Everything in this finite world has an ending, but some things leave sensations that are going to stay with you if not forever at least for quite a long time.Half Life 2 is among these. I completed it in an addicted play and had a great fun, astonishment, and wonder. This game beyond its limits (a few) and its strong points (many) has been able to deliver thick emotions.
The way opened by HL2 is clear and straightforward, it is possible to have very immersive simulations, fun to play, with a good gameplay and story telling. The technology is not a limiting factor, as someone would like to put, but it is an enabling factor to reach new levels in the interactive entertainment.
About the story telling, I’m quite sure that HL2 has just one single story, you cannot really go out of the railway the authors put there, and there is just a single track. I haven’t found this limiting, instead I think that a clever railway system is able to deliver a better involvement in the player, being able to trigger the right emotion at the right time.
As I said before the italian dubbing is a real shame.
There are a couple of things missing (or maybe it’s just me) – the team of soldiers you get in the second half of the game is not always very intelligent. For Example I’ve been blocked by them under the fire of an automatic gun. They are quite fast to get out of your feet (with a silly sounding “mi scusi” that is “I beg your pardon” in italian), but they are too many times too close to your way. It happened more than once that I lost all the team as soon as I acquired it because they acted if not silly at least not in a very intelligent way.
Also in the second half of the game you keep finding ant-calling-spheres but anywhere I tried I hadn’t been able to gather lion-ants.
And third, I remember of some promo movies, where a soldier is hit by a tentacle just in front of the camera… well I hadn’t find this moment.
But these are just minor annoyances… I’m looking forward HL3 :-).