That Was Half-Life 2?

[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]

 

[HavoK 09]

I played twenty minutes of HL2 and got bored. Went back to TF2 and stayed there for three hours.

Bring it on, Valve fans.

you stopped playing a valve game to play another valve game, good for you

As for the OP, i when i played HL2 all the episodes and been released so i wasnt so shocked, yes it was an abrupt ending but i had the episodes already downloaded and i just kept on going.

 

[Mr Somewhere]

Why is it that those who "dare" dislike Valve games or simply just Half-Life 2 seem to act with the idea that they're glorious martyrs and free thinkers. It almost seems as if this site has shifted, that it's much more popular to dislike Half-Life 2 as if it were old-hat.

 

[Johnny Impact]

Heh, if you're raging now, wait until you finish Ep2.

I'll grab some popcorn and wait.

I'm with this guy. Can't remember the last time I finished a game and felt so satisfied and so robbed at the same time. You're killin' us, Valve.

 

[Nazulu]

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]

So you were following forum rules when calling everyone who enjoyed the game sheeple? If you don't like insults then you shouldn't insult others.

Also that wall of text is not proving any thing so it's not convincing in any way, it's just your opinion. 90% of the people who create arguments make the same problem.

 

[Vigormortis]

Spoiler: Sampling of posts in this thread from people who hate Valve

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.

It was made by Valve that is why. I am fairly certain Gabe Newell could break into most Valve fans houses steal all their stuff and they would thank him for it.

Spoiler: Sampling of posts in this thread from people who like Half-Life

There were so many unanswered questions that I had no doubt in my mind that the ending was not the conclusion to the series, and thus wasn't bothered. Endings with closure would only hinder the flow of the series, well, that and a absurdly long wait for episode 3. I just can't wait to see if all this G-man speculation will payoff or fail miserably.

I complained about the ending awhile ago, even though I love the game. It's just that I find most game endings are pretty crap, either cliche' or boring, and HL2's ending I prefered over all of those so I didn't see as that much of big deal.

Huh...I could have sworn I saw someone predict these types of posts before... Now where did I see that?

Oh yeah. It was me earlier in this thread -

I saw the thread title and thought, "Welp. Guess we're back to 'normal' again. Time for the weekly 'Valve/Half-Life suck(s)' threads to commence."

Which also reminded me of the kinds of posts to expect.

Spoiler: Average type of post from someone who loves to hate on Valve and it's fans...

1 - "Complains about how 'bad' the games are and that they deserve no praise at all. Yet most of them haven't even played the games."
2 - "Implies that anyone who does like these games is a tasteless twat or a mindless fan-boy."
3 - "Essentially insults the fans and then themselves act all 'offended' when anyone dares to respond back or offer a retort or differing opinion."
4 - "Makes some off-hand comment about 'Don't speak ill of Valve around these parts lest you risk being burned at the stake.' or some such thing."
5 - "Hypocritically implies that the forum is full of overly vocal Valve defenders when in fact you're more likely to see detractors being more vocal."
6 - "Complains, rather ironically, about people always talking about Half-Life; when in fact the ones always bringing it up are those that hate the series."

Spoiler: Average post from someone who is a fan of Valve and/or Half-Life...

I actually thought the ending was handled rather well. I first played the entire Half Life series sometime mid last year, and the theme that events are being controlled by some greater forces, and that the characters, and especially Gordon Freeman, are just pieces on a rather large chessboard, was rather well done.

I think this is why people didn't rage as much on HL2 as they did on ME3, or other games endings.

Other games give "choice", and people get made when they are told your choice is nothing.

Half-Life has always been about gordon being this pawn, whose actions are controlled by a higher being.

Yeah. The Valve fans are the annoying ones... -___-

 

[Vigormortis]

Why is it that those who "dare" dislike Valve games or simply just Half-Life 2 seem to act with the idea that they're glorious martyrs and free thinkers. It almost seems as if this site has shifted, that it's much more popular to dislike Half-Life 2 as if it were old-hat.

Thank God I'm not the only one who's noticing. More often than not the only people you hear talking about Half-Life 2 anymore are the same people who CONSTANTLY ***** about how much praise it gets. And, as I often point out, they then will (ironically) ***** about people always talking about Half-Life 2.

It really does show who the contrarian hipsters of the forum are; when they go out of their way to belittle and berate those games, Valve, and it's fans. Or some other game series for that matter. It's become the new "cool" thing to do.

These people seemingly spend so much time thinking of some new way to ***** about Half-Life or a new way to put down the Valve fans that it's hard to imagine they have any time to play games at all. That is, of course, unless they have no lives. I.E. no job, no girlfriend/boyfriend, etc, etc.

If that's the case, I suppose they have to find something to fill the void in between gaming and sleeping. I guess the new thing is picking on Valve fans.

I'd probably be mad at them for their rude nature if it weren't so sad. In fact, I pity them.

Even worse? Anyone who does actually try to offer up a decent counter-opinion of the series is quickly drowned out by the overwhelming number of posts from those who just like insulting anyone who likes the series.

My God I miss what this forum was back when I first joined. And, I miss how much better most people acted. How much more respect was shown for other members; even those that didn't have similar opinions.