That Was Half-Life 2?

[Davey Woo]

Half Life 2 had bad endings before it was cool to have bad endings. (Mass Effect 3)

Joking aside, I didn't find the ending too bad as I had the Orange box so I played 2, ep1 and ep 2 pretty much consecutively. I also don't really mind a cliffhanger style ending when I'm pretty sure that I'll eventually get to find out what happens, but at the moment that's not very likely to happen.

 

[Professor Putricide]

In retrospect, the ending was kinda meh, considering the lack of anything after. But as stated, Valve did get the first episode out shortly after. I rage more about the ending of Episode 2, but that's more because there' isn't an Episode 3. (Bah)

But even with that said, I really did like the HL2 ending in it's on way. Although I'm probably bias since I consider the G-Man to be one of the most interesting and amazing characters in gaming and seeing him end the game was pretty neat and without spoiling anything, his future appearances and 'heart to heart' meetings defiantly leave you wanting to know more about him.

Episode 3 can't come soon enough. And lord knows I'll be screaming out of joy IF they ever announce it.

 

[Cymen]

Can't wait to hear the OP's opinion after he played the Episodes >:3
Maybe he will finally understand why people want Ep3 so badly.

 

[Netrigan]

The Ending: It was released in a simpler time when we didn't expect decent endings.

Okay, we did expect completely non-sucky endings and there was much gnashing of teeth about the non-ending when it was released, but it was never seen to have completely undermined the experience. Since then, the game has continued on, so it's really not worth mentioning anymore.

 

[drobear]

why would you post this all you gonna get is hate.

 

[R3dF41c0n]

IMO it was very similar to the ending of Half Life 1 (and Opposing Force) so I guess the fans expected it. I know I wasn't shocked when I first played it.

 

[wooty]

I thought HL2 was boring and the story made barely any sense. I completely lost track of what was going on around the "highway" section of it, then it just became another futuristic FPS with a decent coat of paint. The only thing I liked from it (back in the day) was the source engine, so new and fresh at the time.

Now excuse me while I brace for the innevitable valve fans "inbox of hate charge".

[http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/337/fireoa.jpg/]

 

[drobear]

nano-suit be damned give me a mark V hazardous enviroment suit and a crowbar and im set for life

 

[Leninv3l]

The ending was pretty similar to the ending of Half Life, so it didn't anger me that much because it kept making me wonder what g-man's motives exactly were. I couldn't wait for the next sequel to elaborate, but, two episodes later i'm still kind of wondering what the hell is going on with the whole g-man, breen, combine struggle. Whatever. I'll just keep waiting for Half Life 3... I really wasn't angered by the ending due mainly in part to the fact that i had just finished one of the best games up to that point, and promptly started over again.

 

[GoaThief]

Is this a real question?

Of course it is.

The nano-suit is pure awesome. Certainly much more innovative and deeper than the gravity gun

Yes, it has more functions but on balance it is hardly intuitive - I cannot even make key binds for the suit's powers for example! Neither is it the most original concept but it works well for a tech demo, the power drains too quickly to dramatically change the gameplay throughout the entire campaign.

(not saying that's HL2's main appeal, but most people seem to think so).

Evidence, please.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

First game to come to mind? Crysis. A million times better, in my mind.

Honestly? What things did Crysis do better than Half Life 2, aside from the obvious high-end graphics department?

A more interesting, involving story that makes you feel like a small (important) piece in a much larger game of chess. Open-ended world allows for varied approaches--including stealth, ranged attacks (sniper), frontal assaults, a mix of everything or avoiding the situation entirely. A wide variety of well fleshed out environments that seem alive--including a vibrant tropical island, complete with marine life and flora, cold, militaristic bases and dens that vary from technological marvels to haphazard throw-togethers, small villages and towns that feel lived in and world weary and an appropriately alien ship that is both disorientating and fascinating. More than a simple set piece, the alien ship throws the player into a completely foreign landscape that hungers to be explored, while simultaneously making known its tremendous and unsettling dangers at every turn. The ship also marks a turning point in the game, when both the world around you and the enemies you face permanently change in dramatic and fantastical ways. All that and I haven't even spoken of the people populating the breathtaking world of Crysis, all of whom behave and appear more realistically than I think any game has ever dared attempt.

