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 enlarge | From: Electronic Arts
Category: Video Games
List Price: $19.99
Buy Used: $3.64
You Save: $16.35 (82%)
New (17) Used (28) from $3.64
Avg. Customer Rating:  50 reviews
Sales Rank: 3951
Platform: Xbox
ESRB: Mature
Media: Video Game
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Age: 17 - 20 years
Operating System: Xbox
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 0.5 x 7.5
MPN: 100730
Model: 14633151596
UPC: 014633151596
EAN: 0014633151596
ASIN: B000B2YR74
Release Date: June 15, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Very Good Game But The Xbox Lets It Down May 23, 2006
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
I just finished HL2 on the Xbox and thought some of my observations might be helpful to other prospective buyers. My review is primarily concerned with my struggle between getting HL2 for PC or Xbox. I bought HL, HL Opposing Force and HL Blue Shift for the PC when they came out and thoroughly enjoyed them. Due to the HL2 Xbox price and the horror stories I'd read about having to be online to use the PC version of HL2, I decided to go for the Xbox version. Did I make the right choice?
HL2 is a very good game and at $20 for the Xbox version, represents excellent value for money. Great graphics, great sound and engaging game play. However, I think HL1 on the PC is a better game than HL2 on Xbox. Why?
First, the original HL was much more open ended and there was often more than one way to do something or get somewhere. With HL2, I found there was only one way.
Second, the controls for HL1 were better and configurable. With HL2 on Xbox, I found some controls to be really awkward and difficult to use. For example, there's an air boat to drive and the direction and throttle are on the same thumb stick. I assume throttle and direction are separate keys on the PC version?
Third, when there's a lot going on, for example, several Combine soldiers firing at you, explosions and a fair bit of scenery to display, the Xbox slowed down to almost a halt! It just couldn't cope with that amount of processing. I never had that problem with HL1 on the PC and assume a suitably equipped PC could cope with HL2 just as well.
Lastly, as others have mentioned you didn't have to go very far in HL2 before you saw a `loading' screen. The frequency at which you saw this did become distracting and annoying after a while. One plus for HL2 is there's no weird psychedelic alternative dimension like there was in HL1. Remember all that hopping from floating platform to floating platform and plants that light up when you went near them? All that nonsense has gone away which was a relief!
On reflection, most of my gripes about HL2 have more to do with the Xbox version rather than the game itself. If I had to choose again, I'd buy HL2 on the PC and will certainly get any HL2 spin off games for the PC if they are to appear like they did for HL1. If not, I'll wait for HL3 which the ending of HL2 leaves open.
 The Best FPS on Xbox! April 25, 2006
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I have played every FPS that comes out on Xbox. Of course I like Halo, Doom 3, but love playing anything Conflict makes i.e Desert Storm I and II, Vietnam, and Global Terror and the Rainbow 6 series, since I'm in the Army. Half-Life 2 is by far the best game I have played. I thought I wouldn't like it because it had no map option or hints for objectives, but all you have to do is have time and an imagination and you will be spending hours on end playing this game. I bought it for $15.00 at Game Stop, but if I had of spent $49.99 I would not have been disappointed one bit. I have not beat this game but have put over 512 (over 8 hours) minutes into it. This is definitely worth buying used or new, if you have time you will get your $$ worth out of this game!
C-Murder
Sheer perfection, GOTY of the year 2004. April 14, 2006
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
My best friend is a Halo lover. When I learned of this game I was not that interested until I read some reviews and saw videos of what you could do in the game, not to mention the graphics.
For quite a while my best friend and I got into a crazy dispute inbetween which game is better. I enjoy Halo but Half-Life 2 just overpowers it so much. On the P.C. I think the only thing that could beat it is Half-Life 3 once it comes out, and that is what my friend says about Halo 2 (the only thing that will beat it is Halo 3). Now, Half-Life 2 on the P.C. doesn't take an entirely high tech computer, in fact you can have a graphic card with Direct X7 for this game on the P.C.
