Thing is, what you are praising HL2 for is true of almost every generic FPS. Moving when you chose to, playing the game when you want to...Kind of blatantly bog-standard gaming elements.

You may not have to face the characters when they speak, but they speak non the less and the game will not progress until the monologues are over...Just like in any other FPS. The fact is, the immersion is very easily broken in HL2 as you do not have freedom. If I want to go somewhere *bam* I can't - invisible wall stops me, have to wait till a monologue is over, invincible characters etc. All these things remind me, it's just a game, which you have to play exactly as Valve want you to. It's a very limiting 'experience', which I would say is on par with most other shooters. For example, how is the game more immersive than Halo? They both have the same levels of freedom, good pacing etc.

Plus, you never mention the comparison between the GTA3 character and Gorodn - both are just as characterless as each other, yet why does only one get praise for it ?

^The thing is that I'm talking of innovations in storytelling that Half Life introduced in 1998, when the state of FPS games was that of Quake 2, Blood, Sin. And since then Valve stood by their choices for the whole series, and rightly so to convey a coherent narration.

Those choices might not be groundbreaking today because they broke ground eleven years ago, but they still retain all their value. Some of them like strict first person narration have been widely adopted since, others like relying on the player's curiosity and attention to details instead of explicit exposition of plot points not so much, sadly.

And really, I've already explained that freedom has nothing to do with it, nor has the linearity of Half Life games. Why reiterate?

If you don't appreciate the thing of beauty that is the rigorous design of Half Life games inside a very minimalistic gameplay scheme, I can't really help you. I've already explained what I and many others appreciate of those choices.

I have played and completed the single player campaigns of Call of Duty, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: World at War. All for PC. I have also played but not completed the single player campaign of Call of Duty 2.

So when I say that the 'problem I have with Call of Duty, and has had since the first game, is that it lacks pacing' I'm talking about the fourth installment but from the perspective of the entire series. I agree that each game varies in quality, with Modern Warfare at the top, but ALL the games have a consistent problem with pacing, too many enemies and lack of variation among the enemies. The best moments in the series (most of which occur in part 4) suffer from this.

And in your post, far from adressing this issue at all, you sidestepped and said something that was completely beside the point. So I was sincerely curious as to what you were talking about. I can see now what you meant by it.

Modern Warfare's campaign is good, bordering on great. If they could fix the pacing issues it would be on par with Half-life 2. It easilly beats out every other game in the series though, and before battle fatigue really sets in it's a wonderous experience.

I believe you have missed the point entirely. The problem here is the difference between the character and the player. If the characters action on screen does not coincide with what the player wants to be doing immersion flies out the window. In Half-Life the player never loses control. All the actions and inactions of the character is the result of the player. There is never any distance between the character and the player.

The world around the player is limited, yes. It will always be, no matter how 'open' it is, there are always boundaries. No matter how well NPC's react to you they will always be scripted. You can always find ways to behave that are not tolerated or recognised by the game. The question is how tight to make the restrictions given the experience you want to produce.

In giving the player complete control over the character you set a different tone. It is no longer a character moving around in the world. It's YOU, moving around.There is never any break with this. You act like you want to, within the possibilities of the game. Never are you forced to watch your character doing something that you would not do.

I find Portal is the perfect example of this type of storytelling. Because it has no NPC's, the character has no reason to speak and the road is supposed to be completely linear anyways. It even gives you the illusion of free will wihtin this setting.

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 is the best FPS series.....ever (IMO).

Now give me Episode 3......Valve, you bastards! I hate waiting!

Even if I m going to play Half life 2 (just get the game), I have always been doubtfull about all the praizing around Half life and Valve. I completely fail to see where is innovation in charatcer developpement or story telling.

and the big question is : will half life 2 make me change my point of view ...

Half Life 2 is the king of SP FPS IMHO. The champ, the one to beat. And with so many FPS focusing on MP over SP these days, I don't expect it's campaign to be topped anytime soon.

CoD4, as Zen points out, does have some great moments, but it's short and unfocused next to HL2, it's also has far less variety and shows that while IW are masters of combat set pieces, they aren't master of narrative flow over an extended time with proper moments of ebb and flow.

But to be fair, given that Half Life 2 is all about SP, with the MP left to other titles, it does have a perhaps unfair advantage over most other titles.

Didn't know about that. Looks amazing!

Woah I'm noticing some COD4 bashing. COD4 has an amazing single player experiance. I reckon most of the bashing is coming from sci fi geeks.