Game 38: BioShock

BioShock was widely heralded as the 2007 game of the year. I always pay close attention to games labeled as such because they're generally important to video game history and have great influence on the industry. BioShock seems like it will be no exception. It's a first-person shooter for the PC and Xbox 360 and is set on the dystopian underwater city called Rapture. Our hero unwittingly arrives there and must uncover Rapture's dark secrets while staying alive. Rapture was built by Andrew Ryan, an Objectivist who attempts to fulfill his dream society under the sea. Things obviously don't go smoothly.

BioShock has sold millions, won a ton of awards, and probably has a ton of sequels on the way. But how does the first hour of it fare? Let's dive into BioShock and experience Rapture.

(minutes are in bold)
00 - I start a New Game and the first thing to do is set the game's brightness level. BioShock wants to be very dark but I compromise with it and find an appropriate level. Loading... 1960 in the Mid-Atlantic. We're on an airplane, a man is talking about his life and looking at some pictures in front of him and smokes a cigarette. Suddenly there are screams and the plane goes down! The BioShock logo appears, dripping with water.
01 - I'm in the water, drowning. Parts of the plane are whizzing past me at intense speeds. Fire laces the top of the water. Awesome looking water and flame effects. I have control now and have to make my way through the wreckage.

02 - I swim by the plane slowly sinking into the water and make my way towards a lighthouse sticking out of the ocean. It is the only way to go.

03 - I enter and the doors shut behind me, it's completely dark. Suddenly the lights come on illuminating a sign, "No Gods or Kings. Only Man."

04 - I make my way down the stairs and into a bathysphere waiting for me. I pull the lever and descend. Suddenly a sixties-esque video starts playing. It's Andrew Ryan! Who?
05 - Andrew begins the video by defending the common man against the state and church. The video cuts away and we get a beautiful look at Rapture, his underwater city. It truly looks awesome. Science holds no morals here. His words, not mine.

06 - There's whales and squids swimming through the underwater skyscrapers. Neon signs flicker all over. The art design is incredible. The designers have perfectly captured this era that I can not properly put into words. The bathysphere docks and we go to the loading screen.

07 - A couple of men are talking over the radio. There's a man outside my vessel's window. Two actually, and I watch in horror as one guts the other in a bloody mess. The guy has claws for hands. He jumps on my vessel and starts ripping at it! Sparks and screeching, a frightening earful.

08 - The man runs away, phew. I pick up a radio and a man named Atlas starts talking to me as I leave the bathysphere.
09 - I'm looking out the windows now, a great sight. There's moaning and heavy breathing all around, scary atmosphere. A sign that says "Ryan doesn't own us." A "splicer" appears in front of me but then a flying robot chases him off.

10 - I pick up a wrench and knock away some rubble. As I start climbing a staircase someone throws a flaming couch down to me. I attempt to jump over it!

11 - At the top of the stairs is a deranged looking man, we duel with wrenches and I win with two devastating blows to the noggin. I search his body and take a first aid kit.

12 - I'm able to beat down on the surroundings with my wrench, it's quite powerful. In something that looks like a vending machine I find a large needle with a red substance in it. For some insane reason I put it into my forearm!? Why would I do that? My hands start glowing and I collapse over the balcony.
13 - I'm out cold and some splicers appear over me. They mention that it looks like my cherry has been popped.

14 - The splicers run off in fear as a giant walks up, and then a little girl. The girl has a large needle, but she sees that I'm still breathing and they walk away. What a truly frightening sequence of events. I stand up and my left hand has sparks running through it, I can now throw electricity!

15 - Wow! I throw lightning at a door panel to override the controls, as I step into the tunnel, part of the plane crashes through! I have to crawl through part of the fuselage to continue, all the while it seems like the entire tunnel could collapse from the water pressure. What an awesome scene.

17 - In the shadows I can see a splicer run by, on the radio Atlas tells me to give him the one-two punch, lightning and then wrench. I miss with the electricity a few times but eventually get my point across.18 - I have two bars on my screen, one for health, the other for plasmid power. When my plasmid power runs out I inject myself again. Man, I do not think I could handle this needle-driven world.

19 - An elevator in front of me collapses in a flaming mess and a man on fire runs out. I put him out of his misery. Poor chap. I take the other elevator up. Atlas starts telling me about his family and how he's cut off from them. He asks for my help. I don't think I have a choice but to help. I have to head to Neptune's bounty.

20 - I hear a woman's voice softly singing and in the shadows can see her over a baby carriage. Someone sane?

21 - Nope, she's singing to a six-shooter. I knock her out with my wrench and upgrade to the pistol.
22 - I head down to the remnants of a 1959 New Year's Eve party. There's hats strewn about along with liquor. A woman starts shooting at me, it takes four wrench whacks to knock her out. I also pick up a recording of some sort, I listen to it.

23 - A woman named Diane McClintock is talking about how she was stood up by her date on New Year's Eve. It seems pointless, but it adds to the atmosphere.

24 - At the end of the recording there's screaming as something bad happens. This may have been the beginning of the end for Rapture.

25 - I walk out of a kitchen to find a few splicers walking in a pool of water. Atlas tells me to zap them, they go down quickly to the powerful electricity.
26 - I walk into the woman's bathroom (complete with Fallout-esque drawings for women and men signs) and I see the ghost of a woman muttering at the sink. She says she's too spliced up. Creepy.

27 - In the men's room one of the stalls is blown away, leading to the next area. Down below I can see an interesting sight... a little girl is stabbing a dead body with a giant needle, over and over again.

28 - Atlas explains it's a little sister, a transformed girl, and not for the better. They carry Adam, the thing everyone wants.

29 - Suddenly a splicer shows up and starts to attack her. Out of no where comes the Big Daddy! The giant hulking monster slams the slicer into the wall incredibly violently. The Big Daddies protect the Little Sisters. I do not plan to mess with those guys.
30 - The cool thing is everything in the environment can be searched. I've found cake, alcohol, cigarettes, needles, power bars, you name it, it's here. I love the interactivity.

31 - It's very satisfying frying splicers in the water. Woah, a dead Big Daddy. Can they be killed?

32 - Suddenly the gates close around me and the alarm sounds! What's going on? Someone has just tried to flamethrower me!

34 - Running from the alarm I head towards the Medical Pavilion. I'm locked in a room now. Andrew Ryan is talking directly to me. He asks if the CIA or KGB sent me? Did they?
35 - Splicers start banging at the window, oh crap, there's a lot of them. Atlas tells me to run, and I do. Loading.

36 - Next objective is to find the emergency access, I'm officially in the Medical Pavilion. Hey, a vending machine, with a creepy clown as a mascot. And it's selling needles and vodka. What is this, Moscow?

37 - I pick up another message, again from Diane. She's talking about how her splicing hasn't gone too well. Sounds like she's had a lot of medical work done.

