Games that everyone loved, and you didn't.

[Asknoone]

I think I love HL2 that little bit more than HL1. Infact, very much so.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

I think I love HL2 that little bit more than HL1. Infact, very much so.

I'm not a fan of the character Alyx, don't ask me why. It seems she's very imposing and forced into the story, and her tongue and cheek dialouge is only amusing once before it becomes interolerable. In Half-Life I stragely felt more sense of immersion despite all the new 'immersive' features HL2 introduced. I find myself more compelled to play Half-Life through again than HL2. Heres the thing, Half-Life 2 feels more like a movie to me than a video game - I want to play not be guided through, I get a great sense of controll and freedom while playing and FPS like HL1 that seemed absent in Half-Life 2. As cheesy as it sounds I was never really able to admit I was dissapointed with this aspect of HL2 until now. To say I had high expectations would be an understatement.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

I enjoyed HL1(Surface Tension has never been matched in any shooter IMO) but HL2 was greater. Aside from the graphics, the story itself was better, so much more than HL1. (Apart for said chapter in HL1)

 

[Warbie]

You're not alone there, Babyheadcrab.

I wrote a lengthy post on the Edge forum in the 'which is better, HL or HL2' thread. Of course, it eventually turned into a Halo vs HL batle (quel surprise ), just one that didn't go 'Halo sucks, cut and paste levels!!', and ignore everything it does well. Anyhoo, regarding HL2:

Combat is both easy and dull and the weapons, bar the lovely shotgun, feel weak. Enemies don't react to being shot - there's no flinch, no squeal of pain, nothing to indicate bullets are thudding into them - which is a pet hate of mine. HL2 is another fps in which it feels more like holding a cursor over a bad guy and pushing a mouse button untill they fall over than shooting them. Infact the combat hasn't moved on an inch since the original, and feels oddly dated and out of place in such an otherwise evolutionary game. This is one area that Valve certainly didn't raise the bar.

It wasn't the combat in the original HL that made it great, though, it was how we could identify with Gordon and the unfortunate predicament he found himself in. He was just a guy at work (if an uber scientist can be 'just a guy') trying to survive a terrible accident. This is something we can all relate to, and the reason why HL sticks you in the shoes of the protagonist more than any fps before or since.

In HL2 Gordan's been transformed from an everyman's hero into Master Chief - Valve may as well have replaced the HEV suit with a cape - wondering from location to location, seemingly aimlessley, destroying everything in his path. There's little motivation or explantion for what's going on (being told to go an see some guy is as satisfying as a Rare platoformer that asks you to collect 100 bits of fruit for no bloody reason), and little satisfaction in reaching your goal. Not at one point did I feel like the Gordon in HL, or anything other than your generic fps action hero. Infact, change the name on the box, a few models and skins, and nobody would have been any wiser.

This is the most damning criticism. HL put me behind the crowbar. In HL2 i'm still the guy behind the keyboard and mouse.

Now we have the gravity gun and physics. Early in the game the use of physics to solve puzzels screamed of possibilty. A few hours and a few simple counter lever puzzels later and you realise this promise is little but hot air (Zelda has been doing this for years), and the gravity gun is little more than a weapon (although a very cool one). Sure, you can rip off a radiator and use it as shield, but when faced with such incompetent enemy where's the need? There's rarely an opportunity to put the gravity gun to creative use, little/no scope for thinking outside the box, and few reasons to use it for anything other than throwing projectiles at bad guys.

Despite how negative this all sounds I did enjoy HL2. The first two chapters are as good as gaming gets and had everything, and more, that made HL great. One second you're stepping off a train into 1984, then suddenly you're on the run, being chased by the man. This was all good - run away, hide, survive - and made all the more exciting/believable by Valve's superb use of scripted events. Unfortunately the momentum wore off and I soon found myself on an unsatisfying journey (albeit through the most detailed and beautiful gameworld i've experienced) punctuated with poor combat and a few awful vehicle sections.


I doubt anyone has read this far, feels good to get it off my chest though

 

[Remus]

^Agreed, and yeah I did read through your entire post. I was bored

PS: Samon is probably gonna kill you for saying those things

 

[Warbie]

^Agreed, and yeah I did read through your entire post. I was bored

PS: Samon is probably gonna kill you for saying those things

He'll never find me! (i'm hidden in one of the cut and paste maps in Halo, he'll probably end up going in circles for days )

 

[RoyaleWithCheese]

Rome Total War. But it has more to do with my problem with RTS in general.