Half-Life 2, on the other hand, I found boring, tripe, dull and void of any sense of real human context. The game goes out of its way to make a point of its characters, but in doing so it also makes it painfully obvious that the bulk of them are set pieces, designed to open doors for you and to explain the story to the player. Those that are expanded upon are done so solely through long, detached dialog that is completely uninteractive. For a game so touted as deep and evolving, the majority of characters we are shown are lifeless and stale. The inherent lack of player agency and sense of place in the world is hammered home every time an individual speaks to Gordon, as you are given no way to respond or indeed interacting with them at all--people spend more time talking about you and too you than with you. The landscape is forgettable and uninteresting. The scenery is equally as bland, with the load divided levels serving more as things to do than places to explore or simply 'be in.' The gun-play is clunky and awkward, but not in a realistic way, but in a 'this feel shit' way. The story is slow and sporadically populated with purpose; most of your time is spent just going somewhere, with no real sense of reason or ultimate motivation beyond "bad guys are bad."

Half-Life 2 isn't a bad game--it's fine. What it is, is over-hyped and misremembered. The core gameplay is nothing special, with physics puzzles (something Valve wanks to so much my hand hurts) horrendously hokey haunted houses, long stretches of driving across randomly enemy dotted grasslands and beaches, and standing still being spoken at making up 99% of your time with the game. It doesn't do any of it badly, it just spends so much time setting up the world with that crap that it has no time to follow through with it and actually deliver anything I found worthwhile. I didn't even mention my biggest gripe--but I will now: it's utterly stupid. A lone scientist wins out over a massive military and technologically superior might with enough man power to populate a small island? Bullshit. A lone super solider kicking hundreds of poorly equipped militia? Sure. Throw in some aliens and shit is no longer playing to realism, so I'm cool with that--my suspension of disbelief doesn't even need to be contacted for an opinion. Give me a nerd with a crowbar somehow eluding and repeatedly devastating an industrial machine, the likes of which would make Nazi Germany green with envy and I have to pick up my phone and say what-the-fuck?

Crysis is a shooter with a big, awesome world and cool, engaging story to shoot, explode and fly your way through. Half-Life 2 tried to be too much and ends up not doing any of it well.

 

[Spitfire]

What do you think would've been a more suiting ending?

Personally, I think it's great. It harkens back to the ending of the original Half-Life, and the story is continued in episodes 1 and 2, so it's not like that's the way the series ends.

 

[johnnnny guitar]

hmmmm well that's kinda how all the games end I haven't really thought of it as being bad.
I can easily see why some people will be pissed off though but at least they got episode 1+2 out on time (kinda) but man oh man is episode 3 taking a long fucking time.

 

[Woodsey]

I've never taken issue with it - it pertains directly to an overarching element of the series.

People are very quick to get into a furor about endings for stuff because they don't resolve in the classical sense; they tend to just ditch any awareness of themes or narrative traits as soon as it doesn't play out how they were hoping.

There's no hard and fast rule on how to end something, and a satisfying ending doesn't equal a fitting or even 'good' one. (At least, not satisfying in how people define 'satisfying'.)

 

[PurePareidolia]

I think if I'd played it on release and got that I might have been a lot madder than the "weird, I'd better go start up Episode 1 then" feeling I got when I first played it in the Orange Box.

It was kind of in keeping with what Half Life 1 started, and I honestly don't know what else I'd have put there in place of it, but then - it tied straight into the episodes so I probably could've come up with something had it not done so.

 

[Netrigan]

First game to come to mind? Crysis. A million times better, in my mind.

Honestly? What things did Crysis do better than Half Life 2, aside from the obvious high-end graphics department?

