Half-Life 2 Please Explain

[ImmortalDrifter]

with a plot that while well written, holds no relevance to the first.

Well ain't that a kick in the face. No relevance? >.> Besides Freeman caused the dimensional rips that led to the combine and such to exploit them and take over earth, and that most of the black mesa crew holds quite important positions in the resistance and with the combine. The entire game was caused by Freeman in the first HL, and now it's like he's cleaning up his mess. Even if he's contracted by G-man to do so. Since canonically he accepted his job offer at the end of HL1.

...Absolutely nooooo relevance at all though.

But when is the Combine at all mentioned in the first, despite in the second apparently being this horrible omni-dimensional empire of infinite terror? What does his action in xen really do? How the hell did the combine find out about earth?

The combine weren't in HL1, when Freeman killed Nihilanth the portal storms started (see episode 2, it was apparently very similar to the beginning) The combine used the resulting portals to launch a large scale invasion of earth. Obviously Freeman wasn't there for that. It's never explained how they knew about earth, but that's what the combine does, they invade other dimensions and enslave the dominant species. Rinse, repeat.

So the combine was just skipping through an inter-dimensional field of flowers.....

 

[oplinger]

with a plot that while well written, holds no relevance to the first.

Well ain't that a kick in the face. No relevance? >.> Besides Freeman caused the dimensional rips that led to the combine and such to exploit them and take over earth, and that most of the black mesa crew holds quite important positions in the resistance and with the combine. The entire game was caused by Freeman in the first HL, and now it's like he's cleaning up his mess. Even if he's contracted by G-man to do so. Since canonically he accepted his job offer at the end of HL1.

...Absolutely nooooo relevance at all though.

But when is the Combine at all mentioned in the first, despite in the second apparently being this horrible omni-dimensional empire of infinite terror? What does his action in xen really do? How the hell did the combine find out about earth?

The combine weren't in HL1, when Freeman killed Nihilanth the portal storms started (see episode 2, it was apparently very similar to the beginning) The combine used the resulting portals to launch a large scale invasion of earth. Obviously Freeman wasn't there for that. It's never explained how they knew about earth, but that's what the combine does, they invade other dimensions and enslave the dominant species. Rinse, repeat.

So the combine was just skipping through an inter-dimensional field of flowers.....

Well, maybe not no. I'm sure they have some way of detecting massive amounts of interdimensional portals and huge energy discharges. It probably got their attention, so they did their thing.

 

[ImmortalDrifter]

with a plot that while well written, holds no relevance to the first.

Well ain't that a kick in the face. No relevance? >.> Besides Freeman caused the dimensional rips that led to the combine and such to exploit them and take over earth, and that most of the black mesa crew holds quite important positions in the resistance and with the combine. The entire game was caused by Freeman in the first HL, and now it's like he's cleaning up his mess. Even if he's contracted by G-man to do so. Since canonically he accepted his job offer at the end of HL1.

...Absolutely nooooo relevance at all though.

But when is the Combine at all mentioned in the first, despite in the second apparently being this horrible omni-dimensional empire of infinite terror? What does his action in xen really do? How the hell did the combine find out about earth?

The combine weren't in HL1, when Freeman killed Nihilanth the portal storms started (see episode 2, it was apparently very similar to the beginning) The combine used the resulting portals to launch a large scale invasion of earth. Obviously Freeman wasn't there for that. It's never explained how they knew about earth, but that's what the combine does, they invade other dimensions and enslave the dominant species. Rinse, repeat.

So the combine was just skipping through an inter-dimensional field of flowers.....

Well, maybe not no. I'm sure they have some way of detecting massive amounts of interdimensional portals and huge energy discharges. It probably got their attention, so they did their thing.

Honestly, it's just bad story telling. Don't explain how they do it, just say "because they can!"

 

[JokerCrowe]

I'd like to point you to this page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny

It only seems like a run of the mill shooter because every shooter after it copied it made made everything cliché. But I still like it because the universe that Valve has created actually seems plausible, in some strange way.

 

[oplinger]

with a plot that while well written, holds no relevance to the first.

Well ain't that a kick in the face. No relevance? >.> Besides Freeman caused the dimensional rips that led to the combine and such to exploit them and take over earth, and that most of the black mesa crew holds quite important positions in the resistance and with the combine. The entire game was caused by Freeman in the first HL, and now it's like he's cleaning up his mess. Even if he's contracted by G-man to do so. Since canonically he accepted his job offer at the end of HL1.

