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There are very few times in life when one is able to sit down with a videogame and, over the course of 16 hours, feel waves of wonder, delight, and pure unfettered joy. Valve's Half-Life 2 on PC, and now on Xbox, is such a game.
Built for the PC and released in fall 2004, Half-Life 2 arrives on Xbox one year later with positive signs of skill, artistry, and technical know-how. Originally requiring five times the amount of RAM available on Xbox, Valve's internal development team realized a streaming engine solution that retains the entire single-player experience from the original PC game and in some cases improves upon its PC brethren. The final retail build of Half-Life 2 on Xbox is a clean, striking looking game that shines in both an artistic and a technical sense. Yes, one wonders what Valve could have accomplished given an extra year on Xbox 360, but on Xbox, the final game makes one wonder just how they did it.
Half-Life 2 on Xbox is identical to the PC version in content: It's a single-player first-person shooter that follows the harrowing, story-driven adventures of one Gordon Freeman. There are no multiplayer missions, there is no co-op component, and Half-Life 2 is not online. It's a complete single-player, story-based first-person shooter. Like the first Half-Life, the plot of Half-Life 2 is relatively simple even if its themes run deep. As a research physicist with the uncanny knack for performing heroic deeds without really knowing how you did them, Gordon Freeman returns from the original Black Mesa experiments via the ethereal powers of the G-Man to a ghastly, dystopian reality.
Full Review
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Published - Electronic Arts
Developed - Valve
Genre - 1st-Person Shooter
Release Date - November 15, 2005
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