lunncal said:
Ok, I get you, even if I still disagree. After about 5 minutes, the novelty of the change of pace to that of driving a boat wore off, when I realised I didn't want to drive a boat any-more. It was boring.
When I was actually in the boat, all I had to do was drive past all of my enemies. There was no dodging or chasing or evading involved, as they simply couldn't hit me unless I outright stopped, which I never had any reason to do, except when I had to push one of those buttons I mentioned earlier. When the helicopter arrived I didn't actually care, as it also couldn't hit you as long as you kept going forwards. Then I got to shoot at it from a turret, so I shot at it from a turret, like I have done in a million other games, and no, it still wasn't particularly fun.
When the cannon was added to the boat there was rarely a reason to use it, because the AI couldn't hit you anyway. Having the helicopter start dropping bombs was interesting, but didn't last for very long at all. Then when it came back for the boss fight I got to have all the fun of driving in a circle to avoid the bombs, stopping every now and again to change direction if I had to, and constantly firing at the helicopter until it died.
Sounds like you are playing Half Life 2 on WAYY too low a difficulty setting. I understand console version tone it down so much compared to PC, but I don't know what platform you played on anyway.
I mean when I last played HL2 on Normal or Hard I remember the slightest lapse in concentration and a Combine soldier would slash half my HP away with a burst of fire and I'd be vulnerable and hunting for health packs for the next half and hour.
Turning up the difficulty makes the enemies more accurate, more aggressive and more mobile.
I remember having to weave around like a sonovabitch to dodge the helicopter last time I played Half Life 2. Remember, easy more is literally for little kids who are to incompetent to drive in a straight line without crashing.
You really have to think strategically, CoD you really can coast through at a steady pace just ducking away time the screen gets splashed red (BLOODY SCREEN - So REAL!) then moving on as the enemy patiently waits behind cover.
You ***** a bit about "the same old clone soldier" when what does CoD do but have you face the identical clone enemy over and over and over again. Lets look at the enemy variety of Half Life 2:
-Civil Protection: sub guns and stun-sticks, nice introduction
-Combine troopers: oh those shotgun wielding fuckers will kill you in one hit
-Mounted turrets: on hard you MUST think outside the box to defeat them, no
-Snipers: can only be killed in the novel way that requires finding a way to get close and lobbing a grenade in, rather than the usual "find sniper rifle, shoot sniper" routine
-Barnacles: an environmental hazard that needs you to use the environment or waste too much ammo
-Zombies: such bullet sponges and numerous too but slow, to conserve ammo you pretty much must use the gravity gun
-headcrab: a risk to the reward of searching in dark spaces for secret items
-Fast headcrab: deadly in numbers especially on high difficulty require smarts to deal with
-Poison headcrab: interesting gambit, it temporarily reduces your health down to 1hp with poison, you are left extremely vulnerable for a few seconds
-Poison zombie: OH HOLY SHIT, meeting one of these in a deserted corner while foraging for supplies, these scare the shit out of me, so silent till "uuughhghhhh!" HOLY SHIT IT'S RIGHT THERE!
-Fast Zombie: shit, you've got to be quick with your aim to kill these things, remmebr, don't shoot with your shotgun till the last possible moment or the blast won't be concentrated enough to kill.
-Antlion: your worst enemy then you ally, very nice inversion
-Antlion Guard: the way these attack you really have to be quick onyour feet, dodging out of the way at the last possible moment and making best use of environmental weapons
-Manhack: flying lawnmower grenades! Too numerous and fast to shoot, gotta get your your crowbar and knock em out of the air
-Strider: 30 foot tall killer robot. What would you rather another guy with an AK47?
-Combine gunship: take more than just a single rocket and you can't just fire and forget, you have to lead around the with the laser pointer to walk the rocket onto the target all while avoiding so much fire.
I really don't think you are giving Half Life 2 a chance.
-You know the enemy variety yet to gloss over this.
-You say the game is too easy but never adjust the difficulty settings.
-You don't seem to be able to follow characters when they exposit which explains the whole plot