...Absolutely nooooo relevance at all though.

But when is the Combine at all mentioned in the first, despite in the second apparently being this horrible omni-dimensional empire of infinite terror? What does his action in xen really do? How the hell did the combine find out about earth?

The combine weren't in HL1, when Freeman killed Nihilanth the portal storms started (see episode 2, it was apparently very similar to the beginning) The combine used the resulting portals to launch a large scale invasion of earth. Obviously Freeman wasn't there for that. It's never explained how they knew about earth, but that's what the combine does, they invade other dimensions and enslave the dominant species. Rinse, repeat.

So the combine was just skipping through an inter-dimensional field of flowers.....

Well, maybe not no. I'm sure they have some way of detecting massive amounts of interdimensional portals and huge energy discharges. It probably got their attention, so they did their thing.

Honestly, it's just bad story telling. Don't explain how they do it, just say "because they can!"

Bad story telling? Because everything isn't explained to you? You're Gordon Freeman, you weren't there! you don't know. If he -did- know it'd be pretty awkward. I mean that's like saying the Combine took over the planet and held a press release for how they did it. They had flow charts to explain, and hand outs to-No. It's great story telling, because it'd make no -sense- to explain it. They never said "because they can" it was more the humans were like "we don't know" therefore you don't get the magical privilege to know either.

 

[ImmortalDrifter]

with a plot that while well written, holds no relevance to the first.

Well ain't that a kick in the face. No relevance? >.> Besides Freeman caused the dimensional rips that led to the combine and such to exploit them and take over earth, and that most of the black mesa crew holds quite important positions in the resistance and with the combine. The entire game was caused by Freeman in the first HL, and now it's like he's cleaning up his mess. Even if he's contracted by G-man to do so. Since canonically he accepted his job offer at the end of HL1.

...Absolutely nooooo relevance at all though.

But when is the Combine at all mentioned in the first, despite in the second apparently being this horrible omni-dimensional empire of infinite terror? What does his action in xen really do? How the hell did the combine find out about earth?

The combine weren't in HL1, when Freeman killed Nihilanth the portal storms started (see episode 2, it was apparently very similar to the beginning) The combine used the resulting portals to launch a large scale invasion of earth. Obviously Freeman wasn't there for that. It's never explained how they knew about earth, but that's what the combine does, they invade other dimensions and enslave the dominant species. Rinse, repeat.

So the combine was just skipping through an inter-dimensional field of flowers.....

Well, maybe not no. I'm sure they have some way of detecting massive amounts of interdimensional portals and huge energy discharges. It probably got their attention, so they did their thing.

Honestly, it's just bad story telling. Don't explain how they do it, just say "because they can!"

Bad story telling? Because everything isn't explained to you? You're Gordon Freeman, you weren't there! you don't know. If he -did- know it'd be pretty awkward. I mean that's like saying the Combine took over the planet and held a press release for how they did it. They had flow charts to explain, and hand outs to-No. It's great story telling, because it'd make no -sense- to explain it. They never said "because they can" it was more the humans were like "we don't know" therefore you don't get the magical privilege to know either.

I don't want to start a flame war so I'll just stop this at I hope they explain it at some point. It just bugged the crap outta me, its probably a personal issue.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

I do not get what everyone thinks is so good about this game, it seems like a run of the mill shooter with a plot that while well written, holds no relevance to the first.

Note: I am not a troll, I seek legitimate enlightenment.

It still has above average level layouts but they are a bit bland and empty, the plot/story is still good IMO its just the game tried mechanically to be an average shooter of the day and mostly did become one.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Oh my God, another person who disliked Half-Life 2 and felt they had to make a thread because of it. Jebus, we get one of these every few weeks.

Look, I'm not going to sugarcoat Half-Life 2: I love the game, not because of the gameplay (personally I found it repetitive after Ravenholm), but because of the modding community.

If you have the PC Steam version, get mods. Dystopia, Fistful of Frags, Eternal Silence, Insurgency, Zombie Master, the SMOD series.

All I play anymore are mods, I haven't bought a game in months because of Half-Life 2. That's one helluva an achievement, and it's not because of the game itself.

 

[ImmortalDrifter]

Oh my God, another person who disliked Half-Life 2 and felt they had to make a thread because of it. Jebus, we get one of these every few weeks.

Look, I'm not going to sugarcoat Half-Life 2: I love the game, not because of the gameplay (personally I found it repetitive after Ravenholm), but because of the modding community.

