Please don't flame me without reading the whole thing, plz...
Ok, so I started playing the HL 2 that comes in Orange Box like four days ago and beat it today. IDK, I have so many mixed reactions. For instance, the first 10 minutes of the game were AWSOME, I really like the feel of the tirant dictatorship upon humanity, but then it became SLOW as hell, to much of the same. So I got to "RED LETTER DAY" go my suit up and then left the Barney for some action, and I wasn't that satisfyied with that one either. Yes, when the combine aproach and start shooting at you, throwing fuel barrels to you, and that kinda stuff, it's awsome, but all of the sudden the action is stopped by physics oriented puzzles, which are fun, but I think there are just to much of the same for the whole level. I kept saying to myself "this game is not top 10 game ever for nothing, i must keep trying to love it". But nah, I got into a hour long boat sequece which utterly SUCKS. When I get down of the boat, not 30 minutes pass before I get into another horribly implemented go kart seuqece. So, I get to the antlion beach and another, massive,45 minute long beach puzzle starts. Up to this point HL 2 was a 8.5/10 for me, not a 9.5/10, until i got pass that level. Yes, I do believe that all the levels that go after that boring antlion beach puzzle are SUPERB. "Follow Freema", "Our Benefactors", all this levels are just masterpieces.
My point here is that Half Life 2 becomes the named masterpiece critics talk about from the middle of the game and beyond, unlike Halo, or CoD, or GoW, where the pacing in the WHOLE game is just perfect. Also, the shooting system is not about skill. I know aiming in the head is better than aiming to the legs, but even on Hard difficulty it seems as there is not reward for playing good or bad, in other words: it never seems to put a good challenge.
To finish, while the found story in HL 2 is great, I dont think of it to be better than Halo's story (talking about the books, not the game). Granted, HL's story is far better than GoW, CoD 4, or any tom clancy game, but I always felt that there was something missing, which I understood later: Gordan Freeman feels cheap, in a way that he doesn't feels like he has any character at all. Yes, I know he is a silent character, but even Link was able to put up a way better feel to himself than Gordon does.
Thanks for reading, and I'd like to remind you guys: I thought this game was awsome, but it doens't deserve to be Top 10 ever, maybe top 25 yes, but not top 10..
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