Originally Posted by
bah
The original Half life was one of the biggest influences to other game makers to produce more 'cinematic' gaming, with real stories and characters.
Quake 1/2/3, Unreal etc didn't have a story/plot/characters really, you were a guy with a gun that kept spawning in different levels where you picked up more guns and shot everything that moved.
I agree HL2 was less ground breaking in that respect, at the time it came out it was all about doom3 vs HL2. I was in the Doom3 camp as a loyal Carmack fan but I was certainly shown up when doom3 was boring as **** but HL2 was great. It had some really cool uses of havok physics, nice gfx (perhaps not the doom3 wow factor but it wasnt just a corridor shooter) and great gameplay.
I certainly wouldn't call it a clone of every other shooter ever made, unless your comparing it to games that have come out after it (HL1) that have taken what it brought to the genre on board and expanded on it.
It was one step in the maturation of the FPS genre, HL2 may not be the latest n greatest thing any more but its still a great game IMO.
Portal rocks too :)