OhJohnNo said:
As for the Escapist forums, I haven't seen any raging prepubescent Halo fans yet - I can only assume they get drowned out by the loud, bullhorn-wielding Valve fans who do much the same thing, only with better grammar and a more extensive vocabulary.
I want to play Half-Life 2, if only so I can see what all the goddamn fuss is about, and plan to when I'm able. At that point, I will see how it compares to the Halo games (I'm expecting - from what I've heard - to go in, get terrified out of my wits and have to fight frantically to finish the game before I lose control of my bladder).
Wow that was a massively, hugely offtopic post. Eh, whatever.
I'm a HL2 fan, but it's not particularly scary. Granted, anytime you're in a darkened room you can bet a headcrab will come jumping out at you, but that's more startling than scary. The only really creepy section of the game is Ravenholm which is a bit annoying since its favorite tactic is to have you jump (or follow a narrow beam) to an isolated rooftop... then have five or six zombie dogs things attack you. Said zombie dogs being able to take two or three shotgun blasts each and have the ability to climb up walls, making it a sort of King Of Hill stand-off.
What I like about the game is that it breaks up the action really well. It starts off as a standard shooter, then you have the boat levels (alternating between being chased by choppers and getting off to open up new areas), some more foot action then it's the car levels, then you have some squad-based stuff (which is really the weak point of the game), then the finale is the Super Gravity Gun which is just ten kinds of awesome.
But I'm not sure the game has aged terribly well. such as, Gordan Freeman seems to be a low-level telekinetic, since he has the ability to make small objects hover in front of him instead of using his hands... this because they didn't have the ability to realistically model him holding onto all the items he could carry around. Which brings us to Physics Puzzles. Valve was so jazzed that they had realistic physics in their game that they set up all sorts of puzzles using see-saws and pulleys. First couple of times, it's cute; but the 18th time you have to find some cinder blocks to put on the far side of a see-saw so you can get up to a ledge, it loses its charm.
And the in-game cut-scenes... okay, at its best, this is an incredibly immersive technique. The original Half-Life changed the way games told their story, but it became the series "thing". Far too often, you're locked in a room with two or three NPCs chatting away, while you just jump around the room waiting for them to Get The Fuck On With It. This can be incredibly boring the first time through and explains why I've never been able to play through any Half-Life game a second time, despite attempting it several times. This is also where the silent Gordan Freeman fails as a narrative device. Most games would just do this stuff via radio chatter and let you get on with playing the game, but HL essentially creates a bunch of boring, unskippable cut-scenes.
I think the game is still worth a playthrough, but make sure you dial your expectations down. At the time, it was hitting virgin (or near virgin) territory, but these every "dumbed down" console FPS and their brother has traveled the same path... quite often, doing it better.