If you have the PC Steam version, get mods. Dystopia, Fistful of Frags, Eternal Silence, Insurgency, Zombie Master, the SMOD series.

All I play anymore are mods, I haven't bought a game in months because of Half-Life 2. That's one helluva an achievement, and it's not because of the game itself.

In my time at the Escapist I haven't seen any, if they had i would have looked at them. Have you complained about the "friday" threads yet?

 

[Frybird]

I do not get what everyone thinks is so good about this game, it seems like a run of the mill shooter with a plot that while well written, holds no relevance to the first.

Note: I am not a troll, I seek legitimate enlightenment.

For me, mostly pacing pacing pacing.

Half-Life 2 is masterful at mixing up things so often that you never feel that the game becomes repetitive or boring.

There is always a new gameplay-element, story-element or a new weapon/enviroment just around the corner. And all of these work excellent (or, at worst, really well) and are fun, in my opinion (yes, even the vehicles)

And while i'm on the fence if the story is actually good or not, it has fun, well-acted, believable characters and always comes up with new things to get you excited, even though i admit that it does use cheap tactics to do this from time to time.

For example:
"We don't go to Ravenholm...wich means you will, just a heads up that you will go to a creepy and somewhat special place in a bit"

 

[Mantonio]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny

ImmortalDrifter, you need to read this.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Oh my God, another person who disliked Half-Life 2 and felt they had to make a thread because of it. Jebus, we get one of these every few weeks.

Look, I'm not going to sugarcoat Half-Life 2: I love the game, not because of the gameplay (personally I found it repetitive after Ravenholm), but because of the modding community.

If you have the PC Steam version, get mods. Dystopia, Fistful of Frags, Eternal Silence, Insurgency, Zombie Master, the SMOD series.

All I play anymore are mods, I haven't bought a game in months because of Half-Life 2. That's one helluva an achievement, and it's not because of the game itself.

In my time at the Escapist I haven't seen any, if they had i would have looked at them. Have you complained about the "friday" threads yet?

I haven't been on the Escapist as often as I usually am, so I don't know what you speak of.

But, as I said, this thread has happened many times.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.266741-I-dont-like-Half-Life-C?page=1
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.259339-Can-someone-please-tell-me-why-Half-Life-2-has-such-appeal?page=1
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.266795-Poll-Lets-clear-this-up-Do-you-like-Half-Life-2?page=4

Take a peek at the third thread -- the number of people who voted that they disliked it was almost 200 compared to the 700 'yes' votes. That's a pretty good ratio.

 

[ImmortalDrifter]

Oh my God, another person who disliked Half-Life 2 and felt they had to make a thread because of it. Jebus, we get one of these every few weeks.

Look, I'm not going to sugarcoat Half-Life 2: I love the game, not because of the gameplay (personally I found it repetitive after Ravenholm), but because of the modding community.

If you have the PC Steam version, get mods. Dystopia, Fistful of Frags, Eternal Silence, Insurgency, Zombie Master, the SMOD series.

All I play anymore are mods, I haven't bought a game in months because of Half-Life 2. That's one helluva an achievement, and it's not because of the game itself.

In my time at the Escapist I haven't seen any, if they had i would have looked at them. Have you complained about the "friday" threads yet?

I haven't been on the Escapist as often as I usually am, so I don't know what you speak of.

But, as I said, this thread has happened many times.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.266741-I-dont-like-Half-Life-C?page=1
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.259339-Can-someone-please-tell-me-why-Half-Life-2-has-such-appeal?page=1
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.266795-Poll-Lets-clear-this-up-Do-you-like-Half-Life-2?page=4

Take a peek at the third thread -- the number of people who voted that they disliked it was almost 200 compared to the 700 'yes' votes. That's a pretty good ratio.

Sorry then, i was unaware. To clarify i never said Half-Life was bad, i wanted to know why people think it was good. And "Friday" is a rather terrible song i won't point you to all of the treads just the most recent.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.271366-The-greatest-song-ever-has-been-released?page=1

 

[matt87_50]

when did you play it? when it was new?


either way, its still of rarely matched quality even today (... especially today)... even though of course, today it's nothing special.

it is the game that popularized the idea of a physics engine.

and the procedural facial animation system is (sadly, and weirdly) completely unmatched, even today!

it was just FUN too... running around with the rebels taking on the combine in those last few missions? awesome. fantastic atmosphere too.

