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There are quite a few nifty features in the game. One being portals. You'll find portals all over the place in this game, and they're not those silly "neat particle effect that you step into and you teleport to another part of the map" kinda portals. They're a "look into the portal and you can actually see what's on the other side" kind. There are some setups where a portal is facing another portal, so you can see yourself, and even kill yourself by shooting through the portal and at yourself, though it's not recommended.
Another neat thing is gravity. In the game, you'll find some switches you can shoot on the walls or ceilings. When shoot these switches, suddenly that wall or ceiling becomes the floor! It's really disorienting and confusing, as changing gravity should be, so it's really intriguing and makes for good puzzles. There are also parts where you'll be able to walk on the certain paths that climb up walls and onto the ceiling. Enemies will often be on the ground or end up walking on another surface, so it's cool how you can shoot at them from the ceiling or while on the wall.
Another feature would be "spirit walking", but it's not as cool as walking on ceilings or portals. You can "leave" your body in spirit form and traverse to different areas your physical body could not reach. Makes a few neat puzzles. The cooler thing is, though, is that you can't get a "Game Over" in the game. Everytime you die, you end up in the "spirit world" and must defeat the dead spirits to get your life or spirit energy back. After a certain amount of time in the spirit world, you're sucked back into the real world and you continue where you left off. Maybe it makes the game easy, but it's really better this way, as you'll hardly ever have to deal with quick-saves and won't have to re-load the level when you die.
Is it better than Half-Life? Eh, not really. The combat is kinda boring. The guns aren't that great, and the AI could be smarter.
But, I absolutely LOVE the Doom 3 engine. Sure, at first I was like "Source Engine pwns the Doom 3 engine!" ...but that was before I discovered the dreaded "stutter bug" that Source Engine games have. Doom 3, Quake IV, and Prey have higher system requirements than Half-Life 2. But which games run smoother and almost flawlessly? Doom 3, Quake IV, and Prey! With Source Engine games, I get a few stutters hear and there when it has to load sounds or textures. A lot of hard drive access occurs, making the game lame, plus level load times are a bitch. Doom 3 engine games, though...wow. I can run everything on high and the games run super smooth, with very few hitches, and only a little dip in framerate if there's too much going on. And the games look beautiful! The lighting in the games really adds to the atmosphere...unfortunately, most of the games are all "sci-fi space ship + organs." But whatever. Prey and Quake IV show that the Doom 3 engine can do open-environments.
Just check out these screenshots of Prey. Yes, these are screenshots I took while playing on my PC. It's almost as if I don't need an Xbox 360 or PS3 to get "next-gen" graphics.
