Category: PC Game - First person shooter
Developer: Immersion Games, Artificial Studios, Timeline Interactive
Product: CellFactor: Revolution
Price: $0.00

As an avid PC gamer, I am always looking for games that satisfy my urge for exploration, devastation, and fixation. I am of the belief that 90% of the games out there are not really worth playing. Such games do not offer anything new to the gamer, nor do they provoke enough interest to warrant a test-run. In the summer of 1999, I acquired a game for my then brand-new Nintendo 64 console called The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It became apparent to me after only a very short time of playing the game that I was going to like it. A mere two days later, I had the game beaten. I didn’t sleep. The game kept me so enthralled that I just played straight through against arguments from my mother that I should spend my time doing something more important. But for me, there was nothing more important. I wanted to see what was in the next village. I wanted to see if I could get the Biggoron’s sword by giving that big fat guy at the top of Death Mountain those tear drops. I wanted to win those races at the horse track, and catch all the Poe’s in bottles. The game was absolutely fantastic. The puzzles and environments that needed to be solved and navigated to complete the game never disappointed me. After finishing the game, it was clear that my initial impression was on target. This led to a sort of revelation; I realized that it is possible to tell whether or not you will enjoy playing a game within the first 20 minutes of playing it. If there is not something about the game that makes you want to keep playing, then the game probably isn’t worth your time.

This held true and was powerfully enforced the first time I fired up Half-Life 2 back in 2005. I bought the game as part of the Silver package on Steam, as I wanted to get a taste of Counter-Strike: Source. It became evident rather quickly that my old NVIDIA GeForce FX5200 video card was not going to cut it, so I researched and researched and eventually ended up with a X800XT All-in-Wonder card from ATI. I hated source. I hated the movement. I hated the recoil. I hated everything about it except for the graphics. With reluctance I fired up Half-Life 2, the long-awaited sequel of Valve’s original Half-Life. My impression of HL2 was one of astonishment. Here was a game that was fun to play, looked amazing, and had an awesome story. There was absolutely nothing about Half-Life 2 that I didn’t like. The interactive environments, the state-of-the-art special effects, and the revolutionary new physics technology that made up the game all worked together to provide me with a truly stellar gaming experience. Simply put, Half-Life 2, in my opinion, was the perfect game. Well, maybe not perfect, it could have lasted longer, but the game is certainly worthy of being called the “Best Game Ever Created”.

Out of everything I liked about Half-Life 2, the one thing that really stood out was the amount of interaction with the environment that the player had. HL2 marked the first time that the player could actually pick up objects, toss them wherever they wanted, stack them somewhere and jump on top of them, crash into stuff to break it, shoot stuff to make it fall down, etc. Not only did this ability exist, it was necessary in order to complete the game. HL2 was more than just a great game with a great story; it was a showcase of what could be done with a game and an example of game developers trying something new.