 

[Sparta]

There is no game I'd rather play right now either already released or coming out than Xbox Halo 1 MP, CTF 1 flag, no radar, instant respawn, 5 minute rounds, 4v4 with my friends in the same room.

I gotta agree, that aspect of Halo kicks major ass. I've only done it once but hot damn was it awesome.

Also. i just got back from a friends place after playing the first few levels of Halo on his Xbox 360. I am so over Halo gameplay. It is the exact same thing that happens over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. I can go on but i dont think there's a need to stress how repetitive that is. What i want to say though, is that repetition isn't always a bad thing. Action games like DMC3/GoW/Ninja Gaiden have you fighting the exact same enemies in the same situations all the time, but those games are fun and the combat actually varies every two or so levels. Even then, if the combat doesn't vary it still requires skill to get through most scenarios.

When it comes to variation in gameplay, the Half-life series does an amazing job at being varied. The Halo games however don't offer anywhere near as much. Most of the Halo games are spent in corridor fights or vehicle fights. Every now and then something cool comes along like that Scarab vehicle, the ride of death at the end of the first game, or one or two massive fights against the flood and the covenant. But beyond that when i try to remember any spectacular fights from the Halo games it tends just to blur together and i can't think of anything that truly stands out. Then again i'm also hard-pressed to think of any from Half-life 2. But with games like Ninja Gaiden and Half-life i have no problem remembering some truly awesome fighting moments.

 

[AmishSlayer]

You're not alone there, Babyheadcrab.

I wrote a lengthy post on the Edge forum in the 'which is better, HL or HL2' thread. Of course, it eventually turned into a Halo vs HL batle (quel surprise ), just one that didn't go 'Halo sucks, cut and paste levels!!', and ignore everything it does well. Anyhoo, regarding HL2:

Combat is both easy and dull and the weapons, bar the lovely shotgun, feel weak. Enemies don't react to being shot - there's no flinch, no squeal of pain, nothing to indicate bullets are thudding into them - which is a pet hate of mine. HL2 is another fps in which it feels more like holding a cursor over a bad guy and pushing a mouse button untill they fall over than shooting them. Infact the combat hasn't moved on an inch since the original, and feels oddly dated and out of place in such an otherwise evolutionary game. This is one area that Valve certainly didn't raise the bar.

It wasn't the combat in the original HL that made it great, though, it was how we could identify with Gordon and the unfortunate predicament he found himself in. He was just a guy at work (if an uber scientist can be 'just a guy') trying to survive a terrible accident. This is something we can all relate to, and the reason why HL sticks you in the shoes of the protagonist more than any fps before or since.

In HL2 Gordan's been transformed from an everyman's hero into Master Chief - Valve may as well have replaced the HEV suit with a cape - wondering from location to location, seemingly aimlessley, destroying everything in his path. There's little motivation or explantion for what's going on (being told to go an see some guy is as satisfying as a Rare platoformer that asks you to collect 100 bits of fruit for no bloody reason), and little satisfaction in reaching your goal. Not at one point did I feel like the Gordon in HL, or anything other than your generic fps action hero. Infact, change the name on the box, a few models and skins, and nobody would have been any wiser.

This is the most damning criticism. HL put me behind the crowbar. In HL2 i'm still the guy behind the keyboard and mouse.

Now we have the gravity gun and physics. Early in the game the use of physics to solve puzzels screamed of possibilty. A few hours and a few simple counter lever puzzels later and you realise this promise is little but hot air (Zelda has been doing this for years), and the gravity gun is little more than a weapon (although a very cool one). Sure, you can rip off a radiator and use it as shield, but when faced with such incompetent enemy where's the need? There's rarely an opportunity to put the gravity gun to creative use, little/no scope for thinking outside the box, and few reasons to use it for anything other than throwing projectiles at bad guys.

