The first Half life employed something quite new to the first person shooter when it was released back sometime around the Bronze Age, something that most of us now take for granted as an extremely immersive way of telling a story. This feature was, of course, structuring the game as an unbroken narrative. Effectively, Half Life was just one big level, made up of heaps of elements seamlessly woven together. This had the effect of making the game extremely realistic, removing incongruous 'game' elements and drawing you into the character of a Black Mesa scientist. Half Life 2 picks up right where the first one left off, and once again the story is told through the eyes of every gamers favourite scientist, Gordon Freeman.

Returning to the Half Life world is immediately disconcerting, as this world is much different to the one you may remember. Plucked from the nether regions of time and space by the seemingly nefarious G-man, Gordon is thrust into a confusing place, a world in the grip of strange inter-dimensional beings, where the Combine rule with an iron fist, forcing the remnants of human rebellion to exist in underground hideouts and abandoned facilities.

What is so impressive about Half Life 2 is the way that the story pulls you along with such subtlety that you won't realise just how linear the game is. This is made possible by level design that is at once so realistic you will be hard-pressed to find fault with it, yet which at the same time acts to steer you in the right direction like a cat following a piece of string. You never have total freedom yet you never feel like you are being bullied to continue. The level design makes you want to keep going.

Half Life 2 is made up of so many moments, so many parts, that upon completion it all kind of blurs together. There are slow, tense moments, panicky moments, airboat driving moments, rocket launcher moments, gravity gun moments, physics experiments, explosions, betrayals, puzzles ' the list goes on! And each part is structured so that just as you may be getting sick of driving the buggy or the airboat, or avoiding subterranean nasties, the game switches tempo and puts you off on a tangent that is both new and exciting.

The controls on the Xbox have actually translated really well and gel with almost every other FPS available on the console. Gun choice has also been ingeniously mapped to the D-pad, with each weapon class grouped in a different direction, allowing you to bring up the gravity gun with two quick downward presses, or the powerful magnum with two upward jabs. It works extremely well, and you'll hardly find yourself bringing up an unwanted weapon in a tense situation.

Gordon's movement is brisk and responsive and aiming is helped a little by a large damage reticle and slight auto (sticky) aiming. Yes, this has the result of making combat a little easier (especially the driving and shooting parts), and many enemies do seem rather weak on normal difficulty, but for many players it is a needed compromise when going from the precision of mouse aiming to console controllers.

Inevitably, comparisons will be made to the PC version. Having played through the PC version multiple times, I don't entirely agree with employing a direct comparison, as what we have here is perhaps the finest FPS that will ever grace the Xbox, albeit in a format that is slightly inferior to the PC version. If pushed to compare, I'd say you're getting about 90% of the experience on Xbox that you would get on a high-end PC, but most of that falls down to how nit-picky you are with graphics and performance, and how much you love using the mouse for shooters.

I also felt that there were moments in the Xbox version, whether it was because of slightly less graphical beef or the auto aiming, where I saw the game more as a game, whereas on PC that rarely happened. Also worth mentioning is that on-screen action does actually pause for a second or so directly after loading in several areas, or when walking out into large open areas, but this hardly detracts from the overall experience.

Whilst Half Life 2 looks fantastic, and can proudly sit beside Doom 3 and Far Cry: Instincts in the graphics department, some elements have been noticeably toned down. Water looks fantastic, as do most of the floor and wall textures, especially any reflective surface. NPC models are not as detailed, yet the facial animations and lip-synching on important story characters are fantastic. The Source engine and the Havoc physics, which blew many away on its initial release, are still very impressive - which they need to be, considering that there are several physics based puzzles that need to be accomplished to progress through the game. Graphically, some elements are extremely impressive, whilst others, mostly inconsequential textures, are less so.

It's quite amazing that all of the massive areas of the PC game, which was not developed with consoles in mind, were able to be converted to console. As a result of this scale, Half Life 2 is littered with loading areas (which are the same as the PC version anyway), which you'll find happening about every 5-10 minutes, depending on how fast you cruise through an area. However, loading times are rarely more than 30 seconds, and may allow you to take a large breath to steel yourself for the next section!

So, about Steam the rather contentious operating shell that meant some players (myself included) had to sit through hours of frustrating internet-unlocking-downloading-updating-preparing-offline-mode-bullcrap! Or worse, had to actually go out and get an internet account in order to play the game. In a move that will have you praying thanks to whichever gods you worship, Steam is in no way involved in the Xbox version ' which means you can simply stick it in the console and be shooting Combine within minutes ' blessed simplicity! This alone is almost worth the admission price.

There is one glaring omission, though as Half Life 2 for Xbox is surprisingly sparse when it comes to multiplayer. Considering that Counterstrike has been released for the console, the mind boggles at why Valve didn't include Counterstrike Source, as it did for the PC version (or Deathmatch, which can be downloaded through Steam). Surely this would have injected some adrenaline into the already existent Xbox Counterstrike community. So in the end what you get is the bare bones Half Life 2 game ' at a price that is almost double what you can get the PC game for now.

Still, even if it is just the single player component, it's enough to warrant strong interest, particularly if you have never played the game, or couldn't be arsed stuffing around with Steam. It would have been interesting to see whether this game would perhaps be bigger and better on the Xbox 360, but it still looks beautiful on the Xbox.

I deliberately have not said much about the story, because part of the beauty of this game is discovering that for yourself, and many theories abound as to who the G-man is and what his intentions are ' you'll catch sight of him through doors, on surveillance camera screens, always just out of reach of your weapons. From the opening levels in City 17, through to the Sandtraps, Nova Prospekt, and many more areas, the story will unfold with you at the centre of the action.

The graphics help to keep you immersed, but the sound is also fantastic. Weapon effects are meatier than a butcher's cold room, and the atmospheric music that pops up sporadically is perfectly suited to the on-screen action. There is perhaps nothing more satisfying than hearing the monotonous beeeeeeeeeeeep heart monitor tone of a dead Combine soldier.

Lower frame rate (around 30 fps) and slight staggering aside, Half Life 2 is an impressive conversion of what many consider to be the best PC FPS ever. The game runs smoothly and the player will easily become immersed in the realistic world Valve has created. I can't see a better shooter coming out for the Xbox, maybe Black (also coming soon from EA) will prove me wrong, but for many this will be the glittering jewel in the ageing console's crown.