Building comparison
head to head
Half-Life 2vsSuper Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. asks more than Half-Life 2, and the gap is execution.
Half-Life 2
Execution · Pure Mechanics
Landmark FPS built on physics puzzles and tight gunplay.
Super Mario Bros.
Execution · Pure Mechanics
Pure jump timing over fully fixed, memorisable levels.
Half-Life 2 leans Execution (Pure Mechanics); Super Mario Bros. leans Execution (Pure Mechanics).
Half-Life 2Super Mario Bros.
Axis by axis
Execution6 vs 8
Super Mario Bros. leans clearly harder on execution.
Half-Life 2
Gravity gun and shooting demand precision.
Super Mario Bros.
Perfect inputs trivialise momentum jumps over fixed hazards
Reads1 vs 0
Half-Life 2 leans a little harder on reads, though the gap is small.
Half-Life 2
Combine AI scripted, non-adaptive.
Super Mario Bros.
Goombas walk left forever - nothing to predict
Variance1 vs 0
Half-Life 2 leans a little harder on variance, though the gap is small.
Half-Life 2
Almost no randomness.
Super Mario Bros.
Every level is identical on every run
Optimization3 vs 5
Super Mario Bros. leans clearly harder on optimization.
Half-Life 2
Linear progression with no builds.
Super Mario Bros.
Level memorisation and warp routing are fully solvable
A matching score does not mean a matching test. Two games can both sit at 10 on execution and demand completely different things of you - which is why the reasoning above matters more than the number beside it.