Half-Life 2 recasts players as Gordon Freeman, the scientist-turned-hero from the first game. Gordon is awakened, so to speak, by the mysterious Man in Black who guided our hero's actions in Black Mesa. It soon becomes clear that the world has changed, considering the former administrator of Black Mesa now rules Earth as sort of a liaison with a mysterious fascist army. And hey, isn't that a Vortigaunt, once a fearsome lightning-throwing alien, sweeping up the train station? Oh, and by the way, Gordon is seen as a sort of legendary rebel, Robin Hood mixed with Luke Skywalker.

This sense of disconnection is entirely intentional. The player is Gordon is dropped into the middle of a vaguely Eastern European city and presented tantalizing bits of information or cameos by old friends before being abruptly swept away. There's never a chance to really sit and reason through what's going on, and yet Valve is again working with the writing team who so deftly turned the first game into a story around the player rather than a player-run story. There's a story going on in Half-Life 2, but circumstances (or maybe the Man in Black?) don't want Gordon fully informed.

Half-Life 2 pushes the envelope in a few different ways. First, it's entirely available online from Valve's Steam online service. The game can also be purchased in CD-ROM format, but requires a connection to Steam during gameplay. Steam had its share of problems, especially when the game hit virtual shelves and the online service ran into overwhelming demand. That seems to have settled. I fully believe online delivery will equal if not replace physical copies of games on store shelves before this decade has passed. Steam proves that a large, graphics-heavy game can be viably delivered using such a method.

Second, Half-Life 2's graphics are awesome. Literally breathtaking in spots. Once again, scripted events are seamlessly integrated. I know much ado was made of Doom 3's graphics, but id unwisely hid those behind a veil of darkness. Half-Life 2 proved in many spots that you can have exciting and even creepy gameplay in well-lit areas. (That said, Valve does rely a whole lot on the conceit of hiding zombies or headcrabs in dark corners.)

Gameplay is excellent, with your typical shooter controls plus a physics engine much like that in Deus Ex 2. Almost everything can be moved, especially in the second half of the game after gaining the gravity gun, which can move items too heavy for (or at longer range than) a normal person. One entire level is so short on ammunition that the gravity gun, used with found items, is essential as a weapon. This bogs down in one area, a speedboat level that shows off a new vehicle capability but drags on far too long. (A similar level in an off-road vehicle is similarly long but allows for pauses to move the story forward.) The speedboat's break from story time, especially so early in the game, is annoying. It disrupts the flow, even within the practice of intentional disconnection.

I've raved about the graphics, but they really are mind-blowing. I started my gaming career with text adventures and ASCII graphics, and it's phenomenal to be at a point where water moves and ripples and reflects and I can pick up and piece of trash and throw it or otherwise interact with the environment. This is Valve's new Source engine, and boy do I want to see it applied to an update of the great Half-Life zombie mod They Hunger. (One level in Half-Life 2, called Ravenholm, seemed more than a little bit like an homage to They Hunger.)

Sound is good, with the major players being voiced by name actors. I was amused by the musical stings for certain events, because the rest of the game tries to hard to stay within the first-person viewpoint. As in the original, there are no cutscenes, with plot points playing out in front of or at least visible to Gordon.

Game of the year? This is a contender, but it doesn't get a perfect score. First, that speedboat level sticks more in my craw every time I think about it. I'd rather have had more time in the city environment before its near-total destruction later in the game. Second, load times between areas can be unforgivably long. I'm not sure whether this is because the game is running on the Steam servers. I have heard saved games are stored there rather than on the player's machine, which seems counterintuitive but would explain similar long lags when trying to save.

You know, it's tantalizing that Half-Life 2 is sort of a bridging storyline. That means there's already been some thought, however preliminary, into future chapters whether by add-on or full-blown sequel. At least one major character from the first games is conspicuously absent. I look forward to seeing what the Man in Black can throw at me next.