The world of Half-Life 2 is nothing like the one you left six years ago in Black Mesa. 'Wake up and smell the ashes.' Ashes, indeed. HALF-LIFE 2 begins with the sight of the ominous G-Man, waking you from an ethereal slumber. For the first time in six years, we actually have a PC game that can arguably be called the 'best first-person shooter ever.'
Half-Life 2 may not reinvent the first-person shooter, but improves on the original game in almost every way, and brings one major innovation to the table whose effects will likely be felt for years to come. From its opening moments to its spectacular closing sequences, Half-Life 2 assaults you with a variety of gameplay styles and memorable moments, all executed with amazing precision. And in those six years, many games have cribbed from the Half-Life formula, but not even the best of them have been able to fully eclipse it. It wasn't necessarily the first game to do all these things, but it was the first do them all together, and do them all well. Six years since Half-Life rewrote the book on first-person shooters by combining a cinematic presentation with gripping combat and a detailed world with memorable characters. It's been six years since the original Half-Life introduced gamers to Gordon Freeman, a seemingly average scientist at the Black Mesa Research Facility.
