I’m one of those people who always feels a little bit happier when i’ve bought myself something shiny, and so a new toy is always just over the horizon. But it’s a fact that i’m not very good at looking forward to things. I don’t really do excitement for example. When i tell people that i’m “really looking forward” to something, it’s just a turn of phrase. If i know that something good is coming in the future that’s enough for me. It’s a fact, i understand it, simple logic, it’s in the future. I’m okay with that. I don’t giggle in excitement, i don’t have trouble sleeping the night before, i don’t really talk incessantly about it unless it’s appropriate and fitting for the conversation.
Excitement is just another in the long list of emotions that don’t work for me.
There’s a good reason for bringing this up. As you may know, i’m fairly passionate about video games – and this month is a good one for games:
- Orange Box
- Call of Duty 4
- Mass Effect
- Assassins Creed
- Super Mario Galaxy
- Kane and Lynch
I’ve been “looking forward” to each of them for a long long while. Sitting in my bag right now is the collectors edition of Call of Duty 4. I played the multiplayer beta and absolutely loved it. I loved all of the previous iterations. Call of Duty 3 was a marvel of storytelling. It’s safe to say that i want to play this game very much. But i still can’t get excited about it. I know that i want to play it, and i know that once i get home i will be able to. I know it, i believe it, i don’t need to feel anything else about it. It’s just logic and faith.
Lets talk about games, because that’s way more interesting than i am. I’ll tell you about the first game in that list, because i’ve already completed all of it – so it doesn’t really fit into the whole “looking forward to” theme! Later, once i’ve played more of Call of Duty 4, i’ll blog about that, then onwards through the list.
Orange Box
Half Life 2 finally comes to the Xbox 360.
I have to say that the Half Life franchise is one of my absolute gaming highlights. I can’t name many franchises that have been the recurring success that Half Life has been. Even Zelda, my precious Zelda, has had ups and downs. The fan base was shocked by Majoras Mask, and split in half by Wind Waker. After the blazing success of Twilight Princess they were slammed back down by Phantom Hourglass. Sure it’s innovative (i’ve marvelled at the DS control integration, it’s a joy) but it’s also annoying and a step back to the world of Wind Waker – not everyone‘s favourite. But yes, back to my point. The Half-Life franchise has been a success on nearly every step of the way. Half-Life 1 was an absolute god. The story telling was amazing, and still has one of the greatest introductions known to man. The scripted events added atmosphere and drama to the exciting setting. There were two short follow-ups, Blue Shift and Opposing Force followed different people in the same storyline. This is a genius idea as you witness key events in the plot line from other peoples perspective, and see more of the story than you did originally. Blue Shift also introduced a fan-favourite character who appears in Half-Life 2 onwards.
Half-Life 2 is, in my opinion, one of the greatest sequels of all time. It retains all of the well liked elements in Half-Life and expands on them. As well as having a superlative engine which blue the FPS genre wide open. The advanced capabilities of the engine (buoyancy and weight for example) were well harnessed in puzzles throughout the game, and graphically spectacular scenes appeared throughout.
Also in Orange Box appears the two sequels to Half-Life 2, “Episode One” and “Episode Two”. These are shorter games, which took less time to develop and could be released quickly. The focus has been on strong storylines rather than new engine features or in-game assets, which makes me happy.
But that’s not all, dun dun duuuuun, Orange Box contains two more games. Which are both amazing, but i think i’ll hold off talking about them for now, because i’m actively playing both and will no doubt want to talk about them again.
Tags: xbox half-life games
