Half life 2 overrated?

[QUOTE="Raider762"]Half Life 2 is auseless game because it doesn't mention it requires a broadband connection on the box. I was given this useless game on my B-day and tried to make it work for 5 hours!! I had it on an old laptop but it was too old of a laptop to run the damn thing, so in the end I returned it to Best Buy and recieved full compensation of $55 and instead purchased the original Star Wars trillogy on DVD instead.I will never purchase a valve/steam product ever again!!sSubZerOo

Wait you think its useless because YOUR hardware is what sucks?

AHAHAHAHA. raider 762...that is without a doubt one of the most ridiculous statements i have ever heard in my entire life. judging one of the greatest games ever imo on your ownfailure.and, i have 56k, yeah...56k, and i got the game going in a little over an hour.

Half life 2 is one of the, if not the, best game ive ever played. and its competition is half life 1. ive never been so immeresed in a gaming world as i am with the half life series. but, i guess im kindaobsessed. ive had the same hl2 background on my pc for 2 years now.

Ok so lets review the downsides to HalfLife2 first and then proceed onto the positives....

• Gunplay in the game wasn't amazing and the AI wasn't as intelligent as it could have been. This resulted in the game being kind of easy, even on the hard difficulty which didn't offer much of a tactical challenge to the player. It mean't the player didn't really have to use the terrain to their advantage for cover and such like.

• It lacked some of the intensity that HalfLife had, NPC's are somewhat predictable (this is partly due to the AI) because they dont spawn out of the blue like in HalfLife. I think everyone can remember when you played HalfLife and cleared a corridor of enemies you often had a few spawn behind you just as you thought everything was safe. This really kept the player alert and created a nice tense atmosphere that made you stay alert in order to stay alive. HalfLife2 lacked this tense atmosphere, only the Ravenholm section of the game comes close to this and still didn't have the same feeling.

• The weapons in HalfLife2 could of done with some improving in terms of skins, textures and design. I still feel the weapons in HalfLife2 aren't all that attractive and there isn't much variation really. The addition of some more weapons would of been cool, like possibly having the iconic AK47 since the game is set in Eastern Europe i believe. This may be a minor issue but one i felt needed addressing.

Thats the only real negatives that make the game not reach a 10/10 in my opinion, now onto the positives...

• First rate physics system, never has a game before HalfLife2 had such amazingly real life physics and delivered it oh so well. Even today some of the games after HalfLife2 still haven't got the same sort of physics that it had/has which is what makes it even better. Simple things like jumping on a crate from a certain height will cause it to break beneath your weight.

• The gravity gun, probably the coolest and most iconic weapon to be created for an FPS ever. With the great physics system HalfLife2 has to offer players, the gravity gun allows them to make full use of it. A genius puzzle solving device and alternative weapon of choice for the more creative player. Truly the best example of innovation in a game that i have seen in a long time before and after its release.

• Storyline driven action and not action driven storyline. HalfLife2's plot isn't driven by action and gunplay but rather the gunplay and action is driven by the plot itself which i found a nice refreshing feature to the FPS genre. Games in the FPS genre have a bad habit of driving the storyline by forcing players to complete objective A to reach area X then complete objective B to complete objective C so they can move onto area Z. In HalfLife2 there is no objectives to further the storyline but rather the storyline furthers the objectives and thats what makes it special. Players didn't feel pressured into completing missions or objectives in a certain time etc to be able to move the plot along. It simply required the player to gunplay when enemies appeared and carry on moving.

• Aswell as this the storyline was continued through scripted sequences, not one single cutscene in the game, which had never been done before and i dont think its been done since. This was pretty cool and unique as players didn't have to wait for a movie to load to further the plot then wait for the game to load again so they could continue playing. It also removed that horrible problem that occurs sometimes where cutscene movies dont load when they should forcing the player to find a fix by either reloading a earlier save or waiting for a patch to fix the bug.

• The levels/maps/locations in the game itself were unique aswell in that they were familiar yet foreign all at the same time. We start off in some 1980-1990 ****Eastern European city thats familiar to the player yet made foreign by the presence of the combine technology found throughout it. This makes a change from either playing in a totally sci-fi setting or more contemporary one like most FPS games follow. This ****of mixing familiar and foreign really adds a new twist to the setting of an FPS game as the player comes across many things they will recognise while coming across others that seem strange.

• The detail in the enviroments the player encounters was also wonderous, from lighting, shading and water textures to the items and such like in the world the player enters. This really showed to the player the ground breaking graphics and visuals that the Source engine had to offer them. Although the Source engine is getting a bit old now, 3 or 4 years nearlly, it's still got amazing visual quality to offer players and with the close release of Episode2 it will be getting a nice update to polish various aspects of it.

