Half-Life vs Half-Life 2

68% will say Half-Life, 32% will say HL2.

Just a prediction.

68% will say Half-Life, 32% will say HL2.

Just a prediction.

D9-THC

Looks like you got it backwards:P

I found halflife 2 disappointing, hallife.

If you add OpFor in the mix + the HD pack, I prefer HL, because the combat is way more fun :)

I also like the original HL engine feel much better (movement wise)

I like HL for the story, HL2 for the graphics, gameplay, and mods. So HL2 gets my vote.

Half-life, purely because its story was so much better than HL2's. Graphically, both were the pinnacle of the genre when released. The action was intense in both, just a bit more in HL.

Episode 2 > HL > HL2 > Oposing force > Episode one > Bluesift

i thinkboth games are masterpieces almost beyong comparison - just to get that out there

as for which is better, that's a very hard call

half life 1 did things that the genre has never done before, things that computer games as a whole had never done before - half life had utterly amazing ai, very fun gunplay - a simple but engaging story and some amazingly original and often cinematic set pieces

half life 2 i don't really think of as a fps, it has guns and is first person, sure, but i never really felt like the focus of the game was its gunplay, but rather on putting the player in radically different scenarios with plenty of set pieces... and it did this incredibly well, the game was constantly throwing new things at the player, so it was almost never boring in the way that a generic run n gun fps may stagnate throughout the game

this resulted in weaker gunplay, for which the game has been harshly criticised - but on the whole i don't think the standard of gunplay, or ai, is a detriment to the overall quality of the game

both games are simply magnificent, and half life deserves big plus points for being the first - but there's something to be said for being the second as well... can you imagine how hard it must be to follow up one masterpiece with another masterpiece? so many deverlopers would say okay, half life worked, let's just do it again and half life 2 could've ended up being like opposing forces or blue shift

that valve went back to the drawing board and made a totally new game, a game that lived up to its predecessor and was able to stand alone as half life 2 rather than the sequel to half life impresses me every time i think about it

half life 2 is also powered by an utterly masterful engine which looked awesome in 2004, and - having just played some more ep2 - looks just as awesome today (those shadows, ohh!)

really, it's a difficult comparison - but i think i'd put half life 2 above half life... its willingness to put the player in constantly-shifting situations where no two fifteen minute segments feel alike really just makes half life 2 stand head and shoulders above its predecessor for me, plus the fact that the engine is utterly magnificent and made awesome and creative use of physics, plus the simple fact that the game is far, far more than just half life done again in a slightly different way

i think it goes without saying that half life is the more important game, and has had a profound impact on the industry in a way that few games ever did before - and debatably no game ever will again, but i'd say half life 2 is the better game

Half-life, purely because its story was so much better than HL2's. Graphically, both were the pinnacle of the genre when released. The action was intense in both, just a bit more in HL.

TH3_1NF1D3L

How can you like HL1's story more? Seriously, nothing happened in it story wise. The xen invade and then you spend 10 hours in Black mesa trying to get out. HL2 has a ton of stuff happening.

Half life 2 in my opinion

Half Life>>>>>>>>>>HL2

At least for me.

I disagree with anyone who says that you have to have played Half-Life 1 when it came out to appreciate it. I didn't play it untill two years ago, and I still think it's the greatest PC game I've ever played. It beats out HL2 by a landslide in my opinion. Not to say that 2 wasn't a good game, it's definitely in my top 5, but part of what made the original so special was the feeling that you were just a scared scientist who had to rely on luck and guile to get out alive. HL2 was a completely different game, and they did away with alot of that atmosphere. In 2, rather than the scared scientist you're this messianic figure that people turn to in their darkest hour, whose very name incites riots against an oppressive government. You no longer feel powerless, and you lose the fear that was so integral to the first game. Hell, even in "We don't go to Ravenholm" (the only point that 2 feels like the original in my opinion) you have someone there to guide you and help you out. I guess you could sum it up by saying that you never feel alone, like there's always someone there to ensure your success.

Half-Life also has the greatest AI I've ever seen. A year ago or so someoneon this boarddescribed the difference perfectly: "In Half-Life 2, the AI looks around for a window to jump through, in Half-Life 1, it looks for the most efficient way to kill you." I really don't think it needs any more explanation.

Really the only things HL2 has over the original are the graphics(obviously) and the story, which isn't saying much at all. Half-Life has never had a strong story, it has atmosphere. people confuse the two, but there is a very important difference. The story in the original can be summed up in two sentences, the story from the second can be summed up in three. Atmosphere is the setting of the game, and how the setting affects you as a player (in this case, making you feel like you're a powerless scientist, one misstep away from death).

