enter teh zippy 1cent zone
HL2:cant help but feel its short and blander than it should be look at the level design for HL1 and tell me HL2 has as well built zones, the gimmick gun is so so they seemed to have masturbated them selfs on it a too much(I can pick up objects yet cant knock gards/zombies back or make them fall or even toss them around for no damage), the weapons felt nerfed and the vechile levels were kinda laughable, kind reminds me of prey in a way altho prey didn't have a god awful ending level, still HL2 has one of the best story's for a FPS and on normal it dosent fell so nerfed, now adays it seems you play a game on hard the weapons become pee shooters and the balances go to pot,you put it on hard it should remain fun, keeping head shots nearly lethal buy adding more def to the body,also all damage to you is up 50ish % you know make the game hard but fun not on a slider that shows the games balance issues more clearly.
HL2 eps:30 bucks for 12-18 hours worth of game, not bad of coarse this is how normal games should be already (think about it 20 hours of SP content on 40-50$ games)....over all it still feels like HL2 no real improvement on much of anything.
TF2:it reminds me of when Doom 3 came out limited MP choices and all, however unlike doom 3 it dose not suck all they have to do now is make a whole game out of it and offer a old TF game type so pleple can kill things out side a group.
Portal:best mini FPS game made yet,even trumps some 50$ monstrosities!
Steam:this is where everythign falls apart for me steam dose not like you selling games, they like to sit beside you and monitor what you are doing in the name of statistical gathering, and some of their retail boxed games can not be played offline because they have not polished steam to be net free, I hate online activation and refuse to spend more than 20$ on something hat has it I broke that rule for bioshock and so far I wish I did not, however unlike the 5 token install Secruom BS Steam will let you install it any time as long as you log in, I had steam on dailup when HL2 was launched I had steam on DSL a couple years ago, when they effect a better offline mode I will buy in until then I do not trust them and I am better off not letting big brother grope me while I play a game.
For me to trust steam I want to be able to install a game logion to it have it verify it then go away, total shut down of teh steam BS,when you run a game maybe a update ticker will alert you of needed updates but nothign more, and yes I know steam has a offline mode however it is still buggy.
BTW the orange box is a must for any FPS, when it gets fully cracked by the community I will pick up a a box, now adays I make sure any game I buy is fully playable without the draconian crap they place on it.
