Day One

Hmm well today saw the complete disinterest in Half Life 2, which started out as a promising endevour into a nice pretty shiny world of polygons and physics, and has ended up as a boring look at the biggest waste of time so far this year.

Yes i admit the physics are worth a look, dropping a breeze block onto a bottle and watching it smash is interesting the first three times you do it, then the physics become tedious and just not any fun anymore. The texturing of walls is appaling close up and for such a widely applauded game engine is beyond a joke. Hmm a smeary wall, they won't notice that they'll be to busy wandering down the most linear game ever released. Hmm where should i go next, i know ill go down here...oh no i can't there's a blue energy shield, which trains can seem to pass through but i can't. So i guess i'll have to go down the only opening available to me which has people in it which take two bullets to the head to stop. Er, righto. Another thing thats annoying is swimming, for heavens sake i can hold my breath underwater longer than Mr Freeman can, and i've got the lung capacity of a asthmatic gerbil.

Next the story, what story i hear you cry, i agree wholeheartedly, it's so full of holes you can drop Mr freeman himself through some of them. Perhaps its because i got so fed up after about 10 minutes playing and didn't actually complete this peice of sofa fluff, that i am left with so many questions, but still, im not really in the frame of mind to give any more thought to the badly scripted and thoroughly worthless "story".

I play a game for fun, perhaps im sad, perhaps i shouldn't play so many games, perhaps i should play more games, perhaps i shouldn't give up so easily, perhaps i should, perhaps i shoudln't be so harsh on what plainly has taken valve many years to put together and really wasn't worth the bother, nor the expense. They seem to have been so preoccupied with antipiracy measures that the game was bolted on almost as an afterthought. The antipiracy measures failed by the way, just in case you were wondering.

I never completed the original which also bored me, so perhaps im not qualified to slag this one off, but in real honesty i think i am. If a game is rolled out with such high acclaim you know in the back of your mind its not going to be as good as they say. Here i think i can quite easily draw the conclusion "pretty graphics a good game doth not make"

Final thought - Coconuts may be more useful than we think