I can see I'm not gonna be able to win this argument... Personally, I now believe that Half-Life 2 will be good, but it won't be revolutionary or as good as people think it'll be. For me, the great games are those which make advances, either through action set-pieces or gameplay wise. Doom obviously was a huge step forward, being the first decent FPS. Duke Nukem 3d offered even more gameplay in terms of interactivity. Quake was a true step forward in terms of graphics, but gameplay wise compared to Duke Nukem 3d, it was a step backwards. Half-Life came along, and had less interactivity than DN3d, but in terms of immersing the player and providing interactivity with NPCs, it was fantastic. The only other game which has provided a vague step forward since Half-Life is Call Of Duty. Gameplay has been enhanced by the iron-sighting, which i personally believe should become the norm in FPS games, like Clips/Ammo reserves have, and by making sure that the player isn't the centre of attention. The NPCs work fantastically, in making the player believe that they are just one soldier in a huge conflict, rather than the entire game revolving around the player.

Too many games since Half-Life have tried to create wide-open areas. Personally I think this sucks for gameplay, the best scenes in Half-Life are those where there's plenty of cover - the crate room grunt fights. Call of duty balanced this perfectly though - you feel like you're in a huge city, but you're actually restricted to a small area. Given Half-Life 2's scenarios however, it coudl easily fall prey to trying to be too big, while nto providing enough strategy within the combat set-pieces.

I think Far Cry is the next step forward in terms of gameplay - iron-sighting, vehicles, physics. It has it all. With the exception of vehicles, Half-Life 2's gameplay is just the same as all the previous FPS titles. It hasn't advanced, which is what the game industry should be trying to do. Everyone has been saying that the game industry needs a kick after several years of mediocore FPS games, and they've been saying that Half-Life 2 is the one that's gonna do it. I disagree.

in reality, i never cared about HL1's content, it was what we did with it that kept me around for 5 years..

i think the same will be true with HL2.. i am counting more on our abilities, than valves.

i used to look at valves maps with awe, now i see so many errors its... ________flatline_________

HL2 will be made, or broken, on the user level.. yes, even the dim witted players will make a difference

to each, their own, but thats my take..

Just look at Half-Life 1. People created such modifications as Natural Selection, Day of Defeat, and Sven Coop. Natural Selection offered a wide variety of textures strewed out upon maps which made it look more detailed. Day of Defeat was so detailed, the player was convinced he was in the WW. And svencoop gave players the power to go throught huge maps online, and gave mappers plenty of custom selections - so many it was like coding a mini-mod into a mappack.

The point is, even though Half-Life is old, people still found ways to trick the engine, or trick the player to think it was more advanced, and more up to date - when in reality it wasnt. Sure, at the current moment the Source engine can probally do anything imaginable, but there will come a time when people have to actually start tricking the engine into looking more detailed and sophisticated, 5 years down the road when huge titles are launching.

True ... weapon models are very detailed, and a couple of things in the mod I never expected possible in the HL-engine: Laser beams on guns, large windows that break without framelag, ...