Canuck
11-23-2007, 02:05 AM
...that Halo 3 and CoD 4 have very, very frustrating aspects, and despite all that, somehow Half-Life 2 manages to create a perfect balance. It's always fun or at least interesting, and never frustrating or dull. You're never bombarded with ridiculous numbers of grenades like in CoD 4, you never have melee wars like in Halo 3, and when you get stuck, it's almost never because of being overrun by enemies, and there is always a strategy of some kind that can win out.
The way Half-Life is designed is so purely ingenious that luck and brute force are never required to win out over your enemies - all you need is a little thinking. And that, I think, is what seperates Half-Life from the rest of the pack - you have to use your ****ing brain. The gravity gun puzzles are challenging but always solveable, and when under attack, there is always a turret, cover, an object or something to help you succeed. Unlike Halo and CoD, you have to be fairly sharp mentally to succeed in Half-Life, because if, say, a gunship is approaching, you have to be on the lookout for cover and rockets, which there should always be in that case, and always is.
In Call of Duty 4, there are times simply so frustrating and ridiculous that I feel like smashing a hole in my TV. The TV station assault, the Countdown and more are ridiculously frustrating and badly designed. The TV station on Veteran, for example, has one of the stupidest level designs I've seen in my life. If you try to hide, your allies pull back and grenades begin to rain down on you. Try to hold your ground and a mountain of grenades will quickly form at your feet. Try to push forward and you simply get gunned down. It took me over an hour to conquer this one room, because of poor level and AI design and a lack of much of an intelligent solution to the problem - just dumb luck.
In Halo 3, there are many ridiculous moments in both SP and MP. The last room of the Crow's Nest in campaign, for starters, is a very badly laid-out room to try to conquer, especially on Legendary. On your own, it is nearly impossible to take over the room, because the moment you get their attention, the enemies begin to bombard you with every weapon in the game all at once (exaggeration). In MP, things like frequent lag, melee wars and n00b combos significantly lower the skill level needed in the game, and can frustrate me until I could plant explosives on a house, detonate them and not think twice about it.
Half-Life 2, however, is one of the very few games that actually manages to make the game addicting but lack any frustrating elements, unless your IQ is below 10. The level designers over at Valve deserve ****ing awards for their ingenious creations. The graphics are no longer top-notch, and the gameplay isn't revolutionary, but Half-Life 2 does so many things perfectly right that it is, in my opinion, one of the greatest games ever made. I don't give a shit what some Halo fanboy thinks, I used to truly enjoy Halo 3, but have since realized how low the quality of game was that I was playing. Half-Life 2 has raised the bar in my gaming experience beyond anything else I've ever played. CoD 4 is a helluva lot of fun, but its singleplayer is flawed and insanely frustrating at times, and so is not as great an experience as Half-Life 2.
To sum all of this up, if you haven't tried Half-Life 2 yet, go play it right now. Play it for long enough and it will blow you away. It's so far beyond Halo and so perfectly balanced that it's basically an FPS zen of sorts, where you're always enjoying yourself and never frustrated. Halo 3 is now gathering dust in my gaming collection, while CoD 4 and the Orange Box remain played because they are miles beyond Halo, especially Half-Life. If you've played Halo and not Half-Life, let me give you a comparison: Halo is like your first, ugly date, whereas Half-Life 2 is like a ****ing supermodel. And a nice one, too.
Glad to get all that off my chest.
The way Half-Life is designed is so purely ingenious that luck and brute force are never required to win out over your enemies - all you need is a little thinking. And that, I think, is what seperates Half-Life from the rest of the pack - you have to use your ****ing brain. The gravity gun puzzles are challenging but always solveable, and when under attack, there is always a turret, cover, an object or something to help you succeed. Unlike Halo and CoD, you have to be fairly sharp mentally to succeed in Half-Life, because if, say, a gunship is approaching, you have to be on the lookout for cover and rockets, which there should always be in that case, and always is.
In Call of Duty 4, there are times simply so frustrating and ridiculous that I feel like smashing a hole in my TV. The TV station assault, the Countdown and more are ridiculously frustrating and badly designed. The TV station on Veteran, for example, has one of the stupidest level designs I've seen in my life. If you try to hide, your allies pull back and grenades begin to rain down on you. Try to hold your ground and a mountain of grenades will quickly form at your feet. Try to push forward and you simply get gunned down. It took me over an hour to conquer this one room, because of poor level and AI design and a lack of much of an intelligent solution to the problem - just dumb luck.
In Halo 3, there are many ridiculous moments in both SP and MP. The last room of the Crow's Nest in campaign, for starters, is a very badly laid-out room to try to conquer, especially on Legendary. On your own, it is nearly impossible to take over the room, because the moment you get their attention, the enemies begin to bombard you with every weapon in the game all at once (exaggeration). In MP, things like frequent lag, melee wars and n00b combos significantly lower the skill level needed in the game, and can frustrate me until I could plant explosives on a house, detonate them and not think twice about it.
Half-Life 2, however, is one of the very few games that actually manages to make the game addicting but lack any frustrating elements, unless your IQ is below 10. The level designers over at Valve deserve ****ing awards for their ingenious creations. The graphics are no longer top-notch, and the gameplay isn't revolutionary, but Half-Life 2 does so many things perfectly right that it is, in my opinion, one of the greatest games ever made. I don't give a shit what some Halo fanboy thinks, I used to truly enjoy Halo 3, but have since realized how low the quality of game was that I was playing. Half-Life 2 has raised the bar in my gaming experience beyond anything else I've ever played. CoD 4 is a helluva lot of fun, but its singleplayer is flawed and insanely frustrating at times, and so is not as great an experience as Half-Life 2.
To sum all of this up, if you haven't tried Half-Life 2 yet, go play it right now. Play it for long enough and it will blow you away. It's so far beyond Halo and so perfectly balanced that it's basically an FPS zen of sorts, where you're always enjoying yourself and never frustrated. Halo 3 is now gathering dust in my gaming collection, while CoD 4 and the Orange Box remain played because they are miles beyond Halo, especially Half-Life. If you've played Halo and not Half-Life, let me give you a comparison: Halo is like your first, ugly date, whereas Half-Life 2 is like a ****ing supermodel. And a nice one, too.
Glad to get all that off my chest.