Analysis so far...

[Sparta]

I agree with you on about 90% of your analysis.

Its probably already been pointed out but Half-Life 2 shouldn't be compared to a game like Deus Ex. Mainly because Half-Life 2 never aimed to be a FPS/RPG like Deus Ex is/was. It was designed to be a linear FPS. Anyway, yeah its most likely been mentioned so i'll shut up about it.

I tell you what i wanted to see more of in Half-Life 2.

More big battles with the striders and the gunships (Those battles were awesome)
More sequences with Eli, Alyx and all those NPC's (They were interesting and its a shame to hear some of the more interesting stuff was cut out)
and more original weapons (mainly the ones that were in the Beta)

 

[Kazuki_Fuse]

Not at bad read I guess. But 2 out of 5 for terrain graphics? Also I was always a Deus Ex hater so it's a good thing HL2 wasn't like it.

 

[El Gringo]

Just a note about the placed objects early in the game which help you get on to the next sections. I thought that (from a storyline perspective) the objects were placed there by the resistence to help not you specifically but anyone who was running from the combine. It is mentioned in game that this route is very dangerous (hence trying to invent the teleport) and so the physics set pieces fit well, as they were placed there on purpose to help anyone get through this dangerous area. Remember all the NPC's at this early stage dont know that you are Freeman and most mention that other have gone through before.

 

[Sniper156]

Nice post, its good to see someone who knows how to express their opinion in a well justified way.

Deus Ex... Without a doubt it has to be my favorate game. The depth of gameplay that Deux Ex achieves may never be reached by any other game, but have faith in the collective minds at Valve. They obviously arent people with shallow ability, i get some weird vibes that they are in fact some really good storytellers. I think there on to something with this series and HL3 may be that missing experience your looking for (Speculation).

If you really want to get into comparison, take a look at DX:2....
I dont know about you, but that has got to be the most disgusting (everything is bad about it) sequel ive ever seen IMO.
It was Deus Ex and i still couldnt get into it.

If you need vindication for that let me know, it'll be easy.

 

[Mountain Man]

After reading Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar, I can't help but wonder if there will be another significant wait for the HL3. It was mentioned in the book that the second installment (HL2) was in the works within a year of the release of HL.

Much of that time was spend doing research and development for the Source engine. It seems the bulk of the content creation for Half-Life 2 only took about 12 to 24 months.

 

[JCampbell]

Much of that time was spend doing research and development for the Source engine. It seems the bulk of the content creation for Half-Life 2 only took about 12 to 24 months.

Hence the reason why I said I wouldn't mind waiting a couple of years instead of 5-6. For all we know, they'll build another engine for the 3rd installment. What else they could include I'm not too sure though...
It is funny, however, that the 'only' requirement for HL2 was that it had to be the best game ever made (direct quote). If they approach HL3 with that attitude, who knows what we'll get? I personally can't think of many other ways to 'raise the bar' again off the top of my head. Then again, I probably couldn't have thought of any ways for HL2 to raise standards when playing HL for the first time.

Knowing Valve, I'm sure there are TONS of things they wished they could do better with HL2 (as was the case with the first), so I'll leave that up to them.

 

[NeuralClone]

If you think the story has been neglected you haven't been looking hard enough. The story is very subtle but is quite rewarding if you look hard enough. They don't spell it out for you.

 

[Draculas_Guest]

Valve cut out a "slideshow" that Eli showed you. It is in the book. Personally I think it would have been great to have that in the game because it would have explained a lot to people who are confused by the, well, confusion As you go farther in the game things become clearer--but not everything. One thing I like about the game is you feel kind of toyed with, like you know whats going on, but then again you do not.

I've heard bits about this and I really wish that they'd left it in. The arrival at City 17 was great with the intrigue and the mystery, and the airboat chase was thrilling, but the arrival at Black Mesa East should have been the real payoff in the story. It should have been the moment that makes the player go "aaahhhhh" before they're thrown back into the action with a new sense of purpose. Black Mesa East was the only major dissapointment I had with HL2, everything else though kicked booty!

