Opinion on Half-Life 2

[Spino]

HL2's graphics are great and the Source engine truly impressive in its ability to render massive indoor/outdoor levels at decent framerates. However, to be brutally honest I think HL2 looks more like a DX8 game jacked up on steroids with some DX9 features thrown in than a full blown DX9 feature laden game. The Source engine's lighting and shading ability simply pales in comparison to that of Doom3 engine which looks simply spectacular. On the other hand maybe those features were intentionally toned down in HL2 in order to keep the framerate at acceptable levels for most gamers (compare how poorly Doom3 engine games run on systems that can handle Source engine games with relative ease).

Where HL2 shines is its great gameplay. Mindless fps action or not I had a blast running through the various levels of the game. The Gravity Gun was so much fun to use I hated having to switch to another weapon.

Where HL2 fails miserably is atmosphere & story; I simply wasn't sucked into the game like I was with the original. Sure, it looked good & the gameplay was fun but I didn't feel like I was Gordon Freeman again and really didn't give a damn about the world or the people I was fighting to save. This is in contrast to the original Half Life which pulled me in and kept me interested until the silliness of the final levels became apparent. Furthermore the plot and dialogue in HL2 was simply awful, as in 'made for Sci-Fi channel movie' awful. I also hated the lame female love interest and sidekick. Talk about shameless pandering to loveless geeks!

HL2 pet peeve #1: Alyx; Gordon's Halle Berry inspired sidekick.

HL2 pet peeve #2: Inability to frag npcs. Part of the charm of the original HL was being able to torture the poor npcs with your vast arsenal of weapons or by leading them to their certain doom. In HL2 you can't so much as sneeze on npcs... boooo! My friend used to come up with ingenious methods of sending those scientists from HL1 into electronic heaven...

HL2 pet favorite #1: Gravity Gun!

HL2 pet favorite #2: Dog; Alyx's clever robotic creation. I wanted more of Dog and less of Alyx. Outside of Dog's really cool introduction to the game (playing 'fetch' with players) the designers simply dropped the ball (pun intended) with this wonderful npc. Dog's abilities could have been put to use in some really ingenious levels but instead players were simply shown him doing his thing in scripted, non-interactive sequences...