Leveling Down

If you need evidence that gaming is alive and well in Asia, check this out: at the Osaka Aquarium, you can download information to your DS.

I spent a few years in junior high living in Hong Kong, which were major formative years – in my gaming life. After playing NES, SNES, Famicon, Super Famicon, and Street Fighter in arcades with my cousins, I was a gamer for life. When Mrs. cmfl3x and I decided to take a trip to Asia this summer (Taiwan, Japan, and Hong Kong), I was curious as to what the gaming scene looks like over there these days – to my more adult eyes. Hit the jump from my impressions.

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Hi – my name is cmfl3x. And I’m an achievaholic.

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In Half-Life 2: Episode 1, you fight the Eye of Sauron……just kidding.

I ended Half-Life 2 on such a high note that I decided to jump straight into Episode One (though Episode Two will have to sit on the sidelines for a while since Modern Warfare 2 is out!). Half-Life 2 ended on an incredible cliffhanger, so I can’t imagine having to wait to see what happens next. Luckily, these games came out years ago so I could just move my cursor over one game to the right on the Orange Box and see what Episode One had to offer. Was this groundbreaker in “episodic gaming” (/sarcasm) as good as its predecessor?

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Half Life 2′s HUD is pretty simple, but gets the job done

The month of November, 2004 was quite a month if you were a fan of first person shooters. Two highly anticipated sequels, Halo 2 and Half-Life 2, released within a week of one another and gamers rejoiced. Since I wasn’t into PC gaming anymore (I haven’t really played a FPS on PC since Doom II if you can believe it), Halo 2 owned my time back then, and actually warranted me getting my first Xbox. Five years later, I have finally gotten around to playing Half-Life 2. It was highly praised 5 years ago, but does it still hold up now?

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I will defeat you this time…maybe.

At various times, espion4ge has chronicled various stages of his “leveling down.” Last night I made a leveling down type decision, as I decided not to go for the full 1000 points in Batman: Arkham Asylum. In addition, I decided not to pull the trigger on Borderlands, although I would have loved to play co-op with espion4ge. But I’ve decided that I’m going to devote my current playing time to trying out a new experience instead of the 15+ hours it would take me to get the last 230 GP in Arkham. Ah well…maybe in next year’s doldrums I’ll work on it. But anyway, as an attempt to be more “mature” and not waste any money on new games, I decided to revisit old titles that I never completed. Although I was tempted to try my $5 copy of Ninja Gaiden 2 and even removed it from the shrinkwrap, I ultimately settled on trying to finally finish a “classic”: Half Life 2 (on the Orange Box).

I’ve tried to play through Half Life 2 three times and never completed it. I’ve managed to get 2/3 of the way through, but I decided to start again from the beginning to get the full experience. After the first three chapters, I’m pretty impressed, especially considering the game is 5 years old. The great part about this game is it’s incredibly immersive. I never played Half Life and only know the story via Wikipedia, but even having not played the game, the opening sequence of Half Life 2 makes me feel I am thrust into a world full of oppression and pain. The voice acting is great, and even though Gordon Freeman never talks, everyone around him reacts to him which really makes me feel like I AM Gordon Freeman. Anyway, it’s all pretty neat, especially since the first two chapters start out kind of slowly and then ramp up into all sorts of craziness. Also, even though it’s a bit dated now, the physics and the use of gravity are really impressive.

As soon as I started this game (again) I can see why it’s considered a classic. Hopefully this time I can finally finish Half Life 2 (and Episodes 1 and 2). As of this writing that is my plan, but espion4ge just alerted me to a new deal at Amazon (buy over $80 worth of eligible games and get $40 credit). Curses…