• HalfLife2 was also one of the first games to offer in-depth characterisation of NPC's. So much so that they genuinely felt more like real people than virtually created entities to interact with the player. I don't think i've come across an NPC anywhere near as real or personified as Alyx Vance was in HalfLife2 and Episode1. Truly remarkable and amazing all at once, from the voice acting and dialogue to the facial animations, the NPC's in HalfLife2 were really great and better than any game had before HalfLife2. The player also had the opportunity to speak to the NPC's they encountered in the game and get a reaction out of them. Talking to them at the start of HalfLife2 helped the player understand a little of what happened between HalfLife and HafLife2, again furthering the plot without the need for gunplay.

• Another thing i feel HalfLife2 did well was that it never became stagnant, there wasn't a moment in the game where you felt "oh boy, another run and gun moment" just to further the plot. It constantly had the player moving from place to place following the storyline instead of the action. At the start of the game your evading the law on rooftops, then your traversing canals on a hybrid hovercraft then walking through a ghost town evading the infected populace while being aided by some mysterious and benevolent priest. Then driving down a derelict highway and through the country meeting NPC's struggling to survive outside the safety of a city that wishes to opress them. And in the process you feel genuine empathy for them because they have so little hope, yet they still struggle against opression in order to survive and one day claim back what was theirs.

• As for the gunplay in HalfLife2 it wasn't amazing as the AI was rather bad, but there was variation in what you had to shoot and kill in terms of enemies. And coupled with the gravity gun this became rather entertaining, especially when you had all sorts of objects to fling at them, who didn't enjoy chucking saw blades at zombies or chucking petrol cans at them and watching them scream and burn?

I've realised just how long this post has gone on, so i'm cutting it short as i can no longer be bothered typing...my fingers hurt :) lol. All in all i think HalfLife2 is deserving of its high praise and great review scores and the crowbar beside me dares anyone to say otherwise :P:twisted:

EDIT - added better paragraphing and if you see some **** ignore it, its the Gamespot censor thing doing its job a little too well! :evil:

well... i think it's a great game..

onlythinkidisagreewithisthereplayvalue...The2ndtimeiplayeditigotsoboredmidwayistopped.

It has been called the best game of all time. It has gotten AAA rank in almost every review publication. But does anyone else think it should have scored much lower of an average? I do, but Im curious as to what you people think. And why?lithuania_pride

If they did a poll i think u would be part of a really SMALL percentage like 1% i would say heh

First the story was AMAZING something few games have now a days....

Second gameplay was great, AI was good, great weapons the gravity gun admit it, it is an innovation...

Third it had great graphics and introduced physics

For me it was an experience and is the kind of game that leaves u wanting more and more that kind of game u stop playing to work or study and u cant wait to keep playing to see whats next what happens

I've yet to finish that game. It's good but tends to get boring.Deihmos

Unlike Halo which is just amazing, right?

shouldn't all of you half life haters be off pWnInG n00bs in your wonderful halo 3?

[QUOTE="mfsa"]

[QUOTE="Grantelicious"]Well considering HL2 is focused 100% on gunplay then it's a shooter and not anything else, if the game wanted to be anything different then it coulda just been oblivion or sumthing.Nigel_Tufnel

half life 2 isn't focused 100% on the gunplay - that's my point, you're focused 100% on the gunplay, and that's why you aren't so impressed with the game

if you don't want to like the game, that's fine by me - each to their own, but you're judging a cricle harshly for not being a triangle

it's not a triangle, it's not trying to be a triangle - half life 2 is a circle.

It's a GAME, hence the focus on GAME-play. If I wanted a boring pseudo-deep movie, I'd watch the Matrix 2.

yeah? is that a counter-argument? because i don't see it

the gameplay is great, it's constantly changing and constantly offers new experiences (beyond just shooting an enemy that looks slightly different in a slightly different location), which makes it almost singular in the fps genre

of course the focus is on gameplay, who said it wasn't? that's all half life 2 is...perhaps you misread gunplay as gameplay

i mean, if you don't like what half life 2 does, that's fine by me - as i said above, but to imply that half life 2 is somehow not about gameplay confuses me, it's just that the gunplay is not the focus of the gameplay, and this is what seems to confuse many of the dissentient voices, what with it being a fps and all - they set standards of expectancy the game does not even attempt to meet...

i didnt liked it at all

HL1 was way better.

I felt the FIRST game was overrated, personally. Extremely so. I found it mostly boring, but I understand why people like all the scripted stuff. I suppose it was new for the time. But why it continues to be hailed as one of the greatest PC games of all time I'll never know.

HL2 had an incredible atmosphere to it -- better atmosphere than I believeI've ever seen from a pure FPS (please do not confuse with FPP games in general). That said, I felt its core action was kind of lacking. This is evidenced by the fact that Valve had to continuously mix up the gameplay by introducing new toys and new types of gameplay just to keep it interesting. Now don't get me wrong; as a design philosophy it's an effective approach; It's just not very sophisticated. If one gameplay sequence fails to impress the player then you risk losing their interest completely. That's what happened to me. But I had had great fun all the way up until that point and had already gotten my money's worth, so to speak.