 

[Psychx]

oh man i never heard about that black mesa thing, that would have been awesome... black mesa (the whole thing, not just the one that was nuked) is awesome, and classic

 

[charleski]

It is clear that after you accepted the G-Man's job a lot changed.

Indeed... As far as I can remember, the last time Gordon was awake he'd just defeated the forces on Xen. So you end up thinking, "Uh, what happened? Didn't I save the world the last time round?" There are a few old newspapers around that give scraps of information about what happened, but as has been pointed out several times, HL2 is an FPS, people shouldn't be expected to examine the minutiae of every texture to work out what's going on. What's at stake here is the primary motivation of your character, an issue that is too important to be left to cryptic hints. As Dario D. said:

Early on, I simply had no idea what I was doing. They said to meet up with somebody... why?

This is a major failing. it's all very well to flesh out your world with minutiae that the players can discover for themselves, but the basics need to be clearly apparent. People shouldn't need to hunt the websites for a Cliff Notes version because the story in its original form is too obscure.

So part of the story is foggy because the story dictates that it should be. Other parts take paying attention. Valve is not force feeding a story, they are using the world they created to be the story driving device.

I'd have to disagree, in fact I think the real answer is quite the opposite. if you read Gamespot's article on HL2's development you'll see that Valve had actually prepared an exensive amount of story exposition, and then got cold feet about it as it was too much all in one chunk. So... they simply cut it out. To be perfectly honest, I think the failings in the story line are simply due to the fact that they had too much on their hands in getting the game out of the door to rework the exposition into smaller chunks spaced out through the game.

They, in my mind, did a masterful job of achieving a lot of companies have tried to do--tell a story through the GAME experience.

They managed to do that in HL1, and in fact the skill with which the story was inserted into that game was one of the revolutionary aspects of the original HL. Unfortunately they dropped the ball on this occasion

And one of the neat things about how the story is told is it allows us, the community, to interpret it and build on it. It is not close ended, but allows our imagination to work on it.

Well, to my mind the main enigmas in the story are the relationships between the Combine, the G-man and whatever third forces are hiring his services in the form of GF. But then people are too busy figuring out the basics of the plot to pay attention to that :| .

 

[Dario D.]

Nice post, its good to see someone who knows how to express their opinion in a well justified way.

Deus Ex... Without a doubt it has to be my favorate game. The depth of gameplay that Deux Ex achieves may never be reached by any other game, but have faith in the collective minds at Valve. They obviously arent people with shallow ability, i get some weird vibes that they are in fact some really good storytellers. I think there on to something with this series and HL3 may be that missing experience your looking for (Speculation).

If you really want to get into comparison, take a look at DX:2....
I dont know about you, but that has got to be the most disgusting (everything is bad about it) sequel ive ever seen IMO.
It was Deus Ex and i still couldnt get into it.

If you need vindication for that let me know, it'll be easy.

I agree with both points: DX is on my list of top 1 or 2 games ever made. I don't understand how it couldn't be liked; It's a shooter with trillions of enemies to kill, and you get to talk to people and carry around and use a VAST inventory while you're at it.

2: Yes, Deus Ex 2 is one of the worst games I've ever played. When I bought it, opening day, I couldn't even play it because it was so buggy, and I couldn't load past the second level.

-

Yeah, I don't know HOW they're going to approach HL3. Perhaps it'll just be a continuation of HL2, without trying so hard to be mind-blowing, since the initial shock of the HL2 "newness" is over. I think the element of action and combat can't get much more than it is; I think they'll have to push for story/character depth and world-intereactivity (vast inventory, basically) if they're going to raise the bar any higher than it is.

Either that, or they'll go Matrix 2 on us, and just throw 10 Striders at once as the opening scene in the game with troopers running around everywhere, giving you a combined Gravity Gun in each hand that cluster-fires rockets and grenades while spawning and throwing cars and giant trash cans, after which you waltz up to the Combine tower, get in a giant walking mech, and just knock it down by rapid-firing atomic bombs at it.

