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Originally Posted by kupoartist
But surely this is the point. It seems blindingly obvious to me that FPS games do not constitute your favorite genre. Yes, calling something "the best PC game ever" is very unstable territory, because FPS games aren't everyone's favorite. But to create a thread saying "Half-Life 2 is a let down" is pretty ridiculous when you're clearly not that interested in the game in the first place. The flaws you find in it are the product of wishing the game was something it was never intended to be, nor ever will be.
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Woooah... steady on Chief! I don't particularly have a "favourite genre", but given that I currently have HL1 & 2, DE, Halo and UT 2004 installed on my PC, I think we can establish that I
do like FPS'. (Incidentally, on my shelf also currently sits Sys Shock 2, No One Lives Forever, SWAT, UT2K3, UT, Dark Forces, AvP 1 & 2, Quake III and Hidden & Dangerous)
So now we've got that out of the way, I think I'm perfectly entitled to make a thread saying HL2 is a let down, because I think it is. Despite the hype and proclamations of it being the best thing ever since sliced bread, it's nothing more than a hi-gloss remake of HL1.
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Originally Posted by kupoartist
Please show me a game that actually integrates Physics into the gameplay itself. All other games with Physics engines just have them as an extra bit of eye candy. HL2 is the first game to allow Physics to open up gameplay choices. That is innovation. So are many of the graphics features in the game. Things like Facial Expressions, Shader effects, advanced animation and lip-synching are virtually without peers in the entire of gaming. Sure, Graphics aren't everything, but if you're going to make sweeping generalisations about the total lack of innovation in a game that cleary has at least some....
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Actually, I'd say that Red Faction made better use of a "physics" engine that opened up gameplay choices. Taking out pillars near enemies would cause things to collapse and kill them. Blowing holes in walls to get to other rooms... Admittedly Red Faction (and it's sequel) might not have done it as nice looking or realistic as HL2 - but they did do it first.
I honestly fail to see where the physics engine has opened up new gameplay options. Boxes floating in water - done. Cranes - done. Gravity Gun.... great fun, but why can I only interact with certain things? I can move one wrecked car, but not a different similarly sized one?? I can send a car flying with the grav gun, but do nothing to a wooden door?
Character animation, lip syncing, etc - seen it before. Again, not as polished but it's been done in earlier games.... for example... Half Life 1. Or how about the GameCube remake of Resident Evil? That has great acting/lip-syncing/character animation in the non-CG cut scenes.
With your examples you're in fact destroying any credibility your argument has. I can give you examples of where it's been done before, which means this is evolution and not innovation.
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Originally Posted by kupoartist
There must be perhaps 5 "unskippable sequences" in HL2, and all are excellent anyway, so I really don't understand your problem. UT is a very different beast once again anyway. How can a Competative Multiplayer FPS be in any way compared to a Story-Driven Single Player FPS? And how are you able to forgive the deep repeatativeness of a game like UT but bemoan something that isn't nearly as repeatative: Vehicles, Squad Battles and puzzles break up the shooting anyone?.
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It's not just the unskippleable sequence, it's the whole fact everything is so scripted. Once you've seen everything, that's it - you know what to expect.
You mention repetitiveness - well, I suppose at a basic level all games are repetitive; after all they're nothing but a series of mouse clicks/button presses. And again, at a basic level I suppose UT is repetitve.... but each time I play there is uncertainty. Am I going to win? How many kills will I get? Where's the health? Etc...
With HL2 there is the unknown of where the guards will appear from... but things like attack choppers, towers falling and buildings exploding are not unexpected. Once you've been through a level, you know for certain that certain things will happen.
As for puzzles, well - again they're only good once. Once you know the solution they become nothing more than a hinderance on a replay.
It's obvious you're a "fanboi" so to speak (no offence meant) and it's cool that you have found something in HL2 that I obviously haven't. But I still think I'm within my rights to say I think it's a letdown and doesn't offer anything new or innovative to either gaming as a whole, or the FPS genre.
In fact, I'm so confident of this that I challenge you (in a friendly way of course) to list the things that make HL2 an "innovation" over the original game. Tell what I'm missing; tell me the innovative features of HL2. If you can convince me that HL2 offers anything that the first didn't and I can't make any convincing counter-argument, I'll be happy to hold my hands up and say "you're right".
As someone who's a) not keen on Microsoft and their business ethics, and b) not a fan of the XBox, it pains me to say but I think Halo (yes, the first one) is a better and more enjoyable experience than HL2 plus it has much more replayability value. But as always, this is just my opinion.
Oooh, I love a good discussion me!
- S