So, yeah. I think from a flow and design perspective HL2 was pretty sloppy, but given its polish and presentation I think it well deserves its accolades. :)

[QUOTE="Grantelicious"]

It's a FPS and every FPS out there has different levels set in different locations and HL2's gameplay is the same throughout where you shoot people and move onto the next level.

mfsa

this is exactly what i meant when i said half life 2 is misunderstood - you're treating it like a first person shooter, you're judging it by its gunplay - but half life 2 has probably at best mediocre gunplay... but the whole point of the game is that the focus of the gameplay - notmerely the locations as with your garden variety fps-is in constant flux

you'll start with a cool warm up period where you're exploring a desolate, dystopic 1984-style world, then you're in a frantic unarmed escape as you try to evade the law, then you fall into a series of decent firefights as you arm up - you're speeding down a waterway in a hovercraft, you're exploring a creepy horror movie style ghost town, you're playing catch with a giant robot dog, you're leading a team of giant insectoids on a prison raid, you're speeding down a road in a mad max style buggy, you're in your very own version of the movie tremors, you're battling war of the worlds style walkers from rooftopsi

if you didn't read that list - read it now, then think back to all the other fps games you've played, and try and come up with a list that even vaguely approaches that for diversity and uniqueness...

can you think of any? take f.e.a.r, just as an example: you... run down a corridor... shoot some guys, a little girl pops out, you run down another corridor - c t r l +c & c t r l +v ad infinitum - andd on't get me wrong, f.e.a.r is one of my favourite games - but it just isn't a comparison that can be made

half life 2 is not a traditional shooter, it cannot be judged by traditional shooter values - and no juxtaposition should be made with typicalrun n gun games -if you want a game all about gunplay, play f.e.a.r, half life 2 is an entirely different sub-genre

exactly. hl2 is a hybrid: an adventure/fps.

[QUOTE="lithuania_pride"]It has been called the best game of all time. It has gotten AAA rank in almost every review publication. But does anyone else think it should have scored much lower of an average? I do, but Im curious as to what you people think. And why?Adam-117

I hate you

I felt the FIRST game was overrated, personally. Extremely so. I found it mostly boring, but I understand why people like all the scripted stuff. I suppose it was new for the time. But why it continues to be hailed as one of the greatest PC games of all time I'll never know.

HL2 had an incredible atmosphere to it -- better atmosphere than I believeI've ever seen from a pure FPS (please do not confuse with FPP games in general). That said, I felt its core action was kind of lacking. This is evidenced by the fact that Valve had to continuously mix up the gameplay by introducing new toys and new types of gameplay just to keep it interesting. Now don't get me wrong; as a design philosophy it's an effective approach; It's just not very sophisticated. If one gameplay sequence fails to impress the player then you risk losing their interest completely. That's what happened to me. But I had had great fun all the way up until that point and had already gotten my money's worth, so to speak.

So, yeah. I think from a flow and design perspective HL2 was pretty sloppy, but given its polish and presentation I think it well deserves its accolades. :)

Rowedahelicon

Well to appreciate Half-Life you kind of have to look at the genre prior to its release. Pick up Quake II or Unreal. Those were the leading shooters before Half-Life and they were still Doom type shooters, i.e. find the blue key to unlock the door. Half-Life just blew that kind of game design to shreds out of nowhere. It was completely revolutionary.

Half Life 2 is best pc game ever made, it's a work of art. There is no other game I can say that about. Now, there are plenty of other games that I find just as fun but that's not the same thing.

Half-Life 2 is overrated I think. I played and loved hl1 and was very dissappointed with hl2. If I had never played the first 1 and the 2 expansion packs (Opposing force & Blue shift) I might have a different opinion of hl2.

Like the other guys said, the enemies are pretty dumb, not as effective as in hl1.

The weapons are a bit gay to be honest. All potatoe guns.

After hl1 i was well into the story, i was dying for some serious info on the G-man and what have you, hl2 not doing that and that cheezy ending was unforgiveable. Waited years for it.

hl2 has less variety in weapons and enemies than hl1, which hurts replay value,

It doesnt tell anything about g-man, only that hes a very naughty boy, thats unforgiveable after like 5 years of waiting.

Its easier than hl1.

its polished i'll give it that, graphics are nice, sounds are good, gravity gun is fun, physics still look good even now. Better than doom 3/stalker physics: guns and boxes jumping around of their own accord is strange.

hl2 has moments of brilliance like the chase from the combine at the start or the time when u had to setup turrets and defend the combine comin from multiple entrances, but for the most part it was boring and a chore,

the vehicle sections lasted too long the ai seemed retarded after the brilliant grunts in hl1 and the weapons seemed pathetic, takin out all those striders was smt i just cba with there was no fun in it,

altho i did find ravenholm fun with all the traps and stuff, the story is gud but it cant make up for borin gameplay,

i've replayed hl1 loads of times and found it fun each time but i tried replayin hl2 and after lukin around the initial section i just cba the only reason i played it was for the story once i had found that out there seemed to b no replay value in it as there is no challenge, and btw it not bein a straightup shooter and havin varied gameplay elements is not a gud thing if those other elements r borin

I had a lot more fun with doom 3 and far cry then hl2, and ive played doom3 4 times and far cry 3 times since release and hl2 1 and a half time :)

Hl2 is fun and the half life series is among my favorits but i dont think its that great.