39 - A security bot is blocking a door, I have the option to hack it... cool. It's basically a game of Pipe Dream, easy enough.
40 - Wow, the hacked security bot is now on my team, not bad.

41 - Another spoken message, from a man named Steinman. He's a surgeon here, seems to be doing some nasty stuff to his patients. "Change your look, change your race, change your sex. It's your's to change." Crazy, but I suppose he has a point though, huh?

42 - I've found the emergency access, but it's locked down. There's a security panel though, so I activate that. Atlas tells me if I want to use the access I'll need Steinman's key. Gotta find the good doctor.

44 - I hit the emergency button and it's like the Gates of Hell have opened up. Splicers run into the Medical Pavilion in packs, time for a battle. But I have a trusty machine gun with me now.
46 - Wow, a little intense. I even accidentally electrify my robot friend and it's out of commission for a moment. A lot of the splicers are dressed as surgeons. Not a good sign.

47 - I check my map, the Medical Pavilion is HUGE! This is not one hour's worth of work here.

48 - Another verbal diary from Steinman. As he's talking I come across a turret which I zap and now I can hack.

50 - A diary from Andrew Ryan, ranting about his views and values on health care.
51 - Speaking of health care, I come across a health station I can hack... interesting. I hack it successfully and now the station will hurt bad guys if they try to heal on it, awesome.

53 - I hack another turret and watch it mow down some splicers. I take that back, I watch it horrendously miss some splicers. How can machines be such horrible shots?

54 - Two vending machines, one of them for ammo. I can hack them both and reduce their prices. Interesting concept. Why not just make them free?

55 - My little flying robot friend is really in trouble, he hasn't hit much but at least he's taking shots for me.
56 - Ooh, a security camera. I zap it and start the hack.

58 - Nifty little sequence here, I'm inside the Eternal Flame, Rapture's crematorium. There's a body next to the furnace, I hit the button to incinerate it, the body goes in, and out comes something called Hacker's Delight. A physical tonic, it will help me hack better.

60 - I run across a grenade tossing surgeon. Atlas informs me that I'll need to find the telekinesis power so that I can grab the grenades mid-flight and blow up some rubble. Wow, that sounds pretty awesome. Too bad BioShock's first hour is up.

Time for some scores out of 10.
Story: 9
BioShock's story isn't shown to you in cutscene after cutscene, but delivered to you while playing, sometimes while in the middle of battle! Andrew Ryan is introduced quickly as both Rapture's great mastermind and possibly the key to its downfall. Almost definitely the man we'll be taking on at the very end, but within the first hour just heard over the loudspeaker. Citizen's stories are also told through voice diaries you find along the way and it is up to you to piece things together. And finally the mystery man, Atlas, who you only meet over the walkie talkies. It's definitely very atmospheric to feel like you don't have any real allies, but I feel like the game's first hour was missing something. I can't place my finger on it, but maybe it was the lack of background on me, the main character. Even seemingly obscure characters like Doctor Steinman have more information on them. All I know is that maybe I was sent by the CIA or KGB. Not a big deal though, as I expect things will be fleshed out later on.

One incredibly odd thing: why does our hero immediately inject himself when finding a needle on the ground?

Graphics and Sound: 10
Beautiful. Stunning. Incredible. Plenty of words describe the first hour of BioShock in terms of graphics and sound. The game's presentation is the new high level mark for video games, whether they're on the console or the PC. There are many different points to praise but I'll just focus on three: the water effects, the game's atmosphere, and the voice acting. Firstly, Rapture is completely underwater at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean. This means there is a ton of water. I don't know how they did it but 2K Games had me thinking I was going to get soaked at every turn. From the innocent drip to water rushing in at me during amazing scripted sequences, it was perfect all around.

Water in such quantities, deep under the ocean, is incredibly intimidating. The world of Rapture is dark, foreboding, and crawling with some of the creepiest humans ever in video games. I was scared while playing BioShock because of the unknown. Lights flicker out, screams can be heard in the distant, and simply never know what will be revealed next. Speaking of screams, the voice acting was stellar. There wasn't a lot, and you never saw the speaker face to face, but the writing and direction drove the story as much as anything else.

Gameplay: 10
BioShock's gameplay is nearly flawless. It controls great: use your weapon with the right trigger and throw lightning with the left. This immediately opens up so many gameplay options later on and even in the first hour you can use Atlas' handy "one-two punch." Shooting lightning at splicers standing in pools of water is so obviously simple but I have never seen it done before! It just works so well with this game. And like I talked about in the Graphics and Sound section, the game's atmosphere is marvelous. BioShock's first hour is dark and scary, and the level design is top notch. The game introduces its core mechanics gradually while never pretending it is going easy on you. Hordes of enemies, turrets, and flying robots you can hack are all present in the first hour, and ready to kill you.

Fun Factor: 9
Well, maybe BioShock's atmosphere was a little too intense! I don't do too well with scary games, and BioShock was no exception. Some parts were very slow going because I was frightened to see what was around the corner! As opposed to some people, I don't see this as pure enjoyment, but the deep gameplay and involving storyline kept me enthralled either way. One of the best parts was how deeply interactive the environments were. You could take your wrench and pretty much destroy everything in the vicinity! Bottles and boxes are crushed under its weight. Or you can pick up bottles of alcohol, smoke some cigarettes, or eat a power bar. All have varying effects on your health and plasmid powers, and it's fun to experiment. The game's political viewpoints were also very interesting, Andrew Ryan may be a bad guy, but he does have some good ideas.

Minutes to Action: 1

Overall: 9
Not too many flaws in BioShock's first hour, as this is one of the greatest hours of gameplay I have ever played. Rapture is a truly wonderful and frightening place, and BioShock is the ultimate medium to deliver its story. The game has me craving more and more of it, but at the same time has me timid at the prospects of continuing on. How many more horrors does BioShock have waiting for me? Will I encounter a Big Daddy head on? Is this game the pinnacle of first hours? I think it falls slightly short in my mind, but that shouldn't diminish BioShock as a whole. Go play it.

Game 32: Turok: Dinosaur Hunter

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter was the first first-person shooter on the Nintendo 64 and the start of a series that is known for its ups and downs. The game is about Turok, a Native American who is sent through time to save the world and is loosely based on a comic book series of the same name. If you think this sounds a little like Prey, and you might not be too far off in some terms (interestingly enough, these games actually started development around the same time, except Turok was released in 1997 and Prey was released in 2006...). Since Turok was released on the Nintendo 64 before Goldeneye 007, there wasn't much to compare it to except for PC shooters, so reviewers at the time absolutely loved it. I can't say I'm quite as much of a fan, however.

A few weeks ago, a new Turok game was released on the PC and newer consoles, simply called Turok. This is the first new game in the series in almost six years, but after a little reading, it appears it has nothing to do with the original games. Maybe that's a good thing, but let's take a look at the first hour of Turok's foray into video games.

