Half-Life vs Quake 2 vs Unreal

[Grazza]

Let's reopen a few old wounds. Which one kicked the most ass?

[Ichor]

Of those three, it would have to be Quake 2.

[Fletcher`]

quake 2

[Disorder]

Halflife.

[spank]

:: vaguely remembering the Half-Life CD case ::

PC GAMER: "The 3D shooter debate is no longer Quake 2 vs. Unreal. Half-Life is so resoundingly better than both that it's hard to come to terms with."

[DooMBoy]

Quake 2, probably because I've never played Unreal or Half-Life. :)

[Lizardcommando]

Quake2 is alot funner in multiplayer than Halflife, but halflife has a (somewhat) better storyline... Actually, Quake2's storyline is more original than Halflife IMO. I never played Unreal.

[Opulent]

Quake2. although I played a lot of sp, I thought that wasn't so great.
Quake2 is THE online deathmatch game. period.
Halflife is always fun... both sp and dm.
HL is even close to DOOM for sp quality... then there is CS... :)
(but HL can't hold a candle to Q2's dm play)
Unreal was damn cool, but I hated the player movement. ditto for UT.
Quake2 is closest to DOOM for gameplay and player control, so it is no wonder it gets my vote.
id rules.

[myk]

Not sure... probably Half Life, though.

[Spike]

Quake was better paced and more 'fun' than 'frustrating'.
Halflife is nevertheless a great game, it can just be reaaaally annoying from time to time. And don't get me started on those 'alien dimension' levels...

[Darkstalker]

Never played Quake 2 and I didn't like HL that much, so Unreal is my winner.

[Grazza]

Yes, that PC Gamer quote stuck in my mind too (and another one where HL was described as "pebbledashing" Q2 and Unreal). At the time I wholly agreed with it - the variety and complexity of Half-Life's battles and challenges just blew me away.

However, I replayed Q2 and Unreal recently (with hardware that could do them justice), and noticed qualities that I had previously missed. Gameplay in Q2 had pretty good balance throughout, while Unreal looks and sounds breathtakingly beautiful in many places. And Half-Life wasn't perfect: the Hive-Hand made the Xen levels (which I liked BTW) kind of trivial if you had the patience just to sit there spamming away with your hornets. HL still just about gets my vote though.

[pritch]

HL SP, Q2 DM.

I love abbreviations :)

[dsm]

Spike said:

Quake was better paced and more 'fun' than 'frustrating'.
Halflife is nevertheless a great game, it can just be reaaaally annoying from time to time. And don't get me started on those 'alien dimension' levels...

That's one way of putting my opinion.

Here are my own words:
Half Life is a great game (The first encounter with the human troops kicks ass) and the first couple of weapons kick ass in their own way.
BUT...
The game is heavily puzzle based, so puzzle based that it tends to make me more angry from frustration than good is (I often play fps games to cool down after a bad day and HL sure isn't fit for that because it'll leave me angrier than before) plus, some of the later situations are so stealth (and the way stealth works in that game is horrible imo) focused and so "the-sligtest-mistake-spells-disaster" oriented that I'd rather not play those parts.
Then there are the alien weapons which I find so profoundly dumb and cheesy that I'm at a loss of words to describe my feelings about them.
And finally, those Alien Grunts are just plain annoying with those tracking flies they fire at you.

If the basic Half life weapons did some PROPER damage (Not referring to explosive weapons) it'd cater more to my tastes, because you wouldn't have to plan your attacks nearly as carefully and you could rely more on basic skill than cunning.

Unreal, pffft, that game has a deeply unsatisfactory set of weapons imho that just don't seem to do any real damage and those Skaarj are just plain annoying. Not to mention that the game relies more on few, but very dangerous enemies - something that I hate in fps games. And don't tell me that Doom 3 will be like that because I can already tell from the leaked vid that it WON'T.

So my game of choice here is pretty obvious. Quake 2 has a very nice set of weapons that feel great to use on those Stroggies and the mission based gameplay really appeals to me like nothing else.

[mmnpsrsoskl]

Unreal : Owned: Pretty good.
Half Life : Played for 5 minutes at my friends place while pissed : Eh. Nice.
Quake 2 : Owned : Pretty good.

They've all had their day, but now have been replaced by better shooters...

[The Ultimate DooMer]

Half-Life vs. Quake 2 vs. Unreal

What about Sin? (come on, you can't miss that one out!)


Rant aside, probably Unreal, as I seem to play it more often than Quake 2, Half-Life and Sin, and there's a certain special something about it that keeps me coming back for more. (despite the fact that it's primarily gothic, compared to the industrial/tech slant of the others) It's also the only one I have a load of custom maps for, which definitely has something to do with it (I have all mission packs for all four games). It's also the only one with decent music, although the other three have better ambient sounds. But they're all great, and all have influences in my current project.

[Grazza]

Ultimate DooMer said:

What about Sin? (come on, you can't miss that one out!)

I chose those three because they have a fair amount in common, and for quite a while were the "big three" that tended to be compared with one another, and each had some support as the 1337357 FPS. Also, all three spawned multi-player successors/mods that are still very popular.

