Poll: Halo or Half-Life?
- Thread starter Dosvidonya
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Well Half-Life 2 was a fun game but I only played through it once. Meanwhile I played Halo 3 multiplayer for about 3 years so I'm going with halo
I didn't explore the thought too much but I recently found myself wondering if Halo marked the point where "core" gaming started being the casual affair it is today.
Anyways, Half-Life. I don't even remember the story from Halo.
Anyways, Half-Life. I don't even remember the story from Halo.
I have to say neither. They are both, despite being seminal in their own right, the absolute epitome of generic.
That's not to say that I actually hate either of them, specifically, it's just that there is nothing about any world that is specifically intriguing or compelling to me. For Halo, I find Cortana to be amusing, but the rest of the story to be pretty mind numbing and under developed. For Half-Life, well, I can't really get into playing a crowbar swinging mute who just goes around doing whatever he's expected to do to save the world from a pretty faceless and not particularly interesting enemy.
That's not to say that I actually hate either of them, specifically, it's just that there is nothing about any world that is specifically intriguing or compelling to me. For Halo, I find Cortana to be amusing, but the rest of the story to be pretty mind numbing and under developed. For Half-Life, well, I can't really get into playing a crowbar swinging mute who just goes around doing whatever he's expected to do to save the world from a pretty faceless and not particularly interesting enemy.
Half-Life! Love the pacing and the dark, wry humor, as well as how they went about with the storytelling, seamlessly blending in the narrative into gameplay. Level design is also very good: the survival horror, the more action-paced parts, the platforming... my only gripe will always be the alien planet in the end.
I have to say it depends on what I want to do. I absolutely adored the early Halos' multiplayer, but it's almost impossible to find a better single player experience than half life 2.
Not sure why "Both" and "Other" are answers in this question, but whatever.
I gotta go Half-Life, mainly because every Halo has let me down since Halo 1 (with the possible exception of Halo 4 which is awesome if you do it on Heroic with a bunch of difficulty skulls on. Much harder and way more interesting than Legendary.) Half-Life has simply been more consistently awesome. And when I think of Halo 1 side-by-side with Half-Life 2, I just have to go with Half-Life 2. Dog, Alex, the Gravity Gun... That game is just too damn good.
God damn you, now I have to go replay both of these.
I gotta go Half-Life, mainly because every Halo has let me down since Halo 1 (with the possible exception of Halo 4 which is awesome if you do it on Heroic with a bunch of difficulty skulls on. Much harder and way more interesting than Legendary.) Half-Life has simply been more consistently awesome. And when I think of Halo 1 side-by-side with Half-Life 2, I just have to go with Half-Life 2. Dog, Alex, the Gravity Gun... That game is just too damn good.
God damn you, now I have to go replay both of these.
I've tried on numerous occasions to play through Half Life 1 and 2, and every time I just get bored with the game. So by virtue of the fact that I was engaged enough in Halo Reach to finish the game, I have to go with Halo.
Half Life hands down.
I was really amazed when Halo managed to gather such a fanbase back when it released. By growing up with PC and the NES/SNES only as a addendum to my hobby i didn't see anything special in Halo - it was just another shooter.
The multiplayer was really funny though, we often made special Halo LAN-Parties with 3-4 consoles and a dozen players over a weekend - that was a blast.
But the singleplayer was sooooooooooo boring. It was similar in expirience to GTA IV. I really tried to like it, because i knew the game is really trying to pull something epic here - but it just didn't work. It was dull, repetetive and just bland.
I just had totally diffrent expiriences with both HL's. They both had me in awe when i first played them, specially HL2. The SourceEngine back then was just : "Woah". There aren't many games which delievered an equal inspiring expirience as the Halflife series and all these games i consider are/were defining/capturing my passion for this hobby.
Half-Life 1+2, Portal, Mass Effect 1, Gothic 1+2 and Freelancer are THE most important games for me.
I was really amazed when Halo managed to gather such a fanbase back when it released. By growing up with PC and the NES/SNES only as a addendum to my hobby i didn't see anything special in Halo - it was just another shooter.
The multiplayer was really funny though, we often made special Halo LAN-Parties with 3-4 consoles and a dozen players over a weekend - that was a blast.
But the singleplayer was sooooooooooo boring. It was similar in expirience to GTA IV. I really tried to like it, because i knew the game is really trying to pull something epic here - but it just didn't work. It was dull, repetetive and just bland.