Despite how negative this all sounds I did enjoy HL2. The first two chapters are as good as gaming gets and had everything, and more, that made HL great. One second you're stepping off a train into 1984, then suddenly you're on the run, being chased by the man. This was all good - run away, hide, survive - and made all the more exciting/believable by Valve's superb use of scripted events. Unfortunately the momentum wore off and I soon found myself on an unsatisfying journey (albeit through the most detailed and beautiful gameworld i've experienced) punctuated with poor combat and a few awful vehicle sections.


I doubt anyone has read this far, feels good to get it off my chest though

Exactly.

 

[Asknoone]

In HL2 Gordan's been transformed from an everyman's hero into Master Chief - Valve may as well have replaced the HEV suit with a cape - wondering from location to location, seemingly aimlessley, destroying everything in his path. There's little motivation or explantion for what's going on (being told to go an see some guy is as satisfying as a Rare platoformer that asks you to collect 100 bits of fruit for no bloody reason), and little satisfaction in reaching your goal. Not at one point did I feel like the Gordon in HL, or anything other than your generic fps action hero. Infact, change the name on the box, a few models and skins, and nobody would have been any wiser.

Your missing the point entirely. The entire focus to which HL2 is built around. I think alot of people felt this way because it isn't how a story is usually conveyed, and instead Valve went with an entirely different approach to storytelling, and for me, it is as good as it gets. Saying there is little motivation or explanation is completely missing the point of HL2.
I'm not really bothered if my bullets aren't making the Combine squelch in pain, and I'm not bothered if they go down in a few shots. Fact remains, Elites are well armoured aliens with shields. Combine soldiers have some padding. Would you still be standing?

Half-life 2 is the best FPS I've played not because of it's combat, but because of its immersion, because of the storytelling, the gameplay variety, the atmosphere, the level design. Moaning about dull combat is pointless, because it isn't what HL2 sets out to do. It never did. It offer something new, something different and something original turn. Each chapter brings something new to the table. It was never about tactical combat.
Halo sets out to do that with it's combat, and it succeeds. Sadly, Bungie miss the mark in everything else. The level design, is copy/paste, copy/paste. The story isn't exactly riveting. Halo is just a big bunch of empty rooms filled with enemies, and it simply can't hold all the way with just that.
But see, your argument is essentially the combat, which it usually is, and then you are missing out on everything else that HL2 offers. I've yet to see a game reach the level of immersion of that in HL2. An alien controlled Earth, never so wonderfully realised. A story, that can often feel thin, is so much stronger than anything out there - when the characters speak, they aren't just speaking for the sake of it, there is depth and there is meaning in what they say and you have to look just that little bit further to see what they are referencing towards. Saying there is little explanation is not a means to say it is a dull or boring story, it is simply a different (albiet groundbreaking) way of presenting it.
Characters have never quite been so real. When was the last time you saw a character embarrassed? When was the last time you saw a character quite like Dr. Breen? Never have characters felt so human, or speak so human. After listening to how they speak, I couldn't watch a cutscene in MGS again without cringing everytime they open their mouths.

Enviroments. Nova Prospekt is a revolution in itself. So carefully crafted, so beautifully presented. C17...the Citadel. All on a level no other game has quite reached in terms of level design or atmosphere.

I can play through Halo whilst just enjoying the combat. It grates most of the time, since I'm not interested in just tactical combat. It isn't what I look for in a shooter, but I can appreciate it in Halo, so long as I shut my eyes to the rest of the game (meaning, everything). But that is what Halo set out to do. Combat Evolved, is it not? But Half-life 2 did not set out to do that. That was not it's intention. Simply on the whole, it comes out above everything, and I've yet to see a shooter match it (or Episode 1, for that matter, which delivers everything HL2 did - but oh so much more.)

 

[Gray Fox]

You're not alone there, Babyheadcrab.

I wrote a lengthy post on the Edge forum in the 'which is better, HL or HL2' thread. Of course, it eventually turned into a Halo vs HL batle (quel surprise ), just one that didn't go 'Halo sucks, cut and paste levels!!', and ignore everything it does well. Anyhoo, regarding HL2:

Combat is both easy and dull and the weapons, bar the lovely shotgun, feel weak. Enemies don't react to being shot - there's no flinch, no squeal of pain, nothing to indicate bullets are thudding into them - which is a pet hate of mine. HL2 is another fps in which it feels more like holding a cursor over a bad guy and pushing a mouse button untill they fall over than shooting them. Infact the combat hasn't moved on an inch since the original, and feels oddly dated and out of place in such an otherwise evolutionary game. This is one area that Valve certainly didn't raise the bar.