(minutes are in bold)
00 - I select Start Game and the hour begins. Looks like the game is starting already! My first task is to locate the hub ruins and use the keys (sigh) to open level portals. Holy crap the controls are awkward right away.
01 - The controls are basically reversed from the standard Halo setup we have today. Moving is assigned to the C-Buttons (basically the N64's right joystick) and looking to the left joystick.

02 - I'm having a ton of trouble with these controls, everything is so awkward. And there's a ton of fog! I'm going to take a minute and see if I can configure things.

04 - Well, I think I have found the solution: change the controls to "left-handed." I'm not left-handed, but now I get to use the D-Pad to move and the C-Buttons to look aroun. I head up the first walkway and climb my first ladder. My first enemy is right in front of me, time to die by bow and arrow!

05 - I find the level 2 key and Turok proceeds to eat it or something. Odd animation. Oh man, five more keys to find in this level.
06 - You know what's nice (besides double jump), overlay maps. And this game actually offers one! That's awesome and something you never see anymore. I find a pistol and kill another guy with it. Who are these bad guys and why are they trying to kill me? No answer so far.

07 - There's no aiming reticule and the aiming is really jumpy, making it pretty difficult to figure out what you're shooting at. Woah! A velociraptor just charged me!

08 - One guy just started lobbing grenades at me, jerk. I kill him easily and take his one remaining explosive.

09 - Some idiot jumped me from around a corner with his shotgun. I killed him but only picked up shotgun shells! I watched his body disappear with my favorite first-person shooter weapon!
10 - So after I kill another bad guy, a mysterious blue portal appears and I jump through. Hey, a shotgun! I'm inside a cave now. Oh no, a jumping puzzle! I die right away, but the game just zaps me back to the cave opening. Not bad. Then I die on the second jump. Then the first again.

12 - The game decides to be funny and place a guy tossing grenades at me in the middle of my jumping concentration. CRAP! I FELL!

14 - For whatever reason, it is so hard to determine distance while jumping, not to mention the controls are really sensitive.
15 - Lots of nasty clipping and seeing through walls going on. Wow, I made it through. And the game dumps me off exactly where I went through the portal. All this for a shotgun?

17 - You know, if you turn on the overlay map, you get an aiming reticule represented by where Turok's body is located on the map. Unintentional I think, but helpful none the less. Wow, a checkpoint! They had those back then?

18 - While running around I'm also collecting these orange triangles, no idea what they're for. Maybe an extra life at 100? I think the game wants me to jump through the air and collect a floating rifle. Nah. A raptor goes down in two shotgun shells in front of me.

20 - Woah, then I kill another raptor and one materializes in front of me in a shaft of white light. What the heck?
21 - Oh man, another jumping puzzle. One of these jumps involves me jumping like four feet forward and four feet up, this is one crazy Native American.

23 - Dang, I fell in the water below. I can still run around down here though. No idea how to get up... Oh, there's a different wall texture that I can climb, thanks game, you're so obvious sometimes!

26 - I finally make it through this jumping sequence and reach a checkpoint. Oh man, I make it to the top of a wall (after much Turok grunting) and I encounter a giant beast neither man nor dinosaur! Thankfully though, the game gives me some Tek-Arrows, and I fire them into the monster's stomach. He goes down in three exploding bolts.
28 - After killing a man and a raptor, I see another blue portal. As I'm running towards it, the portal just ups and disappears! Argh! Then to add insult to injury a raptor materializes!

29 - Yay... more jumping. Have I mentioned that the fog is absolutely atrocious in this game?

30 - I reach a save point, but since I don't have one of those N64 Memory Card Paks I can't save my game! Oh man, this time I fell and actually lost a life. Now I only have one left. This could suck. I was resurrected at the save point though and Turok spun around in crazy ragdoll fashion as he floated back to earth. Then he shouted, "I am Turok!" Pretty funny actually.
32 - Oh my... a jumping puzzle with lava. I hate myself. I fall in but luckily Turok just loses a few health instead of dying like most crappy video game heroes would. Sometimes the platforms you need to jump on disappear from the overlay map mid-jump, making it really difficult to land them. Seriously, this game is out to get me.

34 - Ha, I just killed a raptor and he sputtered around on the ground in pain. I'm getting shot and I can't see the guy. I think he's hiding in the fog.

36 - Crap, I just fell down into the water below. And the game is deciding not to fill the overlay map out for me either down here. I'm pretty sure I'm just running in a circle looking for that magical climbing texture.
38 - Another one of those golem monsters appears. Jerk. Then I find another key. Four more to go. Double jerk. I enter a cave and some kind of leaper dinosaur attacks me, but he goes down in one shot of my pistol. I'm not even going to bother to shoot at them anymore, they only do two damage.

41 - Haha, I'm about to jump down into a layer of fog, it looks really funny and totally corny.

42 - This is honestly one of the ugliest games I have ever played. A cool thing just happened though, I shotgunned a man in his shoulder and blood started spurting out of there as he stood there and died. Sweet.
44 - I have no idea where I am or where I'm supposed to be going right now. I'm basically just in a huge open field with bad guys materializing out of the fog. Oh look, some platforms. I wonder if I'll have to jump on them?

47 - Wow, I made it to the end of this jumping puzzle kind of quickly. Turok sucks at jumping. I hate Turok. Now I'm getting attacked by a horde of giant black beetles. And they're not even killed in one pistol shot. I just ignore them.

49 - Nooo! Another cave with leapers. More enemies to ignore! I enter the first portal I discover some kind of maze of pillars. This is really messed up. Why don't overlay maps work in mazes by the way?
51 - Umm... I just found something called a Chronoscepter piece, probably important but the game isn't going to bother informing me anything else. And then I found a dead end. Hey, I'm on a roll, a Level 3 key!

53 - Well, I escape from the maze and I think I just found a new texture! That puts the count at four.

54 - These bad guys run around like the ground was recently waxed and they're wearing socks. They're slipping all over the place! That doesn't make any sense!

56 - I'm honestly getting sick of playing this game. How did I ever put up with it when I was younger? Hey, an extra life. Not very useful now.
58 - I can see a portal but I have no idea how to get to it. I think I'm stuck. WHAT THE HECK?! Another blue portal appeared and as I was about to enter it, the stupid thing disappeared! I hate my life.

60 - Time's up! I'm not even going to play the last full minute. Thanks game for screwing me over at the end!

Well, time for some scores out of 10.
Story: 0
There is no story to Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. Well, according to Wikipedia, Turok, the time-traveling warrior, must stop The Campaigner, an evil cyborg, from conquering the Lost Land and possibly the universe. They're lucky they didn't include that in the game because I would have given them negative points then.

