Half-Life is one of the best action games ever. No one who has played that game could ever argue otherwise. So how could anyone other than the original design team possibly follow the success and originality of such a classic slice of gaming cheesecake? Well, fortunately for gamers hungry for more Half-Life cake, Gearbox has done a damn good job, though not without a few flaws.

Even though it may seem insignificant, the boot camp (in place of the hazard course of the original HL) is a whole lot of fun. Torn straight from the screenplay pages of "Full Metal Jacket" It's much more interesting than the hazard course. The single player game is excellent, one of the best single player experiences on the PC next to the original Half-Life, utilizing it's parallels with Gordon's story ingeniously. New weapons like the Desert Eagle .357, the teleporter gun, the multiple alien weapons, and my personal favorite, the SAW machine gun, all add a new dimension to combat.

The levels themselves are again very well designed, ranging from outdoor desert areas to the typical underground hallways, all with great architecture and an overall polish that made the original so special.

But Raveness, what flaws? Well, the biggest reason is that there isn't much overall innovation when held up to the original. It doesn't really expand on any gameplay concepts, it merely copies most of the design from the first game. For instance, the tentacles that were so powerful that they required a puzzle to kill them (the test-firing of the rocket). Well, there's another level just similar to it, only with a different monster and a different puzzle. Consider, however, this game probably took half the development time as Half-Life, so there may not have been time to make it longer or add anything significant gameplay-wise. The parallel journey that Shephard partakes in is certainly enough to make the expansion stand out as more than just artificially tacking on levels. Also, the addition of "Black Ops" soldiers seems a bit far-fetched, even in a sci-fi story. The government has also sent them in, and yet they will attack you? Seems a little strange, inconsistent. Maybe Gman is behind something there.

Flaws aside, it is an excellent expansion pack that will provide many hours of fun. It comes with my unreserved recommendation.

Pros:

Excellent new aliens. From the one-eyed chicken-legged Shocktroopers to the bullish lurching sewer creatures, all new alien strains add plenty of much needed variety. There's plenty of them too, offhand I'd say that there's at least eight or so new enemies.

Excellent new weapons. The sniper rifle adds a different slant on the large-scale battles and the new alien weapons are great fun.

The storyline is quite snappy too, with plenty of glimpses of Gman and a few secret conversations that you can eavesdrop on.

Usual high standard in terms of the graphics and sound (late nineties). The alien noises/voices still make me jumpy when you can hear 'em, but they're hiding somewhere. If you were not expecting the odd scare, this will shock you.

Cons:

Some people say that it's too short, but for an add-on pack it more than suffices. It has the potential to be cleared in one sitting, I'm good at it and played it on and off for a few days. However, the end monster and actual ending are both a bit of a letdown. The 'final battle' consists of a series of climbing ropes, using mounted laser guns and using your grappling hook over and over and over again. More like the Krypton Factor assault course than a pan-dimensional showdown.

Poor AI assistance from NPC's carried was magnified here. Any friendly troops that you lead into battle either refuse to follow you, charge straight into gunfire or shoot you in the back. Their average life expectancy in battle is about a minute or so. The bad guys aren't really the sharpest tools in the shed either, following basic patterns or causing you grief by being very fast instead of very smart.

Learning Curve: Takes a second

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