Half-Life 2 Part 3
I just “beat” Half-Life 2, if thats what you can call finishing a game with an ending like this. It was one heckuv a ride, but I think the whole Citidel thing was way too repetitive and way too short. One omnipotent weapon, and a fast-forward to the top of the place didn’t really make for a challenging or climatic end. I’ll be the first to say that the end to the original Half-Life was probably too challenging (I never really completed that one on the level). Nevertheless, there’s never any real time decision making going on towards the end. Its just right-click left-click right-click left-click. And in the end, it feels like they could have raised the whole game to another power and really had a spetacular ending. So in the end it was a somewhat disappointing finale to an otherwise incredible game.
Don’t get me wrong – the game really was incredible. It’s hard to forget the first descent into the Citadel, the first time bringing down a dropship, or the vehicular rides through expansive outdoor landscapes. Indeed, this is where HL2 really shines – it’s engine, source. That a masterful, though imperfect game was put on top is a bonus, for sure. How incredible the engine really is struck me again when, a couple of days ago, I saw a combine soldier swinging back and forth pinned to the ceiling by a crossbow dart. All rendered real time, perfectly.
If I could return Doom 3 to buy another copy of HL2, I probably would, just because its that good. And because D3 sucked so much. Oh well.