Analog Gamers Gaming From a Slightly Different Perspective

I’ve been waiting for a game to jump up and grab me on the PC of late. Sure, I’ve spent the requisite hours playing Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2, and I’ve put Dawn of War II through its paces, but I’m looking for a great single player shooter.

I decided that it might be interesting to pull Half-Life 2 out of the dusty bin in the corner and see how it holds up nearly five years later. I encountered an old friend once I started things up: the A.I. disabled bug. Luckily, forcing the game into 32 bit mode solves that problem entirely.

After playing through the original Half-Life 2, Episode 1 &2, I came to the conclusion that I still haven’t seen a shooter as good as this in the last five years. Sure, there have been some great multiplayer shooters, but Half-Life 2 was a tour de force of the single player shooter.

Five years after their release, most games have grown more than stale, they’re simply outdated. They can’t compete on a level near current games. Half-Life 2; however, is still just as grand as is it was at release, and is still as strong a game as any single player shooter on the market today.

What has happened to the single player shooter these days? I know that most gamers are now demanding robust multiplayer in their shooters, but why does that preclude a great single player story? Look at the shooters that have come out recently, both on PC and consoles: Gears of War 2, Resistance 2, Killzone 2, and F.E.A.R. 2. None of them get within shouting distance of the Half-Life series, although F.E.A.R. 2 makes an effort, at least.

The console shooters, by and large, bring samey, boring, cookie-cutter storylines and dialogue that could be written by drunken 4-year-old monkeys. No one seems to have the time to invest in a really good story anymore. All they do is crank out games based on the same checklist:

• All shades of brown included? Check.
• Generic weapons, including a rocket launcher and something with a blade? Check.
• Dialogue that schoolyard bullies find somewhat simplistic? Check.
• Much more development on multiplayer than single player? Check.

OK, so maybe we didn’t sneak this list off the development table at a major studio, but hey, we could have. I long for the day where a single player shooter rolls onto the market that can wow me, and make me glad that I packed up Half-Life in that box of old software in the corner. I just don’t know when, or even if, it will happen.