Half-Life 2 *DVD* *nuke*, reviewed by Requiem99

Yes, I second that.
I personally think it is indeed the Best Game Ever Made and as a critic and someone with enough gaming experience I have the right to say this.
After all, if all critics were saying the same thing, it would have been nonsense, so it's naturally that some people will disagree.

Keep in mind, little beginner, this game took close to 7 years of production. This game NOT worth this time.

It is unjustified to release a game after 7 years with still too much bugs and lack of polishing.

Keep in mind, little beginner, this game took close to 7 years of production. This game NOT worth this time.

It is unjustified to release a game after 7 years with still too much bugs and lack of polishing.

Were you talking to me? If yes, than suck me.

Honestly, giving this game 9 for the graphics might be understandable...but praising them like they're fucking amazing or implying they're PERFECT (10/10) is just ridiculous.

Have you people not seen that half the textures in this game are fucking pixelated and blurry as hell?  Yes Valve, the models' faces look nice, congratulations...but what about the rest of the game?

Almost every single small object or unimportant part of an object looks like crap.  Look at doors, TVs, small boxes, bottles, etc.  They're so blurry you can't even tell what you're looking at half the time.  The grass always looks at your character...if you move around, the grass turns around to always face you.  That's realistic?  Wtf?  Those sprites might have been nice 6 years ago, but not anymore.  Perfect graphics?  You must be joking.

I'm sorry but Doom 3 and Far Cry had very polished graphics, this game doesn't.  Pretty much anything that you don't stare at or see from up close most of the time was rushed and uses very low res textures.

[GoneToPlay]

I'm getting sick of this talk about no game ever being "perfect" and thus no game can get a 10. In school people get "A" marks on an essay even though it's surely never "perfect", don't they?
If people who think "perfect" could never be achieved would stop and think a second they'd see that by their way of thinking nothing could ever get a 9 or any other mark as well. What's infinity (=perfect) minus 1?

You need to think from a point of reference. A game that's best in any category at the moment deserves a 10. If something better comes along that new game gets the 10 and becomes the new reference. I think HL2 is the best FPS out there and nothing comes close in fun and diversity of gameplay. If the reviewer thinks it deserves a 10 anywhere it gets it. End of discussion.

[ildu]

I'm getting sick of this talk about no game ever being "perfect" and thus no game can get a 10. In school people get "A" marks on an essay even though it's surely never "perfect", don't they?
If people who think "perfect" could never be achieved would stop and think a second they'd see that by their way of thinking nothing could ever get a 9 or any other mark as well. What's infinity (=perfect) minus 1?

You need to think from a point of reference. A game that's best in any category at the moment deserves a 10. If something better comes along that new game gets the 10 and becomes the new reference. I think HL2 is the best FPS out there and nothing comes close in fun and diversity of gameplay. If the reviewer thinks it deserves a 10 anywhere it gets it. End of discussion.

Surely, an item in a high-standard market has to be rated differently from an essay in school? Even in university work is sometimes graded on a 1-100 or 1-99 scale, where it's virtually impossible to get a perfect score. The letter grading system only has five levels of grading. In this system it would be absurd to not give an A (excellent) to anyone. But in our case we have 50 levels of grading. As an extra, these 50 points are even divided into four categories to help us give points accurately. When someone gives a perfect score on this large of a scale, it better be a perfect game. Any minuscule cons at all in the game should result to drops in points.

Consider the IMDB movie grading system, for example. The movies are graded on a 1-10 scale and votes broken down to decimals when counted up. This makes for a great standard as it doesn't allow hyped trend hits to be the best movie of all time. The Godfather is rated as the best movie of all time with an even 9.0/10 points. I find it marvellous that no movie has ever exceeded 9/10 points. This is simply because there is no perfect movie. In addition, the system is great, because it allows you to push the envelope. I anxiously await the one movie that succeeds in going over 9.0 and further. As the voting system is user-based, and keeping in mind the differences of opinion and the foolhardyness of low-voting pests, this may never happen. That's a negative aspect in the system, i.e. the IMDB isn't perfect and never will be.

