| Mazty said: I'll keep this simple: The only difference between say HL2 and Killzone 2 (ignoring the gameplay) is that in HL2 the main charater says nothing, and there are no 3rd person perspective cut scenes. That is it. If we now compare Gordon to GTA3 guy, other than how the game is seen (1st person vs 3rd person) there is no difference in storytelling mechanics. So why is HL2 prasied so much? You say the Half-Life player never loses control. That's because he is never given any. It's hardly a pro saying you have full control of a car when it's on bricks in the drive-way. In all honesty, you are never given any actual control in HL2. First thing I did when I saw an NPC I emptied a magazine into them, which they pleasently ignored and carried on chatting away, making them seem more like robots than humans. The HL2 world is as limiting as every other generic FPS - go here, kill X, Y and Z. Congratualtions, move onwards. There is no room for invidiual choices what so ever. As I said, my experience of HL2 will be identical to yours, little jimmys etc. Saying it's you moving around falls short when you can't do anything other than go along with what the NPCs/Valve want you to do. Just the same as every other generic FPS. Not to mention, very withdrawing from the game experience when you can only go where you want when the monologues have stopped. Granted I understand you never have to watch Gordon do something you wouldn't, but it's a moot point as you can't do what you may wish to do. In portal granted it works well as there are no NPC's etc, but in a game where there are NPC's, either give the mian character, well, a character, or give the player at least some ounce of freedom, otherwise it's a waste of time aysing "Be yourself....but you have to play the game exactly as we want you to." |
Half-Life 2 wasn't the revolutionary one, Half-Life 1 was. At the time, FPS stories typically involved a slight bit of text at the end of the level that nobody paid attention too. Half Life created an entire world that you were a part of... you start off on a train to work, not randomly dropped off in a maze full of demons/zombies/aliens/nazi's/whatever.
Scripted events, where you would enter a room and then something would occur... that was revolutionary at the time. It might not be, now... but you have to remember what FPS's were like in 1998. And it was all done through the eyes of Gordon Freeman.
Half-Life 2 didn't introduce these, it used the same concepts as the first one. But overall, the game (I felt) was improved, the gravity gun addition was incredible, the variety of levels, physics puzzles, was amazing. The only real complaint about the game is that it's completely 100% linear... but... so what. Not all games have to be non-linear.