Graphics and Sound: 4
Ugh, absolutely atrocious graphics in Turok. I know this was in 1997 on the Nintendo 64, but Mario didn't have a dense layer of fog three feet in front of him! There are literally like five textures in the whole game and they're all butt ugly. Browns and greens seem to be the palette of choice for the art team. The characters are actually okay looking. I think it's a plus when I can immediately tell the difference between a raptor and a man. The sound is pretty good though, there's a light jungle beat playing the entire time and it's in the background enough that it doesn't become obnoxious. There's tons of animal cries playing and the weapons sound moderately correct. I honestly can't fault the sound design much.

Gameplay: 3
Turok: Dinosaur Hunter has not aged well gameplay wise. The controls are completely reversed compared to what we use today and jumping puzzles in first-person shooters hopefully went out of style with the dinosaurs. I can't really fault them for the controls though because that setup feels okay on the N64 controller, but the focus on jumping is pretty inexcusable. Luckily the punishment for falling isn't that bad usually, but I still lost probably 10-15 minutes on just these jumping sequences. The actual combat gameplay is okay, the controls are pretty sensitive (even after turning them down) to make it really fun. The weapons are of standard variety, except for the bow and arrow. Interestingly enough, the game was pretty lenient in hit detection for the bad guys, you could shoot pretty far to the left or right and still kill them in one hit. One last thing, the overlay map was a Godsend, it was typically very useful and filled out as you explored helping you determine what you still need to check out.

Fun Factor: 3
Turok was sub-average fun. Comparing it to a game like Okami though where the first half hour is just text, Turok seems amazing that the game just starts right out without any introduction. Start game becomes shooting raptors within just a minute. This was pretty typical for first-person shooters of the day though. The jumping was extremely frustrating but other than that, I don't have a lot of complaints. Turok: Dinosaur Hunter just didn't do anything that made me smile, other than blood spurting out of that guy's shoulder as he struggled to stand. And that raptor struggling on the ground for his last breaths. Those were pretty cool moments.

Minutes to Action: 0

Overall: 3
This is not the Turok I remember playing over 10 years ago, but times have changed a lot since then and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter is definitely a casualty of that change. At least the game doesn't mess around and try to fabricate some insane story (well, it does but it is limited to the instruction booklet). Turok just gets down to business of killing bad men, dinosaurs, deer, and black beetles. This doesn't necessarily make for a good game though as there are way too many problems that greatly outweigh the few neat ideas the game has. Not exactly inspiring me to play the new one. Goodbye to the first hour of Turok, I do not believe we will ever visit each other ever again.

Yes, that's Turok standing on a car shooting velociraptors with a bow and arrow.

Game 15: Portal

Portal is just one game in Valve's newest release, The Orange Box. The Orange Box is a collection of a few different games but Portal is definitely the one that intrigued me the most. The concept of the game is that it is basically a first-person puzzle game that uses a special gun to navigate the areas. This special gun is the portal gun, which allows you to create a blue portal and an orange portal. You can place these portals on most surfaces and then walk/fall/hurtle yourself through it and you'll end up on the other side. Lots of cool things can be done with this and I'll try to explore its many possibilities in my first hour review.

Portal was actually based off a senior project called Narbacular Drop. From the sounds of it, Valve basically hired everyone on this project to help them create Portal! Not a bad turn of events. Oh, and you're probably thinking: "Portal is a brand new game! How is it possible you're reviewing it already!" It's true I don't normally review such brand-spanking new games, but I couldn't pass this one up! Enjoy this rare, new game review!

For my shorter review on the whole game, please see my Portal review at Beyond the First Hour.

(minutes are in bold)
00 - Start a New Game and we're off! The game starts right away. I'm in a little cell, just a toilet, bed, and radio. A weird little song is playing on the radio. There's a countdown above the door. A computerized voice starts talking - it's welcoming me to the Aperture Testing Center. And in three seconds, something is about to happen...

01 - An orange doorway has opened! I approach the portal and peer through, I can see myself and the room I'm in!
02 - I enter a room with a giant red switch on the floor. A crate drops from a crate dispenser, guess I know what to do.

03 - Placing the crate on the button keeps the door open for me, and I pass through it and into an elevator. There looks to be about 19 "levels" in this game, as each level opens up with a giant sign detailing what level I'm currently on and what dangers lie before me. The next area puts me in front of an orange portal, and every few seconds the view inside the portal changes.
04 - I enter the portal and pick up a crate, as I'm passing back through the portal, the portal disappears but the crate made it through! Now I have to wait for the portal to appear again.

05 - Done with that level now, just had to be patient. The computerized voice is almost constantly talking to me, it's pretty entertaining. Right now it's warning me about the unintended taste of blood, as portals may disintegrate teeth!

07 - I have gotten my own portal gun! Now I can shoot blue portals! Awesome!
08 - I shoot a portal on the piece of wall a camera is on, it falls to the ground and the computer yells at me! Hahahaha! Seeing myself through portals is pretty crazy and somewhat disorienting, I really have to think differently when playing this game.

09 - There's barely any loading in this game, but the elevators are no doubt serving as the loading behind the scenes.

10 - In the next area I shot a blue portal on the floor, so when I passed through, the game had to fix my viewing axis as the orange portal was on the wall. Weird stuff. The computer informs me it will not be monitoring me during the next test.

12 - Had to place two crates on two buttons, nothing too complicated but I did make a crate fall through like an infinite loop! Very cool! The barrel would fall out of the orange portal and into the blue portal, over and over again.
13 - The computer said it lied to me about not watching me, and will stop enhancing the truth from here on out.

14 - I'm in a much different looking room. The walls are invulnerable to my portal gun, but the ceiling and floor are not. There's also a high energy pellet flying back and forth. The computer informs me contact with this pellet may cause disabilities such as vaporization!

15 - I had to make the energy pellet come in contact with an energy pellet receiver. I did this by placing a blue portal on the ceiling so that when the pellet passed through the orange portal it would continue on going downwards. Man, some of this stuff is hard to explain!
17 - Very cool little room I just finished. I had to shoot a portal onto the ceiling over a moving platform and then fall through the floor onto the moving platform 10 meters away!

18 - The next room has a poisonous sewer/swamp on the ground! The puzzle was also relatively complex, I had to shoot a portal for a pellet to pass through and then when it was bouncing around after passing through the portal I had to shoot another portal somewhere else.
20 - The computer says the next test is impossible... yeah right!

21 - It wasn't that hard though, just had to shoot a portal across the room through a little hole. The game is happy I was able to solve it in an atmosphere of such extreme pessimism.

23 - I just got an awesome lesson on momentum! I learned all about portal's affects on momentum, or their lack of. Portals were placed high on the walls and then I jumped down about 30 feet into another portal, thus hurtling me through the high up portal at a very fast speed! It was a lot of fun, but seems mighty dangerous! "Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out."
24 - I get some useful advice in the next area from the computer, "the floor here will kill you, try to avoid it."

