Half Life 2 is the Best Shooter... Ever

[Onyxmeth]

vlad321 said:

@Onyxmeth

While I agree that Metroid Prime, GTA4 and other adventure games where shooting isn't the MAIN focus of the game are out of HL2's league (as in they aren't the same and can't be compared, not in terms of quality) Gears falls right into the Half-Life territory, along with Halo, CoD, and other games where shooting is the main focus of the game. HL2 has to be the absolutely worst adventure type game if we are comparing it as such.


The only Gears reason is not in first person is because of the cover system, which it would have not needed had it been 1st person since with a crouch button EVERYTHING becomes a cover. It's effectively an FPS plus a gimmick thrown in.I think we can also agree that BioShock is a System Shock 2 clone and not a HL clone.

I'm not going to get into a huge Gears TPS is a gimmick thing, but just note, it's better that it's third person in my view. It would change the dynamics of how the game is played. I've done cover in games like Rainbow Six and Brothers in Arms and it's trash to say the least. You're a sitting duck waiting for someone to sneak up on you and pop you in the head. That may be someone elses' cup of tea, but I prefer the way Gears does it, which can only be done in third person.

Alright, so since i haven't finished HL2 yet, i'll just come out and ask what about it makes it stand out from other shooters that just shoot all day long but doesn't make it venture into another genre? I understand that many games took what HL2 did and employed those ideas, but what are they still not doing to match up? I'll recant the comment of it not being a shooter and we can directly compare. I just finished a Gears 2 campaign that was a lot more varied than the first game was, featuring mech areas, tank areas, rail shooter areas, crane operating, running for your life to find a way out of a poisonous cavern, bosses that took more dodging and cover skills than shooting, disabling security systems, package delivery, a quick romp through a burning building, amongst other things that made it not just about shooting.

I understand how important HL2 is. It's on a short list of games that are inherently important in the first peson shooter genre. It is definitely more important than the other games that have come out since then. My problem is, the title and context don't say important, they say best shooter, and that brings it up to scrutiny by people that have opinions other than HL2 being their favorite. A game coming after HL2 can be better just by building on the framework. Also I do think multiplayer, which is very important in many of the accused games, should not be thrown away as inconcsequential. Those are the main drawing points of many of these games, and HL2 has no MP to speak of. It's another thing that seperates how well we can cross judge them all.