If you own the P.C. version I'm sure you have been told before there is no reason to buy it on Xbox, which is true. The game is a port of the P.C. version and you will probably find nothing new in the Xbox version caompared to the P.C. version. If you have an incredibly high P.C. don't waste your money on the Xbox version because a P.C. with at least an ATI Radeon X800 video card, 2.4ghz processor, 512mb ram, I'm pretty sure can run the game at max, I'm not sure I don't own the P.C. versoin.
Okay, now for the game itself. This game does NOT have a multiplayer componant, so if you are only in the game for the multiplayer side of things YOU WON'T find any. If you are complaining you will understand why this game has no multiplayer componant by the end of this review. Half-Life the original game was released by Valve, a game company, in the year of 1999 and went on to be the computer game of that year. Six years later, SIX years Valve worked on a sequel, and released it in 2004. The game is my favorite game of all time for now. The game won nine GOTY (Game of the Year) awards in 2004, which included Game of the Year (it beat Halo 2), P.C. game of the year, Outstanding innovation in Computer Gaming, Outstanding Achievemant in Animation, Outstanding Achievmant in Art Direction, Outstanding Character Performance - Male, Outstanding Achievmant in Game Play Engineering, Outstanding Achievmant in Visual Engineering, and First Person Action Game of the Year. So it won nine GOTY awards, but it nominated in eleven.
Since Half-Life 2 is such a story driven game I will begin at the storyline. If you have not played Half-Life 1 the storyline may not make much sense, which makes the game even better because you get to puzzle your past storyline with the world you are currently in. Not even I have yet understood everything about what happened in the first Half-Life game and I probably never will. But to give you some sense of what is happening is that you play as a character named Gordan Freeman who, several years ago was transfered over to a science research facility called Black Mesa. From what I know Gordan accidentally unleashed alien races upon the earth. I will not say anymore to ruin the storyline because the less you know the better it is, I ruined quite a bit of the storyline for myself becuase I found out too much about the game.
Now for characters. Characters in the game are incredibly realistic. I have been told before that Valve created into the characters faces what they called "muscles". In the game the characters obviously do not have real muscles but if you look at the movement of the characters jaws, they actually move, escpecially during the opening scene. Besides the complexity of the characters realistic looking "muscles" the characters have excellant voices that could not have anyone else doing their voices better. The characters will actually be more immeresed into the game rather than your average F.P.S. In areas where there is only dialoge, which are enjoyable, you might notice that if someone is talking to you they will be looking directly at you. If you go behind them while they are talking to you, they will turn around instead of just stand there talking to thin air. If there is something passing by a character like a friend, their eyes will actually follow the person walking by, which always amazes me.
Gameplay- Probably every review of this game you find will most likely have it's largest section on the gameplay of Half-Life 2, and for good reason. There is a single element that truly makes writing about the gameplay worthwhile: Physics. Most games that you play will have something known as Ragdoll Physics, this is where if you are to find a dead enemy nearby they will move around according to their enviroment. For example, if you were to walk over a dead body in a game with Ragdoll Physics the body will most likely start rolling. These are physics found in games like Republic Commando, and Far Cry. Half-Life 2 is built in with a unique physics engine made by Valve called Havok Physics. Havok Pysics is one of the best versions of the physic engines abailable on the gaming market. Every object in the game has different weights, and when you strike, shoot, move, or whack those objects they actually feel real and look real. The explosions made with this physics engine are so amazing and when you shoot explosive barrels you can see red shattered pieces fly in different directions looking like the explosion came from the inside, which it did. You will find most of the physics interactible through one of the best weapons in first person shooters today: The Gravity Gun. This weapon has the Law of Physics built right into it, pretty much everyting is your weapon, and I think you could figure it out from there. More of the gameplay would be including your fameous hazard suit which can provide you with shielding if you charge it. The suit will also allow you to breath underwater for a time being, it comes equipped with a rechargeable flashlight, and a cool sprint feature which recharges too. Gamespy said in the P.C. review of Half-Life 2 that throughout the game you are introduced with new weapons one by one, and whenever you get a new weapon you are put in situations that you will need that weapon so you can learn which enemies you should shoot with which weapons, where to use the weapons, and how to use them tactically which is a very good way to show you how to use the weapons of this game. There are eleven weapons in this game which may seem small but with the Gravity Gun you do not need any more. And I do not think that you could come up with any more weapons that you would want.
