Sure you can throw stuff at the guards but it does nothing. They just look at you and keep fireing. At least thats all that happens to me. Sometimes they will chase you with the electric prod. In Halo you punch a guy and he is out or really wounded. In HL2 you shoot a guy and he doesn't even look or act wounded yet you see blood all over the wall. Halo 2, you hit an elite with a sheild he acts as though he is wounded. It annoys me in Half Life 2 that you can fire at someone and they keep on coming.
Throwing stuff is ok but it got old really fast.
And no, Halo is nothing like Unreal 2 or Tournament. Maybe 2004 because 2004 COPIED HALO!! Durrrrr.... Halo came out a long time before UT2004 did.
Halo is also not a tournament based game where you climb up a ladder by scoring kills. You actually have mission objectives and a massive story full of plot twisters to follow it. I've played UT and UT2003. I thought those games were boring personally. You can't hit guys or duel weild in UT either. In UT and 2003 you also can't drive vehicles.
I've gone a little deeper into the story and I prefer cutscenes over just running around a room while people happen to be trying to talk to you.
Here are your moves in HL2
Shoot
Run forward
Run backward
Run left
Run right
Turn up
Turn Down
Turn Left
Turn Right
Halo 2 controls
Shoot
Run forward
Run backward
Run left
Run right
Turn up
Turn Down
Turn Left
Turn Right
Duel Weild
Throw sticky grenade
Take over a vehicle by kicking it's rider off and boarding it.
Punch
The vehicles and weapons also handle much better. Although the hovercraft in HL2 is sorta fun.
You know, it is much easier to have simple scripted characters walking around you talking than it is to have full blown cutscenes.
You also can carry tons of ammo for lots of big guns and fit them all into your back pocket. Good ol' Quake again.
The game plays exactly like Red Faction. I liked Red Faction but I didn't think it was anywhere near as fun as Halo 1 or 2, anyday.
How hard is it to point and shoot? I mastered Quake 3 Arena within about 5 hours. First time I ever played a groundpounder.
Halo took a tad bit longer at least. But it annoys me when I'm reloading and I can't do jack until the stupid guy is done reloading his gun. I would rather break a guys jaw bone in the middle or a reload.
Or pick up a second pistol and dual weild.
I like the puzzles but I really want more use of vehicles and a punch attack at least.
You can objects at anyone you like in the game but they won't do anything. Really breaks away from the feeling of being in a game.
Now, as I get farther into the game, I feel that it was worth my money and I do like the game. The graphics are pretty nice and the physics are getting more and more fun. I love the gravity gun and the part where you play catch with Dog was pretty cool. The hovercraft wasn't bad. But it just doesn't have as much to do as Halo does. In Halo, you look at an enemy and you have to figure out which way to take them out, which enemy should be taken out first, where to shoot them, and what weapon would be best to use against them. You also have to figure out how to sneak up on enemies and if you have co-op you really have to work together to figure out how to take out apponents. There is always more than one way to do it. I probably played Halo 1 from beginning to end with my friends and by myself about 6-7 times on legendary and had a blast each time. Halo 2, there is even more to do and the story is so well done that I can play it multiple times. I actually haven't played it all the way through yet since I'm taking my time and I have actually gone back and played old missions over and over again. Especially the ones with vehicles.
You can approach a battle any way you want. In Half Life 2 there is almost always only one way to defeat an enemy or to approach a situation. I don't really see any other way to change the outcome of a fight. There is only way to go in and come out alive. It also doesn't have co-op so there is no team-work involved.
Counter Strike is unplayable for me as are any other multiplayer modes. My version of Half Life, only came with Counter Srike Source. That is all that was in it. I played it for a bit but I was running on a rubber band always popping in and out of a previouse point without any control over it. It's netcode appears to follow Q3A's net code. Too bad, it might be fun with a gravity gun. I take vehicles anyday over walking on the ground though. Any game can do that.
The AI claims to be really advanced but I didn't really see how it did anything different than any other game. For instance, take Halo 1, put it on a lower mode and the covenent will actually attempt to surround you on all sides and try to force you into a corner. Play Half Life 2 and I never see any enemies attempt to do that. I haven't really seen any AI make any decisions on how to approach a situation. I guess I have yet to see it happen.
I guess my main beef with it is that it is very limited in moves that you can do and choices you have to make in combat. In Halo you have to make choices every second of the game on how to approach an enemy. What is the best stratagy?
For instance in Halo 2:
Player one keeps hogging the shotgun and killing everyone. How do you solve this problem? Grab a Sub Machine Gun, to take out armor and do physical damage while dual weilding a plasma rifle to take out shields. Works better than two machine guns. However you have to keep yourself at a distance away from the player, if he gets to close with the shotgun, your dead. Or, say a player keeps waiting by corners after you chase him, pop a grenade in. Or, you can drop in through another passageway and tag him with a plasma grenade since they stick on the target and you can throw them farther out. Your apponent taking that oversheild all the time? Just find a tight corner, aim a sniper rifle right down at it while crouched. Or a team game, someones taking a Hog over to your base, drop a grenade on it. Or if they take a tank, run up close, board it and drop a grenade inside.
Or if your in a tough gunfight, and running low on ammo, drop one weapon run at them while fireing and deck 'em.
This rating isn't permanent. I'll probably rate Half Life 2 higher at a later point depending on the gravity gun but up until now I have been sort of board. Also, why does it have to load every few rooms? The only loading is at the beginning of a mission and it takes hours to complete that mission.
No loading anywhere. I guess I just like good old fashioned console gaming.
All I know is that no one was in a hurry to buy Half Life where I live. I was the only person in line. Halo 2, we had massive lines winding around every corner of a video store that was connected to a video game store. That was nothing compared to other stores.
175 million copies in one night.
Of course some people thought The Ring and Grudge were wonderful movies while I thought they were the dumbest most boring movies I've ever seen.I actually laughed through half of it and later layed my coat over myself and went into a halfway sleep.
They were scary at first but then after the first few dozen parts where stuff jumped out it just started to get boring.
Was ok for Halloween but I wouldn't do it twice.
But only time will tell. I'm betting after about a month or two, no one will even mention Half Life 2 where Halo 2 fans will still be setting up massive tournaments, reading the books, and playing the game over and over again enjoying every moment.
I guess I'm a little biased but I don't really like groundpounders and fancy smancy graphics. I feel less time needs to be spent on graphics and groundpounders and more time needs to be spent on making fun and original games with more things to do.
Thus why I enjoy playing games such as Descent over Quake.
Halo is the only groundpounder I like at all.
Maybe things would be different if I could even play multiplayer. On a 56k I got over 1000 ms as apposed to D3's 480-600 ms.
Here is the story I have seen thus far from Half Life 2:
I'm in a weird prison camp called City 17.
Apparently some weird radioactive experiment caused mutations happened and I kicked butt in the first game.
Now I escape the city and cause havoc kicking a lot of butt.
I go back to where the experiment happened and get a gravity gun....
The story continues
Not a lot of character development, I could care less about most of the characters in this game.
I guess push on. Waiting for the cool stuff to actually start.
