In hindsight, those are just complementary elements. They can't have carried a game the length Half-Life 2 with it's basic shooting mechanics on their own if there wasn't enough variety to keep the player challenged and interested. After all, if you're talking art direction, visual design and narrative, you've said so yourself that the first Killzone had those elements in spades. Then how come it didn't benefit from those elements the way HL2 did?
I already covered this and it's a fairly basic and obvious point. I'm not sure why you're asking the question when I've provided the answer
twice now.
Can you blame me? Forgive me for being a realistic here considering Guerrilla has yet to make a decent FPS, and their only good game to date, Liberation, isn't all that amazing either. And the videos of the game barely have anything more than straightforward shooting action. In my estimation, if the game really had a lot more going for it than what the developers seem to be showing, we'd have seen at least some of it by now. That is also part of the reason I am skeptical about Killzone 2 and it's Doom III syndrome.
We've already seen
some of it by now, we know there will be mini bosses and boses like the heavy who demand a particular strategy, I've gone into how health probably works, the focus on team mates lifted from Liberation, the weather aspect so on so forth.
Watch the first Rainbow Six Vegas 10 minute demonstration from E3 2006 - they practically showed the entire game in a nutshell.
It's a good thing they designed that sequence with doing that in mind. Something like Killzone, or Halflife probably couldn't be summed up in a similar way without jumping around to other points in the game. Oh... right...
Or just the last 10 minutes (after the Source Engine tech demo) from the 20 minute demonstration of the Half-Life 2 at its first E3. Newell elaborately showed off five different set pieces and scenarios: Ravenholm, the assault with Barney, the antlions, the car sequence and the strider conclusion. Even Call of Duty 4 has shown multiple scenarios from the game - the opening chapter with the ghilly-suit snipers, the 'Black Hawk Down' sequence and the ship assault. There is plenty you can show in 10 minutes, that is to say, if you actually have as many things to show.
There is CoD4 showing multiple scenarios.
That is nothing but an ill-conceived excuse trying to downplay the achievements of a good game. Because if there really was any shred of substance in your argument, then Call of Duty 2 wouldn't have been as favorably reviewed on the 360 because there was no 'system launch' factor there.
There was the first good not flawed FPS factor going for it, unlike Perfect Dark which was not what people wanted and not a stellar game for the 360 in spite of user expectations, so CoD2 was the solution to that for both the hardcore and enthusiast gamer alike. It wasn't an amazing game. Pretty good for a WW2 game definitely, but not worthy of all those editors choice awards, granted maybe it did deserve them in the FPS realm in the wake of PDZ.
Why are you so insistent on bringing up Half-Life 2 when Killzone 2 has neither a similar design or the sheer variety of HL2?
To elaborate on a point that I've already established twice now. That you supported when you said that even simplistic mechanics can still be rewarding provided they are executed well. Now you maintain that Half Life 2 mixed things up a lot, but when you look at what it actually 'mixed up' and the timespan the game encompasses, it can hardly be said that Half Life 2 constantly mixed things up. Now the roller coaster of Episode 1 is a bit of a different story.
Secondly, controlling the antlions wasn't anything 'so fun' because there was hardly any controlling them to begin with. They were little more than hostile cannon fodder foot soldiers that the player can safely attack with and use as decoys.
That you just reinforced.
In fact, I'd go as far as saying the atmosphere and nuance you're talking about here has nothing to do with it. The merit of the whole sequence is that it gave you a nice change of pace from the usual guns'n artillery shooting action and kept the gameplay fresh and interesting.
Enhanced and made workable by the atmosphere and nuance of Half Life 2, sorry but atmosphere, nuance, and level design, has everything to do with why Half Life works. Otherwise the you would see people always say "that sequence in Half Life 2 was so much fun". Everything works because of the total pakage yes, but it's the atmosphere, and cinematic qualities that sell Half Life 2, not them mixing it up per say when how they mix things up is very simple changes of situation.
What Killzone 2 has in graphical horsepower and staggering detail, Call of Duty 4 more than makes up for it with with it's immense scope, bigger environments, more characters on-screen all at 60fps.
Guerilla has already said there will be much bigger levels then the one seen in the demonstration and more enemies on screen. So wait and see, it's only the third level. Maybe you didn't even watch the video, but that city is huge and entirely loaded at once, taking up around 2 gigs of data through all the geometry and textures. I've seen everything on CoD4 and you're exagerating just a bit.
That is clearly open to debate. If Infinity Ward reduces the size of the levels, the number of characters on-screen and bring it down to 30 fps, it won't be hard to beef up the level of detail to Killzone 2 levels. It's just a matter of scaling the features with the hardware to match the type of game you want to make. Otherwise, saying Killzone 2 is 'far more advanced than COD4', a game that snatched multiple Graphics/Technology awards from Killzone 2, is just mindless hyperbole.
