Are HL2 & Far Cry Linear like Doom3, or do they have large & complicated levels to explore, with tones of secrets like Doom1,2, Hexen, Heretic, etc...

Mostly because of the story

> Mostly because of the story
>
Even Far Cry is Linear?
HHhmm...
That's why Unreal 1 is better than all this new shit.

Far Cry gives you thousands of tropical island acres to crawl over that are a absolutely gorgeous to look at but Halcyon is right. The only part with any content are the areas pertainging to the story. It's not as linear as you'd think though so I'd give it a try before swearing it off. There's usually a given target or goal for the area but you can go about it any number of ways. I may take a hang glider of the face of a cliff and fly down while wasting peoples or I could take my jeep down the mountain and run over enemies on the way or you could just do it rambo style and take a 30 story dive into the water below and swim to the next area. And nevermind the fact that FarCry has single-handedly the most intelligent AI of any game I've played in a long time. You'll be cursing them for hours. I'm still playing through the game(which is HUGE) and they get smarter and smarter. You think you're alone after you wasted a soldier but then you take a look through your infrared goggles and you've got a dozen marines sweeping the jungle in tight formation using cover and most likely blind siding you before you even realize you've been flanked. The game is hot.

One thing though is that I never play ANY FPS with low difficulty settings because that's just uber gay. I did the second difficulty setting from the hardest and it's ridiculously hard. I die all the time and these last few levels are goddam near impossible. It's a trip and I definitely recommend playing it.

Well I don't think linear is a bad thing, means more story. I'd rather have a game that's 90% story-related stuff like a Metal Gear Solid game or Day of the Tentacle rather than play something like Myst where everything is pretty much up to you, even though they're both done well. Playing a game where the drama is constantly evolving around you is cool, like XIII. Playing a game where you're walking around picking your ass sucks.

Well I was going to defend Far Cry but I really can't think of much to add to what Snowball said. Best damn AI in a game, huge friggen areas you can tackle a dozen ways. You can do anything from being all sneaky to being a classic DOOM1 like psycho and blow in and hope to kill every fucker before the duck and return fire (as you'll die fast that way.) The added firepower with vehicles adds quite a bit too from hummers, to jeeps with 50cals, to gunboats with rockets and machineguns. Lots of junk, lots of way to die. AI won't sit there, it's always watching,and if one is a sniper you could easily die from 1000yds out like that.