Its my favorite fps... better than COD, or any of them...

 

[Coranico]

with a plot that while well written, holds no relevance to the first.

Well ain't that a kick in the face. No relevance? >.> Besides Freeman caused the dimensional rips that led to the combine and such to exploit them and take over earth, and that most of the black mesa crew holds quite important positions in the resistance and with the combine. The entire game was caused by Freeman in the first HL, and now it's like he's cleaning up his mess. Even if he's contracted by G-man to do so. Since canonically he accepted his job offer at the end of HL1.

...Absolutely nooooo relevance at all though.

But when is the Combine at all mentioned in the first, despite in the second apparently being this horrible omni-dimensional empire of infinite terror? What does his action in xen really do? How the hell did the combine find out about earth?

They aren't specifically mentioned in the first game but they are alluded to, while you're fighting the nihilanth it says a lot of things that refer to Freeman, the Gman and the Combine. "Their slaves... We are their slaves... We are..." this refers to the nihilanth and the vortigaunts as it is believed that they were enslaved by the combine before the events of hl1, they fled to the borderworld Xen so it is only natural that the combine would follow, this also explains about them being able to find Earth when the portal storms started.

I'm not saying that when hl1 was made Valve knew all of this but they at least had a plan for a larger threat from the beginning.

As for not seeing the holy light that is Half Life 2, completely understandable. While it is my favourite game of all time even after multiple playthroughs (with more to come before ep3) i acknowledge the fact that it has its flaws, and i remain optimistic that it will be toppled, however for me at least no game has come close to it so far.

 

[Kyrian007]

It is only "run of the mill" because so many aspects of the game were adopted by later titles. Did this really require a thread just because you played a game 7 years late?
Well, I hate to say it, but in the end it's really one of those "you had to be there" kinda things. A few others here have tried to explain how good it was for its time, but really there is no subsitute for having been a gamer at the time, picking up a copy of HL2 and having your mind blown.

A fantastic example of stupid, elitist, bs. Some of us can play a game even years later and still see the brilliance created. I just recently found Fallout and 2 (just hadn't bothered before, then got on gog.) I didn't "have to be there" and neither did anyone else. Those just rocked. Half-Life was a good FPS, of which there were several under dev in 2004. HL just beat most to market and WAS good. I felt that then and I do now. But IF I had found HL now, I would agree with the OP. Good, but not genre re-defining.

 

[thom_cat_]

Apart from all the things mentioned it also has fantastic storytelling. No game had previously had the story unfold in that way in front of the player, where you slowly figure out the scale of things and what was going on. The train station level is a testament to that design.

Oh and Episode 1 is okayyyyyy and Episode 2 is awesome.
Especially the bastard cliff hanger ending of oh-my-gawdness.

 

[Pyro Paul]

I do not get what everyone thinks is so good about this game, it seems like a run of the mill shooter with a plot that while well written, holds no relevance to the first.

Note: I am not a troll, I seek legitimate enlightenment.

Havoc Physics Engine.

was the first game to have a full physics engine. items had weight, and weight + Motion = pain. the Gravity Gun changed the entire way you could play the game, be it simply taking a Metal sheet with you and using it as a shield or grabbing rocks and lobbing them as impromptu projectiles to insta-kill your foes.

eventually with the Super Gravity Gun anything that could be manipulated could be used, including cars, monitors bolted to walls, even the bodies of your fallen foes... all grabbed and punted at your foes with great effect!

the Physics where so fun to play around with that it even spawned its own game (Garrysmod) which became famous in that players could litterally build functioning tools based on physical properties that acted as they did in the real world such as a Catapult.

 

[Wondermint13]

The Gravity Gun was just pissing annoying to be honest.
Was more of a puzzle tool and a weapon!
The Half Life games made an effort to be something new and they succeeded. I think a game can stand a few good years of appreciation for that alone.

 

[TilMorrow]

And every game is not going to work for everyone, obviously. I could never enjoy a Final Fantasy game, just like I've heard of some people who don't like Civilization games for some odd, twisted reason.

I think you provided yourself with the answer to the reason.

OT: Well in truth its not just Half-life 2 that was a great game but all the Half-life games in the series. And as has been said already to receive full enlightenment you would have to play them when they first came out.

Otherwise, THE POWER OF HALF-LIFE COMPELS YOU!!! [sub]and would probably mess up your genetic structure a bit...[/sub]