27 - Yes! I am now able to shoot out orange portals, so I can make complete portal links myself!

29 - Another momentum flying level, this time I have to climb a vertical shaft like room by shooting blue portals really high up and then jumping really far down into an orange portal! Tons of fun and the computer thinks so too! "Wheeeeeee!"
31 - Wow, things are getting so weird. Being able to see myself in portals is odd, but very cool. In the last room, I had to drop crates from above onto buttons that were too high for me to jump to. Of course, I didn't have to be high, I could just shove the crates through properly positioned portals and they would fall right on to the buttons!

34 - I just had to place a portal on the floor so that I could jump from up high through another portal and then when I came out of the original one I would have enough vertical momentum to "jump" high enough! Take that gravity!

35 - The computer rewards me a complementary victory lift for beating the puzzle. Too bad the "victory lift" is actually required to move on!
36 - Cake and grief counseling are available at the conclusion of the test, can't wait!

39 - The game is throwing more complicated momentum jumps at me, including having to do basically two jumps to get enough momentum! This means flying out of a blue portal up high and then creating another orange portal where you're going to land so that you fly out of the blue portal again at an even higher speed! Phew!

41 - Ouch! I died after landing in the swamp doing some complex portal jumps over it!
43 - The levels are getting longer and tougher. But luckily, I can donate one or all of my organs to the Aperture Science Organ Fund for Girls! Oh snaps! The next level is a live fire course with drone guns!

44 - I encounter my first gun, it's facing away so I pick it up. It says in a soft voice: "Please put me down!" So I do but then it falls over and has a critical error! Poor drone gun...

45 - I fight back against the next drone gun by placing an orange portal on the ceiling and then a blue portal underneath the gun, causing it to fall!
46 - I don't seem to have health, I just can't get shot a lot in a row. That's nice of the game. I wander into kind of a dark and dumpy area behind all the sheen, don't think I'm supposed to be there!

47 - Dropping crates on drones is fun!

50 - Wow, that was an intense level! Lots of drone guns all over and lots of sly crate dropping on them! In the next area I get a Weighted Companion Cube. Basically a crate with hearts on it! I have to take it along on my journey.
51 - I turn the corner and get killed by an energy pellet. Well, I get to meet my Weighted Companion Cube again.

57 - Well I just completed a complicated sequence with the help of my Weighted Companion Cube. Together we conquered all odds and traveled through portals to make those all important jumps.

58 - OH NO!!! Now I have to euthanize my Weighted Companion Cube in a fire! The computer assures me that the Weighted Companion Cube would rather die in a fire than burden me, but this is a tough decision.
59 - I have euthanized my Weighted Companion Cube more quickly than any other test subject. I am sad. I want to jump in the fire behind it.
60 - The 18th out of 19 levels has nearly every warning on its posted sign! This one sounds dangerous, but I am too sad to be worried about that. I start out making a series of long falls from portals placed in the ceiling. But the decision has been made. I cast myself into the scorching sewer sludge as time runs out. I will be with my Weighted Companion Cube someway...
Now for some scores out of 10.

Story: 6
Not much of a story in the first hour of Portal, but things are still kept interesting by the talkative computer. Basically you're playing as a woman (Chell) who wakes up in some research facility called Aperture Science. There's really no explanation if she's here on her own will or if she's even a human (the computer mentions android hell and how I may be going there). There's a sense of mystery about her, but more intriguing is the aforementioned computer. You only hear its voice, and it seems to be friendly, but it says some really odd things. Some of my favorite lines are about how we're going to eat cake when all this is done and its bluntness about death and dying. It's very funny and fits the game perfectly, keeping it light and enjoyable. This is not a puzzle game thrown into 3D space, this is a hilarious puzzle game thrown into 3D space.
Graphics and Sound: 8
My computer is kind of old so I won't weigh this too heavily. I originally gave Half-Life 2 a perfect score in this area, but I don't think Portal achieves the same level of graphics that its big brother received. For one, the areas are small, all indoor, and very bland. This of course fits the game perfectly, but it doesn't do the Source Engine much justice in terms of draw distance and textures. There's no music in the game except for the little upbeat ditty playing on the radio and the sound effects are basically limited to the sound of the portal gun shooting. The computer voice acting is great though and sounds just how a creepy but lovable computer should sound.
Gameplay: 10
Very fun, very original gameplay. I think this score should have been obvious if you've read everything up to here. This is a fantastic puzzle/FPS hybrid unlike anything I've ever played before. Creating and navigating portals was mind-bending and awesome at the same time. Seeing myself through the portals was disorienting at first, but I was loving it. The whole time I was playing I was imagining the portal gun in multiplayer. It has so much potential and would create a totally new online experience. Not much else to say about Portal's gameplay, it rocks.
Fun Factor: 9
Great gameplay usually implies great fun, and that holds true for Portal. Not a perfect score because there are some frustrating moments with moving platforms and the gun drones seemed a bit out of place, but it all comes together for a great experience. Valve really knew what they were doing when making this game and I was pretty much loving all 60 minutes of it. I can just imagine that the rest of the game is just as great.
Minutes to Action: 1
Overall: 9
I thought about a 10 for a while, if you've been following my reviews you know I've never given a 10. I would consider a 10 the pinnacle of one hour of gameplay, and Portal just misses it. I'd rather not talk about what Portal does wrong, but everything it did right. Quick to the core of the game, doesn't try to make up a nonsensical story, and the gameplay simply rocks. The entire game is relatively short so my first hour review should really give you a great idea about the entire game (the whole point of these reviews if you didn't know). I would highly recommend Portal to basically everyone. This is non-frantic, non-twitchy gameplay that is basically a welcome to anyone. Play Portal.

I will find you again, Weighted Companion Cube.

Game 12: Halo: Combat Evolved

Halo: Combat Evolved was released along with the original Xbox and essentially defined the console, along with the entire last generation of first person shooter games. Halo was one of the most popular games of the last few years, basically only surpassed by its sequel and a few other select games. Featuring a two player cooperative campaign and a multiplayer mode that supports up to 16 players over system link (multiple Xboxes on the same LAN), Halo basically had everything gamers wanted, and definitely everything the Xbox needed to get the kick in the pants that it needed. The game sold millions and so did the Xbox along with it.

Halo is basically the opposite of a game like Beyond Good and Evil. It's extremely popular with gamers, readily recognized in mainstream media, and considered overrated by some (or many, depends on who you talk to). But with Halo 3 less than a week away, Bungie's blockbuster series is on the rise. But how does it all begin? Does the first hour of Halo start the series with a bang, or a fizzle? Read on and find out.

There are no pictures in this post because I am stuck at work dealing with a major support issue. I plan to add them later this week.

