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Despite the fact that "Half-Life 2" is nearly three years old, it still stands as the best first-person shooter that I have ever played. Amazingly, almost all aspects of the game still stand up to today's standards. No game is perfect, of course, and this one is no different. Here is the breakdown:

CONCEPT The sequel to "Half-Life," "Half-Life 2" begins with the protagonist, Gordon Freeman, materializing into a train that stops at City 17. The Combine, an alien race that has invaded Earth, now keeps humans in cities that bring to mind a combination of Nazi concentration camps and the novel "1984." As Gordon, players are tasked with helping the human rebellion and overthrow the alien menace.

GRAPHICS As mentioned earlier, almost all aspects of "Half-Life 2" still hold up to today's standards, and the graphics are part of the proof. Unlike the majority of previous Xbox 360 big hitters, "Half-Life 2" does not feature environments and character models that look overly shiny with a hint of plasticity. Instead, the game has a grittier, more realistic look -- well, at least as realistic as a three-year-old game can look. The fact that some character models are repeated for unimportant people does slightly hinder the ability to be completely absorbed into the world of "Half-Life 2."

AUDIO The audio is great. Filled with techno-type music, explosions and gunfire during the heated moments and ambient sounds during the exploratory sections, this is not a game that you should play while the volume is low. The best aspect of the audio, however, is the voice work. The voice actors and actresses hired for this game do a great job at lending to the believability of the characters' emotions. The only negative facet of the voice work is that some characters that look completely different will share the exact same voice.

PLAYABILITY Unfortunately, "Half-Life 2" features mid-level loads that sometimes happen in the middle of hectic action and really disrupt the adrenaline rush that comes from blasting Combine with a shotgun. With that said, this game also features some of the best FPS controls ever, and even if you do not like the default controls, the developers at Valve have graciously given players the ability to completely change the button layout to their preferences.
Furthermore, the game is packed with options, which is always a great thing. Players can change the display settings, the audio settings and can even choose between having no subtitles of any kind, closed captions (displays dialogue and sound effects) or subtitles (only displays dialogue). As a gamer with moderate hearing loss, I am personally very grateful for the latter options.

ACHIEVEMENTS There are a total of 99 Achievements throughout the five games of "The Orange Box," but "Half-Life 2" features the most. Most of the Achievements are unlocked just from playing through the game, but there are a few that are challenging and, therefore, fun. In the chapter entitled Highway 17, players can unlock an Achievement called Targeted Advertising for pinning a Combine soldier to a billboard, which you'll discover is quite a funny thing to do.

OVERALL "Half-Life 2" is a fantastic game that should not be overlooked by any self-respecting FPS fan. Clocking in at just over ten hours and first-person shooter bliss, "Half-Life 2" nearly justifies the purchase of "The Orange Box" on it's own.

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