The game industry isn't where the movie business is at. The game industry is dependent mostly on technology whereas the movie business just gets worse when involved with evolving technology. It's harder to rate games when we know for certain that next year the game that you're rating will be obsolete. In this aspect, we should rate games on contemporary standards. But this doesn't mean rate by hype or rate by expectations. Rate how it feels compared to other games, weigh it's pros and cons and if it has anything that even remotely ticks your style, rate it lower. Professional game reviewers are on the right track. Have you seen a 100/100 review on PC Gamer or GameSpot? No game is perfect unless all aspects of it are not just great or spot on, but perfect.

[ildu]

Sorry. Double post.

[GoneToPlay]

@ ildu:

you argue well and I agree partially but what I tried to say is that the whole concept of "perfect" is (sorry, lacking a better expression) stupid.
A 10 on IMDB will never exist not because there is no such thing as a perfect film but because people have different opinions. And the voting system is a bit flawed because many people misuse it. They think the film has a too high average and give it 1 point to make the average drop while in fact they may think the movie deserves a 5. That's the main reason why there is no film above 9.0. And if Shawshank Redemption is still no. 2 on the list it also shows that you cannot trust the IMDB community at all (a well-made film but without any genius).
Saying 50/50 can never be achieved because there’s no such thing as a perfect game puts “perfect” into the metaphysical realm and you cannot argue with that. What’s the point to have a maximum score if you are not allowed to give it?
That’s why I say the only reasonable way to use a point system is to argue with references. That’s something people can relate to and where they have a chance to understand the reviewer’s point of view.
In fact many audio / video magazines don’t give points but name references and compare stuff to their references. That’s the only thing that makes sense in the long run as a reference can be replaced, a 50/50 score not. (maybe we could say each passing year equals minus one for each category).

[PoopHead]

...

The IMDB grades represent the overall score of the votes of a lot of ppl. I'm sure there are a lot of ppl who voted for "perfect" 10, and also some of which voted for lower than 5. Both of the "parties" are right and both wrong. Some ppl judge ppl by the looks of others, some by the thoughts of others. Both ways affect the way how the reviewer acts on the subject judged. Also, the games are to be judged how they are now, not how they are now and how will be after a 100 years compared to the games then.

But there are also ppl, who don't see anything between zero and "perfect" (There are numbers between zero and infinity you know). I don't know if Requiem99 is one of those, since I have not seen any reviews by him/her, in which the overall score is poor or less than poor. In fact all I've seen him/her write has been very close to perfect. Which leads me to think he/she is infact one of those "nothing or infinity" kind of guy.

A perfect 10 is to be given to a game which is completely new in looks and feel. In a good way that is. This game isn't, but that's only my oppinion. It's close to being perfect, but not perfect.

Didn't bother to read the review anymore when I saw the score. And that is the first thing I do when I read any review (firstlook).

[ildu]

@ ildu:

you argue well and I agree partially but what I tried to say is that the whole concept of "perfect" is (sorry, lacking a better expression) stupid.
A 10 on IMDB will never exist not because there is no such thing as a perfect film but because people have different opinions. And the voting system is a bit flawed because many people misuse it. They think the film has a too high average and give it 1 point to make the average drop while in fact they may think the movie deserves a 5. That's the main reason why there is no film above 9.0. And if Shawshank Redemption is still no. 2 on the list it also shows that you cannot trust the IMDB community at all (a well-made film but without any genius).
Saying 50/50 can never be achieved because there’s no such thing as a perfect game puts “perfect” into the metaphysical realm and you cannot argue with that. What’s the point to have a maximum score if you are not allowed to give it?
That’s why I say the only reasonable way to use a point system is to argue with references. That’s something people can relate to and where they have a chance to understand the reviewer’s point of view.
In fact many audio / video magazines don’t give points but name references and compare stuff to their references. That’s the only thing that makes sense in the long run as a reference can be replaced, a 50/50 score not. (maybe we could say each passing year equals minus one for each category).

