Creston, forcefields and invisible walls are in no way the same. No way. HL2 had your path mostly sensible. I will never deny it was 100% linear, but you never had a door locked until you found the armor in the next room over, then suddenly unlocked. Any time something like that happened they at least had the door become unlocked by a giant bug busting through, not just magic. Why, because they're all of a sudden visible? Why COULDN'T I go back into the train station I just came from (after being misteleported by Kleiner) and walk around more, if I want to? Maybe put a cap in that bastard that made me pick up that can?
Why couldn't I run along the train rails just before the sewer, to go back and pick up the health and armor that I just left?
Just because it's not as glaring doesn't mean that they aren't walls specifically placed there to prohibit you from going back where you had been earlier, for no real purpose.
(Btw, SS2 did invisible walls, not quake 4 (afaik), so we're kinda getting our games mixed up
)
Invisible walls piss me off no end (especially the ones in Unreal 2), but so did the damn forcefields in Half Life 2.
And I strongly disagree about the doors. There are at least two, and I believe three doors in chapter 11 (the one where you and some squad members are fighting throughout the city) that you'll come across, it's closed, only to be open and unlocked when you come back to it 15 minutes later from the other side. Not to mention that this is a WOODEN door, you're holding explosives and a damn CROWBAR!!
Granted, it's slighty different than a door that you need a key for, but not that much. It's still stupid level design.
Btw, I've played Doom 3 three times, and can't remember a door that wouldn't open until you pick up an armor? There's two doors where you have to wait for monsters to come through, but that's about it. I think.
If this reviewer did HL2 maybe you can have the same. But the job of the reviewer is to tell you what he liked about the game, what he disliked about the game, and give it a number based on how much he enjoyed it. Isn't that what he did? You disagree with him, but all he did was tell you how much he enjoyed the game and why or why not. Oh, I'm not personally disagreeing with him, since I haven't played Quake4, so that'd be kind of presumptious.
The point I'm trying to make is that I expect a certain level of similarities between reviews from one game magazine. If Game A is being taken to task for only being 5 hours long, then I don't expect Game B, reviewed 2 months later, to be hyped for it, no matter the reviewer. People buy a game magazine, not one particular reviewer's blog.
I expect the magazine to adhere to the same standards of "This is good in a game, this isn't," and PCGamer doesn't do that. The things that are hyped in Half Life 2, are bashed or simply ignored in other FPS.
To give another example, Quake 4 multiplayer ships with only 9 maps out of the box, and the reviewer makes a point about that.
How many maps did Counter Strike : Source ship with? I believe it was fewer than nine. I don't remember a negative comment about the lack of maps in the Half Life 2 review. See what I mean? And that's about something as completely objective as a NUMBER. One can like Half Life 2's implementation of railroading better than quake 4, but how can you LIKE Half Life 2's NUMBER of maps better than Quake 4's number?
And yet, that's exactly what they're implying. Quake 4's 9 maps is inadequate, HL2's maps are perfectly fine.
Valve fanboyism is fine for a site like IGN, where I can read stuff for free. I expect a higher standard from a print magazine, although I have no idea WHY I expect that, since it's obviously foolish.
PCGamer will wh0re anything Half Life to death, completely ignoring any and all possible flaws that they specifically mention in other reviews.
Whether this is because they get paid for it or just because they're Valve monkeys, I don't know. But I feel that as a professional reviewer, they really ought to do better.
Creston
Edited a few times to clear up spacing.
This comment was edited on Oct 19, 17:03.