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November 20, 2004

Oh ... My ... Gawd - Part 2

Okay, I have played through Half-Life 2 and can now offer my "official" thoughts on the game.

1. The graphics.
By far, this is the most amazing game I've ever played when it comes to graphics. It looks so good that I found myself several times forgetting where I was and being drawn into the game. Everything is so damn crystal clear, and has you progress through the game you find that you're actually tilting your head in the direction you're moving your mouse to look. When I made my character look up, I would tilt my head back as well ... quite freaky actually when I now sit and think about it.

2. The story line.
As with the original Half-Life, there is tons of story and plot to keep this game moving forward. I was kept guessing most of the way through the game, which is good because I typically can guess the end to things like games and movies after I'm about a 1/3rd of the way into them. I had no clue how in the heck this thing would end, and I must say that the ending left me wanting to play Half-Life 3. The characters kept me interested and I actually found myself caring about what happened to them without realizing it. There's a point in the game where you go "Do what?!? Holy Cow!! What happened to so-and-so?!?" Definately some good story telling here by Valve.

3. The puzzles.
The puzzles in the game really frustrated me from time to time, as I would often overlook something pretty obvious and spend an hour looking for a solution when it was sitting there in front of me the entire time. While I may have been frustrated, this by no means mean that the puzzles were too much. As a matter of fact, they were just about right for me. Not too many that were extremely tough, nor was I able to just blow through all of the puzzles set before me.

4. The AI.
Holy shit, they're smart! The AI in this game is stunning. Not only are the enemies complex (grouping, stalking, etc), but those that assist you are extremely intelligent as well. Not smart enough to keep from getting killed ... but definately an intelligent AI (is that redundant?) I wish I could explain more here, but I'm afraid I might give away some of the things that the enemies do later in the game that end up surprising you.

5. The interactive vehicles.
I loved the boat. I hated the buggy. I loved the crane. Man ... the crane was FUN. Overall, I think the boat made for part of the best adventure in the entire game.

6. The weapons.
Out of all of the weapons available throughout the game, I found myself using the shotgun and pistol the most. The rest of the weapons were good at certain things, but the handgun was good for taking out the enemies early on while the shotgun did its thing later in the game. I really didn't use many other weapons unless I ran out of ammo. There is an exception to these two items ... but I don't really consider it a weapon as such ... but more of a tool that you use throughout the game: the gravity gun. This thing is totally bad-ass. You can move cars, pick up heavy ass shit and toss it at your enemies, stack stuff that you couldn't normally stack, and pull things from extremely far distances or that are just plain out of reach. Again ... totally bad-ass.

7. The glitches.
Throughout the game, I noticed a few glitches here and there, but there was nothing really big that stood out. The biggest problem was some clipping issues when using the gravity gun. An example is below. See how it stretches the wall out to a point?

It looks pretty weird tho. Additionally, I found that the game would stutter from time to time for absolutely no reason. I heard that this had happened to a few other people who have the game, but it wasn't anything too terribly annoying. The screen would freeze for a second and I would be right back into the game.

8. Favorite enemy.
I guess my favorite enemy would have to be those undead things with the crabs on their heads. Not the zombies, but the things with no skin, where you can see the tissue and bone. Totally freakish looking and they scared the shit out of me several times. There's definately places in this game that you shouldn't play in the dark like I did. Heh.

9. Favorite friend.
Barney. He offered me a beer. :)

10. Favorite overall moment in the game.
The ending. I was in awe and extremely frustrated at the same time. Let me say this ... they did an awesome fuckin job setting this thing up for Half-Life 3. Let's hope that it doesn't take another 5-6 years to come out. Considering how great this Source engine is, I think they should be able to turn around another decent game within the next year or two since they have the physics and everything worked out. After all, Valve doesn't have to start from scratch with a brand new engine for HL3 and learn how to use it.

Posted by ed at 10:41 PM | Comments (0)