HD is to Wii as PC is to HD

[Mendicate Bias]

vlad321 said:

Mendicate Bias said:
Hey vlad I have a serious question. I know you think console games are all shovelware and suck so I'm wondering how you rank Half-Life 2? I'm only asking because I recently purchased The Orange Box and I played through the game and all its episodes for the first time so I want to see how you feel about the game personally. I haven't played Portal or Team Fortress yet though so I don't have opinions on those games yet.

I thought Half-Life 2 was pretty fucking amazing. Mostly because of the way the tory was told (you never see anythign other than what Gordon sees) and the fact that in a given 30 minute period you are not gonna be doing the same thing. You are either surviving zombies, driving a boat, a car, defending from ant lions, fighting gun ships, defending a prison, etc. Graphics are oldish but I never put value on graphics anyhow. Portal on the other hand I have to tell you is abslutely amazing and one of the best games to come out in the past 4 or 5 years, if not the best.

I agree, the physics puzzles were amazing, the shooting mechanics are solid, the story intriguing and I like the fact that you stay in first person the whole time. I did have a couple problems with it though. One was the loading times. I hated the fact that the game had to stop and load level segments. It wasn't really because I had to wait a few seconds to play again but because I felt like it discouraged me to explore since I was always worried about going through a hall and passing a load checkpoint forcing me to go back through the checkpoint to explore the rooms I hadn't been to yet or blocking off the previous map entirely. I wish they had implemented level streaming like most games today do.  Also the AI for the common soldiers was bothersome too, although Alyx's AI was superb. I actually got pinned in a corner by an AI companion once and he wouldn't move so I was stuck and had to reload the level.

Another problem I had with the game was trying to understand the story. I get the gist of it but I wish they had placed hidden terminals explaining the back story in more depth like in Halo 3 or audio logs like in Bioshock. For me story is a huge element in a game and Half-Life has such a rich universe I just wish they had gone into more depth with the story or at least given the curious player mechanics for uncovering the deeper story.

Overall though most everything I complained about are small nitpicks and I won't even bother going into what I liked about the game cause I could go on for a while. I also have to say I thought Episode 2, although short had the best gameplay experience and story out of all the other Half-Lifes. I was actually worried for Alyx when she was struck down by the Hunters and its very hard for a game to make me care about its characters.

Basically the fact that the developers didn't treat the gamer as a child and forced us to figure out puzzles on our own was amazing and I see why you think PC games are the best, they never hold your hands and guide you. But I disagree with you and think that consoles have games that can give you the same deep experience as PC games, you just have to look a little harder for them.