(minutes are in bold)
00 - The game is ready and I select campaign from the menu, I enter my name and then select my difficulty level. I'm actually a highly experienced Halo player so I'll choose Heroic (hard). Heroic is still decently hard for someone who hasn't played in a while (me) and hopefully will deliver a similar experience to a Halo virgin playing for the first time. Anyways, a cutscene begins, we're looking out into space (feels slightly familiar to another game's opening) but there's a giant ring just floating there. We see a space cruiser fly over us, the "Pillar of Autumn" is inscribed on its side.

01 - Now we're inside the bridge, listening to a man and woman talk. We made a blind jump to this ring to try and beat the bad guys here, but they're already waiting for us! It's a trap! 90 seconds until the battle begins. Turns out the woman's voice is from Cortana, a holographic computerized representation of the ship's artificial intelligence (that was a lot of big words).

02 - The humans send out their attack ships to deal with the Covenant (the alien race that we humans must not be friendly with). In the launching bay there's also huge tanks and the famous Halo Warthogs. We see a black marine captain yelling at his crew about the impending battle.

03 - The captain gives out word to "unseal the hushed casket." This means thawing out our hero, Master Chief. We see the big man in the suit stand up and stretch.

04 - Crap, my controls aren't inverted. Say what you want about inverted, but it's what I grew up with playing flight simulators and such. Well, I'll tough it out. I follow a soldier out of the room and then he gets blown up! Thanks for leading me out of the room, buddy!

05 - There's battles in every hallway I enter, but I can't participate directly yet, no weapons. Instead, blast doors are closed between the enemies so I can't get too close...

06 - I have to use my suit's flashlight in some areas, this isn't Doom 3 style darkness, but it adds some variety (and annoyance finding that flashlight button). Another marine yells for me to follow him to the bridge so I start trailing him through some more fire fights. In the distance I can see both little enemies (grunts) and large, human sized baddies (elites).

07 - I enter the bridge and a cutscene kicks in. The captain and Cortana explain the situation and Master Chief kicks in a few words here and there.

08 - They make the decision to abandon ship, but Captain Keyes wants to land the giant battleship on the ring! He gives me my mission: to get Cortana safely off the ship, because if the Covenant capture her, they'll know everything, including the location of Earth! (cue dramatic music)

09 - Master Chief sticks Cortana's chip inside his suit (hmm...) and the captain gives me his pistol, no ammo but I quickly find some.

10 - I get to kill my first grunts! Feels good.

11 - Now for my first real battle, a pretty intense shootout in a hallway, the elites can take a lot of hits! The A.I. seems pretty intelligent, hiding behind barriers and around corners, but the game is pretty lenient in terms of hit boxes. I lose some health but find a health pack attached to the wall and refill. If you don't know how Halo's health system works, you have both a shield and health. When your shield gets knocked out, you start losing health, but your shield will recharge itself after being out of harm for a few seconds. However, you won't get that health back unless you find health packs, which is what I needed!

12 - After picking up some sticky grenades from the Covenant, I put them to good use and attach them to a grunt. He knows it's on him and runs around screaming... right into all his buddies! Very satisfying death cries from that one.

13 - The covenant are docking onto our ship from our own pod launches, tricky bastards. I head into an empty one and grab one of their overshields, nice!

14 - I get whacked by an elite, and the grunts are chucking grenades at me. It's hard but I'm loving the excitement.

15 - The ship is very large and seems complex, but yet I don't get lost. There's really only one linear route, but there's enough hallways and different routes to sustain a lot of variety. This probably took a lot of effort from the level designers and I applaud them.

17 - You can only carry around two weapons at a time, so I'm constantly having to make a choice on what to keep. I decide to stick with the human pistol and assault rifle.

18 - I enter a room to find a two level fire fight going on. The Covenant are holding the upper level and we have to slowly pick them off, running up there would be suicide.

20 - A moment of dumb A.I. as an elite just stands behind a shield looking bored. I stick him good.

23 - I'm starting to notice a lot of cool scripted events: explosions, guys dying, fights in the distance, good stuff.

24 - What a fool I am! I dashed into a hallway only to find myself surrounded by Covenant! I back peddle out of there quickly while lobbing a few grenades, looks like they worked well.

25 - A marine gets stuck by a grenade, he runs around flailing his arms, then blows up. Ouch!

26 - I load up into the last lifeboat left on the ship, then we blast off. Master Chief don't need no seatbelt.

27 - We fly by the ring and then head in for a landing. No where else to go I suppose.

28 - Loading - then the next level starts. We're coming in too fast and have a crash landing!

29 - So Master Chief, the only guy who's not wearing his seatbelt, is the only one alive. I decide this is a good time to save and quit and update my control settings, must turn on inverted...

30 - I'm back in the game pretty quickly. This level is much different than the last, it's wide open, grassy, and there's blue sky above (and you can see the other side of the inner ring way up there in the distance).

31 - Cortana warns me of an incoming dropship, time to hightail it out of here, but I'm not sure where to go. I wander around for a bit and find the path I need to take just as the ship is landing.

32 - I'm getting shot at by flying ships, these guys pack a punch. I use the scattered boulders as cover.

33 - I'm still getting dogged by the small fighters, but I manage to take one down with a lot of pistol shots.

34 - As the second ship finally flies off, the dropship party is just reaching me! Time for a small skirmish with them. I find it hard to fight in such open grounds, you have to use the little cover given you very wisely.

36 - I enter a large field with a huge building on it, but there's a dropship between me and some marines. We work together to take them out, then meet up.

37 - I find some needed health on a marine escape ship. And then I get killed. I was too much out in the open and a red colored elite took me out with a bunch of well placed shot.

38 - I end up reloading right where I got the health, guess that was a checkpoint! As I pass a marine, he mutters "This is suicide!" Sometimes I have to agree.

40 - I pick up the Covenant weapon the Needler as my pistol is out of ammo. This is a heat seeking machine gun like weapon that shoots out pink needles. It seems pretty effective, but it's a lot of fun to use.

42 - Bad guys just keep coming from dropships, but a woman comes on the com telling us that more escape pods are landing and we should help them out. Time to head out... but I don't wanna walk there!

43 - Lucky for us, a marine dropship drops me off a big old Warthog! Warthogs are basically rugged jeeps that are very fun to drive. They're fast, and can hold a gunner and an extra passenger.

44 - I have no idea where to go so I get out so another guy can drive us there. Except no one will get in the driver's seat, guess I'll be exploring on my own!

45 - I head into a cave that Cortana explains was not made naturally (I'm guessing nothing on this ring "planet" was made naturally). The walls quickly become metallic like so I'm obviously heading into some kind of base. And I bet I know who's waiting for me.

47 - And it's the Covenant! I drive in the middle of a huge room and my gunner starts mowing down grunts and elites. I hop out to assist in the massacre.

48 - I get blown up by a sticky grenade! Stupid grunts and their lucky throws! But I get my revenge by sticking two straights grunts after I come back.