It wasn't the combat in the original HL that made it great, though, it was how we could identify with Gordon and the unfortunate predicament he found himself in. He was just a guy at work (if an uber scientist can be 'just a guy') trying to survive a terrible accident. This is something we can all relate to, and the reason why HL sticks you in the shoes of the protagonist more than any fps before or since.

In HL2 Gordan's been transformed from an everyman's hero into Master Chief - Valve may as well have replaced the HEV suit with a cape - wondering from location to location, seemingly aimlessley, destroying everything in his path. There's little motivation or explantion for what's going on (being told to go an see some guy is as satisfying as a Rare platoformer that asks you to collect 100 bits of fruit for no bloody reason), and little satisfaction in reaching your goal. Not at one point did I feel like the Gordon in HL, or anything other than your generic fps action hero. Infact, change the name on the box, a few models and skins, and nobody would have been any wiser.

This is the most damning criticism. HL put me behind the crowbar. In HL2 i'm still the guy behind the keyboard and mouse.

Now we have the gravity gun and physics. Early in the game the use of physics to solve puzzels screamed of possibilty. A few hours and a few simple counter lever puzzels later and you realise this promise is little but hot air (Zelda has been doing this for years), and the gravity gun is little more than a weapon (although a very cool one). Sure, you can rip off a radiator and use it as shield, but when faced with such incompetent enemy where's the need? There's rarely an opportunity to put the gravity gun to creative use, little/no scope for thinking outside the box, and few reasons to use it for anything other than throwing projectiles at bad guys.

Despite how negative this all sounds I did enjoy HL2. The first two chapters are as good as gaming gets and had everything, and more, that made HL great. One second you're stepping off a train into 1984, then suddenly you're on the run, being chased by the man. This was all good - run away, hide, survive - and made all the more exciting/believable by Valve's superb use of scripted events. Unfortunately the momentum wore off and I soon found myself on an unsatisfying journey (albeit through the most detailed and beautiful gameworld i've experienced) punctuated with poor combat and a few awful vehicle sections.


I doubt anyone has read this far, feels good to get it off my chest though

I felt quite the opposite, in hl1 when I shot at soldiers or monster it felt like I was shooting at plastic dolls, the sound of bullets hitting them especially contributed to that feeling.
In hl2 for me the combat felt wonderfull, smooth and the enemies felt like they were made of flesh, they responded nicely to a shotgun shot in the face, unlike in a game like Doom 3.

The combat for me wasn't as excilerating and viceral as in Fear, but it was dammed good. The only gun i did not like was the Combine assult rifle.
The normal gun was avrage, not bad but not that good either.
The smg was nice, espcially with it's ability to launch nades.
The shotgun was great.
The bow even greater, nothing like pinning combine to the wall.
The magnum was dammed good too, felt nice and powerfull, and it was.
The Misslie launcer kicked ass like always, great fun gunning down combine ships with it.
Antliion spore kicked enormous ass.
And then you have the G-gun, my favorite weapon ever.
The weapons are balanced, and fit in to the world nicely and add a lot more depth and opportunities then weapons in similar games. The combat required more thought then in most other arcade shooters, especially in that one Nova Prospect section.

 

[Sparta]

I disagree with Warbie and Amish, i reckon the first two levels/chapters are the worst in the game. With the exception of the scripted sequences at the beginning. So basically everything after the teleportation sequence.

(or Episode 1, for that matter, which delivers everything HL2 did - but oh so much more.)

Yeah exactly. Episode 1 actually feels more like Half-Life than Half-Life 2 did, and it was actually much more challenging than Half-Life 2.

 

[Absinthe]

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault was an utterly shit game. I remember having a long, violent argument with somebody at 3DActionPlanet forums when its demos were released. It felt generic, the multiplayer sucked, it was linear, and it had no outstanding features.

How this game got to be so critically acclaimed is beyond me. I actually bought the damn thing because I thought "Hey, maybe I'm wrong". In retrospect, I should have saved my money.