Ultimately, Half-Life 2 is an amazing game in it's own right, but it isn't as good as the original. I'm not sure I'll ever see a game that is, to be honest.

^^

I can see how you're right about atmosphere but a lot of that came from the "jumping puzzles" and constantly being able to fall to your death and being attacked while trying to keep yourself from falling.

There were far many more opportunities to fall to your death in HL1 than HL2. It certainly made you feel more mortal.

half-life 2 is better, but I think half-life 1 had a much bigger impact on the fps genre..... but if you were to play one right now, you should play hl2... so hl2.gigaman299

Well the action is just plain out way more fun in HL

Of course half life 2 is the better game now, but if you take it in a time perspective of how it was then and now i would say that half life was yet better simply because it revolutionized so much of the fps genre and made it more intellectual and most of all living. Half life 2 merely improved the fps standards mostly the physical and graphical properties but also the need for situation based combat.

Kudos to half life 2 for keeping up with half life 1 but it did not change any components of later fps games drastically nor did it add something completely new and previously almost unthinkable.

Before half life the fps world was a dead one, now it's alive, we won't accept a fps without a big question mark (or many small) or missions of sorts.

The next game that can come close to half life will have to find a new way to improve the fps genre drastically, not just add some fancy graphics like crysis or lots and lots of abilities and rpg elements like bioshock. It will need to make a whole new base component which is kind of hard, but half life did it.

English is my second language and i'm tired so like know that most of the sentences are not optimized for your grammar and stuff.

[QUOTE="gigaman299"]half-life 2 is better, but I think half-life 1 had a much bigger impact on the fps genre..... but if you were to play one right now, you should play hl2... so hl2.kyrieee

Well the action is just plain out way more fun in HL

It's definitely still fun, but half-life 2 is just... better. >_>

^^

I can see how you're right about atmosphere but a lot of that came from the "jumping puzzles" and constantly being able to fall to your death and being attacked while trying to keep yourself from falling.

There were far many more opportunities to fall to your death in HL1 than HL2. It certainly made you feel more mortal.

D9-THC

I guess I'm in the minority, but I really don't mind jumping puzzles in FPS's. I feel most people complain about them because it's time spent that doesn't involve blasting away at enemies, but Half-Life has never been about that anyway. I never had a problem with the Xen portion of the game (other than the fact that my steam version glitched up, forcing me to clean all the crap off of my old computer, borrow my friend's copy of the orignal version, then look up level skip codes so I didn't have to play through the entire game again). Sure it made it a bit more annoying, but the game isn't supposed to be a cakewalk at that point, you're on an alien planet. Obviously you're going to have difficulty adjusting to gravity.

If they had fixed that damn sticking elevator problem I would have voted for Half Life. But I never beat the game cuz on the second puzzle chamber when fighting Nihilanth, the small elevator stones stuck again and I had enough by then.

But Half Life was fun while it ran without bugs. Surface Tension was definitely my favorite "level" in gaming ever.

I would argue that, while better, Half Life 2 was also more innovating then the first.Banks_GB

C'mon man , HL 2 may be better now, but still its in now way more innovative than HL 1

i thinkboth games are masterpieces almost beyong comparison - just to get that out there

as for which is better, that's a very hard call

half life 1 did things that the genre has never done before, things that computer games as a whole had never done before - half life had utterly amazing ai, very fun gunplay - a simple but engaging story and some amazingly original and often cinematic set pieces

half life 2 i don't really think of as a fps, it has guns and is first person, sure, but i never really felt like the focus of the game was its gunplay, but rather on putting the player in radically different scenarios with plenty of set pieces... and it did this incredibly well, the game was constantly throwing new things at the player, so it was almost never boring in the way that a generic run n gun fps may stagnate throughout the game

this resulted in weaker gunplay, for which the game has been harshly criticised - but on the whole i don't think the standard of gunplay, or ai, is a detriment to the overall quality of the game

both games are simply magnificent, and half life deserves big plus points for being the first - but there's something to be said for being the second as well... can you imagine how hard it must be to follow up one masterpiece with another masterpiece? so many deverlopers would say okay, half life worked, let's just do it again and half life 2 could've ended up being like opposing forces or blue shift

that valve went back to the drawing board and made a totally new game, a game that lived up to its predecessor and was able to stand alone as half life 2 rather than the sequel to half life impresses me every time i think about it

half life 2 is also powered by an utterly masterful engine which looked awesome in 2004, and - having just played some more ep2 - looks just as awesome today (those shadows, ohh!)

really, it's a difficult comparison - but i think i'd put half life 2 above half life... its willingness to put the player in constantly-shifting situations where no two fifteen minute segments feel alike really just makes half life 2 stand head and shoulders above its predecessor for me, plus the fact that the engine is utterly magnificent and made awesome and creative use of physics, plus the simple fact that the game is far, far more than just half life done again in a slightly different way

i think it goes without saying that half life is the more important game, and has had a profound impact on the industry in a way that few games ever did before - and debatably no game ever will again, but i'd say half life 2 is the better game

mfsa

I lost you after the first sentence.

