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Doom 3 vs. Half Life 2
Thanks to Laurie W, who writes "Sudhain.com has a great comparison of D3 vs. HL2 (funny, too)." From the article: "Since Half Life 2 was released this week, I thought it'd make a good time to take the two games head to head and see which came out on top. I've spent a few hours in the beginning of each, playing through the first few levels. Although I haven't completed either, I've spent enough time in each (I think) to develop a feel for what the later sections of each game will be like. Given that each has been fairly consistent thus far, it'd take a major shift for my opinion of either to change significantly."
Considering that Half Life 2 changes incredibly when you get the physics gun (and takes a complete flip turn in the last two levels), I wouldn't say that was an accurate statement. Oh, and after the first couple of hours of Doom 3, it plummets in quality. Scripted scares are at a minimum, replaced by identical looking rooms and repetetive enemy spawns. One of those unfortunate cases where the sample doesn't represent the overall quality.
I have to agree with anyone who read the article and felt like it was very poor journalism. First of all, right from the start the author mentions that he only played a little bit of each game. I think he said Alpha Labs 3 is as far as he played in Doom 3, that's what, 15% into the game? This is no more useful to me than the forum and comments flames from jaded gamers who spam their opinion all over the place after playing through just the intro to a game. If it was a good article, I think first of all he would have played through both games so that he could actually tell us which one he actually likes better than the other, not which one he thinks he may like better than the other, and instead of just saying one is better than the other, he could recommend one or the other to the reader based on their preferences. These are just some basics of writing review/opinion pieces. This guy makes himself sound like an ass.
What would I have said? Well, I think most people will enjoy both games. As for casual gamers or people who are new to FPS games, I would say Doom 3. HL2 has some puzzles and concepts that any FPS nut will breeze by, but someone who hasn't been playing these games all that long will find themselves frustrated. For instance, I was watching my girlfriend play HL2 and she couldn't get past the train yard, because she is not coordinated enough to time the jump from the train top over the fence to get to the next part, she would have been stuck there for ages if I wasn't there to take over and do the jump for her. Some of the puzzles will confuse people who didn't already have a good idea about how the game was going to work as far as physics puzzles go. Doom 3 is mostly just a pretty frag-fest, my girlfriend has gotten much farther in Doom 3 than she can get in HL2 without my help.
Hardcore gamers are going to choose one or the other based on what kind of game they like to play. HL2 has more variety in it's gameplay, with more puzzles and more ways to dispatch enemies (knocking out platforms they are standing on, using objects in the world, etc.) where as Doom 3 is point, click and kill and focuses on little else other than keeping the situation tense at all times. I really like both, and luckily I do not have to choose one or the other. If you like killing everything in sight and being a bad-ass, maybe Doom 3 is your cup of tea. If you like to explore and are looking for more than just brainless action, then maybe you will get your kicks out of HL2. I say get 'em both, and maybe toss in an Xbox and Halo 2 for good measure.