Gamespy, PC-ign and Gamespot have thrown up their Half-Life 2 hands-on experience articles.
(Gamespy)The first level we played was set at the very beginning of the game, and – like Half-Life’s famous opening tram ride – Half-Life 2 starts with Gordon Freeman’s transit to “City 17,” which provides the backdrop for much of the game. As Lombardi tells us, Half-Life 2 starts a “significant number of years” after the original events at the Black Mesa Research Facility, and it’s clear that the world has been significantly changed.
(PC-ign)Next up was my favorite part of the playtest, a ride in the buggy in the seafloor level. Hopping in the buggy was as easy as getting close and hitting the “F” key. After that, I was off down the road perched precariously over a steep ocean cliff. The buggy drove quite nicely, and although it did rock around and hop a bit, especially when traveling over broken pavement, it didn’t feel overdone, as if I were in low gravity or driving on the moon. I took a few pot-shots with the mounted gauss gun just to get a feel for it. You control the gun with the mouse while driving with the keyboard keys, so you can peg things pretty easily even while moving.
(Gamespot)So what, exactly, did we get to play? We got to play through a couple of different sequences, one of which was a story-driven, largely noninteractive expository sequence near the beginning of the game and the other of which was an action sequence involving action both on foot and behind the wheel of a nitro-equipped buggy (the one shown off at last year’s E3). We can say that the initial sequence, though there was no real gameplay to it apart from just walking through an environment, was more impressive; it demonstrated to us that Valve still has a knack for creating dramatic, suspenseful sequences that can be exciting even without any kind of real action happening onscreen. That’s as impressive of a feat as ever.
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