Similar? Depends on what part of HL2 you enjoyed the most.
Fear (2) is known to be accident prone (just like HL, every elevator you take somehow breaks down, every door gets bocked by falling boulders, every vent shaft breaks when you walk in it)
Give BioShock a try if you're looking for something with a compelling backstory
Maybe red faction, that one always reminded me of HL for some reason.
Other than that, HL1/2 have tons of mods and addons, you might want to look out for those if you want "genuine" HL2 experience.
Black mesa: Source was released not long ago, the list goes on and on.
imho. Bioshock is not that great.
Bioshock infinite has a nice story and a really nice scenery, which makes a really good atmosphere, but the gameplay itself is not that good ... but still the atmosphere around the game makes you wanna play and it is still a good game ...
a game that is little underrated imho. is rage ... you also drive vehicles in that game, you even race, and there are also some small physical puzzles to be found ... I am pretty sure id aimed at something like half-life (they took already elements of half-life 1 for their story in doom 3, where you first run around in some lab and then some outbreak happens). and the atmosphere is also quite nice in rage, at least the art style really rocks, maybe the story is just mediocre, but the characters and the art style are still quite nice ...
definitely more close to half life 2 than bioshock infinite, though bioshock infinite is maybe 5 % better overall.
I had a hard time getting into bioshock (1) because it was too hyped, friend of mine kept talking about it and it got on my nerves. I didn't want to touch or hear about that stupid game for the longest time, I actually got to play the first part just few months ago. I've tried the pirated version and an original copy that I got on steam and mouse input rendered the game (bio)shockingly frustrating - inside menus, when you tried to hack bots or when the cursor was floating near a body or anything you could interact with (doors, corpses, trash cans etc) the DPI was taken into account and the cursor flew across the screen and my model was doing sick-ass 360 pirouettes, as soon as the cursor left the interaction area, DPI felt extremely low, sluggish, I swiped the mouse across the whole qck+ and I moved maybe an inch on screen.
Mouse input was horrendously bugged, I tried so many fixes and none of them worked. Obviously the game wasn't enjoyable, but the art style, System shock nostalgia and general curiosity about the plot kept me going. I loved the demented population, the EVE addicts, psychotic characters and 40's soundtrack. (partially thanks to fallout franchise to get me interested in such music in the first place)
overall I had to dumb down the difficulty level because shooting was practically impossible - the only reasonable fix was to play it with g400 with fast DPI switch and play 400DPI when inside menus and 3600. (There was another problem with my cursor only moving either left or right / up or down, kinda like etch-a-sketch)
The ending was predictable and regurgitated, but I'll let that pass because maybe in 2007 it was still cool to be guided throughout the game by the main antagonist. The whole moral dilemma with harvesting EVE from small kids was impressive at first but didn't quite work for me, mainly due to me not having special feelings for loud little brats.
I haven't played infinity yet but I'll probably give it a try when people stop cosplaying it and everyone pretty much forgets about it. Currently playing bioschock 2 which has a nice twist by playing as a big daddy.
It's far from a bad game but it has it's flaws. Still the best and closest thing to "replace" system shock 2 imo.
As for Rage, I've already written to much about it.
I'm one of the few who actually enjoyed the game a lot, the driving parts didn't suit the game at all or rather, the way they implemented it wasn't enjoyable, it didn't feel quite right. I would prefer more areas to explore, so the only reason why you should drive is to travel from one town to another (again, inspired by fallout).
Rage could have been the shittiest, worst game as far as gameplay and stupid driving element goes and I'd still praise it just because the structures, environment and whole wasteland area is so nicely crafted.
Movement was sleek, fast, entertaining and enemies had relatively good AI
I'm very biased when it comes to post-apoc stuff, but overall rage offers several hours of dynamic fun, characters are really well animated, but the game just ends abruptly.
It has to be the most "are you kidding me?" end I've ever encountered in any video game ever.
There's no boss fight, no resolved problems, no ending cinematic, there's literally NOTHING, you walk into a place, shoot some enemies and it stops. It just stops.
