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Half-Life 2 Sweeps Bafta Games Awards
Ford Prefect writes "The British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards, or Baftas, are frequently considered Britain's equivalent of the Oscars. The winners of the second annual games awards were announced last night, and according to the BBC Half-Life 2 won six awards, including best game and best online game. No Katamari Damacy mentioned, Burnout 3 won three awards, and some plucky little upstart called 'Halo 2' won the prize for best Xbox game."
I ain't goin'...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I've gotta respond to this, since I'm really sick of people calling Half Life 2 derivative.
Half Life redefined first person shooters back in 1998. It and some choice others, like Deus Ex, chose to make the genre more than just lugging around strange weaponry and blowing away aliens. They gave story, scope, style, amazing graphics, and a sense of actually being in the game.
Half Life presented itself as a constant flow of gameplay, giving you story and immersion. Now, because of that, you end up actually liking and caring about Gordon, the character you control. People may not want to admit it, but if Valve wants to make another game that uses those exact elements to play off of, they're perfectly free to do so. It was their idea in the first place. Who are we to say that they shouldn't continue refining it?
Half Life 2 is the continuation of a great concept in gaming. I'm tired of people discounting it just because it isn't "wholly original."
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
1. Half-Life 2 is a sequel.
2. Katamari Damacy is an original game.
3. Half-Life 2 is still a better game than Katamari Damacy, insofar as they are comparable. It's also more ambitious in scope, more accomplished in design, implementation and artistry, and has a broader appeal.
Originality isn't a silver bullet.
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I agree with your first two paragraphs.
However.
Half Life 2 doesn't do anything new in a PC game that hasn't been done before to death, from physics engine, graphics, sound, gameplay, even scripted events.
Half Life 2 derives these elements of gameplay and plot from the original Half Life and from other FPS games in the genre.
Therefore, Half Life 2 is a derivative work.
I won't discount Half Life 2 because it's derivative. I'll discount it because of Steam, because Valve deliberately rigged the game engine so it wouldn't work so well on all hardware because they took $5M in payment from ATI, because Valve held back the game because the source code was "stolen" (I guess they couldn't work on it because they no longer had it when it was stolen away from them, huh). I'll discount it because the graphics engine didn't have the same power as the DooM3 engine (some of the lighting effects were awful). I'll discount it because when Valve goes out of business one day, we won't ever be able to play the game again. I'll discount it because the ending to the game felt half-finished.
But to make you feel better, I won't discount it because it's yet-another-scripted-event-shooter.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Best online game? Half Life 2? Am I the only one who sees the problem here? Ok, there is HL2 deathmatch but there's no way in that could possibly win any award. There's what, a whole two maps? One of them with some serious design flaws. CS:S is decent, but hardly award worthy.