Far too long has this crowbar laid dormant. "Rise and shine Mr. Freeman. Wake up and smell the ashes." - Gman HL2

Half Life 2 has finally landed on our hard drives, along with two big decisions. First, who would actually do the review? Both Video Game Editor's had pools of drool on their desks and were unashamed fans of Mr. Freeman. Second, would we rush out the review in an attempt to beat everyone else, or take our time and throw deadlines to the wind? For the first dilemma we chose a sweet solution. Both our Video Game Editors would take a whack at the game, but they would draw straws as to who covered what.

We realized that most of you probably already had the sequel to the best first person shooter in history sitting on your computers, locked away behind Steam, just waiting for the midnight of the release. So as fans ourselves, we decided to take our time with it and as a trade off, give you our most in-depth game review to date. It truly is exhaustive, both because of its thoroughness and because we are now truly exhausted ourselves. During our careful play-through, we explored every sewer, clubbed every headcrab and squeezed every pheropod, so we could give you all the details. Okay, not every pheropod, but we were thorough. Read on to get each Editor's take on all the game's important elements.

Darren On The Cast Of Characters

Mirror mirror on the wall. Oh wait... there aren't any mirrors in City 17."

Cast as the main character, you are Gordon Freeman. As a graduate of MIT with a PhD in Theoretical Physics, you have a lot on your mind, but you never say a word. Savior of the Black Mesa Research Facility, you now find yourself in City 17 with old friends battling for the survival of the human race again.