A more interesting, involving story that makes you feel like a small (important) piece in a much larger game of chess. Open-ended world allows for varied approaches--including stealth, ranged attacks (sniper), frontal assaults, a mix of everything or avoiding the situation entirely. A wide variety of well fleshed out environments that seem alive--including a vibrant tropical island, complete with marine life and flora, cold, militaristic bases and dens that vary from technological marvels to haphazard throw-togethers, small villages and towns that feel lived in and world weary and an appropriately alien ship that is both disorientating and fascinating. More than a simple set piece, the alien ship throws the player into a completely foreign landscape that hungers to be explored, while simultaneously making known its tremendous and unsettling dangers at every turn. The ship also marks a turning point in the game, when both the world around you and the enemies you face permanently change in dramatic and fantastical ways. All that and I haven't even spoken of the people populating the breathtaking world of Crysis, all of whom behave and appear more realistically than I think any game has ever dared attempt.

Half-Life 2, on the other hand, I found boring, tripe, dull and void of any sense of real human context. The game goes out of its way to make a point of its characters, but in doing so it also makes it painfully obvious that the bulk of them are set pieces, designed to open doors for you and to explain the story to the player. Those that are expanded upon are done so solely through long, detached dialog that is completely uninteractive. For a game so touted as deep and evolving, the majority of characters we are shown are lifeless and stale. The inherent lack of player agency and sense of place in the world is hammered home every time an individual speaks to Gordon, as you are given no way to respond or indeed interacting with them at all--people spend more time talking about you and too you than with you. The landscape is forgettable and uninteresting. The scenery is equally as bland, with the load divided levels serving more as things to do than places to explore or simply 'be in.' The gun-play is clunky and awkward, but not in a realistic way, but in a 'this feel shit' way. The story is slow and sporadically populated with purpose; most of your time is spent just going somewhere, with no real sense of reason or ultimate motivation beyond "bad guys are bad."

Half-Life 2 isn't a bad game--it's fine. What it is, is over-hyped and misremembered. The core gameplay is nothing special, with physics puzzles (something Valve wanks to so much my hand hurts) horrendously hokey haunted houses, long stretches of driving across randomly enemy dotted grasslands and beaches, and standing still being spoken at making up 99% of your time with the game. It doesn't do any of it badly, it just spends so much time setting up the world with that crap that it has no time to follow through with it and actually deliver anything I found worthwhile. I didn't even mention my biggest gripe--but I will now: it's utterly stupid. A lone scientist wins out over a massive military and technologically superior might with enough man power to populate a small island? Bullshit. A lone super solider kicking hundreds of poorly equipped militia? Sure. Throw in some aliens and shit is no longer playing to realism, so I'm cool with that--my suspension of disbelief doesn't even need to be contacted for an opinion. Give me a nerd with a crowbar somehow eluding and repeatedly devastating an industrial machine, the likes of which would make Nazi Germany green with envy and I have to pick up my phone and say what-the-fuck?

Crysis is a shooter with a big, awesome world and cool, engaging story to shoot, explode and fly your way through. Half-Life 2 tried to be too much and ends up not doing any of it well.

The intent of each is different. Crytech tends to go for more open-world environments where you're free to approach situations in different ways and combat styles. Half-Life, with its many scripted events telling the story in-game needs to keep you reigned in a lot more.

This is a lot like the dick-waving contest between Halo & Call Of Duty. Comparing the two falls apart almost immediately, because both games are trying to accomplish two completely different things. One doesn't suck because it fails to achieve the goals of the other game.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

First game to come to mind? Crysis. A million times better, in my mind.

Honestly? What things did Crysis do better than Half Life 2, aside from the obvious high-end graphics department?

A more interesting, involving story that makes you feel like a small (important) piece in a much larger game of chess. Open-ended world allows for varied approaches--including stealth, ranged attacks (sniper), frontal assaults, a mix of everything or avoiding the situation entirely. A wide variety of well fleshed out environments that seem alive--including a vibrant tropical island, complete with marine life and flora, cold, militaristic bases and dens that vary from technological marvels to haphazard throw-togethers, small villages and towns that feel lived in and world weary and an appropriately alien ship that is both disorientating and fascinating. More than a simple set piece, the alien ship throws the player into a completely foreign landscape that hungers to be explored, while simultaneously making known its tremendous and unsettling dangers at every turn. The ship also marks a turning point in the game, when both the world around you and the enemies you face permanently change in dramatic and fantastical ways. All that and I haven't even spoken of the people populating the breathtaking world of Crysis, all of whom behave and appear more realistically than I think any game has ever dared attempt.