 

[Asknoone]

Fighting the Marines in HL was quite ridiculous. Sure, it was fun, but after you've emptied almost an entire clip it into them, and they still aren't down on the ground, it pretty much shatters the immersion.

 

[Sparta]

Fighting the Marines in HL was quite ridiculous. Sure, it was fun, but after you've emptied almost an entire clip it into them, and they still aren't down on the ground, it pretty much shatters the immersion.

**** the immersion, i want fun over immersion. Besides it didn't deeply shatter it or anything, you could take as much damage as they could.

 

[Parlez]

I really liked the GTA series. I would have to say that GTA 3 was the best out of all. Anyone disagree?

 

[Asknoone]

**** the immersion, i want fun over immersion. Besides it didn't deeply shatter it or anything, you could take as much damage as they could.

Pffft. I didn't like it at all. Pretty ridiculous amount of bullets IMO. Fun comes from the immersion, for me.

 

[Absinthe]

I agree. Fighting with the marines was fun as hell, but they did take way too much damage to drop.

 

[Asknoone]

Oh sure, I didn't say it wasn't fun. Just a silly amount of health.

 

[Gray Fox]

Oh sure, I didn't say it wasn't fun. Just a silly amount of health.

But you said you get the fun from the immersion and the fighting with soliders not having immersion would therefore have to ruin your fun.:afro:

 

[Asknoone]

Fighting the Marines in HL was quite ridiculous. Sure, it was fun, but after you've emptied almost an entire clip it into them, and they still aren't down on the ground, it pretty much shatters the immersion.

It simply sucks up some of the fun. Not all.

 

[Slacker]

When it comes to variation in gameplay, the Half-life series does an amazing job at being varied. The Halo games however don't offer anywhere near as much. Most of the Halo games are spent in corridor fights or vehicle fights. Every now and then something cool comes along like that Scarab vehicle, the ride of death at the end of the first game, or one or two massive fights against the flood and the covenant. But beyond that when i try to remember any spectacular fights from the Halo games it tends just to blur together and i can't think of anything that truly stands out. Then again i'm also hard-pressed to think of any from Half-life 2. But with games like Ninja Gaiden and Half-life i have no problem remembering some truly awesome fighting moments.

Neither Half-Life games had any obnoxious enemies either. Ok, well they did, but they never really came in large numbers like The Flood did in Halo, and the HL enemies tended to be a lot more interesting. I'd gladly play a level filled with marines from the first Half-Life than a room filled with The Flood from Halo...

 

[AmishSlayer]

You missing the point entirely. The entire focus to which HL2 is built around. I think alot of people felt this way because it isn't how a story is usually conveyed, and instead Valve went with an entirely different approach to storytelling, and for me, it is as good as it gets. Saying there is little motivation or explanation is completely missing the point of HL2.
I'm not really bothered if my bullets aren't making the Combine squelch in pain, and I'm not bothered if they go down in a few shots. Fact remains, Elites are well armoured aliens with shields. Combine soldiers have some padding. Would you still be standing?

Half-life 2 is the best FPS I've played not because of it's combat, but because of its immersion, because of the storytelling, the gameplay variety, the atmosphere, the level design. Moaning about dull combat is pointless, because it isn't what HL2 sets out to do. It never did. It offer something new, something different and something original turn. Each chapter brings something new to the table. It was never about tactical combat.
Halo sets out to do that with it's combat, and it succeeds. Sadly, Bungie miss the mark in everything else. The level design, is copy/paste, copy/paste. The story isn't exactly riveting. Halo is just a big bunch of empty rooms filled with enemies, and it simply can't hold all the way with just that.
But see, your argument is essentially the combat, which it usually is, and then you are missing out on everything else that HL2 offers. I've yet to see a game reach the level of immersion of that in HL2. An alien controlled Earth, never so wonderfully realised. A story, that can often feel thin, is so much stronger than anything out there - when the characters speak, they aren't just speaking for the sake of it, there is depth and there is meaning in what they say and you have to look just that little bit further to see what they are referencing towards. Saying there is little explanation is not a means to say it is a dull or boring story, it is simply a different (albiet groundbreaking) way of presenting it.
Characters have never quite been so real. When was the last time you saw a character embarrassed? When was the last time you saw a character quite like Dr. Breen? Never have characters felt so human, or speak so human. After listening to how they speak, I couldn't watch a cutscene in MGS again without cringing everytime they open their mouths.

