If I were the sort of person who made good decisions, I would opt to hold off on an update until some future point when it is not 1am the week of finals, or at least sometime when I don’t have to get up at 6am. Fortunately for reader (and #twistedmonkey IRC admin) Nerje and unfortunately for me, I’m not the sort of person who makes good decisions, but I do happen to be the sort of person who likes to keep promises when physically possible. Since I am obliged to discuss something entertaining, I am extremely grateful for Half-Life 2, which is so incredibly awesome that there will never be a coordinate in space-time where it is not appropriate to discuss it.

I have to fight really hard to avoid comparing Halo 2 and Half-Life 2. This is a natural urge for most folks because they’re both first person shooters released within the same general time period, but I feel like any time you start grouping them too close together, you lose sight of the things that made them independently great games. Also, I feel guilty that things I complained about in one game do not bother me in the other. I spent my last post ripping on Halo 2 for having a weak story and a weaker ending, and while HL2’s story barely develops and then wraps up with the grace of a dropping guillotine, but truth be told I didn’t mind that so much because the single-player gameplay was so amazingly compelling in its own right that I felt it didn’t really need the story to prop it up. That’s just the top of a very slippery slope downhill when you’re dealing with direct comparisons between the two, so I’d prefer to just side-step the issue altogether.

Trying to describe what makes HL2 in terms of standard game reviewing criteria — i.e. dissecting it into categories labeled graphics, sound, multiplayer, etc. — is a somewhat hollow way of describing the joy one is going to experience when playing it. I would rather spend my time trying to communicate to you that it is an incredibly immersive experience, and that is really the area where they’ve succeeded in raising the bar. This is accomplished primarily through the stunning physics engine and the equally impressive facial/body structuring technology they’ve employed. When you’re walking down the street and you can tell that a gunship is coming over the building to your left because the power lines start whipping around, that makes you feel more in the game than a higher polycount or added bumpmap ever would. NPCs in FPS’s traditionally garner about as much empathy from me so low as to make it difficult to distinguish them from the enemy; I am often actually amused when they stupidly walk into a gory and spectacular death. HL2’s NPCs, however, have this very natural and realistic way of changing expressions as they talk, turning parts of their body to watch you as you move around the room. As a result, I find myself caring about them more, trying to go out of my way to keep them from getting killed, and this is a remarkable achievement. The levels also have a very organic feel to them, and most of the time I felt like I was making my way naturally through the city or countryside, and not being forced down a narrow, linear path. The end result that I felt more “inside” the game than perhaps any other I’ve ever played, and that is impressive indeed.

It is not uncommon for people to have heard tales of folks dropping out of college due to some kind of ridiculous Everquest obsession. I had always laughed at those stories, and counted myself lucky that I didn’t even really like massmogs. In the months leading up to the World of Warcraft launch, I didn’t pay attention. I didn’t see what would make it much different than the FFXIs and Everquests that I had tried but quickly abandoned. I was one of about 10 people on the planet Earth who didn’t get into the beta, and though my friends spoke for many long months of its addictive powers, I paid them no heed. Now I have it, and my life is essentially over. In the increasingly rare moments where I’m diligently working on homework, I perpetually have the feeling that my character is peering out from the computer monitor, just out of eyesight, waiting for me to come back and play him. It is highly unnerving, to say the least.

Safety Monkey has left the server.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 13th, 2004 at 2:21 am and is filed under Misc.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.