Half Life 2

[sgtshock]

So, it's not original at all except for it's physics engine, despite the fact that it was released 5 years ago?

 

[GodsOneMistake]

God, your asking for it anyone who doesn't praise HL2 will be shunned... Not by me of course

 

[LuisEz]

Half Life 2 has most of the standard archeotype FPS weapons

keep in mind that most "standard archeotype FPS weapons" originated from games like half-life.

You have a valid point, are standard... because were used in the first trilogy. Still... HL2 is highly overrated, i mean, the jet-ski part is just TOO long and it repeats... the high part of this game is when you meet the priest, that city is scary as hell, but then the game has no longer that "bad aura"... its not scary anymore...

The "charm" of the first game was that you were alone in a close space with zombie-like monsters and aliens form another dimention... and everyone around you is death, dying or suffering a Nervous Breakdown (wich acording to mayo clinic isnt a medical term).

But now u have followers.... you are the chosen one... some aliens are good and help you... i have to be honest, the first time i played i thought i was briliant... but in the second run... i wasnt impressed anymore.

Its a good game? yes it is, even is you are not a fan of the first saga. its was enought to be goty? well i dont know everygame that was released that year but Farcry was and i liked it a lot better... except for the really ugly hawaiian shirt.

 

[DarkRyter]

I figured the story out fine.

And I didn't use half life wiki AT ALL.

(okay, I lied. But I only used it to find out what happened in half life 1.)

 

[josemlopes]

The game for the time it was released it had a lot of things new: graphics, physics, ENEMY AI, those light effects, and some of them are still better then the ones on the actual games. Also the weapons are the way they are because of the original Half Life, and he is REALLY old.

And if you have it for PC you have the possability of downloading thousands of mods since the source engine is one of the easiest engine to mod and is the most modded engine so far.

In those mods you have a lot of originality, some of them change the whole game to something new, like Insurgency, others give new weapons and missions.

In the end you get more than what you paid and the game itself is good, with a lot of diferent places to fight (cities, sewers, villages, caves, and much more)

 

[Susurrus]

I was never ever sure why Half Life captured the imagination of so many gamers in a way that Unreal 1 didn't. Unreal 1 had a great story-line, made absolutely brilliant by the growing realisation that the player character was the destined saviour of the Nali, despite the fact that it was clear throughout the game that the player character was simply trying to survive. Unreal 2 was admittedly rubbish, but even before that, Unreal 1 didn't get the wonderful praise that HL got.

As for HL2, I'm unsure. Its a highly polished and highly enjoyable game, but even when it came out I never understood the hype surrouding it. The plot's really not that deep, and it seems odd to me that Gordon Freeman would be hailed as a hero, and that members of Black Mesa would be leaders of the resistance, despite the fact that it was their screw up that caused the whole problem in the first place.

Most of the physics-based puzzles annoyed me. They were enjoyable the first time, but then they were repeated ad infinitum, and they became flow-breaking. One moment in particular stands out for me, when in the hovercraft, I was stopped in my tracks by a wall. There was no way through, but a ramp tht could clearly be lifted to allow me to go over. I spent a couple of minutes searching, found the fridge that needed to be pushed into the lift, did so, and resumed my speeding journey down the river. There were no enemies (maybe a headcrab, but i dont think so), all it did was slow me down and provide one more repetitive thing for me to do. After that the physics puzzles kind of died for me.

As for everything else, I actually found finding my way round the levels considerably harder than killing the enemies, not that it took me long to kill any of them. The shotgun may be only effective at short range, but when its possible to take so many hits, even on hard (compare to Medal of honour: Pacific on realistic), its easy to get close and shotgun the AI to the face.. Not that finding my way around levels took long, but I found it less intuitive than I would have liked, and none of the enemies gave me much problem.

Added to which, proper strider battles would have been awesome. Give me a freeform city, plentiful rocket ammo and an objective to kill x of them in a certain time, and I would have been happy as punch, but the strider battles have either been horrible set pieces, or, well, horrible set pieces.

 

[BigT65]

In my time on these forums, I have seen dozens of posts praising Half Life 2 to be an amazing game. I have played it, and I'm afraid my appreciation for it is not nearly so high.

The game has almost no plot to speak of (or if there is, it is completely impenetrable), and I'm pretty sure that it only exists to send the character from one locale to another. You have no idea why or who you are fighting; only that you have to and get to another location for some reason or another.

