Well, this may be interesting.

I just learned that the studio that produces one of the online games I play a lot has opened a new office right near here. I checked their website and, sure enough, they are hiring one or more computer technicians to keep everything running. We'll see if anything comes of the resume I just sent in. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too far, this would most likely qualify as one of those "sought after" positions, so it may not even generate an interview.

Counter-point

Well, since not only did someone read through my post about Half-life 2, but it also turns out that I have someone who likes the game who reads my journal, I figure I should give what I liked about the game equal air time.

First and foremost, the game is beautiful. Sure, in the 3 years since it came out games have gotten even prettier, but we've definitely passed the point of diminishing returns for such effort. This is a first person shooter we're talking about, so there is a definite upper limit to the amount of detail the user is going to notice while drawing a bead or running for cover.

Secondly, a physics engine plus a greater level of destructibility in the scenery allows for much greater congruity with the real world. Enemy is hiding behind a wooden fence? It can't stop bullets indefinitely. You collapse a pile of junk on top of an enemy? They're probably not going to just stand back up. See also: prettiness (shot out windows and the like aren't just GONE) and Gravity Gun

Third, the AI. I didn't mention it before, but I am quite familiar with how hard it is to make a believable AI once you have more than a few availible courses of action. It doesn't necessarily need to make the right decisions, we've all seen people do dumb things, but it has to make reasonable choices for behavior. And the fact that the enemies don't always react the same way means that they aren't just following a script, so bravo.

And fourth is the Gravity Gun. A gravitically propelled sawblade or cast-iron radiator really is the preferred zombie killing mechanism. for one thing, you can just pull it back and launch it again so that the hordes don't drain you of ammo. Plus, it's a useful tool allowing for all of the telekinesis puzzles from other genres to work in a straight up Sci-Fi setting.

Really, I think that this is a situation where something that gets really close to the mark generates a worse reaction than something that missed by a mile and didn't invite comparison. not that have anything current to compare it to, my video card doesn't support Pixel Shader 3 so I can't even try out Bioshock. (I'm very disappointed with 2K games for that maneuver, hopefully a patch will come out to fix that oversight)