In other words, HL3 could go Matrix 2 and just be a humoungous festival of Overkill. The last mission inside the Combine tower wasn't even that fun for me after a couple minutes because you were so powerful, it was ridiclous - like playing with cheats.

But of course the strider mission was one of the funnest ever.

 

[michael_obrien]

I'm suprised by one thing in here, and that is the confusion about the well-placed objects... well first of all, when playing practically any videogame, you have to suspend your disbelief for just a tad. When you die you can just restart from a few minutes before, how realistic is that? In HL1 the luck of Gordon was equally absurd... but more than that, in HL2 there is a perfect explanation for why everything is so insanely your way.

G man.

The opening sequence, for me, gave me the impression that "ah, the G man has dropped me in just the right place, at just the right time, with just the right ideas in my head and everything set perfectly to ensure my success."

Before you arrive, the G man has been planning your arrival and the events of your stay with a level of knowledge and attention to detail which, just like everything else about the G man, is essentially godlike. Not only that, but throughout your journey he is always watching you, always organizing your path in just such a way as to achieve his aims. It is just like the mythological greek gods: No matter what, the Fate which They have decided for you is inevitable.

Even more... he is watching you throughout your journey (he's a bit hard to spot) and if he sees that you are going to get stuck at some point, he corrects it before you get there.

Even more... don't forget about santa's little helpers. During one scene you suprise a vortigaunt and a resistance fighter... the vortigaunt is powering the tv, and on the tv is the g man. They try to act like it didn't happen, but the vort hints that "we serve the same mystic." This indicates that not only the vortigaunts but also at least some of the resistance members are secretly recieving orders from the G man. Actually, although this is somewhat hidden, the man who gives you the RPG - he is seen actually meeting with the G man earlier in the game! More indications that your fate has been preordained.

This, I thought, was one of the basic features which valve made sure was indicated in the game: it was quickly made pretty clear to me (I had to think a bit at first, but not that much - catching them watching him on the TV made it painstakingly clear, I thought) and this was a fundamental aspect of making the whole plot come together - even though I didn't think the plot was as strong as in the first game...

This is why i'm suprised that none of the HL junkies in this thread have mentioned it. Surely, it could not be expected to be any other way - he who has the favor of the gods lives a truly blessed life. As to why the g man doesn't simply teleport gordon's foot directly into breen's ass in the first place - we must assume that there's only so much over which mr. G has jurisdiction. Other gods, perhaps the gods of the combine, had control over most of what was going on. Only by finessefully arranging things which those gods didn't care about such that gordon could slip through...

I'm going on more and more of a limb here, but I dare to suggest that the g man in some way was based upon prometheus. Zeus had planned out a horrible fate for the mortal people of earth, but behind his back prometheus had brought them the fire with which they could survive. Similarly, the G man brought humans (and let's not forget vortigaunts) a different kind of fire - he brought a can of whupass with the name of gordon freeman.

 

[Dario D.]

Well... I see what you mean...

But if only you and *maybe* a few others among millions of Half-Life players could catch onto that, then I think there's a serious problem.

So far people are beating Half-Life 2 without any insight to any of this.

So it seems to be THERE; but you have to have a Ph.D. in HL science to actually see it and enjoy it. If we ran a poll: "how many of you noticed that and understood it?", I think it would be drastically in favor of people who didn't catch it at all.

= problem.

Edit: When I think about it, I think I did see that part. It was in a rail-yard, right? Inside a train car with a vortigaunt, a guy, and a TV. Of course I didn't make the slightest connection to what it meant, but now that I think of it that IS pretty cool. If only it was presented in a manner that you could notice.

DX would have aced this test.

 

[Apos]

Lol, he's in for a surprise when he gets farther into the game about one of his complaints.

 

[Dario D.]

Yeah, heh, I beat it. (look a couple of posts back to see what I thought about that)