50 - I have to activate a bridge to move on, so I hit the controls and there's a cutscene as the bridge extends. Not sure if that cutscene was necessary but whatever.

52 - I drive out into open air in the Warthog, glowing markers on the ground mark my way. Thanks Halo!

53 - I approach a very rocky area, almost like a maze. There are marines in there fighting for their lives against the Covenant! Luckily, I find a sniper rifle and start taking down anything the dropships are dropping off. I meet up with the black marine leader from the beginning.

55 - Just noticing how great the draw distance this game features, the sniper rifle's scope really shows stuff off.

56 - I'm able to snipe enemies that are still in the dropships, effectively making their entire journey moot.

57 - One of our own dropships approaches, and I jump in. All the marines jump in too. But then it starts flying off and kicks me out! Guess I gotta get back in the Warthog and go... somewhere... on the ground.

60 - My hour runs out as I cruise around on the Warthog, with no clear way to go. I finally discover a group of marines clustered in a hill, and a huge battle is about to begin! Oh well. Looked like it could have been fun.

Now for some scores out of 10.

Story: 5
Nothing too impressive, but Halo's first hour begins an intriguing tale of two warring races and a mysterious ring world. It doesn't try to be too deep at the beginning and it also doesn't have an unnecessary or prolonged opening cutscene. There seems to be a lot of potential for a great story and I think the game could have explored the human's relationship with the Covenant better, either through Cortana during actual gameplay or something. But we really have no idea why they're fighting or why they raced to his Halo ring. But then again, it's a first person shooter so I'm not expecting much.
Graphics and Sound: 8
The game looks and sounds great, this is somewhat surprising as it was a launch title for the Xbox and it took a while for another game to really match Halo in style and flair. Halo features a nice, booming soundtrack that is tied with the events in the game and kicks in at appropriate times. It also has many voices from the marines and even the Covenant who yell and scream some pretty funny stuff. The graphics don't look as great anymore, but they've held up pretty well comparatively.
Gameplay: 9
Halo features classic console FPS gameplay with some great improvements. All movement is performed with the left thumbstick while all looking is done with the right thumbstick. This is different from say Goldeneye 007 where strafing and looking were reversed. This seemingly minor change actually does wonders as you can now easily look around without accidentally moving, possibly exposing your position. Another big change is that throwing grenades and melee have their own dedicated buttons, allowing for many different ways to attack very easily. The typical multiplayer battle is well varied and pretty fast. The game is pretty unbalanced for new players when set up against veterans, but I also see this as a way to reward dedicated players.
Fun Factor: 7
The first hour of Halo was a blast to play, but I started getting the feeling of repetitiveness even early on. The wide open second level also presents the problem of it being TOO big. Sometimes I had no where to go and I could tell Bungie foresaw this problem and placed blinking lights to sort of light the path. The A.I. was both very good and bad at the same time, but mostly good. There were some well fought battles even in the early levels. And like I said above, the ship felt large, but also very manageable. I never felt lost in the ship even though there were seemingly many paths to take.
Minutes to Action: 5
Overall: 7
Halo does a lot of things right and few things wrong, but the things wrong kind of stand up. The first level was designed great, but the second level was just too large for it's own good. Even when you first start the second level, it is not obvious which direction to head in (and you're being shot at by two flying Covenant at the same time). I really wish the story would have been fleshed out more too, as there really was no motivation behind the races' actions. What it does right, however, is great gameplay packaged with amazing graphics and an awesome score. This is a great first person shooter and a must play for fans of the genre (who can stand FPS games on a console, some people can't - or won't). I recommend it to anyone with an Xbox or Xbox 360. You have a lot of catching up to do with Halo 3 coming out tonight!

Game 5: Half-Life 2

Half-Life 2 is one of those games that just delivers. Hyped up beyond imagination, Valve fulfilled their grand promise and gave gamers one of PC's greatest games. Delayed, leaked, and delayed again, Half-Life 2 was in the oven for a while, but many people would agree it came out perfect. But how were those first few bites, how was the first hour of Half-Life 2? Let us enter the world of City 17 and find out.

I should probably make it clear that my computer isn't that great, and the loading times are probably longer than what an avid PC Gamer would own. However, this review isn't targeted to such a small audience and my computer (Athlon 1800+, 1GB RAM, and Radeon 9800 Pro) may well be representative of the average reader. Anyways, on with the game!

(minutes are in bold)
00 - I click New Game and the loading begins. The clock continues running though.

01 - Still loading after the first minute, and then the opening cinematic starts. Not a typical cinematic, however, as we're staring right into the face of an elderly looking man. His computerized voice gives him a very creepy feeling.

02 - I can see the inside of a train behind the man's head, and he gives me his final words: "Wake up, Mr. Freeman. Wake up and smell the ashes." Guess I should have plugged in my iSmell. I'm able to move around the train now, I walk up to a man and he looks at me and mumbles something. Credits begin fading in and out of the screen.

03 - The train docks and I get off. There's a giant video board above me of a bearded man. He's welcoming me to the city, how nice! Masked guards on the floor shove other civilians, and I guess I got too close to one of them as I get shoved too!

04 - There's trash all over, and I'm able to pick stuff up and chuck it! Seems like a good time to note that the action has started. I throw bottles and they shatter and objects realistically bounce around on the ground.

05 - I throw a bottle at a guard and he runs at me with a taser! I get zapped and my vision blacks out for a moment. Interesting effect. A guard tells me to follow him, there's no where else to go so I do. I'm able to peek into another room where a man is arguing with a guard before he shuts the peephole on me.

06 - I enter the room and the guard babbles at me in his garbled voice. There's blood on the floor and more trash. The guard takes his helmet off, it's Barney, from Black Mesa. I supposed this is Half-Life 2 so Black Mesa must have been the first game. Our past is left off at that. I notice his lips match his voice well as I throw things at him.

08 - Barney kicks me out of the room and I need to maneuver a box to continue on. As I head into the next room, a loading screen kicks in, I kick back to wait. And wait, and wait. Three minutes later, I've decided that my computer has frozen on me. I restart and find out it never auto-saved or anything, so I have to start over. Man, all eight minutes again!

09 - I'm back! A guard yells at me to throw some trash away that he just threw on the ground. Jerk. But it's these little things that really get me immersed in this police-state world.

10 - I head out a pair of double doors and find myself in an open courtyard. I'm surrounded by Eastern European architecture but in the distance is a huge tower that disappears into the clouds.

11 - I explore the square, trying to follow citizens into their respective buildings, but forcefields hold me back. Flying robots zoom around me, and take my picture! The flash temporarily blinds me in a very cool effect.

13 - I wander into an alley and see a walking machine that looks like a mini AT-ST out of Star Wars. I climb up a ladder to get over a fence and make my way down another alley.

