Halo 2's single player story is even more compelling than the others as there are extensive movie-like cut scenes of some length that explain the context of the larger story. This increases the overall enjoyment of the game greatly. This level of detail means that things in Half-Life 2 work as they should (as they do in the real world) so rather than learning the physics of the Half-Life world, you can use your knowledge of the real world in this artificial one. I was impressed with the attention to detail yesterday when I broke a window with the crowbar, expecting the whole window to break out, and instead, as it was safety glass, the window shatter, but stayed together, and I had to clear it out with additionally specifically-placed blows. You can blow up anything, stack objects, throw objects, flip over tables and hide behind them, toss TVs out windows, and break things with your crowbar. Additionally since the "action button" doubles as the pick-stuff-up-and-optionally-throw-it button, there are a number of things you can do to interact with the environment. I'd say that Half-Life 2 has the most interactive world of any game I've played. Rather than dozens of carbon copy NPCs, each character is totally unique and could be recognized in a crowd later. It's also worth noting that the realism in the faces and expressions of the characters is truly amazing and really underscores the uniqueness of people. There is constant interaction with the NPCs and a real sense of total immersion that I honestly haven't felt since "Bard's Tale." There's many places where you find your self asking "what's the story here? There's something I'm not seeing or being told." That sense of curiosity continues to push you forward through the narrative. The original Half-Life set a whole new level for story quality and I believe Half-Life 2 is even more extraordinary. Every once in a while, a benefactor in the form of a scientist on the project meets up with you to help out. You have to single-handedly kill everyone. In FarCry, you're on vacation when your wife is kidnapped and you are unwittingly and unwillingly pulled into a terrorist plot to do some crazy stuff. You'll notice a pattern here as "single-handedly" is pretty common in the FPS space.
It's fairly predictable as you can "feel" when it should happen. Then the camera pushes in to the back of your head and control returns to you to take care of business. There are a few clever places where the camera backs out of your first-person view into a third person view when you "trigger" an event. The "scripting" feels a little stilted to me. They are usually killed as you walk away. There are some interactions with other characters but it's largely as you stumble upon them doing something else, and you can't assist them. Some crazy stuff happens on Mars and you're a Mars Marine who has to single-handedly kill everyone. While Doom 3 tries harder than it's predecessors, there's little story to speak of. These categories may be slightly different than the typical review. That said, I wanted to write up what I thought was important about these games, and what drives my opinion and buying decisions around gaming. I just cry tiny tears and leave it at that.) (You'll be happy to hear that I (and my ego) no longer need to defeat these infidels to feel secure.
Games like half life 2 mods#
There's been a million reviews of all these games from AnandTech-type reviews that tell you how much internal processor cache you must have to enjoy these games, to TomsHardware-type reviews that are meant to sell $500 video cards with heat sinks and fans of their own, to 12-year old blogger/reviewers who let you know about the latest mods and cheats so they can embarrass my 30-year old ass on multi-player maps.
Games like half life 2 Pc#
I'm playing the PC games on a P4-4Ghz with a gig of Ram and an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro. The first three are PC while Halo 2 is on XBox. These games, unquestionably, represent the pinnacle - thus far - of FPS-style gaming.
That said, you'd think I was a gamer as in the last two months I've picked up Doom 3, FarCry, Half-Life 2, and Halo 2. I've got about 2 hours patience with a game, but I stop when I start to hurt, be it hands, back or head. By 'not a big gamer' I mean, I lost interest with Ninja Gaiden because it was too freaking hard.
By 'not a big gamer' I mean, I didn't take a week off work to play GTA: San Andreas as a co-worker did.