I also like to be satisfied when i have finished a game, not just leaving me there and waiting like hl2 does. Even episode 1 didnt really tell anything new. Tv series is fine because you have next episode next week or you just have to wait the summer for a new season but that dosnt work with games. Not for me.

half life2 is a brilliant game

overrated? pssch, i'd say it's misunderstood

i find the genius of half life 2 to be in the way that it is frankly contrary to the standard of first person shooters - in a typical fps, the focus is on the gunplay, and the environments are - by and large - incidental... you'll play through level x then level y and level z, and while the locations may change from factories to offices to ocean liners, you're still doing the same thing: you're running from a to b while killing enemy c, over and over again

this is where half life 2 excels - the gunplay itself is pretty bad... you've got generic ai that is poor when placed beside its predecessor and the game was notoriously easy... but that's because, i think, the gunplay is incidental - it's there because it has to be... but what half life 2 is, is a game of changing scenario

you'll start with a cool warm up period where you're exploring a desolate, dystopic 1984-style world, then you're in a frantic unarmed escape as you try to evade the law, then you fall into a series of decent firefights as you arm up - you're speeding down a waterway in a hovercraft, you're exploring a creepy horror movie style ghost town, you're playing catch with a giant robot dog, you're leading a team of giant insectoids on a prison raid, you're speeding down a road in a mad max style buggy, you're in your very own version of the movie tremors, you're battling war of the worlds style walkers from rooftops

the focus of the gameplay is constantly shifting, and even the very best of the generic fps crowd tend to stagnate in those last few hours because you're just doing the same thing over and over and over - but with half life 2, every corner you turn brings a brand new focus for gameplay

i really don't think of half life 2 as a first person shooter - i think it transcends the genre - the label 'fps' doesn't do the game justice... i'd say calling it the best game ever made is hyperbole - but i'd say it's one of the finest achievements of the computer gaming industry so far, and its biggest flaw is probably how it made most of the rest of my gaming library feel so mediocre and stale after i'd experienced such awesomeness

overrated? nah

mfsa

the best post ever !!!! after reading this post I realized why I like HL 2 so much. there was not a single moment HL 2 whch felt, hey I have done this before.diiferent type of enemies, diiferent goals (not just shooting everyone else), doing different things etc this game had so much variety !!

Half-Life 2 was top notch...
Graphics
NPC
Atmosphere
The list goes on...
However I must admit and the only thing I think that was truly overrated was...
The AI...Sucked even on the highest difficulty...

The original Half-Life AI was way better.
On the hardest difficulty...I would sometimes stop playing just to watch them work to take me out...Awesome...

singher

I love the story and the setting. The physics are amazing even today. The gunplay was fast, the graphics mindblowing for the time, and the sound rocked.

Everything was amazing about that game.

[QUOTE="Nigel_Tufnel"][QUOTE="mfsa"]

[QUOTE="Grantelicious"]Well considering HL2 is focused 100% on gunplay then it's a shooter and not anything else, if the game wanted to be anything different then it coulda just been oblivion or sumthing.mfsa

half life 2 isn't focused 100% on the gunplay - that's my point, you're focused 100% on the gunplay, and that's why you aren't so impressed with the game

if you don't want to like the game, that's fine by me - each to their own, but you're judging a cricle harshly for not being a triangle

it's not a triangle, it's not trying to be a triangle - half life 2 is a circle.

It's a GAME, hence the focus on GAME-play. If I wanted a boring pseudo-deep movie, I'd watch the Matrix 2.

yeah? is that a counter-argument? because i don't see it

the gameplay is great, it's constantly changing and constantly offers new experiences (beyond just shooting an enemy that looks slightly different in a slightly different location), which makes it almost singular in the fps genre

of course the focus is on gameplay, who said it wasn't? that's all half life 2 is...perhaps you misread gunplay as gameplay

i mean, if you don't like what half life 2 does, that's fine by me - as i said above, but to imply that half life 2 is somehow not about gameplay confuses me, it's just that the gunplay is not the focus of the gameplay, and this is what seems to confuse many of the dissentient voices, what with it being a fps and all - they set standards of expectancy the game does not even attempt to meet...

Walking around and listening to people talk and do things is like watching a movie, not playing a game. There is no competition, which is necessary for something to be a game. Every once in a while your loser character Gordon NERD Free Man (I get it FTW!) is allowed to shoot at mindless ducks or solve some 5-year-old level "mind buster" like stacking blocks on a board to use leverage to pass over a wall. Boooo!!!! My god did HL2 suck teh balls. F*** you Gabe NewelL!

i've replayed hl1 loads of times and found it fun each time but i tried replayin hl2 and after lukin around the initial section i just cba the only reason i played it was for the story once i had found that out there seemed to b no replay value in it as there is no challenge, and btw it not bein a straightup shooter and havin varied gameplay elements is not a gud thing if those other elements r borin

noproblem0

QFT

[QUOTE="Rowedahelicon"]I felt the FIRST game was overrated, personally.kyrieee

Well to appreciate Half-Life you kind of have to look at the genre prior to its release. Pick up Quake II or Unreal. Those were the leading shooters before Half-Life and they were still Doom type shooters, i.e. find the blue key to unlock the door. Half-Life just blew that kind of game design to shreds out of nowhere. It was completely revolutionary.