A.I.- Half-Life has pretty tough A.I. and they really know how to flank and throw grenades. The grenades will draw you into areas that you will be shot up and killed or the grenades will kill you, so the combat is pretty intense. You can hear the Combine (enemies) talking to each other through radios in their helmets as they plan to attack you. Overall the combine are the largest example of A.I. in Half-Life 2, other enemies aren't as smart because they are more animalistic rather than human.
Sound- For every weapon, every voice, every explosion, every splash of water, every alarm, every organic noise you hear in this game WILL be good. Water sounds are what you will find in most games just because they are all pretty much the same. When you hear strange creatures getting shot and their legs break or blood splatters from them it sounds like it should. Gun shots could not be wanted in any other way, I already mentioned voices. Ign's video review of the P.C. version of this game says that you cannot really say anything bad about this game, that goes for the sound too.
Where next, oh music- The game has great music, it has this strange feeling to it, but it fits that is all I can really say.
Some reviews say that this game has bad framerate (Gamespot), but I will say that it only occurs when there is large amounts of physics taking place and if you say that so and so has better framerate than Half-Life 2 I simply ask you, "Does that game have the Havok Physics Engine?" And if it does, okay, Half-Life 2 is still better.
I said earlier that you will find out why there is no multiplayer componant of Half-Life 2 available, which is true it is because it is hard enough to get such a great game as Half-Life 2 on the Xbox alone with it's complex physics engine. If you want Half-Life 2 in a multiplayer apect, I would not blame you, with the gravity gun, that has to be fun. But there is a game made from Valve on the Xbox made specifically for multiplayer called Counter-Strike, it is modern warfare from what I know with M-16s and alike, but from what I have heard it is incredibly fun, go ahead and buy that one if you want it is from the same company but just to know it will not look as good becuase Counter-Strike is a pretty old game I think. The game is supposed to be filled with crazy multiplayer combat, but I have not played it so I will leave it at that.
I saved one of the largest parts of the game for last: Graphics. Valve has created a masterpiece when it comes to the graphics of this game. Six years really allowed them to go as far as they could when it comes to their graphics, this IS the best looking Xbox game out there. Compared to the P.C. graphics with a ATI Radeon X800 video card it will not look that good, and on the xbox there is some minor details that could not be brought up to what they should look like, but they are details that you will not be paying that much attention to. If you played a game where the graphics are impressive but still not that great, walked up to a wall you can see the flaws and the fakeness of the graphics. When you walk out a good twenty feet the wall will then look realistic. In Half-Life 2, the flaws are still there but you only need to be about ten feet away instead of twenty.
I wish I could keep on going, and I probably can but I have spent at LEAST an hour typing this review to just say that this game is one of the best games out there and is most likely the best first person shooter on the xbox and probably always will be. If you see a game with the words Valve on the front in a box outlined in white lines, expect perfection, unless it is counter strike, those games are more based on the multiplayer side of things rater than all the aspects of a normal game.
My closing statement is that Half-Life 2 is a game of sheer perfection, it is the best xbox single player game available: BUY THIS GAME! It is worth it.
 WTF STOP LOADING!!!! April 11, 2006
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
Half-Life 2 for pc put on the x-box sounds like it should work. The core gameplay is still the same and is good fun once you get a few hours into it. The graphics are decent but won't blow you away like the pc versian. So what's the problem it's Half-life 2 on the x-box just a little watered down. Well there is one single problem that really irritates me to the point i would give it three stars. L.O.A.D.I.N.G!!!! This game loads more than you actually play it. It simply ruins the action! Your in the middle of a tense adrenaline pumped chase and your really into it when it all suddenly stops and the game loads. The loading times last between seven to thirty seconds and it really just makes you want to swear at the t.v. screen. Half-life 2 for x-box isn't bad game but it is completley inferior to the p.c. problem which had loading problems as well. It's possibly worth a rental if can sit through all the constant loading but beyond the loading issue it's worth a playthrough. There is no multiplayer and the single player is all your getting so don't buy.
The best game on Xbox? March 29, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
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