Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast is some kind of show-case made by Valve to introduce their new High Dynamic Range method of applying light inside the Source Engine. Actually, although this is a very technical subject, the developer’s commentary that comes with it, is more than worthwhile listening to. It gives quite some insight into how this mini-level was constructed, and even into how HDR lighting actually works. It’s not easy to talk about something as complex as this is an easily understandable manner. Fascinating stuff, and for the die-hard Vavle-fans: you even get Gabe Newell’s words at the beginning of the commentary ;-).
– Real player with 61.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Benchmark Atmospheric Games.
After playing around with the level for a bit, I can definitely say that Lost Coast is a complete success. It’s not available seperately, but it is available in the Half Life Complete Pack (which is on sale right now). Here, you play as Gordon Freeman, as you come across the tiny town of St. Olga, whom is under attack by the Combine with a gun that launches headcrabs into the town. The 14-Minute Tech Demo shows off what the Source engine can really do, and as a result the game looks beautiful. It’s almost like a work of art.
– Real player with 2.1 hrs in game
Crysis® 3
A small note: My hours aren’t accurate. I played all the time on the XB360 (even if I was never very good) so I do know what I’m talking about.
Regarding the story, it’s solid. Not the next greatest thing, but it had its moments and was fun to play through. Characters felt believable, but you might need to play the prior Crysis games to understand some of them a little better. The game can be played standalone, however, as I first did.
While I’m not a fan of the Ceph (the alien race) and combat with them, I very much enjoyed fighting the human opponents. This holds true for all the Crysis games, in my opinion (with the possible exception of Warhead - I haven’t played that)
– Real player with 67.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Benchmark Open World Games.
Introduction
Crysis series, especially the first game and its expansion, always had a special place in my heart, as I played it a lot on the original disk, and the following games always left me with conflicted feelings. On one side, the 2nd game got better with its story-telling and music, but the large open levels got replaced with more linear levels, and the multiplayer got completely redesigned. Now, with the third game, it seems that it exactly does not know what it wants to do. It tries to do a bit more open levels, but it restricts you at the same time. It gives you quite a lot of tools to play with, but not enough time to experiment with them all. To put it shortly, in the single-player, it tries to combine everything the series did before, but it ends up not being best at anything.
– Real player with 13.6 hrs in game