Halo 2, Half-Life 2, and the FPS genre (no spoilers, thanks)

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So, what upcoming first person shooter games are everyone looking forward to? There seem to be quite a few big name games in the genre arriving soon… Half-Life 2, Halo 2, and next year Battlefield 2.

I’m looking forward to HL2 and Halo 2, although from what I’ve seen and heard, Half-Life 2 looks like it’s going to innovate the most (in terms of gameplay), while Halo 2 should have an interesting story.

By the way, does anyone else feel that the FPS genre could use some serious innovation? These games are bound to be great fun to play, but in Halo 2’s case I don’t see anything majorly new about it that hasn’t been done in other FPSs before it (it should still be a great game, though). Half-Life 2 on the other hand will hopefully add some new tactics to the gameplay thanks to the new physics engine…

Thoughts?

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I think pretty much the same thing. Really looking forward to both Halo 2 and Half-life 2 (WHY DO THEY HAVE TO RELEASE WITHIN A WEEK OF EACHOTHER?!?), each for different reasons. The lack of real multiplayer in HL2 is a bit disapointing, but the single-player campaign sounds pretty long so it even out. I’m also looking forward to STALKER, and FEAR seems interesting as well. Looks like there are some very big FPS games being released in the next 6 months, and this is right after the huge release of Farcry and Doom 3. I do see first-person shooters becoming stale, but likely they’ll stay the way they are until sales drop for them, then they may try a few new ideas to build interest again (as it is, first-person action games that don’t follow the standard formula seem to bomb pretty poorly…remember Breakdown?).

Oh, and while HL2 does look to add more to the FPS genre than Halo 2 does, I think Halo 2 is a very nice refinement that offers a few things not seen very often, if at all, in the FPS genre previously. Things like dual-wielding and vehicle damage, plus melee weapons/attacks, should set it apart from other FPS games that follow a much more simplistic formula. Plus, coop play is always fun, I’ve probably played through Halo 1 at least 2 or 3 times with other friends just because of the coop mode.

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I’m not that interested in Half-Life 2 to be honest.Maybe because I only played the first level of the original …

Halo 2 on the other hand was the first game I ever ordered before hand (cause I wanted the limited edition for a change and you know you have to assure it right away…) and I’m pretty sure it will beat the original in terms of level design and story (and I hope music.)

Halo 2 is still getting some alterations to the physics tho Solo.Or so I read.

But as far as FPS’s are concerned I’m still waiting for Exhumed/Powerslave 2!!

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I’m definetly looking forward to Half-Life 2 the most, loved Half-Life and from what i’ve seen to the second game, it looks like it should be something very special indeed. I’ve seen a gameplay demo where a guy ran into a building being chase by special ops, slammed the door and shoved a table in front of it so they couldn’t get in, then ran up the stairs, but one of them saw him through a window, and suddenly the entire wall was shreaded with gunfire, and another one where the guy tore part of a sign of the top of a building and used it to block enemy fire until the need to reload, then shot it at them. It looks awsome.

Halo 2 should be quite good too, although i’m not sure if I want to get it right away, I thought the first Halo was fun, but, especially in levels like The Library - which never seemed to end, it got really tedious running through a room you could have sworn you’d just been in, shooting the same enemies over and over and over and over…

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Heh, luckly they say that there’s no repeticous environments in Halo 2: each area is individually made with no cut-and-paste jobs, and no returning to areas you’ve already been to. That was a flaw that many people quickly pointed out about the first Halo, basically they were rushed to finish the game and had to repeat areas due to time constraints. Basically, 50% more levels without the repeatative environments, it really is twice the game Halo was.

Oh, and Halo 2 does have a decent physics engine (in fact, it uses the same engine that Half-life 2 uses, go figure), it’s just not used as much and doesn’t have as many puzzles revolving around it. But in some of the videos I’ve seen you can see barrels go flying when a grenade goes off by them, almost exactly like Counter-Strike: Source. Can’t wait to see how fun Warthog jumping is in Halo 2 :slight_smile:

Edit: Umm…is it just me, or are the anjou smiley’s broken?

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Havoc 2 is it?

The An’jou smiley doesn’t correspond to the " :slight_smile: " characters.You have to click the emoticons on yoru left when making a post.

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Are you sure about that? I haven’t heard anything about Halo 2 using the Half-Life 2 physics engine, although that could be out of ignorance. I would have thought that bungie would have developed their own engine. Do you know of a website that says that?

Hopefully Halo 2 will have some really atmospheric music. I loved the Halo soundtrack (I bought the OST in fact) but I can’t remember any tunes from the original Half-Life (I haven’t played through the whole game though…). It’s good to hear that there’ll be less repetitive environments in the game too, that’s something that games should aim to avoid IMO.