Still the atmosphere was awesome and the driving aside it's a great and fun game, but I wouldn't compare it to HL for some reason.
maybe yeah ... still in HL2 there many parts where you drive around with waterboat or jeep to get from place to place ... rage copied that and made a greater emphasis of the vehicle use and also included racing ... yeah the ending for rage was bad ... bioshock was still o.k., because the ending cutscenes ... but the endboss was also rather weak ...
dn4ever is maybe also a bit like HL2 ... got also pretty bad rating, which is a bit unjustified imho, everyone attacke duke because it took so long, but this actually doesnt have to do much with the game ...
enjoyed the game as far as I played, stopped somwhere after alienqueen fight ... still dnever for me is worse than both rage and bioshock ...
still HL1 is the greatest single player fps I played so far, experience was much better than HL2 ... more emphasis on fps ... less scripting, less vehicle stuff ... more pure, not overstuffed
yeah i hear it plays a lot better with a controller though. ive only played it on ps3. dark souls and demon souls are both great games. cant wait for DS2
if u want games similar to hl2 go play CoDs. i guess they are even more scripted than hl2.
basiclly since hl came out any sp fps is scripted as hell, so just play the last big fps title, which prolly will be shit, as it was meant for console peasants.
It's hard to name good single player FPS games that aren't scripted/linear, no matter release date. It's not just the console peasants of the past console generation, when gaming was 'ruined', though obviously is a big influence.
For example all id and valve FPS are linear as fuck.
hl2 is crap cause its like the pop games, it has no meaning, they sold out on looks and everything else. it makes no sense. romero citing as one of his favorites just goes on to prove he is completely lost his mind to put games of a rival studio higher than dooms and quakes.
hl2 is not a game that would be anything even remotely playable in 10 years, there is already rpg elements in most games like the doom inventory and stuff and it makes no sense to put hl2 as the only fps that worth noting
hl2 is not a game that would be anything even remotely playable in 10 years
It's been 10 year since it's release and is still regarded as one of the best games ever made, it won't stop being a classic, it is a huge milestone in gaming and will remain so 4 evah
the idea behind dota 2 was never to be groundbreaking. the wc3 engine is heavily outdated; disconnect from a game and you're gone, fps is capped 60, competing over continents were virtually impossible as any ping over 100 is just horrible to play with. its not a groundbreaking experience for any game released after 2005, but for dota it was a MAJOR thing.
competitively speaking, dota 1 was basically as dead as ql is now. i think dreamhack held a tournament or two, there were a few onlines, a big lan in SEA. dota 2 has the international, reoccuring dreamhacks, starladders, mlg, etc. dota 2 is what saved competitive dota.
I'm currently playing hl2 co-op with a mate who's a massive hl fanboy (in return he'll play the quake 1 campaign with me once I figure out how to make the damn work). Honestly, so far I cannot see the appeal. I find it slow and boring. And if I wanted a story about a dystopia, I'd read 1984, not play some shallow ass game. So ye, people who do like hl, explain to me why.
A bit off topic, but*, fukit .
Some games I enjoyed playing.
Soldier of fortune 1.
This was the game that made me scrap my consoles, n64 -goldeneye , and go mouse & kb/ PC.
All the Half lifes .
Quake 3
I went back to this because you had to be financially dedicated to have ISDN in 2000.
I remember friends getting Ł500 a month phone bills for playing on dialup with 200-400ms.
Return to castle wolfenstein. The latest version was fun.
Unreal tournaments.
Until they sold me the incomplete pile of shit no.3 then used all the content we paid for to make Queers of War, the in bed with Microsoft exclusive. IMO
Deus Ex . The latest seems good ,have not finished it yet though.
Medal of honor AA + expansion packs.
Prey. The best SP id tech 4 game IMO.
Farcry 1 and number three was a LOT of fun.
Colin mcrae + Dirts. Many wasted hours there.
Hitman. Series.
COD all.
Battlefield bad company 2 SP was a lot of fun.
Bioshock 1 was good but had no replay value for me.
The ‘number 2’ may have been ok but I uninstalled after 10 minutes of 0.002 mm 360: ;)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R 1.2.3
Urban terror 4. Just tried this the other day,it has a good blend of Quake UT2k4 and CS –COD style gameplay IMO. The least embarrassing Quake based game to show the nuskool ;-/
Might try fallout this fall.
Some other games i will check out from the posts above keep em coming.
Tiss the season to be jolly trollolololololololol.
That speed run is sick !!!!!!!
Didn't even t know what a strafe jump was when i played HL and never realized till much later that HL was based on ID tech.
Also checking Speeddemosarchive.
N1