Yeah, I mean I agree it was an important game, but I've seen many sites continue to claim it as the best PC game ever created. That's what I can't understand.

Edited for spaces. This is really driving my crazy. Is there any way to turn off this rich text editor?

[QUOTE="mfsa"]yeah? is that a counter-argument? because i don't see it

the gameplay is great, it's constantly changing and constantly offers new experiences (beyond just shooting an enemy that looks slightly different in a slightly different location), which makes it almost singular in the fps genre

of course the focus is on gameplay, who said it wasn't? that's all half life 2 is...perhaps you misread gunplay as gameplay

i mean, if you don't like what half life 2 does, that's fine by me - as i said above, but to imply that half life 2 is somehow not about gameplay confuses me, it's just that the gunplay is not the focus of the gameplay, and this is what seems to confuse many of the dissentient voices, what with it being a fps and all - they set standards of expectancy the game does not even attempt to meet...

Nigel_Tufnel

Walking around and listening to people talk and do things is like watching a movie, not playing a game. There is no competition, which is necessary for something to be a game. Every once in a while your loser character Gordon NERD Free Man (I get it FTW!) is allowed to shoot at mindless ducks or solve some 5-year-old level "mind buster" like stacking blocks on a board to use leverage to pass over a wall. Boooo!!!! My god did HL2 suck teh balls. F*** you Gabe NewelL!

yeah, because of the 10-12 hours it takes to finish half life 2, fully fifteen minutes is spent talking to other npcs... you get that in just about all fps games these days - so either you have a problem with fps games in general and are aiming your angst at half life 2, or you're just looking for an irrational justification to complain about something you dislike

as for competition being necessary for something to be a game - well firstly, there is competetion to some extent (while the game is fairly easy for the experienced gamer, it's not like playing with god mode - moments are challenging... though i can name many fps games which challenged me in equal measure), and secondly - since when do games need "competition" to be games? and why? if you play games for the sole purpose of beating them then you belong in the year 1980 - most modern games are far more about the experience of it, rather than simply existing as a challenge to be overcome and completed... if the point of a game was to finish it, we would live in a very two dimensional gaming world

as for the combat, you exaggerate - every once in a while is fundamentally wrong, the game offers frequent combat, certainly no less than is standard in a fps game - and as for the minor puzzles, yeah, they're simple - but remember that a) the game was the first, or amongst the first games, to use physics at this level... so really it was about having fun with something new more than trying to stump the gamer, and b) most fps games use a pace changing device between combat events - be it minor puzzles or conversations with npcs or even 'horror' moments as seen in f.e.a.r - and, again, it's a common mechanic used in most modern first person shooters

if you want to dislike half life 2, that's totally fine me with - but your reasons put forward so far are mostly common elements of the genre as a whole, and are seen in most modern fps games

Half Life 2, blech. Where to start?

1. Awful writing. When Gordon entered the resistance base everyone was surprised the place was attacked. Why? Their were badguys not 100 feet around the corner when he found the place.

Does it matter at all that the collapse of the Citadel is indeed going to kill many thousands of people? And that the collapse of the Combine Overwatch will leave the survivors of Earth with no functioning infrastructure or government to control their own planet now that it's ecosystem is all but destroyed? Hell no! Gordon SMASH!

2. Oh so convienently placed traps for enemies. Granted this happens in a lot of games, but Half Life 2's traps were so blatently obvious they stretched my suspension of disbelief to the limit. If the Combine had so much as a single brain cell in their empty skulls, they might understand why shooting at Gordon while standing on that barely supported wooden platform next to a bunch of exploding barrels isn't such a hot idea.

3. Extreme linearity. I remember back in the Half Life 2 beta how different things were. The Half Life 2 beta of ages ago actually featured things like free roam. Where did it go? Whoops! We lost it! Why waste time balancing when you can just ditch it?

Half Life 2, blech. Where to start?

1. Awful writing. When Gordon entered the resistance base everyone was surprised the place was attacked. Why? Their were badguys not 100 feet around the corner when he found the place.

Does it matter at all that the collapse of the Citadel is indeed going to kill many thousands of people? And that the collapse of the Combine Overwatch will leave the survivors of Earth with no functioning infrastructure or government to control their own planet now that it's ecosystem is all but destroyed? Hell no! Gordon SMASH!

2. Oh so convienently placed traps for enemies. Granted this happens in a lot of games, but Half Life 2's traps were so blatently obvious they stretched my suspension of disbelief to the limit. If the Combine had so much as a single brain cell in their empty skulls, they might understand why shooting at Gordon while standing on that barely supported wooden platform next to a bunch of exploding barrels isn't such a hot idea.