I just had totally diffrent expiriences with both HL's. They both had me in awe when i first played them, specially HL2. The SourceEngine back then was just : "Woah". There aren't many games which delievered an equal inspiring expirience as the Halflife series and all these games i consider are/were defining/capturing my passion for this hobby.
Half-Life 1+2, Portal, Mass Effect 1, Gothic 1+2 and Freelancer are THE most important games for me.
It's got to be Halo for me. While I like Half Life and appreciate its use of level design and small details to tell the story as opposed to loads of exposition, I just wasn't all that engaged by it since the gunplay doesn't really have any weight to it and the movement feels kinda being on rocket skates. Halo (at least CE through to Reach) on the other hand feels much better to play since you aren't just a floating gun and the guns are a little more varied and fun to shoot, although the Gravity Gun makes up for that in Half Life. I also prefer the universe and lore surrounding the Halo series for scale and surprising depth.
Heh, I'm old and I need easy games (or better yet, CHEATS!) I can tell that Half Life is the better game. I also had a much stronger emotional response to it. The barnacles still absolutely freak me out. But there was also something harder about it (and 2) that caused me to never finish it. I blame myself and will likely one day give it another try, but so much else has come out since then.Mr.K. said:
On the other hand, Halo was immensely playable for me. Without cheats, I beat Halo 1, 2 and 3. (360 died before I could play 4. Damn it.)
My favorite scene was a full blown armored battle in part 1. It felt like I was very relevant in a huge, game changing battle (towards the end, in an iced over area).
No matter how good it is, if you can't really play it, it fails in comparison to one that you can play and enjoy. If you're whipping your controller across a room in rage and frustration, you aren't having fun.
Yea, I adore both as well. Both have their strong points. Half Life wins in terms of pacing, story, and world-building; however, Halo wins in terms of AI, persistence, and game-loop.Dosvidonya said:
What do I mean by persistence? Through clever use of the always present hard drive, every item drop, vehicle, and corpse in Halo CE stayed there until level change. This was Huge for immersion. Combine this with the two-item limit and non-rechargable weapons, and strategy (on Heroic and above) often required backtracking to get more weapons. This put stress on the player to remember each encounter (in order to remember where item dropped for future reference) which consequently made each encounter more memorable! Genius!
Well, Gordon ain't an übersoldier like Spartan so he might need a couple of seconds to ready himself to toss the grenade (after all, his speciality is to plug things like we saw in HL2). Heck, I've tossed a live one, and even with training it's not as quick as "push the button and soon explosion happens". =)Dosvidonya said:
Edit: Also, most people need two hands to carry and fire an assault rifle etc., so a swing with a crowbar in a fraction of a second when needed in a hurry can be a bit difficult.
I'm the kind of girl that loves both so much that she has a figure of Gordon Freeman displayed to be sharing drinks at a miniature bar with the Chief, Chell, and Grayson Hunt on her shelf. So yeah, both.
Half life gets my vote because I can play all of the half Life games on my laptop, whereas Microsoft only released halo 1 & 2 on pc. Damn microsoft for not supporting it's operating system.
Games stand up or fall down based on game play in my eyes. I can forgive a game with a bad story, characters and design if its actual game play is just really fun, however a game with an amazing story or secret narrative intricately woven into the game but has terrible or even sub par game play I will not forgive it.
Therefore I have to choose Halo from a game play standpoint as it has more depth, has more of a kick and weight to it and is more fun. The covenant are one of the best enemies in gaming and this is due to the huge variety of enemies that can be fought and their ability to carry different weapons. I had more fun fighting dynamic and thinking Elites rather than the Combines incompetent rip-off storm troopers.
Granted I had only recently played through Half-Life 2 and I believe my expectations of the game were too high which harmed the play-through for me and has put me off the series.
Therefore I have to choose Halo from a game play standpoint as it has more depth, has more of a kick and weight to it and is more fun. The covenant are one of the best enemies in gaming and this is due to the huge variety of enemies that can be fought and their ability to carry different weapons. I had more fun fighting dynamic and thinking Elites rather than the Combines incompetent rip-off storm troopers.
Granted I had only recently played through Half-Life 2 and I believe my expectations of the game were too high which harmed the play-through for me and has put me off the series.
Personally, Half-Life for me, I find the campaign for Halo quite boring, I like the story behind it, I have read one of the books I just feel like 1 & 2 haven't dated very well. I rather enjoyed the campaign for 3 and I am yet to play 4 but overall I find Half-Life 1 & 2 much more enjoyable than Halo.