Enviroments. Nova Prospekt is a revolution in itself. So carefully crafted, so beautifully presented. C17...the Citadel. All on a level no other game has quite reached in terms of level design or atmosphere.

I can play through Halo whilst just enjoying the combat. It grates most of the time, since I'm not interested in just tactical combat. It isn't what I look for in a shooter, but I can appreciate it in Halo, so long as I shut my eyes to the rest of the game (meaning, everything). But that is what Halo said out to do. Combat Evolved, is it not? But Half-life 2 did not set out to do that. That was not it's intention. Simply on the whole, it comes out above everything, and I've yet to see a shooter match it (or Episode 1, for that matter.)

Ok, so HL2 isn't about combat. That's fair, but when I don't feel immersed in the game, story or anything else in the game I look for something to enjoy in the game. I tried to look at combat in HL2 but found myself disappointed.

This is the part where I make this a long-ass post by posting specific points of the story that I seriously lost that suspension of disbelief that a story needs to keep an audience caught in.

I found it hard to stay sunken into the world of HL2 when I was sitting, the alleged savior of our race and being worshipped as the "Free Man" by Vortigaunts, in a shitty little buggy that happens to have a turbo function (the best asset the resistance manages to lay their hands on - minus that bottomless box of ammo on the back), driving down the coast heading for yet another lab that means virtually nothing to me, the player. All the while I'm driving and hitting road block after roadblock, just stopping to kill some bad guys, pick up and place some batteries in a weird battery powered gate, maybe going head to head with a train only to be FORCED to run past it with turbo instead of just calmly reversing back off the bridge and watching it go by (oh wait, apparently that was a time-sensitive objective and we lose the game because of it - game over - real immersive).

Then there's the the "don't touch the lava (sand)" jumping puzzle we're presented with along the coast. This is one of the places where the lack of difficulty ruins a section of the game. There is SO much health strewn about this world and the antlions do so little that I just jumped down to the sand and ran across the entire area until my sprint meter was empty, found the nearest platform to jump onto, quickly killed the antlions, recharged, and did it again. Don't present a player with a tedious puzzle when your game allows him/her to easily bypass it.

Another moment ruined by execution was in Ravenholm just before you finally unite with Father Gregory via that weird gondola contraption. When it was coming to me, I got the sense that I was going to be assaulted mercilessly by zombies of all kinds. A zombie cry in the distance all but confirmed my suspicion. Too bad the fast-zombies came one at a time in a nice little line up that drain pipe. I didn't even have to move my aimer or touch the keyboard. I just held the shotgun pointing down from the top and clicked the mouse when one came close to the top. He got blasted in the head, but oh wait, there's like 7 more that are going to do the exact same thing allowing me to do the exact same thing.

Now somebody will notice some of these kinds of game moments peek their heads up in any game out there. Yeah, they do, but if it's a good game (in my opinion) it has something else going for it so you can overlook these problems.

A compelling, driving storyline, coop mode, maybe it has really good gunplay, perhaps combat overall is just really good, maybe gameplay is just totally unique. These are the questions I was asking myself when I hit these mini-pitfalls in HL2 and I couldn't come up with anything to fall back on.

 

[Absinthe]

He was probably saying it would have been more fun if they had more realistic health.

 

[Sparta]

Neither Half-Life games had any obnoxious enemies either.

What do you mean by obnoxious enemies?

Oh and Ravenholm. I hate the end of Ravenholm. Most of the chapter is structered really well, but then it comes the graveyard fight and its just a shitty maze. Sure theres lotsa zombies, but what should've happened was something like the fight whilst waiting for the elevator in Episode 1. No light, little ammo and tons and tons of zombies. That was ****ing awesome. But that graveyard in Ravenholm felt like it was out of Blood, back in 1997. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too linear.

 

[Warbie]

Fact remains, Elites are well armoured aliens with shields. Combine soldiers have some padding. Would you still be standing?

I think that's a bit of a cop out. Combat may not be HL2's focus, but there's no excuse for giving us gunplay that is almost a decade old. Golden Eye didn't have armour clad aliens, yet still managed to provide challenging and engaging gunplay.