3. Extreme linearity. I remember back in the Half Life 2 beta how different things were. The Half Life 2 beta of ages ago actually featured things like free roam. Where did it go? Whoops! We lost it! Why waste time balancing when you can just ditch it?CaptHawkeye

1.) If your talking about Black Mesa East then your wrong, there weren't badguys 100 feet away. The base was attacked because Judith Mossman tells the combine where they were, after they had managed to stay hidden and safe for a long time. If you had a base that no one knew existed for so long then suddenly out of the blue its attacked, wouldn't you be shocked or surprised?

Also the planet has NO government, infrastructure etc at all as the combine and Wallace Breen controls everything and opresses the surviving populace through violence and procreation repression fields. People only rely on the combine because the water is drugged making them forget the atrocities the combine have done and because Breen makes broadcasts saying how wonderful life is under combine control. By destroying the citadel Gordon has given the people of City17 the chance to actually fight back against the combine and regain a small portion of their planet. Without the citadel the combine have no communication to other cities, no communication offworld, no factory to create extra vehicles or soldiers and more importantly the combine can no longer get onto Earth. Yes some people may die, but the resistance did they best they could getting people out of City17 considering they were out numbered and outgunned by the combine in the process.

2.) Think you'll find this point is somewhat mute, its gameplay. No different to other FPS games where enemy units are stationed on platforms or near explosive barrels etc. And you'll also notice that the situations you described only happens during early stages of gameplay when the player doesnt have much of an arsenal at their disposal. Later on in the game the explosive barrels are randomly placed for the player to utilise with the gravity gun and there isn't many destructable platforms at all once your past the canals section of the game.

3.) What are you talking about? most FPS games are linear to some degree and i won't say HalfLife2 isn't. But the enviroments are still open to be explored, for instance the sections of the game where your in the hovercraft or beach buggy allow the player to roam free while also sticking to a path. And even when inside buildings the player can still enter multiple rooms out of curiosity, although usually there is nothing of interest in them.

The points you've made are found in most if not all FPS games, so really you can't hold them as exclusive to HalfLife2 since many FPS games have them.

Half Life 2, blech. Where to start?

1. Awful writing. When Gordon entered the resistance base everyone was surprised the place was attacked. Why? Their were badguys not 100 feet around the corner when he found the place.

Does it matter at all that the collapse of the Citadel is indeed going to kill many thousands of people? And that the collapse of the Combine Overwatch will leave the survivors of Earth with no functioning infrastructure or government to control their own planet now that it's ecosystem is all but destroyed? Hell no! Gordon SMASH!

2. Oh so convienently placed traps for enemies. Granted this happens in a lot of games, but Half Life 2's traps were so blatently obvious they stretched my suspension of disbelief to the limit. If the Combine had so much as a single brain cell in their empty skulls, they might understand why shooting at Gordon while standing on that barely supported wooden platform next to a bunch of exploding barrels isn't such a hot idea.

3. Extreme linearity. I remember back in the Half Life 2 beta how different things were. The Half Life 2 beta of ages ago actually featured things like free roam. Where did it go? Whoops! We lost it! Why waste time balancing when you can just ditch it?

CaptHawkeye

Thanks for writing my args up for me. I LUV TEH DELEGATION!!!1!!1!

mfsa FTL!!! (just kidding)

half life2 is a brilliant game

overrated? pssch, i'd say it's misunderstood

i find the genius of half life 2 to be in the way that it is frankly contrary to the standard of first person shooters - in a typical fps, the focus is on the gunplay, and the environments are - by and large - incidental... you'll play through level x then level y and level z, and while the locations may change from factories to offices to ocean liners, you're still doing the same thing: you're running from a to b while killing enemy c, over and over again

this is where half life 2 excels - the gunplay itself is pretty bad... you've got generic ai that is poor when placed beside its predecessor and the game was notoriously easy... but that's because, i think, the gunplay is incidental - it's there because it has to be... but what half life 2 is, is a game of changing scenario

you'll start with a cool warm up period where you're exploring a desolate, dystopic 1984-style world, then you're in a frantic unarmed escape as you try to evade the law, then you fall into a series of decent firefights as you arm up - you're speeding down a waterway in a hovercraft, you're exploring a creepy horror movie style ghost town, you're playing catch with a giant robot dog, you're leading a team of giant insectoids on a prison raid, you're speeding down a road in a mad max style buggy, you're in your very own version of the movie tremors, you're battling war of the worlds style walkers from rooftops

the focus of the gameplay is constantly shifting, and even the very best of the generic fps crowd tend to stagnate in those last few hours because you're just doing the same thing over and over and over - but with half life 2, every corner you turn brings a brand new focus for gameplay

i really don't think of half life 2 as a first person shooter - i think it transcends the genre - the label 'fps' doesn't do the game justice... i'd say calling it the best game ever made is hyperbole - but i'd say it's one of the finest achievements of the computer gaming industry so far, and its biggest flaw is probably how it made most of the rest of my gaming library feel so mediocre and stale after i'd experienced such awesomeness

overrated? nah

mfsa

Good post. I am playing through HL2 for the first time (just pre-bought the orange box on steam and can play HL2 & HL2 Episode 1 now, before the other new games, not to mention the TF2 beta.) Such an awesome game. I would say as far as pure FPSing goes, FarCry is my favorite so far. I love the feeling of stalking my enemies through a jungle in an open ended world.