Now, let's talk about the AI. Absolutely terrible. Squadmates get themselves killed by running into a fire that has been there since you came to the area, and the enemies stand still shooting at you and only rarely use any sort of sensible tactics, like flanking (and even then, I'm pretty sure its accidental).

Half Life 2 has most of the standard archeotype FPS weapons, like the pistol, the better pistol, the sniper-variant, the SMG, grenades, and the shotgun. Most of these weapons have almost no stopping power, and, to be frank, aren't all that fun to use. The shotgun is only effective at ranges varying from 1-4 feet, and most of the others are similar in their weakness. The exceptions to this rule are the magnum, crossbow, and rocket launcher, but most circumstances eliminate the possibility of using them. Most levels do not have enemies far enough away to safely use the rocket laucher or crossbow, and the magnum doesn't have the range to make it a viable alternative. Either way, there is barely any ammo for these guns, so using them is a serious decision.

The actually original weapons (the Gravity gun and the spider-thing controller) are nice, but once again, circumstances rarely allow or require their use. What objects the gravity gun can kill people with are few and far between, and even then, lugging them to the next battle is a pain. The spider control thing can be useful, but the only times thatit is of use is cancelled out be the auto-turrets that kill your allies, and even when there aren't these turrets, they aren't all that fun to use (except for setting off mines).

And, oh the puzzles. Most of them are ine, but their one and only one solution can be extremely frustrating. For example, in the Ravenholm level, there is an electrified fence that separates you and where you need to go. There is a wire attaching the fence to an electric source inside of a room on the third floor of a building. There is a room full of circle saw a little ways back, so one expects to be able to cut the wire in half by shooting a saw at the wire (the obvious solution). However, this does not work, and the game makes you grind through a house full of zombies to turn off the power, while cutting the wire would be much easier and makes more sense.

Now, I'm in no way saying that Half Life 2 is a bad game. Its environments are varied and interesting, and the controls are streamlined and work well. The graphics are good, and decent even by today's standards, and the weapons at least look cool. The enemiy types are varied enough for combat to stay interesting, and the vehicle controls don't suck, like in most FPSs.

This game is only original in that it uses a decent physics engine. If anything, it's more of a tech demo than a game.

Okay, I could not agree more. I thought Half Life was not as good as everyone said it was, it was actually pretty generic and I just expected more from the so called "best fps ever"

 

[Zefar]

Same exact thing can be said for Halo but everyone here bashes it and praises Half Life. Both games are over hyped and neither is bad. Half-Life was awesome when it came out and like someone above me said a lot of FPS's following it were influenced by it. Comparing it to todays standards yeah it looks shitty but at the time it was great.

I really don't want to say this but here goes.

Halo is a Painkiller/Serious Sam clone with STORY. When did you once in the game have to push a button? Or activate certain things to get further ahead?

You didn't do anything other than lead that AI of yours to a place and she dealt with it. Then you moved on and just kept shooting EVERYTHING in sight.
First Halo was fine and I had fun with it but that's about it. Halo 2 was pretty much the same but with more weapons and more story.

Half-Life series actually forces you to do things and interact with the surroundings in order to get past something.


Anyway to the topic starter.

Wait you say there really ain't safe to use crossbow in close combat? :/ It's awesome and sticks pretty much anything to the wall and perfectly cape able of dealing with threats in close combat situation. Same goes for Magnum.
Rocket launcher is a bit more obvious and you shouldn't find plenty of ammo for this things because it would only make it easier.

Shotgun wasn't THAT bad in HL2, I loved it as it dealt with everything I encountered with either double shot or normal shot. Even on a medium distance.

I also think you underestimate the power of Gravity gun, claiming there are FEW objects is quite a statement.
Most things around you is enough to kill a soldier. Even those bricks and chairs. When you get the gun you can practically go through the game with it. It's only at some areas where you don't have that many stuff for it.

 

[SimpsonsParadox]

Because it bears repeating: You're taking a five year old game and expecting it to stand toe to toe with modern day FPS's. HL2 was ground breaking in story telling, facial features, weapons, AI, physics engine, and distribution. Of course it feels same-y now; that's because everyone copied it's exceptionally well done forumla to the point of it being a dead horse.

