Okay, so up until December...

[sega fan]

I had never played 2 big name games, Half-life (any sort) or Gears of War. So this little thread will be on my honest impressions and opinions on 2 "classic" big name games from a guy who has never even picked up a contoller and moved the character until a few weeks ago. I had never played Half-Life (any sort) or the original Gears of War. I never played Half-life because, up until the summer, I didn't have a PC that could run it more then 14 FPS. Gears of War I never bothered because, late fall - winter 2006 and early 2007, I had a constant stream of 360 excellence like Dead Rising, Crackdown, Tomb Raider, Viva Pinata, The Outfit, Saints Row, Symphony of the Night (live arcade) etc, etc. So I really didn't care about missing out on gears.

So first week of December, a friend of mine asked "what do you think of Gears ?", I said I never played it and the next day he let me borrow it, and at first I was exited expecting the Shaw Shank Redemption of 360 games, I finished it 2 weekends ago, At the end, I thought it was kind of a let down. The backgrounds in the early levels have "Quake 3 syndrome" which means the colors on-screen ranged from grey, brown, to grey-brown. Half-way through, the levels are huge and vibrant with color, The last chapter on the train is a good example. Moving along, The main reason I didn't much care for gears is because, you have to empty 2 clips into somethings head before it dies. I know if you do that reload trick it helps, but even then, it still takes atleast a clip in the face to down something. Even the weakest of enemies are too damn durible for their own good. A similar game, Doom, a teststerone-fest where you kill everything that made out of organic material, has enemes that die when they take a frikkin shotgun shell to the skull. This sounds like a mundane complaint but as the game progresses, all the enemies are noticably more durible, like even the dumb, average locusts are just stupidly long-lasting. It feels like I'm not getting anywhere chasing after one enemy for a minute or two straight. It feels like the game was artificially extended due to the number of Enemies, how durible they were, and the fact that on hardcore you have to revive your teammates every other FRIKKIN minute.

Now my half-life story rambles on about how I got the game for the first paragraph, my mini evaluation of Half-life 2 is below it.

I found a Half-life uplink Demo on some warez site a week afterward. I LOVED every minute, but it was only a 45 min. Demo. Last wednesday, I was out of school and Mom and sister (who was visiting) took me to the mall. Gamestop stops selling Xbox games Feb. 3rd so picking around on racks i found a used copy of Half-Life 2. IT WAS AMAZING, it had a great condition case, a well-kept insert, a nice new looking manual, and the disc has one faint scratch. I saw the price "$9.99" and I had a mini heart attack. I saw "Rated M" and my smile turned to a frown so fast that if you were there to watch my facial expression, it would've been SNL material. My visiting sister and Ma were 2 stores down in American eagle so I acctually looked around all parts of me, and no one was around, I hd HL 2 and power walked my ass down to american eagle. 20 minutes later, after getting my sister done shopping, I got my mom to get Half-life 2. Now THIS WAS the shaw shank redemption of xbox games, just holding the box, I knew.

I popped in HL 2 and was excited, I finally get to experience City 17 ! I am about to get to the end of HL 2, I am at the beach with rthe ant lions at night and the ant lions are helping my and a gun ship is on my ass. If I were to gush about every part of Half-life 2, I'd be here for hours. So long story short. City 17 was a great place to observe, the story is great and it reminds of George Orwell's "1984", Ravenholm was frikkin scary it was like an awesome silent hill sequal with Gordan Freeman, the characters were rad Alex is a fantastic female main character and Father Grigory (in Ravenholm) was a great supporting character, changing envoirnments (i.e going from a base to the depths of ravenholm and back up a tunnel to civilization) felt organic and realistic, weapon progression was neat it didn't just give you the standard "pistol, Uzi, Shotgun, grenade" progression, it gave you the right tools for whatever scenario was coming up so it sorta randomly throws weapons of varied power your way depending on how far along the game is, it's like 8-12 hours long. Bottom line, best 10 bucks I spent EVER.

Note - filled with spelling errors, grammer nazis can go critique someone elses thread.

"Sorry if I angered you with my opinions, you can talk to me in an organized manner, so it doesn't turn out like another about nintendo and depression (and n64)."

[MrMatthews]

I've never played more than a couple minutes of Half-Life myself. I still have it for my PS2, so I'll probably get to it eventually and then get the Orange Box.

Everything you said about Gears of War is true. However, I kind of like the slower, slightly-more tactical approach you must take to the game. It separates it from the slew of other third-person run-n-guns out there.

[sega fan]

I've never played more than a couple minutes of Half-Life myself. I still have it for my PS2, so I'll probably get to it eventually and then get the Orange Box.

Everything you said about Gears of War is true. However, I kind of like the slower, slightly-more tactical approach you must take to the game. It separates it from the slew of other third-person run-n-guns out there.

True, I heard the second Gears fixes alot of the tedium, and I'm willing to try that out when one of my friends lends it to me, but I grew tired of spending 1-3 minutes killing each and every individual enemy.

If its strategy with FPS games your looking for GET THE ORANGE BOX. If tactical shooters is what you want, play the original half-life 2, then it's sequals Ep. 1 & 2, which I need to get the Orange Box and play.

[MrMatthews]

Bioshock also delivers a certain amount of strategy-oriented FPS.

Gear of War 2 . . . I dunno. It was faster-paced, and there was a greater variety in the locations (not to mention some awesome vehicle sequences), but I think it was missing something the first game had. I liked it a lot, but I think I like the original more.

[sega fan]

Also, if you liked my evaluation of Gears, try scanning over my reviews at Gamespot, more soon, but school ties me up.

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/acti...-about;review1

http://www.gamespot.com/ps/action/te...-about;review2

I noticed when I write for gamespot, I write very vivdly and use clever phrases and vocabulary, when I write for Sega-16 it's like my brain shuts down, I stumble over myself alot and I end up having to retype a lot of articles.

[sega fan]

Bioshock also delivers a certain amount of strategy-oriented FPS.

Gear of War 2 . . . I dunno. It was faster-paced, and there was a greater variety in the locations (not to mention some awesome vehicle sequences), but I think it was missing something the first game had. I liked it a lot, but I think I like the original more.

Bioshock also suffers from what I did to gears. I had Halo 3 at the time and didn't let anything else into my 360's disc drive until I finished all 4 difficulties and got almost all skulls.

[Metal_Sonic]

If it really takes you that long to kill an enemy in Gears of War, you should really pick up a shotty and a sniper. Get good with these and you'll pass the game on insane with no problem but yeah, campaign wise, Gears 1 was a letdown but I love 2.