Definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, my favourite series has to be Half Life... well really the universe of games since that would also incorporate Portal which is a perfect gem of a game.
Honestly, it's fantastic, setting benchmark after benchmark of storytelling, immersion and emotion in action games. I mean there have been problems with them in the past, such as off pacing in the first third of HL2, and the fact that HL1 has set the bar for FPS' so now every average FPS has to come up to that standard, making HL1 average by modern standards. Also there's the time thing where it takes ages for a new game to come out, but that's good! they spend a long time making great strides and polishing to an absurd degree. They tried doing it quick with HL2:EP1 and it turned out to be a disappointment, so longer is better.
Also one strange problem I've found is that they're too good at making it feel real. It may not be the prettiest series out there but the detailed history and ecology of the creatures pours through everything. All creatures have an ecosystem and are clearly based on real creatures and real habitats, so it makes it hard for me to kill these things... but only when these ecosystems are explained and revealed. It's very much an explorative way of explaining a creature.
Take Antlions for example. At first, they are Starship Trooper aliens mixed with some kind of ant, that pops out of the ground and tries to gnaw your bits off. eventually you find that they take commands from the soldier antlions (the AI doesnt actually do this, but you can manipulate this aspect of their design with a gland harvested from a soldier antlion.) That's about as far as it goes in HL2, but in HL2:Ep2, they reveal that they have detailed burrows with worker antlions who stay underground and spit acid to make these tunnels, and there are tiny tunnels for antlion larvae, who just sit there calmly purring away, cosy in their little lives. And the feel of being in the environment immediately gave me the impression that I was in a nature documentary. The sound, the tones, the lights, the ideas it all felt so natural.
And then they expect me to stamp on the larvae cus they have glowing health nuggets inside. They scream when you get too close, they cant run away, they're stuck to the walls and floor. It was really a horrid experience. I didnt want to do it, I didnt want to hurt these creatures because they felt so real, they had lives. This has happened a few times in Half Life games. It gets amplified in GMod where you can mess about with the NPCs and items and ragdolls and stuff like that. Ever seen a hunter chase a hundred headcrabs of varying species? It's adorable, it's like a little puppy chasing mice. They gave them too much reality, too much personality. It's uncomfortable but it's an amazing achievement.
I would never get that experience from a realism powerhouse like Crysis, because the Half Life world and Valve in general are just a step ahead of the game...
except with Left4Dead2 >
