he does somethinonlyy a real person could think of. graphicsawesome. if you have the pc version this one actually comebetter special effects and great ai. no multiplayer but this game doesnt need it to do great. overall rush of action.great game and just in time for christmas.remember to add this to your lists.its does everything halo did and more.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next 

Actions