Half - Life 2 is much better.

Amazing facial animations. The characters in this game are so human like. You really care for and like them. They are the most humanlike actors in a game EVER!

Cool and interesting story, much better than its predecessor

Many different syles of gameplay in one game: adventure, run and gun, survival horror fps, team based fps...

Half-Life 1 is amazing because it was a pioneer in its style and wasn't like anything before it. But it got boring after a while and really that jumping stuff in platform style by the end of the game really was annoying!

I think Half-Life is better for many of the previously mentioned reasons...HL2 was really good too, but we have to remember that a lot of that is because of anticipation and better graphics by leaps and bounds, however, back in the day when HL1 came out it looked good too...

So I'm gonna have to say HL1 is the beter of the two even though HL2 is still an amazing game.

without and hesitation i chose the first Half Life. there are a number of reasons -

1. I prefer intense indoorfire-fight over the open spaces in HL2.every time i played HL, it gave me this hard-pressed, claustrophobic sensation that greatly enhanced the atmosphere. i don't feel any edge throughout the entire course of playing HL2.

2. The Opposing Force is up there among the best FPS expansions.

3. HL2 AI sucks so bad, it's hard not to be pick the first one.

The only people that will pick HL2 are the ones who didn't play HL1 at the time of release. That game gave me so many good times...

The environments were much better, the isolated feel was eerie, and it was alot more intense/scary. HL2 is just a watered down HL1, but i play it anyways because it's still a great game.

If you played HL1 at its release, there is no possible way you could say HL2 is better.

I think the main difference inbetween the favorites here is the timeline in which people played the game.

Kids who have only played the HL:Source Edition probably were expecting more, expecting something more like the more modern games, like Half Life 2 at that time. HL2 got a definite boost from past fan-fare and new physics, visuals, and other goodies, but when it first came out, Half Life was THE game to have (I can't wait till the mod Black Mesa comes out).

I prefer somewhat the origional HL to #2, because of what a blast it was when it first came out. HL2 was excellent, especially with mods like Garrysmod, and I believe it should be the guiding light for most FPS games, but I will never get over the first time I nailed my first Zombie with my trusty crobar.

[QUOTE="mfsa"]

i thinkboth games are masterpieces almost beyong comparison - just to get that out there

as for which is better, that's a very hard call

half life 1 did things that the genre has never done before, things that computer games as a whole had never done before - half life had utterly amazing ai, very fun gunplay - a simple but engaging story and some amazingly original and often cinematic set pieces

half life 2 i don't really think of as a fps, it has guns and is first person, sure, but i never really felt like the focus of the game was its gunplay, but rather on putting the player in radically different scenarios with plenty of set pieces... and it did this incredibly well, the game was constantly throwing new things at the player, so it was almost never boring in the way that a generic run n gun fps may stagnate throughout the game

this resulted in weaker gunplay, for which the game has been harshly criticised - but on the whole i don't think the standard of gunplay, or ai, is a detriment to the overall quality of the game

both games are simply magnificent, and half life deserves big plus points for being the first - but there's something to be said for being the second as well... can you imagine how hard it must be to follow up one masterpiece with another masterpiece? so many deverlopers would say okay, half life worked, let's just do it again and half life 2 could've ended up being like opposing forces or blue shift

that valve went back to the drawing board and made a totally new game, a game that lived up to its predecessor and was able to stand alone as half life 2 rather than the sequel to half life impresses me every time i think about it

half life 2 is also powered by an utterly masterful engine which looked awesome in 2004, and - having just played some more ep2 - looks just as awesome today (those shadows, ohh!)

really, it's a difficult comparison - but i think i'd put half life 2 above half life... its willingness to put the player in constantly-shifting situations where no two fifteen minute segments feel alike really just makes half life 2 stand head and shoulders above its predecessor for me, plus the fact that the engine is utterly magnificent and made awesome and creative use of physics, plus the simple fact that the game is far, far more than just half life done again in a slightly different way

i think it goes without saying that half life is the more important game, and has had a profound impact on the industry in a way that few games ever did before - and debatably no game ever will again, but i'd say half life 2 is the better game

Atlas_FTW

I lost you after the first sentence.

lol beyong?