| Platform | OVERALL |
|---|---|
| Xbox | 8.50 |
| Overall | 8.50 |
|
The most important thing you need to know about Half-Life 2 for the XBX is that it is not crippled by slow-down or frame loss. I anticipated this game for months (having not played the PC release) but after reading all the people moaning about slow-down I was almost reluctant to even pick up the game. What a mistake that would have been, this is one of the best gaming experiences I have ever had. To be precise, I encountered slow down three times during the game, the first was when the first gunship appears about 40 minutes into the game. The second and third was in the penultimate level of the game (and one of those was when I was sprinting with my flashlight on and evading about 5-6 enemies). The only other negative is that I found the final "boss" to be extremely cheap. After playing such a satisfying game it was a real bummer to find an almost impossible boss at the end of the game. On to the positives. The story and character development put all other first person shooters to shame. I always knew what my goal and motivation was. The arc of the story was superb and the way it was related without use of FMV never took me out of the game. The weapons were equally impressive. The first time I fired the Colt was also the first time I felt like I was using a real gun in a game -- it felt powerful and a little scary. The graphics were truly amazing, and the physics modeling gives a glimpse of what next-generation gaming could be all about -- using all that processing power toward realistic physics and not just realistic graphics. The audio was above par, always appropriate, though adding the dramatic music to tell me something dramatic was happening was a little heavy-handed. This game raised the bar for what I expect from games, I'll be playing it again real soon. |
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Posted by aspro Sat, 27 Mar 2010 22:48:17
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phantom_leo (2m)
Oh its the Xbox version, ok then.
On the quote "this is one of the best gaming experiences I have ever had" -- that was written like 4 years ago. Up to that point it was one of the most immersive gaming experiences I had ever had.
Now that I have played more, it's an 8.5, but still ONE of the best gaming experiences. It would make my top 150 games.