I hear ya, but my whole point was to compare. Still, I think if you find any flaws or anything that you can see could be better by contemporary standards, you shouldn't give a perfect score. Let's ditch the voting system idea for a second. Of all the movies I've seen (and that's A LOT), I wouldn't rate any 10/10. My individual point system is pretty close to IMDB scores. Maybe I would have some movies around 9.5/10, but not much higher. The same for games. By giving too high of a score you loosen your standards. And it's all about standards. A game or movie of this much value must be rated with a score of this much. I'd rate HL2 at about 9.3, because it does have it's flaws and I can actually see room for improvement. Once you find the game that gets 10/10, you've found teh_one1!!!1111000 and the whole rating system becomes useless, because nothing can top that. I would never want to rate a game by a 1-5 or 1-10 scale. If I was to, I would convert my decimal score into that scale as so: 9.3/10.0 -> 9/10 -> 4.5/5 -> 5/5. Like this I would rate it 'perfect', that's true.

Honestly, giving this game 9 for the graphics might be understandable...but praising them like they're fucking amazing or implying they're PERFECT (10/10) is just ridiculous.

Have you people not seen that half the textures in this game are fucking pixelated and blurry as hell?  Yes Valve, the models' faces look nice, congratulations...but what about the rest of the game?

Almost every single small object or unimportant part of an object looks like crap.  Look at doors, TVs, small boxes, bottles, etc.  They're so blurry you can't even tell what you're looking at half the time.  The grass always looks at your character...if you move around, the grass turns around to always face you.  That's realistic?  Wtf?  Those sprites might have been nice 6 years ago, but not anymore.  Perfect graphics?  You must be joking.

I'm sorry but Doom 3 and Far Cry had very polished graphics, this game doesn't.  Pretty much anything that you don't stare at or see from up close most of the time was rushed and uses very low res textures.

You need a new graphics card fatboy.

Uhh...yeah...that must be it...I must not have a DX9 graphics card (which does not affect textures in any way, just shader effects) and I must not know anything about graphics in general, or about good-looking games.

I'm also 5'9" and 160 pounds, fatso.



http://www.reynald.info/vali/bigd/

^--- Take a look at HL2 textures.

Honestly, giving this game 9 for the graphics might be understandable...but praising them like they're fucking amazing or implying they're PERFECT (10/10) is just ridiculous.

Have you people not seen that half the textures in this game are fucking pixelated and blurry as hell?  Yes Valve, the models' faces look nice, congratulations...but what about the rest of the game?

Almost every single small object or unimportant part of an object looks like crap.  Look at doors, TVs, small boxes, bottles, etc.  They're so blurry you can't even tell what you're looking at half the time.  The grass always looks at your character...if you move around, the grass turns around to always face you.  That's realistic?  Wtf?  Those sprites might have been nice 6 years ago, but not anymore.  Perfect graphics?  You must be joking.

I'm sorry but Doom 3 and Far Cry had very polished graphics, this game doesn't.  Pretty much anything that you don't stare at or see from up close most of the time was rushed and uses very low res textures.

You most definetely need a new graphics card fattyboy..
Graphics and textures are solid over here m8.. best ive seen in any game.. Far cry was close... HL2 done it.. Doom3 was dark crap

I'm sorry, I didn't realize you had problems seeing.  I guess having blurry vision does make everything look good...assuming you think it's normal for objects to look blurry.

Take a look at my link.  They're screenshots from the beginning of the game, which you've all seen.

http://www.reynald.info/vali/bigd/

Yea, I agree with you Big D.
I get the same textures as you. They are great from a distance, but average when zooming in. Not all of them are average though.
I think there won't be a game with perfect textures close to real life in near future. They all will look not so good when zooming in. I think even STALKER will have that.
STALKER uses similar graphics tech as HL2 and looks very similar also IMO of course.
Textures are not the best part in those engines, but effects, animations, physics and shaders are.