I finally finished it, and I think I'm the only one who wasn't floored by the game. yes, it was very pretty. yes, the physics are neat (though don't seem all that much different than, say, UT2k4). the physics are also overplayed. UT uses its physics without making the game's most important gun shoot gravity. some of the random, weird physics puzzles, while interesting, took me out of the mood of the game (why is this pully set up so that I need to push this washing machine into it to raise a ramp? why do I need to fill this underwater basket with air barrels to raise another ramp? speaking of which, how can a man pull a huge barrel filled with air underwater without floating to the surface?)
I didn't feel like there was enough variety to the enemies either. let's see, 3 varieties of headcrabs, 3 associated varieties of zombies (2 of those varieties very rare), combine soldiers in various skins, and a couple novelty enemies - walkers and gunships. to generalize, combine, headcrabs, and zombies are basically all you fight for 90% of the game - and combine for 70% of that 90%. I was at the point where I couldn't bear to look at or hear another damn combine soldier by the end. doom 3 tried to keep up with the variety of enemies, and for that I'm glad. they'd gradually introduce each new monster and each new gun, and let you bask in it for a while.
doom 3 kept me much more scared than HL2 too. people say ravenholm was scary; I just found it one of the more annoying areas. instead of waves of combine I was wading through waves of zombies. big whoop.
as I've already basically said, the combine areas really dragged on for me. I couldn't wait for the damn prison to end. "oh boy, in this room there are 3 turrets instead of 2, such variety".
it felt like the game was just one long string of gimmicks. the gravity first of all. the vehicles. the squads. weapons and enemies - the meat and potatoes of any FPS - were the weak points... I already went into the enemies, and the guns were very generic as well. they really didn't have to rehash the HL1 weapons for the sake of nostalgia...
my favorite chapter was the highway... because it was relatively slow-paced. it wasn't just an endless string of combine pouring at me. it was a few quiet villages strung together that I had to clear and explore, with plenty of time to admire the scenery...
the dialogue scenes were also awesome. if like 3 more hours of dialogue were stuck in there instead of 3 hours of shooting generic soldiers, I'd probably be raving along with everyone else... but in the end, we're left knowing little we didn't know at the end of HL1...
I'm definitely not saying it's anything close to being a bad game. I liked it a lot. it just got really tedious for me at times, such that I could never bring myself to play it for more than about 2 hours at a time. I think the sweet dialogue scenes just managed to set me up for disappointment, because they made me wish I had a 'party member' with me at all times, talking to me while I shot stuff, at least to break up the monotony...
anyway, if I were planning a mod right now, it'd be for the HL2 engine. however as far as single player retail FPS games go, HL1 and Halo still beat out HL2 in my mind, as far as fun factor goes. I'm done ranting, especially since no one's going to even remotely agree with me
Topic: Hl2 Dissapointments (Read 7526 times)
