I bought the game for 50 bucks after playing the awsome demo. Before playing the game, I went on vacation and only beat it after I returned. This is a SUPER short game. According to the game, I beat it in about 5.5 hours. You get all this for 50 bucks. The game doesn't feel short however. The game drags on through most of the middle since it's mostly just puzzle after puzzle.
The level design might be confusing at times, otherwise, it's a mostly a straightforward game. Although unlike gamespot, I think Half-life 2 was more linear - probably due to the mulitple areas where I got stuck because I overlooked something or inconsistant door control panels. Still, the portals due drop you into totally new areas where sometimes gravity takes you into another direction than what you went in with. This makes it confusing and makes you study almost each room. So I never got the feeling that it was linear. Also, because of how complex each level seems, it gets tiresome with no break between them.
The graphics are awsome. They do well with the organics & machine mix. It moves more impressively than in Doom3. Even though this uses the Doom3 engine, it manages to have it's own distinct style right from the beginning. However, it's character models and face animations aren't as good as what we've seen from the Source engine.
There are almost no interactible objects in this game, just similar to Doom3, just a few boxes here and there. Not that I care about that anyway. But because of the lack of interactions, I do feel a little disappointed at how primitive this engine seems because of that.
The spiritwalk and gravitywalk are common throughout the whole game and are used in every single puzzle. It gets tiring. The spiritwalk is just too easy to figure out. If you're stuck, there's probably a switch hidden behind the forcefield - 9/10 times there is. The gravitywalk complicates the levels because there is so many of them at once at times. Walking on them is also strange because the camera get's moved for you if you go up the wall and turn to go upside down. If you want to keep focused on one enemy while moving up those turns, you'll have to work hard at it.
The game starts out nice, but then throws you into massive puzzles for about 3-4 hours. There are a few enemies in the way, but they are so easy that they're almost insignificant. And they bother you while you're doing the puzzles, so it's kind hard to get your mind completely off the puzzle in order to enjoy killing them. Little story, if any, happens there. I don't think this game is story driven actually. After the puzzles, the game get's more action oriented, although not without puzzles. Let's just say it's more action than puzzle this time and it starts to get more fun with harder enemies coming at you more often.
The weapons, although alive, aren't anything special. Most function like weapons that we've seen in other games and most animations aren't that interesting.
VERDICT
Not worth the money. The game is way too short, with the fun parts happening within the first and last hours of the game. The game brings some interesting ideas to the table, but doesn't excute them properly.
The level design might be confusing at times, otherwise, it's a mostly a straightforward game. Although unlike gamespot, I think Half-life 2 was more linear - probably due to the mulitple areas where I got stuck because I overlooked something or inconsistant door control panels. Still, the portals due drop you into totally new areas where sometimes gravity takes you into another direction than what you went in with. This makes it confusing and makes you study almost each room. So I never got the feeling that it was linear. Also, because of how complex each level seems, it gets tiresome with no break between them.
The graphics are awsome. They do well with the organics & machine mix. It moves more impressively than in Doom3. Even though this uses the Doom3 engine, it manages to have it's own distinct style right from the beginning. However, it's character models and face animations aren't as good as what we've seen from the Source engine.
There are almost no interactible objects in this game, just similar to Doom3, just a few boxes here and there. Not that I care about that anyway. But because of the lack of interactions, I do feel a little disappointed at how primitive this engine seems because of that.
The spiritwalk and gravitywalk are common throughout the whole game and are used in every single puzzle. It gets tiring. The spiritwalk is just too easy to figure out. If you're stuck, there's probably a switch hidden behind the forcefield - 9/10 times there is. The gravitywalk complicates the levels because there is so many of them at once at times. Walking on them is also strange because the camera get's moved for you if you go up the wall and turn to go upside down. If you want to keep focused on one enemy while moving up those turns, you'll have to work hard at it.
The game starts out nice, but then throws you into massive puzzles for about 3-4 hours. There are a few enemies in the way, but they are so easy that they're almost insignificant. And they bother you while you're doing the puzzles, so it's kind hard to get your mind completely off the puzzle in order to enjoy killing them. Little story, if any, happens there. I don't think this game is story driven actually. After the puzzles, the game get's more action oriented, although not without puzzles. Let's just say it's more action than puzzle this time and it starts to get more fun with harder enemies coming at you more often.
The weapons, although alive, aren't anything special. Most function like weapons that we've seen in other games and most animations aren't that interesting.
VERDICT
Not worth the money. The game is way too short, with the fun parts happening within the first and last hours of the game. The game brings some interesting ideas to the table, but doesn't excute them properly.