AI
So, you know about the weapons. But what about the poor polygons on the receiving end of your digital firestorm? HL was widely lauded for setting the standard for AI in a single player FPS. For the first time we were seeing enemies retreat when hurt, taking cover to reload and even working as a team to outflank you. If truth be told, the AI aren’t the huge leap forward that some were expecting. That’s not to say that AI isn’t good, they take cover, they retreat, the outflank if they can and they run for cover if they’re outnumbered. The AI is an improvement on HL and is on a par with that of Far Cry.
Far Cry’s AI feel as if they have more of a sense of self-preservation which is missing in HL2, but then again, HL2 baddies don’t just stand about as you pick them off one by one, they react to what is happening around them. They’ll attack, covering each other and taking cover if you return fire. All in all, the AI is easily as good as anything else on the market. HL2’s AI isn’t bad, it’s just that everyone else has caught up.
So, that’s the enemy AI covered, what about the friendly guys? Yep, HL2 gives you some allies to fight alongside. Support for Gordon on his travels and in his battles come in several forms, from robotic, place able gun turrets to suicidal giant insects to human rebel fighters. Control of your fighting partners is very simple and commands are limited to attack, hold or follow. Though this may appear limiting, it keeps the gameplay simple, allowing you to get your allies to do what you need them to do even in the middle of a frantic firefight.
All of this works well until you get into more confined spaces, then your human fighters can rapidly become a pain. They trail along behind you like a pack of lost puppies and as soon as you get into a corridor, they’re in the way. This wouldn’t be a problem if they’d move out of the way easily, but they don’t. For some reason, they seem to have a penchant for walking out of your way, backwards… not good if they’re in front of you as they’ll blindly stroll straight into a murderous crossfire with nothing more than their backside to threaten the enemy. At other times, they’ll just stop. Not for any reason, they just stop. Having to go back and collect an errant squad member doesn’t happen often, but is annoying if you’ve passed a point where you can’t go back as you’ve now lost some much needed fire support for no reason other than poor AI pathfinding. However, the majority of the time, your squad are more than useful, healing themselves as well as you ad even picking up the more powerful weapons dropped by dead Combine troops.