Half A Life Is Better Than None

Well I finally loaded up Half-Life 2. Five disks worth, then it all has to be decrypted by VALVe's steam website. Copy protection reaches a new height I guess. I was thinking new low as the process dragged on and on, but there seems to be some good points. I think I can log on to my steam account and play on my other computer. Not sure about that, and probably won't ever do it, but it's something.

Half-Life is one of very few games that I actually played all the way through, so I was a sure bet for this game. Surprisingly I had it for weeks before I loaded it. Made up for lost time yesterday though...or I guess that should be lost made up time. Anyway, I played enough to know a few things.

The modern/futeristic setting was a good break from Morrowind.
Guns and grenades and blasting away at helicopters does get the blood pumping, and there's a long sequence driving an airboat that is fast, furious, and fun.

The graphics are superb, and it has a good memory.
Gotta love throwing chairs through windows and leaving bullet pocks in the walls all over. I came across a large ammo cache and couldn't resist writing my name with the sub-machine gun.

They are extremely proud of their physics engine, and with good reason.
Things bounce and fly and float very realistically, and like Half-Life climbing and jumping and stacking stuff up is just as vital as blasting away at the head crabs. The puzzles are at times agonizing. I fell, and spent a long time stacking stuff trying to climb back up, only to find that the path I had fallen off of arrived very shortly at a dead end. I told Jack that I had jumped down the first time and just climbed back up as an experiment, but he didn't seem to believe it.

All in all it looks like a great game so far. I can't say if I will play this one all the way through though. Playing it really shows the beauty of Morrowind. It's a fast and fabulous ride, but it is a straight line. You always know that you are going the 'right' way, since it is the only way you can go. It certainly doesn't have the immersive quality of Morrowind.