Half-Life 2, on the other hand, I found boring, tripe, dull and void of any sense of real human context. The game goes out of its way to make a point of its characters, but in doing so it also makes it painfully obvious that the bulk of them are set pieces, designed to open doors for you and to explain the story to the player. Those that are expanded upon are done so solely through long, detached dialog that is completely uninteractive. For a game so touted as deep and evolving, the majority of characters we are shown are lifeless and stale. The inherent lack of player agency and sense of place in the world is hammered home every time an individual speaks to Gordon, as you are given no way to respond or indeed interacting with them at all--people spend more time talking about you and too you than with you. The landscape is forgettable and uninteresting. The scenery is equally as bland, with the load divided levels serving more as things to do than places to explore or simply 'be in.' The gun-play is clunky and awkward, but not in a realistic way, but in a 'this feel shit' way. The story is slow and sporadically populated with purpose; most of your time is spent just going somewhere, with no real sense of reason or ultimate motivation beyond "bad guys are bad."

Half-Life 2 isn't a bad game--it's fine. What it is, is over-hyped and misremembered. The core gameplay is nothing special, with physics puzzles (something Valve wanks to so much my hand hurts) horrendously hokey haunted houses, long stretches of driving across randomly enemy dotted grasslands and beaches, and standing still being spoken at making up 99% of your time with the game. It doesn't do any of it badly, it just spends so much time setting up the world with that crap that it has no time to follow through with it and actually deliver anything I found worthwhile. I didn't even mention my biggest gripe--but I will now: it's utterly stupid. A lone scientist wins out over a massive military and technologically superior might with enough man power to populate a small island? Bullshit. A lone super solider kicking hundreds of poorly equipped militia? Sure. Throw in some aliens and shit is no longer playing to realism, so I'm cool with that--my suspension of disbelief doesn't even need to be contacted for an opinion. Give me a nerd with a crowbar somehow eluding and repeatedly devastating an industrial machine, the likes of which would make Nazi Germany green with envy and I have to pick up my phone and say what-the-fuck?

Crysis is a shooter with a big, awesome world and cool, engaging story to shoot, explode and fly your way through. Half-Life 2 tried to be too much and ends up not doing any of it well.

The intent of each is different. Crytech tends to go for more open-world environments where you're free to approach situations in different ways and combat styles. Half-Life, with its many scripted events telling the story in-game needs to keep you reigned in a lot more.

This is a lot like the dick-waving contest between Halo & Call Of Duty. Comparing the two falls apart almost immediately, because both games are trying to accomplish two completely different things. One doesn't suck because it fails to achieve the goals of the other game.

The thing is, in my opinion Half-Life 2 doesn't achieve its own goals.

"Half-Life 2 tried to be too much and ends up not doing any of it well."

 

[Nazulu]

People like to pretend Half-Life is some perfect series Valve blessed us mortals with. In reality, Half-Life 2 is simply a cool story with gameplay that was great at the time and is simply okay now. Nothing incredible or amazing, despite how fervently the fans froth at the mouth to tell you otherwise.

It's partly due to it being 'in' to like Valve and to think Half-Life (namely the second) is amazing, and also because it was one of the first to blend the FPS with actual story telling fairly well. Nowhere near the best, but hey, nostalgia makes fanboys of people pretty easily. Oh, and Yahtzee likes Half-Life 2, so, you know, sheeple and stuff.

Guess I should listen to whatever you say so I'm no longer a sheep. With a detailed analysis like that, how could I possibly have believed HL2 was great game at all?