 

[andrat]

The game for the time it was released it had a lot of things new: graphics, physics, ENEMY AI, those light effects, and some of them are still better then the ones on the actual games. Also the weapons are the way they are because of the original Half Life, and he is REALLY old.

And if you have it for PC you have the possability of downloading thousands of mods since the source engine is one of the easiest engine to mod and is the most modded engine so far.

In those mods you have a lot of originality, some of them change the whole game to something new, like Insurgency, others give new weapons and missions.

In the end you get more than what you paid and the game itself is good, with a lot of diferent places to fight (cities, sewers, villages, caves, and much more)

I agree. And if you cannot mod your PC games, go away.

On another note, I played all four Half Lifes (One, Two, Ep1, Ep2) and I had no problem following the story. I started when I was probably twelve. I followed the story fine.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Because it bears repeating: You're taking a five year old game and expecting it to stand toe to toe with modern day FPS's. HL2 was ground breaking in story telling, facial features, weapons, AI, physics engine, and distribution. Of course it feels same-y now; that's because everyone copied it's exceptionally well done forumla to the point of it being a dead horse.

Interestingly enough, despite being judged by today's standards, Half-Life 2 can still hold up as an above average game. So people need to imagine how good it was 5 years ago.

 

[rockingnic]

HL2 gets stale after a while, even before you beat it. Every weapon is used the same, you aim, you shoot and hope to god the enemy dies, with the exception of the gravity gun, where you add in a couple of steps (pick up objects and run around finding more objects before you die. Not to mention the guns seem underpowered for the most part.

 

[DoctorWhat]

I don't like HL2 because... well I suppose it's cos I'm shit at it. I'm at the point where you're meant to go through some sewers after a teleporter fails (basically the start of the goddamn game) and I either get stuck somewhere, or I get shot at and killed. It kind of messes up my perception of the game, when I can't even get past the first "level"

 

[Slakah]

Half Life 2: Episode 2 imo is a far better game, and you should go buy it, it definitely addresses many of the issues with HL2 and has a much greater sense of epicness specifically the Vortigaunts + Sentry Guns Vs Antlions, and the combine trap which forces you to take shelter in the house.

And after HL2:E2, I can't wait for HL2:E3.

 

[mjhhiv]

Frankly, I think this post tells us more about you than Half-Life 2, despite your intentions to be some sort of "truth-bearer." I'm not going to get any more in depth here: I pretty much disagree with everything said.

Of course, Half Life 2 is probably one of my favorite games, so take that with a grain of salt...

EDIT: Scratch that, I have to say it. The AI in Half Life 2 is revolutionary. A.I. can literally be boiled down to pre HL2 and post HL2 -- it was that good. I'm going to assume you didn't play the game on hard, because even today, I think the AI is very good.

 

[AkJay]

In my time on these forums, I have seen dozens of posts praising Half Life 2 to be an amazing game. I have played it, and I'm afraid my appreciation for it is not nearly so high.

The game has almost no plot to speak of (or if there is, it is completely impenetrable), and I'm pretty sure that it only exists to send the character from one locale to another. You have no idea why or who you are fighting; only that you have to and get to another location for some reason or another.

You are a scientist who goes into a vortex that releases an army of aliens into the world, within 7 hours, the world is enslaved to this new overlord, WHO you are fighting is the Combine, which is pretty clear no matter what game you play first, WHY you play, isn't it obvious? save the world! you have to get from one location to another because you are a scientist, and you are one of the few people on the Earth who knows what is going on, and knows how to fix it because you were at ground zero, where it all began, it's all pretty simple, the only thing you don't seem to get is that in a game like this, you actually have to think about what is going on, instead of being spoon-fed every peice of information like a baby.

 

[Martymer]

In my time on these forums, I have seen dozens of posts praising Half Life 2 to be an amazing game. I have played it, and I'm afraid my appreciation for it is not nearly so high.

*snip*

This game is only original in that it uses a decent physics engine. If anything, it's more of a tech demo than a game.

I agree. Sort of. Even when it was first released, I thought it was over-rated. It wasn't bad, though. I liked it. It just wasn't something that made me go "Best. Game. Evarrr!". Definitely an A, but not an A+. But then, that still means I'll have to say it's a classic that every gamer simply must own.