14 - I see a man getting interrogated by some guards and another man sprawled out on the ground. The guards' crackling radios/speech creeps me out. I wander into a playground complete with teeter-totter, swings, merry-go-round, and cinder blocks. I mess around with the cinder blocks and teeter-totter for a while. The physics in this game are great.

16 - I enter an apartment - loading.

17 - Guards knock loudly on an apartment door and then kick it down violently. I hide in another room.

18 - The people here seem so desperate and sad. They're crowded around a window so I look out too, just some guards running around. The residents mention that they knew they would be coming. One man is listening carefully to a radio.

19 - The environments are incredibly detailed: peeling paint, stained floors, and rusted pipes. One guy motions me to enter his apartment, but the guards follow me! They start beating the residents so I hightail it out of there and head for the roof.

20 - Loading.

21 - I'm on the roof now, and I can still hear the guards causing trouble below. Some large maneuverable planes fly over me and start taking pot shots at me. This is getting serious.

22 - Shimmying! Well, I'm sure the guy I'm playing would be shimmying at this moment but I just quickly jog along the rooftops. I'm a little too careless as a moment later I splat on the ground.

23 - Loading my save, at least I saved, right? I continue on and as I enter another building from the roof, some guards surround me, all seems lost as I black out.

24 - A woman's voice appears and she saves me from the masked men. She seems friendly enough, so I follow her into an elevator. Turns out her name is Alyx, and she's quite pretty. She mentions that the bearded man I saw on the video before used to be my administrator at Black Mesa.

25 - Loading.

26 - We wander through a basement and then head through a secret passageway - through a vending machine!

27 - We enter a laboratory, there's tons of stuff to look at so I look around the room as the other characters talk. Someone mentions teleportation and my ears perk up, sounds like fun! Barney, the undercover guard appears, and lets me know that I've "stirred up the hive".

28 - Barney heads over to a security station and I'm able to watch no less than 10 TVs with different videos on them, very cool. Suddenly a monster appears, must be a head crab. The little guy scurries around and causes mayhem.

29 - I take advantage of the moment and hop into a sweet looking orange suit. Suddenly my health appears, I think I liked it better before when I was invincible!

30 - We all head into the teleporter room and Alyx hops into the machine. I'm suddenly having flashbacks of the beginning of Chrono Trigger. A power cord comes loose as the machine is whirring which gives me a chance to practice my E key tapping skills.

31 - Alyx is successfully teleported (I know this because I can see her on a TV - a remote view of wherever this teleporter goes to). I jump in, and await the bad stuff!

32 - Much the opposite of Chrono Trigger, it is I who get into trouble with the teleporter and I start seeing scenes from around the game I'm assuming. I even land for a moment in the bearded man's office freaking him out!

33 - I land directly outside the lab and immediately get my picture taken by one of the flying machines. I think it's time to get out of here before the lab gets compromised.

35 - Barney yells down to me and throws me a crowbar. Thanks Barney, not like you could have given me your gun or anything, right? Well, a crowbar does the job on the flying camera, very satisfying. Techno music begins beating and I can see hundreds of birds (maybe cameras?) flying out of the citadel tower.

36 - I'm getting shot at, can't really fight back with this crowbar.

37 - I feel a little lost, and there's a train heading right towards me. I end up getting squished in the confusion of getting shot. Whoops!

38 - I reload and head through a parked train. So obvious afterwards.

39 - Out of the train area, and into an alley. I turn my flashlight on and the game starts loading the next area.

41 - I turn the corner and hear a woman's scream! I head towards it to see two guards harassing a pair of ladies, I charge at them with my trusty crowbar! Their heads cave in easily to the hard metal. Ouch.

42 - I pick up their guns and try it out on the next guard I see. Works nicely. Next thing I see is the exploding barrel, not very original, but very fun. Explosions are even more fun in this beautiful land of physics.

43 - I jump onto a moving train, and then off it right away to get across. I feel like a real adventurer.

45 - Guards start rolling flaming barrels at me, nice A.I. I shoot the barrels quickly but get hurt by the shrapnel.

46 - The techno music starts up again.

47 - I jump in some dirty water to avoid being shot at and wade my way through it. I meet up with a man and an alien in an abandoned train car and they inform me they're part of the Underground Radio. The situation in City 17 must be pretty serious, if you haven't realized that already.

48 - Loading.

49 - There's a monster hanging from the ceiling hanging his tongue down... reminder not to get stuck in those.

50 - I turn the corner and walk into a courtyard - and a auto-machine gun. I hide behind some wooden crates, not very smart as those are quickly torn apart by the bullets, so I head behind something a little stronger.

51 - I take out the gunner and head into a sewer hole. Looks like I'm in another Underground Railroad station, but this one has been emptied out by the patrols. A radio is barking out communication between other Railroad stations.

52 - The machine gun! I line up behind the stationary gun and wait for my prey. Stationary guns are completely worthless without a bunch of dumb A.I. to run out in front of it - and Half-Life 2 delivers the goods.

53 - My fun is spoiled though as soldiers start rolling exploding barrels at me! Dang you gameplay man who ever invented exploding barrels! Once that threat is over, someone starts shooting rockets at me!

54 - I'm unsure of what to do for a moment as the rockets have disoriented me, but Flight takes control and I run out of the danger zone.

55 - When running, I end up getting picked up by one of the ceiling monsters! Ouch! I shoot it a few times and it releases me.

56 - I jump into a small room filled with about 20 feet of water. I'm unsure of where to go next but then the exploding barrels start falling again! I dive underwater and watch (and listen to them explode). It's a scary but very well done sequence!

57 - An exploding barrel opens my next path and I jump out of the death trap. I shoot another barrel in the distance and it nearly takes out an entire bridge.

58 - I jog into a room with a ton of ceiling monsters - there's a conveniently placed exploding barrel next to me, so I feed it to them and blow it up when one of them picks it up. Pretty resourceful if I do say so myself.

59 - I wade through some more water and dodge some more exploding barrels...

60 - Final minute and one final shootout with some soldiers. Also one final exploding barrel too. As the final loading screen appears, I can see a teeter-totter and cinder blocks in front of me...

The first hour of Half-Life 2 is up, now for ratings out of 10.

Story: 7
This is a difficult category because there's really not a lot of story directly presented to you. However, there's a lot of background story on the city and its current situation available to the interested player. Various radios and TVs play propaganda and relay messages between the Underground Railroad creating a world that is desperate and foreboding. When I was in the apartments visiting the down-and-out residents, I was reminded of the main character in the novel 1984 and his illegal visits with a woman and the fear they had of being caught.
Graphics: 10
Not sure what else to give this, even my older computer renders this game beautifully. The textures are what stand out the most as they give so much to the atmosphere. The character models also look great. The game looked wonderful almost three years ago and still looks great.
Gameplay: 9
There's so much interaction and the advanced Havok phsyics engine makes the world feel incredibly realistic. All the "cutscenes" after the short opening still let you run around as the characters in the backgr