-_-

Call me a sheep, I call you an ignorant troll. Your not going to convince anyone just crapping on like that. Some people have the gift of writing in detail and actually proving things, you are nowhere near. All you are going to do is succeed in is just showing everyone how immature you are. I recommend playing nice and actually studying how to write in detail since you want to be opiniated. You might as well do a good job of it, kapeesh?

 

[Netrigan]

First game to come to mind? Crysis. A million times better, in my mind.

Honestly? What things did Crysis do better than Half Life 2, aside from the obvious high-end graphics department?

A more interesting, involving story that makes you feel like a small (important) piece in a much larger game of chess. Open-ended world allows for varied approaches--including stealth, ranged attacks (sniper), frontal assaults, a mix of everything or avoiding the situation entirely. A wide variety of well fleshed out environments that seem alive--including a vibrant tropical island, complete with marine life and flora, cold, militaristic bases and dens that vary from technological marvels to haphazard throw-togethers, small villages and towns that feel lived in and world weary and an appropriately alien ship that is both disorientating and fascinating. More than a simple set piece, the alien ship throws the player into a completely foreign landscape that hungers to be explored, while simultaneously making known its tremendous and unsettling dangers at every turn. The ship also marks a turning point in the game, when both the world around you and the enemies you face permanently change in dramatic and fantastical ways. All that and I haven't even spoken of the people populating the breathtaking world of Crysis, all of whom behave and appear more realistically than I think any game has ever dared attempt.

Half-Life 2, on the other hand, I found boring, tripe, dull and void of any sense of real human context. The game goes out of its way to make a point of its characters, but in doing so it also makes it painfully obvious that the bulk of them are set pieces, designed to open doors for you and to explain the story to the player. Those that are expanded upon are done so solely through long, detached dialog that is completely uninteractive. For a game so touted as deep and evolving, the majority of characters we are shown are lifeless and stale. The inherent lack of player agency and sense of place in the world is hammered home every time an individual speaks to Gordon, as you are given no way to respond or indeed interacting with them at all--people spend more time talking about you and too you than with you. The landscape is forgettable and uninteresting. The scenery is equally as bland, with the load divided levels serving more as things to do than places to explore or simply 'be in.' The gun-play is clunky and awkward, but not in a realistic way, but in a 'this feel shit' way. The story is slow and sporadically populated with purpose; most of your time is spent just going somewhere, with no real sense of reason or ultimate motivation beyond "bad guys are bad."

Half-Life 2 isn't a bad game--it's fine. What it is, is over-hyped and misremembered. The core gameplay is nothing special, with physics puzzles (something Valve wanks to so much my hand hurts) horrendously hokey haunted houses, long stretches of driving across randomly enemy dotted grasslands and beaches, and standing still being spoken at making up 99% of your time with the game. It doesn't do any of it badly, it just spends so much time setting up the world with that crap that it has no time to follow through with it and actually deliver anything I found worthwhile. I didn't even mention my biggest gripe--but I will now: it's utterly stupid. A lone scientist wins out over a massive military and technologically superior might with enough man power to populate a small island? Bullshit. A lone super solider kicking hundreds of poorly equipped militia? Sure. Throw in some aliens and shit is no longer playing to realism, so I'm cool with that--my suspension of disbelief doesn't even need to be contacted for an opinion. Give me a nerd with a crowbar somehow eluding and repeatedly devastating an industrial machine, the likes of which would make Nazi Germany green with envy and I have to pick up my phone and say what-the-fuck?

Crysis is a shooter with a big, awesome world and cool, engaging story to shoot, explode and fly your way through. Half-Life 2 tried to be too much and ends up not doing any of it well.

The intent of each is different. Crytech tends to go for more open-world environments where you're free to approach situations in different ways and combat styles. Half-Life, with its many scripted events telling the story in-game needs to keep you reigned in a lot more.

This is a lot like the dick-waving contest between Halo & Call Of Duty. Comparing the two falls apart almost immediately, because both games are trying to accomplish two completely different things. One doesn't suck because it fails to achieve the goals of the other game.

The thing is, in my opinion Half-Life 2 doesn't achieve its own goals.

"Half-Life 2 tried to be too much and ends up not doing any of it well."

