B
Burnhard
Guest
Is it me or are all the people complaining about not understanding how City 17 came about probably younger, born after the fall of the Berlin Wall? (haha), or those who have not read 1984? If you think about things, it isn't too difficult to see how constant war can produce a paranoid martial society. So HL2 doesn't explain all the details (who knows, I'm still on Chapter 1), so what?
As for this being the most Uber shooter of all time: maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I do know that after playing the original Half-Life, FPS's would find it hard to live up to that "first time" feeling. For example, HL 1 was the first time I had seen character skinning and lip sync'ing in a video game. There is no way I can get that feeling back. I've had it once before, when I first played Elite a long, long time ago on my BBC Micro! These things are rare and usually represent a technological or gameplay breakthrough. I think Half-Life 2 provides that breakthrough with the physics engine. I do feel like I'm doing something new in an FPS that I haven't really done before. Likewise, the Doom 3 unified lighting model was a treat (those who talk about everything looking like it is wrapped in plastic: blame the artists, not the engine) but they are just developing the current FPS genre graphics, rather than creating a whole new one.
So, from what I've seen of Half-Life 2 so far I would say that it probably will dissapoint people who expect that "wow" factor with every new release (can I ask, did you buy Opposing Force and Blueshift after you played Half-Life 1 through? I did and I loved them both). But it does raise the bar somewhat.
Well worth the purchase price imho.
(btw: I do have one gripe: that is having to register with steam in order to play the game. It took 5 - 6 hours yesterday to get setup to play the game. I left work early so I could play it and was dissapointed/angry that I couldn't. Maybe it will save on piracy, maybe it won't. I'm pretty sure that someone will crack single player and make the whole registration process purely a future marketing excersise. The thing is, I feel that I have paid £35 for something self-contained, but in effect I have paid £35 for something that remains bound to a third party. I don't like this because its completely different to my usual game buying experience. Maybe it is the future and if so, I'm just being an old farty
).
As for this being the most Uber shooter of all time: maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I do know that after playing the original Half-Life, FPS's would find it hard to live up to that "first time" feeling. For example, HL 1 was the first time I had seen character skinning and lip sync'ing in a video game. There is no way I can get that feeling back. I've had it once before, when I first played Elite a long, long time ago on my BBC Micro! These things are rare and usually represent a technological or gameplay breakthrough. I think Half-Life 2 provides that breakthrough with the physics engine. I do feel like I'm doing something new in an FPS that I haven't really done before. Likewise, the Doom 3 unified lighting model was a treat (those who talk about everything looking like it is wrapped in plastic: blame the artists, not the engine) but they are just developing the current FPS genre graphics, rather than creating a whole new one.
So, from what I've seen of Half-Life 2 so far I would say that it probably will dissapoint people who expect that "wow" factor with every new release (can I ask, did you buy Opposing Force and Blueshift after you played Half-Life 1 through? I did and I loved them both). But it does raise the bar somewhat.
Well worth the purchase price imho.
(btw: I do have one gripe: that is having to register with steam in order to play the game. It took 5 - 6 hours yesterday to get setup to play the game. I left work early so I could play it and was dissapointed/angry that I couldn't. Maybe it will save on piracy, maybe it won't. I'm pretty sure that someone will crack single player and make the whole registration process purely a future marketing excersise. The thing is, I feel that I have paid £35 for something self-contained, but in effect I have paid £35 for something that remains bound to a third party. I don't like this because its completely different to my usual game buying experience. Maybe it is the future and if so, I'm just being an old farty
).
