Can someone explain half-life to me?
- Thread starter egwidalin
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If you play a game that you find to be "extremely fun" then ask why it's so well-received, then your priorities are sincerely fucked up my friend.
Missed the point. You said it wasn't very good as an absolute (Or, at least, it read that way), and I merely pointed out that if it being not very good was fact, not opinion, then it wouldn't have won massive awards and sold extremely well.Iron Mal said:
Thanks for the link, haven't seen this earlier.Paulrus_Keaton said:
...and the pants were dead xD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slRsexrhbG8
This is pretty much Half Life, i'm sure you'll agree its OARSUM
This is pretty much Half Life, i'm sure you'll agree its OARSUM
I always prefered comparing it to Red Faction to be honest.Zenn3k said:
Edit: It occurs to me now that half life came oujt first... however that doesn't mean they can't be compared and that I think Red Faction is better
Well, at least it's a nice change to be explaining why Half-Life doesn't suck, instead of having to explain why another game (usually Halo) doesn't suck to people who think Half-Life > all.egwidalin said:
I'm sure the rest of this thread has covered the specific reasons why Half-Life is a good game. Here's my contribution: both the Half-Life games and Portal were extremely well-made, polished and melded seamlessly with their narrative, and all three introduced FPS innovations, some of which are now standard and some of which appear to be ahead of their time. But for all that, maybe they're not the game you're looking for. I can't tell what type of gamer you are, but hypothetically, let's say you like your games to have a lot of dialogue and pre-determined interactions between characters, as in Final Fantasy for example, and you're not so interested in being able to move around and continue the game during dialogue scenes. Or perhaps you're the kind of gamer who likes their FPS to be fast-paced and high-tension, and you're not so interested in the FPS as an adventure story.
The key is that it's possible for a game to be good for some people, but not cater to other people's tastes. That doesn't make it a bad game. Try to recognise when something is good, just not for you, and distinguish that from when something is genuinely mediocre.
It's one of those games you'd have to have played at release to really understand, admittedly. Even if you're not all that keen on the actual games, the massive modding community is sure to have something more to your tastes. Mods can make some games damn near immortal.
Most of the reasons HL1 and HL2 have been so praised are because of their innovations at release. People have gone over those in detail already.
To me, the most timeless redeeming quality of the Half-Life games are their pacing. There's a nice flow of highs and lows, and it eggs you on with suggestive but elusive story pieces. I'm never too anxious or too relaxed, but I'm constantly approaching those extremes in alternation. It takes a lot of work to get a game to play like that, and Valve is one of the few companies I know really willing to keep revising until it's polished as such.
Of course, they're not perfect. I'd be the first to admit that the weapons and enemies in the HL games get a little overuse by the end of their games, their AI isn't as good as it could be, and a lot of the innovations of the old games aren't really interesting anymore. In my opinion, Episode 2 relied on such innovations the least, so if you want to judge the series by today's standards, you should probably try that one.
To me, the most timeless redeeming quality of the Half-Life games are their pacing. There's a nice flow of highs and lows, and it eggs you on with suggestive but elusive story pieces. I'm never too anxious or too relaxed, but I'm constantly approaching those extremes in alternation. It takes a lot of work to get a game to play like that, and Valve is one of the few companies I know really willing to keep revising until it's polished as such.
Of course, they're not perfect. I'd be the first to admit that the weapons and enemies in the HL games get a little overuse by the end of their games, their AI isn't as good as it could be, and a lot of the innovations of the old games aren't really interesting anymore. In my opinion, Episode 2 relied on such innovations the least, so if you want to judge the series by today's standards, you should probably try that one.
Actually, it makes the OP look a little like a dumbass since the title of the thread does not have Half-Life capitalized. Gotta be specific and argue semantics here.Zephirius said:The irony in that is it makes you look like a dumbass for obviously not reading the OP.AC10 said:I was going to be a smart ass and explain this as well, but decided against it lol.curlycrouton said:Effective half-life denotes the halving of radioactive material in a living organism by means of radioactive decay and biological excretion. A decay constant is needed to calculate the half-life. It is the sum of the biological and physical decay constants, as in the formula:
With the decay constant it is possible to calculate the effective half-life using the formula:
The biological decay constant is often approximated as it is more difficult to accurately determine than the physical decay constant.
You're right. Nowadays, most Valve shooters, save TF2, feel a little clunky, and they don't feel like they bring anything new to the table. However, back when they were released, they were revolutionary. Also, Portal's atmosphere was incredible, particularly when you got into the secret areas, and when you got out of the main test labs. GLaDOS was awesome, and no, I didn't think that the cake being a lie was that funny. I thought GLaDOS had some brilliant lines, and that despite her being a robot, she had personality, which was awesome.
