linear games aren't that much of a problem, i mean crysis is linear, anyone who says otherwise is just foolish. look at it this way, you have things you must do to progress, sure you can approach them using different methods but that doesn't make it non-linear, its still moving in a pre-determined direction and you cannot get around that because of some terrain, an angry shark, etc. so crysis and warhead were just well dressed linear games, half life II didn't pretend to be anything other than linear and it was good for what it was, was half life II better, thats very subjective, since all the arguments on here about what half life was better are rubbish as well to be frank. its just as much generic FPS gameplay as crysis only it A) doesn't look as pretty B) the physics system in cryengine2 is miles better C) the AI in cryengine2 is superior and D) crysis offers something HL2 can never offer, which is grandeur. all the set pieces in crysis are much bigger scale than HL2. in terms of story telling, are they really that different? again very subjective.
for me personally doom 3 was a superior game to HL2, it just connected more, it was pretty, the enviroments were dark and gloomy and that all worked fine, it had no 'gimmick' gun like HL2 and that absolutely hideous monstrosity the mavity gun. again story telling is similar, similar theme except instead of little leather wallets with legs jumping at you every two minutes you had multi-eyed imps jumping at you every two minutes instead.
the fact of the matter is this, games are reaching the same point as movies, everything has been tried, there is no 'original' anymore. i mean these huge budget hollywood movies (like avatar which was rubbish to be honest) was just pocahontas in space really, thats the honest breakdown on avatar. independance day was just a variant of the war of the worlds story only ruined and americanafied, which just means fill it full of yank bull. crysis is just another adaptation on the alien invasion script, the grand-daddy of which is war of the worlds. HL2 is the same, and doom 3 is the same script but with a little twist. crysis II is simply crysis 'cloverfield' edition to be frank and the biggest thing for me that is damned right horrible is the fact they have followed hollywood. why does EVERYTHING go down in NYC? its so bleeding annoying...
