Poll: Best Valve game?

[Ieyke]

I'm dead split between Portal 1, TF2, and Left 4 Dead 1&2....

Portal has a FANTASTIC story and voice acting and atmosphere and the puzzles are mind bendingly awesome....but it's short and I only needed to play through it a few times.

Team Fortress 2 has hands down the best mechanics of any shooter ever. The completely ridiculous range of weapon effects and abilities is....incredible.
Every time I think they've exhausted the things they can do in the context of a multiplayer shooter....they add something totally from left field. I've played more TF2 than anything. The gameplay simply never really gets old. The art style and humor...amazing. That game has completely created its own style and unique space in which it operates, and those graphics will probably never NOT look good.

Left 4 Dead 1&2... I LOVE the setting and characters from Left 4 Dead 1 and I LOVE the mechanics/weapons/scope of Left 4 Dead 2....and since Left 4 Dead 2 is sort of absorbing and upgrading Left 4 Dead 1 into being part of itself....I love it. Best co-op game around.
My one complaint is that I want Left 4 Dead 3. I want it NAO. Together as one option these games make a formidable opponent for Portal and TF2.


In the end, I choose TF2 because it's always evolving and growing and I've played 689 hours of it....




I like Portal 2, but I haven't finished it yet, and I don't think it's quite as perfect as Portal was. Portal was exactly as long as it needed to be, and I feel it had better puzzles TBH.

 

[DEAD34345]

Uh... I guess I'd go with the original Portal, followed by Half Life (the first one) and then Left 4 Dead. I'm not really a great fan of Valve, and Portal is the only game of theirs I really considered special. They're great developers who treat their customers right, I just don't particularly like most of their games.

Half Life 1 was pretty good, and I had a ton of fun on Left 4 Dead on expert mode with my friends, but Half Life 2 was a massive disappointment to me. Team Fortress 2 and Counterstrike I just don't care about at all.

 

[WeAreStevo]

Personally I think they nailed multiplayer FPS fun with L4D and L4D2.

I still play these religiously while Half-Life and Portal collect dust on the shelf

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Steadily approaching my one thousandth (yes, 1000), unidled hour in TF2. You know which one wins.

 

[pppppppppppppppppp]

Man, Half Life is losing to Left 4 Dead?

Know your roots people, that game was the shit back then. B^)

 

[Neverhoodian]

Team Fortress 2 is easily my favorite Valve game, along with my favorite multiplayer title. I've been playing it regularly since October 2007, and it still hasn't gotten old for me. It has solid gameplay, hilarious characters and it's just plain FUN.

 

[Tamrin]

Man, Half Life is losing to Left 4 Dead?

Know your roots people, that game was the shit back then. B^)

At least HL2 has to count for something, right?

 

[13thforswarn]

Team Fortress 2. I have like 650+ hours and the game is not only super fun, but I've also met a lot of cool people via this game.

 

[Delicious Anathema]

Team Fortress 2 and Portal, to me those are the face of PC gaming, so much fun and creativity.

 

[Aidinthel]

Man, Half Life is losing to Left 4 Dead?

Know your roots people, that game was the shit back then. B^)

Heck, I played Half-Life last year and still thought it was a great game. I spent the entire time marveling over how it's storytelling just felt...more videogamey I suppose. Like it wasn't telling a story at all, just letting you look through Freeman's eyes.

I voted for Portal, though. I'm a big fan of it's elegant simplicity.

 

[floobie]

I'll rank them:

1) Half Life 2 (and the Episodes)
2) Portal 1 and 2
3) Half Life (and the expansions)
4) Team Fortress Classic

And the rest. Some of which are alright but I have no strong feelings about (TF2, Day of Defeat, Left 4 Dead). Some of which I actively dislike (everything related to Counter Strike, Left 4 Dead 2).

My ranking is a bit off, though. In terms of "fondest memories", the original Half Life and TFC definitely rank the highest. Those games represent the golden age of PC gaming to me. HL2 is objectively a better game, and it definitely blew me away more. But, it just can't compare to the memories I had with the original.

I should address Team Fortress as well. TF2 is an objectively great game. It's funny, well balanced, and polished. But, the magic of the original is totally lost for me. The original had a sort of unintentional ridiculousness about it. Weird exploits they didn't bother fixing, like rocket jumping, concussion grenade jumping, shooting team mates across the map as a sniper, bits of the map that you could force your way through and wreak havoc, the unintentional goofiness of the original character models (the HW guy was basically a care bear!), the ridiculous distorted physics, messing with the server commands and further distorting the physics, the way players gibbed if you shot them just right, and how they exploded into a big mess of turkey drum sticks and multiple skulls (more so if you cranked cl_gibcount in the console). The fact that they embraced all that for TF2 is simultaneously awesome, but somehow ruined it for me. And, dammit I miss grenades!

 

[Pinkamena]

It was a very close tie between Portal 2 and Half Life 2, but I voted for Portal since it's the one that's most fresh in my memory.

 

[The-Epicly-Named-Man]

Portal. It's impossible to beat perfection, as Portal 2 found out.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

tf2 and probably portal 2

tf2 for its amount of fun it constantly brings and portal 2 for it's quirky humor and not trying to do more than what it can handle, in that it is a really solid game.

 

[DiabloBub666]

Portal, because it BLEW MY MIND on the first playthrough more than almost any other game I've played. On top of which, everything about the game was just super-refined (not even considering the small amount of people that had worked on it): pacing, jokes, atmosphere, what have you.

Half-Life 2 probably takes a close second, it just didn't really BLOW MY MIND like Portal did. Yes, it was gripping and tense and exciting and awesome and all that, but it's like comparing sex with Natalie Portman to a threesome with Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson (I'm under 18, let me fantasize).

 

[ResonanceGames]

So disappointed in you guys. How is Half Life (1998) not winning this one. Its by far the best.

But I guess most people in this thread havent even played it.

...or maybe it's not their favorite. I voted for it because at the time it was the best game I'd ever played, but I certainly enjoyed HL2 and Portal more. For all the things that are great about it, Half-Life has an awful, awful third act. Borderline unplayable.

 

[Randomeaninglessword]

I went with Half-Life 2, because I had the most fun with it. But Portal 2 was a very close second.

 

[viking97]

tf2 and probably portal 2

tf2 for its amount of fun it constantly brings and portal 2 for it's quirky humor and not trying to do more than what it can handle, in that it is a really solid game.

i bought it on steam, and love it. its just too bad the damn thing keeps freezing up on me.

i'd buy the source version, but i'm poor and buying the same game twice would probably make me start cutting.

 

[natster43]

I would have to say either Left 4 Dead 2 or Portal 2.

 

[ResonanceSD]

T-T-T-T-TEAM FORTRESS TWOOOOO!

No but seriously, it's got replay value, which portal doesn't, and HL2 doesn't.