Walking around and listening to people talk and do things is like watching a movie, not playing a game. There is no competition, which is necessary for something to be a game. Every once in a while your loser character Gordon NERD Free Man (I get it FTW!) is allowed to shoot at mindless ducks or solve some 5-year-old level "mind buster" like stacking blocks on a board to use leverage to pass over a wall. Boooo!!!! My god did HL2 suck teh balls. F*** you Gabe NewelL!

Nigel_Tufnel

Are you a caonsole gamer? You seem like you just don't belong here among PC gamers with horrible posts like that...

[QUOTE="Nigel_Tufnel"]

Walking around and listening to people talk and do things is like watching a movie, not playing a game. There is no competition, which is necessary for something to be a game. Every once in a while your loser character Gordon NERD Free Man (I get it FTW!) is allowed to shoot at mindless ducks or solve some 5-year-old level "mind buster" like stacking blocks on a board to use leverage to pass over a wall. Boooo!!!! My god did HL2 suck teh balls. F*** you Gabe NewelL!

Navy_Sealz

Are you a caonsole gamer? You seem like you just don't belong here among PC gamers with horrible posts like that...

ROFL

I dont own a consoel just a bada$$ PC. I haven't liked a console since NES! I buy and play all of the awesome FPS games that come out, but HL:2 was TEH SUCK!!!

[QUOTE="Navy_Sealz"][QUOTE="Nigel_Tufnel"]

Walking around and listening to people talk and do things is like watching a movie, not playing a game. There is no competition, which is necessary for something to be a game. Every once in a while your loser character Gordon NERD Free Man (I get it FTW!) is allowed to shoot at mindless ducks or solve some 5-year-old level "mind buster" like stacking blocks on a board to use leverage to pass over a wall. Boooo!!!! My god did HL2 suck teh balls. F*** you Gabe NewelL!

Nigel_Tufnel

Are you a caonsole gamer? You seem like you just don't belong here among PC gamers with horrible posts like that...

ROFL

I dont own a consoel just a bada$$ PC. I haven't liked a console since NES! I buy and play all of the awesome FPS games that come out, but HL:2 was TEH SUCK!!!

Meaning your just asbad as a console kiddy.. People who only play mindless FPS's.. Nothing beyond that while hating anything that is non stop action, requires thought, or deviates from the simple equations/designs.

Atmosphere, atmosphere and atmosphere. This is the one area the game excelled in. In order to capture this atmosphere great graphics and sound are needed.

Moving beyond that, the game as a game is pretty weak. The AI is downright awful and almost insulting even on the hardest difficulty. The story telling is bad. I don't understand how and why folks think that the story telling in the game is great when the game tries its best not to tell the story. The scripted sequences are too blantant for a modern game. I have even encountered spawning. The unbelievable placement of flammable barrels did kill some of the believability of the environment for it were placed almost everywhere throughout the game, just to demonstrate physics. The linearity of the game didn't help because the environment gave the illusion of freedom when there was absolutely none. The moments I attempt to room, I encountered incomplete enviroments.

What I don't understand is the folks who say the game is good because of the engine or because of mods. These two features, while they add to the game's overall content, does not make the game Half Life 2 better.

Because the game executed the atmospheric feel so well, it recieved a high rating.

single player wise, it's not nearly as fantastic as fervent fans claim it to be. the story was lack-luster and the enemy AI was BAD. ( i finished hard in roughly 7 hours and iwasn't even trying). the entire physic engine thing didn't appeal to me that much either.

BUT, when you consider its modding potentialandthe several long lasting multiplayer options, HL2 is a package of incredible worth as a whole.

Meaning your just asbad as a console kiddy.. People who only play mindless FPS's.. Nothing beyond that while hating anything that is non stop action, requires thought, or deviates from the simple equations/designs.

sSubZerOo

I AM TEH CONFUSD!!!

Are you calling me stupid because I prefer FPS games? lol

I am in grad school and my brain is constantly being rocked, so I prefer the so-called mindless FPS games. However, I should clarify - I hate most FPS games. Games like HL2, Halo 2, Prey, Call of Duty, etc., are BORING and MINDLESS. Games like Far Cry require cunning and skill. Further, games like Max Payne 2 and Chronicles of Riddick are artistic master pieces. Games like Deus Ex, HL1, FEAR, and Doom 3 are also pretty good to great.

