[QUOTE="bogaty"][QUOTE="dos4gw82"][QUOTE="bogaty"]

Half Life 2 (I was guilty of buying into the hype. While I never thought it was going to be as good as the gushing reviews and slavering fourm fanboys made it out to be, I never thought it would be as mundane and forgettable as it was)

fatshodan

What?!?!?!

Mundane and forgettable? Maybe a few levels, (Ravenholm) but as a whole, that game was unbelievable. Can you honestly say that fighting the striders wasn't fun, that the gravity gun wasn't one of the coolest weapons you've ever seen, and that your jaw didn't drop when you entered the citadel?

Maybe if you played HL2 today you wouldn't find it to be as unique, but back in 2004, there was absolutely nothing like it.

To me, I bought it when it was first released and I found it to be a bog-standard shooter.

I view Half Life 2 as the antithesis of the bog-standard shooter.

In the bog-standard shooter, you go from A to B killing the same few enemies over and over again. The bog-standard shooter is based around one central concept - killing enemies. The only thing that changes is where you kill them. You'll go to office complexes, you'll go to research facilities, underground mines and city squares. But you're always doing the same thing - you're killing enemies.

Half Life 2 has a profoundly different take on the genre to such an extent that I do not consider HL2 a first person shooter. You will begin the game entering a cool 1984-style dystopia, then you're in an undarmed escape from the law, then you arm up and fall into a series of firefights, then you're speeding down a waterway in an airboat, you're manipulating objects (with far more finesse than games like Tomb Raider), you're playing catch with a giant robot dog, you're creeping through a hollywood style zombie town, you're in your own version of the movie Tremors, you're squashing enemies with a giant industrial crane, you're leading a team of giant insectoid monsters on a prison raid, you're in a city square with human AIs fighting large hectic battles which move up onto rooftops as War of the Worlds style walkers are introduced and you're finally travelling through an almost surreal alien building.

Around each corner in Half Life 2 is something completely new and unexpected. It's not just the locations that change, it is the entire tone of the game. Around each corner in the bog-standard FPS is.... more enemies to gun down. Now, I think HL2 has bad gunplay, but the gunplay is really not the point of the game. At least, not as I see it. The point of the game is the ever-shifting scenario, and it's something that very few, if any game has ever even attempted (never mind managed with such expertise) on such a scale as is found in HL2. If you just focus on the gunplay, then yes, Half Life 2 is a pretty bad game. The weapons are unsatisfying, the AI is a step backwards from HL1 and the game is annoyingly easy... but the gunplay is not what Half Life 2 is about. Strange for a first person shooter, I know.

But then again, I really don't think Half Life 2 is a first person shooter. And it sure as hell isn't a bog-standard one. I'm not trying to change your mind or anything, I'm just offering an alternate perspective to help you perhaps consider if you judged the game from the wrong angle. I know it's kind of hard to appreciate a game viewed from the first person where you're carrying a gun all the time as something other than a first person shooter... but I really think anyone who judges HL2 by the standards by which they also judge traditional FPS games is a little misguided.

Black and White 2

Dungeon Seige 2

Neverwinter Nights 2

Freedom.

Tis only a dream, though.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=inventor-of-lsd-embarks-on-final-trip

there

At the age of 102 years, Albert Hofmann died peacefully last Tuesday morning, 29th April, in his home near Basel, Switzerland. Still last weekend we talked to him, and he expressed his great joy about the blooming plants and the fresh green of the meadows and trees around his house. His vitality and his open mindconducted him until his last breath.



He is reputed to be one of the most important chemists of our times. He is the discoverer of LSD, which he considers, up to date, as both a "wonder drug" and a "problem child". In addition he did pioneering work as a researcher of other psychoactive substances as well as active agents of important medicinal plants and mushrooms. Under the spell of the consciousness-expanding potential of LSD the scientist turned increasingly into a philosopher of nature and a visionary critical of contemporary culture.



Until his death Albert Hofmann remained active. He communicated with colleagues and experts from all over the world, gave interviews, and showed great interest in the world's affairs, although he decided to retire from public life already a few years ago. Nevertheless he welcomed visitors at his home on the Rittimatte, and opened the door for late in the evening.



He managed to keep his almost childlike curiosity for the wonders of nature and creation. In his "paradise," as he would call his home, he enjoyed being close to nature, especially to plants. During one of our last visits he said to us with luminous eyes: "The Rittimatte is my second most important discovery." It was always a unique experience to stroll with him over his meadows and to share his enjoying the living nature all around.

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April 29 is my birthday. :O