Halo 2 versus Half Life 2

[Jeremy]

I've got Half-Life 2 on a tricked out Alienware and Halo 2 on an HD plasma and I have to say, both are excellent games.

Steam is a great annoyance for HL2, though being able to download the game without having to run out and pick it up was nice.

I haven't beaten either game yet, I've just been wrapped up by a tentacle and dragged to the bottom of the sea in Halo and have just picked up the gravity gun in Half Life 2. Overall, I've had much more fun playing HL2. Yeah it's prettier and everything, but some of the stuff they've had me do was just plain fun. The grenades, the air skiff, etc...

I had a lot of fun with Sarge's comments in Halo, and blowing everything in my way up on the way up the bridge with the scorpion tank was great. But it just feels like more of the same. Dual wielding allows a constant string of fire with reloading one gun while emptying the other and repeating so thats nice. Some of the new weapons are ok... But I'm just not having as much fun. And I'm playing Halo 2 co-op with my best friend, so it should be way ahead. I fricking love co-op.

So yeah, my vote goes to Half Life 2. But they are both EXCELLENT games.

 

[Jeremy]

BTW, it took hours for Steam to finally authenticate my copy of HL2. I had an ATI version that came with my Alienware (specifically the ATI video card in it). Downloading took one night, that wasn't bad. But waiting for it to authenticate would have been terrible.

Had I not been in the other room playing Halo 2 that is...

 

[Narfellus]

a couple guys i know have played and compared both. They both said they liked HL2 better than Halo2, but that Halo was still a good game. I've been playing Halo 2 on Heroic and it's very hard, only on mission 10 of 15. I've tinkered with Legendary on Campaign mode and LORD it is hard! I think it might be harder than legendary in halo 1...

 

[Ranger REG]

You mean because you don't own an X-box? Halo 2 will be on the PC soon, as well.

I'm anti-console, anti-MMORPG (the pay-2-play versions), as well as traditionally anti-TCG. Although I do like GBA games and hopefully will own the new Nintendo DS. I wonder if I could trade in my SP for a discount.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I REALLY DISLIKE STEAM! All I want to do is play the @#$%@#$% game off-line on my PC in my house all by myself. Crap I say, I only have a 56k modem, I paid good money for the game and what did get...no sure because I am waiting for updating to finish so I can play off-line and I really have feeling that Steam is spyware!

I do not know if I can recomend Half-Life 2.

 

[Velenne]

And I'm playing Halo 2 co-op with my best friend, so it should be way ahead. I fricking love co-op.

Hey that's me! Heh. Ok here's my 2c, having played a great deal of Halo2 on single and multi-player, and beaten HL2.

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Halo 2

Good - Halo 1 was great and interesting and everything, but I never got the craze. Co-op just can't be beat! Dual-weilding and vehicle-jacking make me all warm inside. Some of the scenes are very gorgeous. Voice acting is decent (love Sarge!). Multiplayer has a lot of really great modes that vary up the gameplay and can keep a lot of people entertained for a long time.

Bad - More of the same to me, and coming from someone who wasn't too excited about Halo1, that's a big deal. The game is too dark!! Even playing split-screen on a mammoth TV, it's difficult to see my peripheries. I hate playing FPS's on consoles because you just can't get the same level of precise accuracy with a game controller that you can with a mouse+keyboard. (Though I digress- that's more of a negative with the genre though, not the title.) Yet ultimately, the gameplay is repetitive and confusing.

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Half-Life 2

Good - Where do I begin? Every scene is a photo-realistic postcard. The "scary" level was scarier than all of Doom 3. The gameplay has enough variety, action, and creative puzzles to keep me interested in every minute. The weapons are phenomenal. The baddies are smart and/or scary. Every level I thought surely the game couldn't get any better. But it did. This game is without peer. Voice acting: great. Story: great (but see below). Plus it's already being modded. Seeing the changes to Counter-strike, I'm already salivating at the possibilities.

Bad - As far as plot, Valve chooses to keep you mostly in the dark. You get a lot of tidbits, a lot of clues and misinformation that keep you wanting more. There's a lot more going on than you realize but you have to pay very close attention to it. Consipiracy Theories Abound.(Spoilers here!) Steam sucks. Hard. I have a particular dislike for it, bordering on hatred. (It ruined my former favorite game: TFC)

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Lowdown: HL2 wins out in nearly every category. Graphics, sounds, gameplay, controls, story, overall. The only place it's currently lacking is multiplayer but this can and will be fixed by the modding community. Can't wait!

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Finished it last night - HL2 is a great game! Some folks are really pissed at the ending, but I liked it.

 

[Ferret]

I can see why. The only thing I liek about halo are some of the cool weapons and that on an X-box you can do multiplayer with guys you know.

There's a lot more going on than you realize but you have to pay very close attention to it. Consipiracy Theories Abound.(Spoilers here!)

Further to the above link: ¦

Spoiler

Looking at that, it looks likely that GMan is playing the two dimensions to get them to merge, see how well the vortigants go with the rebels?

 

[Raloc]

ok, fellas, for those who've played both, how do they compare? I've played Halo2--good game, but i loved the first one too. Pros? Cons? Halo2 single player campaign's on the short side, even on Heroic. And it LOOKS like the first game, which isn't bad, but not real different, which would have been good.

Halo 2 was very short and made most of the same mistakes as the first game (repetitive indoor areas, annoying enemies (read: The Flood)). That said, I think it was a very well made game, and most of it was fun (aside from the parts I hated about the first game (read: The Flood)). If you can, buy a JoyFrag mouse/keyboard adapter to play it, as it will greatly enhance the fun (since the control scheme is crap). As far as the story goes, I thought it was a definite improvement over the first game. The multiplayer is fun IF you manage to get into one of the few games that isn't simply an ego trip for the server starter (i.e. Rocket Launchers/Sniper Rifles only, and a map you can fall to your death on).


Half Life 2 is the better game in my opinion, because it is more polished. The gameplay is *more* fun for me than in Halo 2, and much more exciting. Halo 2 seems to lose its edge around the time you've killed 30,000 of The Flood, and want to smash your Xbox because they're so annoying. Half Life 2 never had me frustrated as I was when playing parts of Halo and Halo 2 (especially the parts where they feel the need to make it pitch black, with monotonous grey walls everywhere).

I run my games on a custom built water cooled machine, all settings highest.

 

[Captain Tagon]

Maybe I'm an oddity but I'm a much better shot on Halo 2 than I've ever been on any PC shooter game. The mouse/keyboard combo just doesn't work for me at all. Meanwhile the Halo controls are ones you can just pick up and play faster than anything I've seen since Mario. The controls for Halo just "make sense" more than anything else. I haven't played a whole lot of Half-Life 2 yet and never finished Halo 2's story, but my vote for better game goes to Halo 2 because it excels at multiplayer and that's why I bought it.