So no, I am not looking for non stop action, I HATE arcade-style shooters (Duke Nukem and Seriuous Sam are two of the biggest offenders). But I also hate pretentious B.S. with pseudo-deep (truly non-existant) storylines, boring, half-baked "action", depressing 1984-wannabe environments, with cliff-hanger endings providing absolutely ZERO payoff - in otherwords, Half Life 2: Gabe's Abortion.

The story telling is bad. I don't understand how and why folks think that the story telling in the game is great when the game tries its best not to tell the story. Pedro

I will let you in on a little secret: it's dangerously uncool to not "get" Half Life 2. Sure, you and I know that Valve didn't tell a story in HL2 because they had NO STORY TO TELL. But the game received nearly flawless reviews, sold millions of copies, and you'd DAMN WELL BETTER LIKE IT (or you risk thinking for yourself).

Anyone who claims that HL:2 is story-driven and brilliant is a fool or a follower, and I detest them in either case.

1.) If your talking about Black Mesa East then your wrong, there weren't badguys 100 feet away. The base was attacked because Judith Mossman tells the combine where they were, after they had managed to stay hidden and safe for a long time. If you had a base that no one knew existed for so long then suddenly out of the blue its attacked, wouldn't you be shocked or surprised?1005

If that base was barely a stones throw from an area of intense Combine activity? Especially considering the obvious network of resistance bases leading to it? No I wouldn't. Mossman didnt HAVE to tell Breen about the base. Any idiot would have known that the security of the base was compromised the moment Gordon walked into it. Gordon can't just be someplace, and then magically disappear. The Combine will ring the area out looking for him.

Also the planet has NO government, infrastructure etc at all as the combine and Wallace Breen controls everything

Think about what you are saying here.

and opresses the surviving populace through violence and procreation repression fields. People only rely on the combine because the water is drugged making them forget the atrocities the combine have done and because Breen makes broadcasts saying how wonderful life is under combine control.

And here again you admit the Combine arean entity of Government. Sorry, but any organization that enacts control and discipline upon a populace IS a government. And it doesn't matter what atrocities the Combineare responsible for at this point. They've already damaged the planet's ecosystem to irreparable levels. Humanity needs them now. They are the only source of food, shelter, and protection.

By destroying the citadel Gordon has given the people of City17 the chance to actually fight back against the combine and regain a small portion of their planet. Without the citadel the combine have no communication to other cities, no communication offworld, no factory to create extra vehicles or soldiers and more importantly the combine can no longer get onto Earth. Yes some people may die, but the resistance did they best they could getting people out of City17 considering they were out numbered and outgunned by the combine in the process.

Stop here. You mean to tell me you don't think it's monumentally stupid that the big bad Combine TOTALLY RELY UPON A SINGLE STRUCTURE TO CONTROL THE WHOLE PLANET? So once the Combine Citadel collapses. That's it! Woohoo! Way to Deus Ex Machina your way out of that one boys!

2.) Think you'll find this point is somewhat mute, its gameplay. No different to other FPS games where enemy units are stationed on platforms or near explosive barrels etc.

And those FPS games are **** too. But I can't seem to recall any of the games you claim to exist. Tell me, how many other games have enemies attacked youwhile manning a grav lift? Orbungieing down into your hovercraft's path the very moment you are driving by?

And you'll also notice that the situations you described only happens during early stages of gameplay when the player doesnt have much of an arsenal at their disposal. Later on in the game the explosive barrels are randomly placed for the player to utilise with the gravity gun and there isn't many destructable platforms at all once your past the canals section of the game.

So? The game is still relying upon a totally contrived FPS concept that has been done to death. Using "lol trapz" to kill enemies when anyone with a spinal cord could see them. A barrel marked "Explosive" or "Flammable" isn't good to stand next to. If they are present, and the man you are trying to kill is wielding a god damn TELEKINESIS GUN, maybe you should, I don't know, get rid of them?

3.) What are you talking about? most FPS games are linear to some degree and i won't say HalfLife2 isn't. But the enviroments are still open to be explored, for instance the sections of the game where your in the hovercraft or beach buggy allow the player to roam free while also sticking to a path. And even when inside buildings the player can still enter multiple rooms out of curiosity, although usually there is nothing of interest in them.

Sorry, that's still a linear level. And nothing close to what was promised to us early in the game's development.

The points you've made are found in most if not all FPS games, so really you can't hold them as exclusive to HalfLife2 since many FPS games have them.

Oh but you see I CAN hold them exclusive to Half Life 2.When thefans walk around trying to covince everyone that Half Life 2 was the ultimate "uber shotz" and that I should buy it or i'm a big stupid head, I tend to get far more suspicious over the quality of a game than excited. And should you confront these fanboys that you didn't like the game? God have mercy on your unrighteous soul for challenging the fanboy's status quo!

When the fanboys and developers hype a game as if it is capable of happily rapturing us all up into heaven for an eternal existence of peace and pleasure, I tend to get more suspicious than excited.

no alot of people say that half life and halo is overrated

they get there scores on merit half life2 would have been better if it was released year earlier but still an awesome game