If you really want I could post up CoD4 stuff and dissect it very easily. Aside from textures you'd have a hard time doing that with Killzone 2.
Uh, so? Being heavily scripted has little to no bearing as to how polished a shooter is. Both Half-Life 1 and 2 are heavily scripted, F.E.A.R is heavily scripted, but that doesn't take anything away from the fact that they are some of the best games in the genre. And if you can't even discern the level of quality difference between COD2's shooting action from other generic WW2 shooters, then no amount of words is going to help you understand it.
I already said it is one of the best WW2 shooters out there, but it doesn't exactly feature anything but very stiff AI and sequences.
And in spite of the linearity and repetitiveness, Call of Duty 2 was still a great game because the scope of the levels and the incredibly refined shooting mechanics still made it fun and interesting (a lot to say for a WW2 shooter). Which is exactly my point.
You're free to your opinion.
Of course, you can say that if COD2 can be linear and repetitive and lack variety but still be good if it has great shooting action, why can't Killzone 2? The problem here is that the bar would have raised significantly by the time Killzone 2 hits stores, what with gamers having already played Crysis, Bioshock, Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 by this point, all of which deliver what Killzone 2 seems to offer and a lot more.
In your opinion which you are unable to substantiate as fact.
Then perhaps if you had read my posts you wouldn't have bothered writing such a uselessly lengthy reply to it that doesn't even properly address the main and original point in my posts - what Killzone 2 has besides the visual trickery and eye-candy? How exactly does it's gameplay measure up to competing shooters?
Neither game is out yet.
Again, this argument of yours belongs in the garbage bin because the PC version of COD2 was also similarly favorably reviewed as the 360 version and there was no excuse of 'right place, right time' on that platform.
Blow back effect, and it was coming off some terrible WW2 era shooters. It was seen as the 'redeeming' WW2 game.
Yeah well it didn't. And that's all that matters. You certainly didn't give this kind of hypothetical consideration and leniency to the similar cases of Halo 2 or Fable that had entire levels and features chopped off, so why should Killzone get the partisan treatment? Oh wait, no need of answering that rhetorical question.
The difference between those games is that you are taking reviews of Liberation in that state, and Liberation got those missing features added in later. Rendering your argument to the garbage bin as you like to say.
Actually it isn't sloppy logic, because cumulatively speaking Half-Life and Half-Life 2 have even more GOTY and Editor's Choice awards than COD 1 and 2. And it's a well-known fact that the Half-Life series is far more acclaimed than the Call of Duty games, by both gamers and developers. If you're going to go on the offensive, at least look up the facts before making a fool of yourself like this, dear.
This entire point is meaningless though as I never brought up the developers track records. Killzone 2 is a very new game for a very different Guerilla then the team that made Killzone 1. CoD4 is a new CoD game taking place in a modern setting.
Whatever. My point is that if there is no problem with people sharing their enthusiasm for Killzone 2, then likewise there should be no problem with people expressing concern and skepticism either.
You would have a problem if people shared then enthusiasm by saying it will be better then Halo 3, or X FPS. However if you were to take no issue with someone saying that (which has been almost proven here that you WOULD take issue with someone saying Killzone will be better then just about any FPS coming out between then and now) then you're point might be valid. As is, it's not, and a product of your slanted double standard.
I've come to realize that you must miss nuance in conversations, based off of the last time you didn't pick up on simple logic and people basically threw up their hands and walked away.
Perhaps you failed to understand that the second paragraph was just a momentary admission of your argument, not a complete acknowledgment. Because the fact still remains that Resistance is nowhere near as successful, revolutionary, critically acclaimed, memorable or respected as Halo. In light of all this, saying that it is the better game is an ideal example of the fanboy mentality - downright laughable and ridiculous.
Resistance is nowhere near as:
Successful - It's a launch title for the PS3 a system that is very expensive. It has still sold near 1 million copies in America. But you can't expect it to be as successful as Halo for reasons I'll get into pretty quickly.
revolutionary - Agreed, which plays into why it isn't as sucessful. Halo set a new standard for Console FPS games and we've seeen console FPS games copying Halo for a while now. Resistance isn't revolutionary, it's just a very good console FPS (better then 95 percent of the rest) that is in the vein of Halo. Thus it's not redefining the standard and wouldn't be as revolutionary.
critically acclaimed- Agreed, which plays into the revolutionary critique and the fact that it was seen as derivative when it was first shown, and bore a lot of the PS backlash all the way through and even past release.
memorable - Story isn't nearly as cinematic, Nathan hale isn't nearly as iconic as Master Chief. Memorable plays into all the first three categories.
respected - Agreed. But aside from the main character being less Iconic, and the game being made in the same vein as the game that came out years ago and hasn't been topped, all that has nothing to do with the quality of the game.
It's very possible for a game to be lower in all these categories because of circumstance and partly because of the knee jerk reaction of the game itself as well as its own issues but still be better then the game that came before it.