The story seems really weird, I agree with you there. But that's the point. Some of the background is revealed to you as you play, but much of it you have to figure out on your own. That's good. I hate it when games serve everything to you on a silver platter. I have a brain! Let me use it, dammit! You're shit out of luck though, if you're not familliar with the story of HL1, which ended with Gordon being captured by the G-Man and (presumably, considering how HL2 begins) placed in stasis in some sort of "pocket plane" reality. A lot of time has passed, and Earth has been conquered by the Combine, who are extra-dimensional aliens who used the portal opened in Half-Life 1 to invade Earth. In HL2, you're brought out of stasis and just thrown into this messed-up world. I'm guessing the big revelations (like, who the hell the G-Man is, and who he's working for) will come in Episode 3, whenever the hell that comes out.

Unlike most FPS games, HL2 has interesting NPCs. I'm surprised you didn't mention them. They actually have personalities, and with the exception of Kleiner, they're -- believe it or not -- not stereotypes. Hell, Alyx, to pretty much everyone's surprise, is the seemingly impossible: a female NPC that is neither an ass-kicking carpet-munching marine type, nor a completely useless set of huge titties for Gordon to constantly rescue, and for the 14-year-olds to jerk off to. She actually seems like a... wow! A proper character!

What I don't like about the game, though, is the constant physics engine tech demo bullshit. It really puts me off. And I agree with you about the weapons. I wish they'd kept the much more realistic machine gun from HL1, and the SAW from OpFor, instead of putting in those futuristic things. They make sense, I suppose, but they're just not as cool, IMO. And as you said, the crossbow and Magnum are pretty much useless. There's so little ammo available that in the few situations where they can be used, you feel like you don't want to waste it.

I may be putting HL2 on my top ten games of all time list, it certainly won't be in the top five. Unlike Half-Life 1, which instantly snatched 1st place on release, and currently still holds 3rd place. So, in conclusion, IMO HL1 > HL2, so the whole "best FPS of all time" praise... Just... No. In fact, I even rate Duke3d higher, just for its much higher fun-factor. And the jetpack. And the tits.

(Sorry, too much ZP)

 

[Ironic]

HL2 gets stale after a while, even before you beat it. Every weapon is used the same, you aim, you shoot and hope to god the enemy dies, with the exception of the gravity gun, where you add in a couple of steps (pick up objects and run around finding more objects before you die. Not to mention the guns seem underpowered for the most part.

Is this not true with most games, considering that they are GUNS.

As people here have already justified, Half Life 2 was brilliant back in its heyday, but only above average now. It paved the way for more modern games, and added some newer ideas, and as far as the story goes, I enjoyed having to investigate it and find little clues in order to get it, for once, you weren't fed the story directly.

Also, the modding community for source based games is HUGE, and on top of that, if you want something new and interesting to do, go and try garry's mod, if you enjoy it, you'll play it forever and just scratch the surface. You have to give HL2 some credit for those games, it's engine is still being used now, (well, an updated version due to the episodes) in a large variety of cheap, fun and underrated games.

Hl2 has suffered the same harsh justice as Halo, fan boy over-hype. If you try to revisit space invaders now, you aren't exactly going to agree with an older generation when THEY say it was groundbreaking, so don't try. Just accept that it was good in it's day, and probably deserved the hype at the time, just don't try to pick apart a game when you have a new set of standards to the ones it was built to.

EDIT: As for me, I only loved HL2 as much as the fan-boys did because at the time I hadn't heard anything about it, and just assumed it to be a generic game.
GOGO GADGET PESSIMISM.

 

[Danny Ocean]

HL2 gets stale after a while, even before you beat it. Every weapon is used the same, you aim, you shoot and hope to god the enemy dies,

Uh... The expectation being, "Aim, pick your nose, and hope the enemy dies"?.

with the exception of the gravity gun, where you add in a couple of steps (pick up objects and run around finding more objects before you die.

Again, what kind of mechanic do you think would've worked? Some kind of trajectory-drawing mini-game for every projectile?

Not to mention the guns seem underpowered for the most part.

Aim for the head, it's so much quicker. I found it quite easy to kill all the combine soldiers with body shots (Even the white ones), but the zombies were harder. Being zombies, valve designed them to be quickly and easily taken out with a head shot, like every other game featuring zombies. So, aim for the head. If a Zombine pulls out a grenade just grab it with the gravity gun and throw it back/away!