Wait, why? They're totally different games made quite a few years apart. Why on Earth are we having this comparison?
Because I want to, that's why.
Marks against Half-Life 2:
It's on rails. As someone who was introduced to video games by Super Mario 64, I find games on rails to be annoying. What makes HL2 worse is that it sometimes pretends that it's not, by not making it obvious what you have to do to get to the next area. And this brings me to my next point:
1st-person platforming. I should not be held responsible for falling into toxic waste if I am incapable of seeing my own feet. End of story.
The loading screens. Especially when you're in a vehicle and they kill all your forward momentum.
The music. This isn't the Matrix, so it shouldn't sound like it either.
In the plus column, water doesn't freaking kill you instantly (well, unless you swim too far out). In fact, the one thing that can drive your health almost all the way down instantly is one of the scariest things in the game, not an irritating design flaw. It's much more moody and atmospheric than Screed is, Alyx and Barney aren't morons with attractions to death, and the characters are actually memorable. And while it does switch back and forth an awful lot between "fight enemy soldiers in open, well-lit areas" and "fight zombies in dark, enclosed spaces," the bit in the middle where you get to be King of the Giant Mutant Grasshopper Things broke up the repitition quite nicely. Oh, and there's a gravity gun.
Marks against Assassin's Creed:
It's repetitive as hell. Go to town, do 3 of the 6 subquests, infiltrate bad guy's lair, kill him, run away, repeat.
Unskippable cutscenes. For the people who program those, I hope their personal purgatory consists of nothing but cutscenes. For eternity.
After about the fourth or fifth level, if you've done every side quest and scaled every tower, you now have twenty health bars and a counter maneuver. Congratulations, you are unkillable, so long as you stay away from...
The Sibrand assassination. Just... the Sibrand assassination.
In the plus column, after you beat the game you can kill anyone with impunity (much more fun than it sounds), the entire level loads before you set foot in it, so you'll never be interrupted by a "loading" caption, the music is amazing, there's a clever framing device to explain why you can "die," the buildings aren't so amazingly poorly constructed that you'll be incredibly likely to take a flying leap off them to your death (see Assassin's Creed II for an apparent lapse of reason), the platforming is sublime, and stealth is an actual option because the game lets you go anywhere.
half life is better
ReplyDelete