I haven’t been that impressed with gaming lately. Then something came along to rope me right back in: Half-Life 2: Lost Coast.

Developer Commentary: Lost Coast features small audio clips from the developers scattered throughout the level. Not only can I see how wonderful Valve’s work is, I can start to understand how and why they did the work. This game has better developer commentary than any DVD movie I’ve seen.

High Dynamic Range Lighting: This game is beautiful. Amazingly beautiful. Even turning down the graphics options (my system specs are just below the required) produced wonderful results. I know graphics aren’t everything in a game, but you’ve got to smile when the sun blinds your eyes as enemies rappel down the cliffside to attack you.

Closed Captioning: I never realized how important Closed Captioning (subtitles) was until the topic filled the Myst IV message boards. I don’t use them myself, but I know adding the option into Valve’s engine has pleased quite a few.

Gameplay: This game has logic. This game is innovative. I’m climbing the level vertically. I’m getting attacked by squads of Combine patrols. Helicopters are crashing in front of me. This is fun.

Half-Life 2: Aftermath is going to be awesome. Why? Valve stretches the boundaries.
What games have exceeded your expectations?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 9th, 2005 at 9:47 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.