Ultimate DooMer said:

Unreal ... It's also the only one I have a load of custom maps for

Really? I've never found too many SP custom maps for Unreal that were much good. Can you provide some useful links or recommendations?

[myk]

mmnpsrsoskl said:

They've all had their day, but now have been replaced by better shooters...

Yes, like DOOM and DOOM II.

[The Ultimate DooMer]

Grazza said:

Really? I've never found too many SP custom maps for Unreal that were much good. Can you provide some useful links or recommendations?

A couple of years ago I found an Unreal add-ons cd in a non-chain games shop, and that had quite a lot of decent maps on it. I only ever got one off the web (a map called Star861) and that was because I didn't have many decent tech maps. The page I got that map off (Nali City) doesn't seem to exist now, so the best bet is planetunreal.com or the Unreal section of the 3D archives. (Best maps IMO are Liberationep1.unr, Cherokee37.unr, Star861.unr and Ziki.unr)

[Captain Red]

Half-life. Easy.

Quake II: Ok ok, I know why most people here would vote this over half life (though, I don't think it's much like doom at all), but IMO, I was pretty weak. Sure, it was kick ass the first time, but I didn't much care for its atmosphere, and the monsters pail in comparison to the first quake game (past the gunner, they were a little to strong, and just annoying to kill. not hard mind you, just annoying.)

Unreal weapons: shitty. combine that with the annoying AI, and way to strong monsters, It was more like playing ageist very bad bots then decent opponents. Looked VERY nice though.

I love half-life. It basically had every thing I’d ever asked for in a FPS and them some, and whets more, it did it very well! I LOVED the Weapons, I LOVED the monsters, I LOVED pretty much all the levels, Including xen (except for, maybe, the xen factory.) I still play the SP campaign now days. I own Half-life, opposing force and blue shift (and loved them all. but I will say that counter-strike is heavily over-rated.

In fact, I'd say the only game I like better then Half-life is system shock II. And that includes doom.

[Fletcher`]

HL: Never played it.
UR&UT: My dad never got the chance to find the UR cd so, no play it.
UT: Actually, quite fun. Too bad I can't ever figger out how to setup DM for ANY game. :(
Q2: Best. Game. Evar. Well, besides Doom. Nice, rich atmosphere, a helluva lot brighter than Q1- you can actually see your ememy. The weapon selection wasn't too bad. Coulda used a chainsaw. Replayability because it's very long. Took maybe a week to play. Still fun.

[Grazza]

pritch said:

HL SP, Q2 DM.
I love abbreviations :)

See item 1 here.

[Black Void]

Urgh, I hate Half-Life - damn Quake 2 wannabe. I've never played Unreal, only Unreal Tournament. My vote goes to Quake 2.

[Lord FlatHead]

Half-Life rules the earth.

[dsm]

Lord FlatHead said:

Half-Life rules the earth.

Close but no cigar - DOOM rules the Earth :-)

[Colusio]

dsm said:

Close but no cigar - DOOM rules the Earth :-)

And System Shock in heaven.
I voted for Unreal. Agree that it's gameplay is flawed due to it's weapons.
But it's beautiful fantasy world rocks.

[The Ultimate DooMer]

Coldfusio said:

Agree that it's gameplay is flawed due to it's weapons.

I actually like the Unreal weapons, as they're all different (ie. it doesn't have weapons that are better versions of others, and hence the other one gets forgotten - one of the things I didn't like about Quake 1/2). None of the weapons ever rust from misuse, even the dispersion gun and automag, both of which I use for smashing stuff.
(and before you all say 'the minigun is a better form of the automag', I like to think of it as being different, as it's more accurate and doesn't chew up ammo quickly, making it better for killing weak monsters and smashing stuff than the minigun).

Also, the choice of weapon for killing each type of monster is much more important in Unreal due to the tough monsters.

[dsm]

Well of course we all have different tastes in weapons - I've long known that some people think Unreal's weapons rules the Earth, but I just don't share that opinion, because I prefer weapons that appear to actually HURT the enemy. Very few of Unreal's weapon appear to really do that in my eyes - it's mostly visual: The Skaarj still bounce around like crazy even though I just removed half of their health with a well-placed shot in the head from the sniper rifle, whereas in Quake 2, if you blast most of the enemies up close with your double-barrelled shotty, they fly backwards and are kinda paralyzed in agony, giving you this giddy joy and satisfaction in knowing that you possess the power to make them suffer >:-]

That's why I tend to like id's games, because the enemies in those games don't seem like they're made out of steel (or the weapons don't feel like they're a bunch of pea shooters), because I see no fun in pumping rounds into a creature only to see some blood splatter from them and then nothing else happens to them.

At least id's games have enemies that really jerk and scream/grunt in pain when shot.

A short sidestep from the actual topic, sorry.

[DooMer 4ever]

Half-life. Quake II was exellent too but the weapons sucked IMO.

[Wobbo]

Half life kicks quake 2s ass in single and multiplayer

gotta love them snarks