Its fans would seem to disagree.

I personally think Crysis is kind of a dumbed down Far Cry with super-powers and regenerating health and kind of boring to boot (it took three tries and two purchases for me to finish the thing); but its fans seem to love it to death... and they're not wrong. It just happens to fall outside of what I like in a game. Oddly enough, Crysis 2 fell inside that circle for me.

I thought HL2 (while over-rated) was a pretty fun ride. It's a pretty long game that does its best to mix things up. Some sections don't work all that well (the squad levels are completely forgettable IMO), but I generally had a blast playing it all those years ago.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

I recommend playing nice and actually studying how to write in detail since you want to be opiniated. You might as well do a good job of it, kapeesh?

Oh, you mean like this:

"A more interesting, involving story that makes you feel like a small (important) piece in a much larger game of chess. Open-ended world allows for varied approaches--including stealth, ranged attacks (sniper), frontal assaults, a mix of everything or avoiding the situation entirely. A wide variety of well fleshed out environments that seem alive--including a vibrant tropical island, complete with marine life and flora, cold, militaristic bases and dens that vary from technological marvels to haphazard throw-togethers, small villages and towns that feel lived in and world weary and an appropriately alien ship that is both disorientating and fascinating. More than a simple set piece, the alien ship throws the player into a completely foreign landscape that hungers to be explored, while simultaneously making known its tremendous and unsettling dangers at every turn. The ship also marks a turning point in the game, when both the world around you and the enemies you face permanently change in dramatic and fantastical ways. All that and I haven't even spoken of the people populating the breathtaking world of Crysis, all of whom behave and appear more realistically than I think any game has ever dared attempt.

Half-Life 2, on the other hand, I found boring, tripe, dull and void of any sense of real human context. The game goes out of its way to make a point of its characters, but in doing so it also makes it painfully obvious that the bulk of them are set pieces, designed to open doors for you and to explain the story to the player. Those that are expanded upon are done so solely through long, detached dialog that is completely uninteractive. For a game so touted as deep and evolving, the majority of characters we are shown are lifeless and stale. The inherent lack of player agency and sense of place in the world is hammered home every time an individual speaks to Gordon, as you are given no way to respond or indeed interacting with them at all--people spend more time talking about you and too you than with you. The landscape is forgettable and uninteresting. The scenery is equally as bland, with the load divided levels serving more as things to do than places to explore or simply 'be in.' The gun-play is clunky and awkward, but not in a realistic way, but in a 'this feel shit' way. The story is slow and sporadically populated with purpose; most of your time is spent just going somewhere, with no real sense of reason or ultimate motivation beyond "bad guys are bad."

Half-Life 2 isn't a bad game--it's fine. What it is, is over-hyped and misremembered. The core gameplay is nothing special, with physics puzzles (something Valve wanks to so much my hand hurts) horrendously hokey haunted houses, long stretches of driving across randomly enemy dotted grasslands and beaches, and standing still being spoken at making up 99% of your time with the game. It doesn't do any of it badly, it just spends so much time setting up the world with that crap that it has no time to follow through with it and actually deliver anything I found worthwhile. I didn't even mention my biggest gripe--but I will now: it's utterly stupid. A lone scientist wins out over a massive military and technologically superior might with enough man power to populate a small island? Bullshit. A lone super solider kicking hundreds of poorly equipped militia? Sure. Throw in some aliens and shit is no longer playing to realism, so I'm cool with that--my suspension of disbelief doesn't even need to be contacted for an opinion. Give me a nerd with a crowbar somehow eluding and repeatedly devastating an industrial machine, the likes of which would make Nazi Germany green with envy and I have to pick up my phone and say what-the-fuck?

Crysis is a shooter with a big, awesome world and cool, engaging story to shoot, explode and fly your way through. Half-Life 2 tried to be too much and ends up not doing any of it well."

Yeah, turns out I did write some detail--you just didn't read the thread.

P.S.: it's against the forum rules to call others a troll. So to is it against the rules to blatantly insult others personally.

[link]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.373160.14435369[/link]