If the An’jou emoticons don’t work, they might be turned off in your profile (check for “Always enable Smilies”).

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Half Life 2 actually uses Havok 1 not 2. It may sound bad BUT Havok 2 actually spawned from the collaboration of the creators of it and Valve as they kept improving Havok for use in Half Life 2. Basically Havok 2 = Havok 1 + advancements made to it for Half Life 2.

On the other hand, Half Life 2 is a game that was built to use the physics engine from the ground up, just cos someone will licence it for his game doesn’t mean he’s going to integrate it into it as well. Deus Ex 2 and Thief 3 use the same physics engine but it’s horribly integrated and is not impressive in the last. Doom 3 seems to have a decent physics engine too but all it ends up is let you push objects around and shoot tin cans since they haven’t bothered to make good use of it in actual gameplay.

And since we are talking about flying objects, that’s the simplest thing and doesn’t show the true quality of an engine at all to just see that. Also, Counter Strike: Source doesn’t use the engine fully either since it’s multiplayer and would take huge ammounts of bandwidth to fully use the physics. CS:S is just the tip of the iceberg that is the Source engine in all aspects, both graphics and physics as well as sound.

As for Half Life 2 not having much of a multiplayer, well, someone needs to learn how to download mods :wink: some of the most complex and unique games have been developed as mods for Half Life 1 and seeing as it’s the most popular engine for mods, HL2 is sure to follow on the same tradition and attract most of the talented modders as well so expect to see a lot more on it with that kind of power in their hands. A LOT of very promising projects with talented teams are already planned (and some have started creating artistic content while waiting for the SDK to develop them code wise as well)

FPS games have already been evolving and HL1 was the beginning of it. For some reason the other companies didn’t continue the evolution (apart from terms of gfx and such but not actual gameplay) but thankfully Half Life 2 is coming to show everyone how it’s done :wink:

On the other hand we have great upcoming games that mix the RPG genre with FPS like Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines (using the HL2 engine) and Bioshock (sort of a sequel to the amazing system shock 2 using a modified Unreal engine)

Another interesting FPS I’m looking forward to is S.T.A.L.K.E.R (sandbox style FPS/RPG), the earlier mentioned F.E.A.R (If it ends up as good as the early information make it be) and also Pariah (which looks more “ordinary” than the likes of Half Life 2, but nonetheless really good, something akin to Halo 2 I guess.). Battlefield 2 looks amazing as well. Team Fortress 2 might actually come in the not so distant future as well…

I guess my MUST have titles at the moment are Half Life 2 (it’s going to be top class and apart from that be kept fresh for years upon years upon years cos of mods just like the original), Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines (It’s going to show Deus Ex 2 how mixing FPS with RPG is really done) and Battlefield 2 (You can’t go wrong with multiplayer action like that)

That said, some of these choices are because I don’t know the quality of the other titles (Not HL2 though, that’s a must!). Bioshock for example could end up a better RPG/FPS hybrid than Vampire while Team Fortress 2 might actually arrive (I heard a certain something from a very reliable source from within the industry) and be a better choice than Battlefield 2.

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halo2’s better have a very similer phisics becuase i’ll miss worthog jumping.

using the eilite sword will rock.

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Halo 2 uses the same physics as Half-Life 2, just to let you know.

Oh and, I’m excited for both. I even have Counter Strike Source! MADNESS MY FRIENDS! MADNESS! :anjou_happy:

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Check the last paragraph of Solis’ post and the second paragraph of my post :anjou_sigh:

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I know, I used the “:)” character instead after I kept previewing my message and it just put the -anjou smiley- text in my post rather than the picture. Thanks for letting me know about that option in the user profiles Solo Wing, it works fine now. :anjou_love:

Oh I know there will be lots of mods for HL2, I’ve played Natural Selection more than any other game, it’s just that it’s kinda disapointing that after I finish the single-player in HL2, for several weeks the only other option will probably be to go play a graphical update on a 4 year old mod. I mean…not even any standard deathmatch? I think DM and CTF would be great fun with things like the physics gun in vehicles, but alas, this isn’t possible (yet). I just hope the mod groups put out some decent stuff fairly quickly after HL2’s release, it just seems kinda disapointing that Valve is basically relying on mod-makers to create a decent multiplayer for the game. Wonder if Half-life: Source will have multiplayer…

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I read that levels (Im not sure if it will be specific levels, or all of them) will feature glass ceilings. The remade Blood Gulch features Banshees this time 'round, so it seems it will be unfeasible to flip warthogs to the lower heavens this time round.

Halo 2 will be awesome all the same.