Moaning about dull combat is pointless, because it isn't what HL2 sets out to do.

Not quite pointless. You must admit that it wouldn't be a bad thing if the combat in HL2 was better (there'd be less moaning from me for a start ). Unlike Halo, which imo doesn't set out to do any more than offer decent single and multiplayer combat, HL2 does try and be the whole package.

But see, your argument is essentially the combat, which it usually is, and then you are missing out on everything else that HL2 offers. I've yet to see a game reach the level of immersion of that in HL2.

Combat is certainly an area I was disappointed in with HL2 (for years i'd been hoping for a HL with better fighting), but my main gripe was that nearly everything I loved about HL wasn't there. This is basically what it comes down to - HL2 is nothing like HL.

An alien controlled Earth, never so wonderfully realised. A story, that can often feel thin, is so much stronger than anything out there - when the characters speak, they aren't just speaking for the sake of it, there is depth and there is meaning in what they say and you have to look just that little bit further to see what they are referencing towards. Saying there is little explanation is not a means to say it is a dull or boring story, it is simply a different (albiet groundbreaking) way of presenting it.
Characters have never quite been so real. When was the last time you saw a character embarrassed? When was the last time you saw a character quite like Dr. Breen? Never have characters felt so human, or speak so human. After listening to how they speak, I couldn't watch a cutscene in MGS again without cringing everytime they open their mouths.

Enviroments. Nova Prospekt is a revolution in itself. So carefully crafted, so beautifully presented. C17...the Citadel. All on a level no other game has quite reached in terms of level design or atmosphere.

Agreed, and well put. The most fun i've had in HL2 is wondering about and taking in the sites - exploring an abandoned building, throwing bottles about, seeing the expression on an npc - basically just enjoying the experience of being there. Infact my favourite moment, other than the majorty of the first 2 chapters, is near the begining of the airboat level. Just as you come crashing out of the tunnel there's that shack with a few zombies in it on the right. Ducking out the way as they knock barrels at you, creeping along planks balanced between the rafters, avoiding the headcrab, using the pully to drop supplies into the water. I love that little secton, and must have played it 30+ times. It reminds of the exact moment that I realised HL was special - trying to turn off the electricity in a flooded office, jumping from desk to desk and trying not to get fried.

I think this is the difference - HL sticks you right there, constantly asking 'what the **** you gonna do here Gordan'? (Alot of people rate Resident Evil or Silent Hill as the best survival horror, but I reckon it's HL). HL2 rarely does this - i'm told to go and see some guy, or lead a pack of dumbasses around like a bizarre blend of the Benny Hill show and 1984, or am given a rocket launcher from a Dads Army reject and told to fight, or ....... etc. It's here that my immersion becomes shattered and Gordon transforms into 'generic hero x'. Once that happens atmosphere and detail fail to matter.

Anyhoo, it doesn't seem that we disagree on much, just that we look for different things in a fps. Oh, the vehicle sections are poo!


//edit

I found it hard to stay sunken into the world of HL2 when I was sitting, the alleged savior of our race and being worshipped as the "Free Man" by Vortigaunts, in a shitty little buggy that happens to have a turbo function (the best asset the resistance manages to lay their hands on - minus that bottomless box of ammo on the back), driving down the coast heading for yet another lab that means virtually nothing to me, the player.

It seems we are in complete agreement.

 

[Ennui]

Whoa, I'm not even getting into this.

 

[Warbie]

Pansy

 

[Remus]

Pansy

Relax Warbie, I have a feeling we'll get what we're looking for with BlackMesa Source .

 

[Warbie]

Could be - I hope it's done well.

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

Too much text ... it gives me a headache. At least it's not a "wall of text" like in wow forums. Or so I heard. Wow sucks.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

You're not alone there, Babyheadcrab.

I wrote a lengthy post on the Edge forum in the 'which is better, HL or HL2' thread. Of course, it eventually turned into a Halo vs HL batle (quel surprise ), just one that didn't go 'Halo sucks, cut and paste levels!!', and ignore everything it does well. Anyhoo, regarding HL2:

Combat is both easy and dull and the weapons, bar the lovely shotgun, feel weak. Enemies don't react to being shot - there's no flinch, no squeal of pain, nothing to indicate bullets are thudding into them - which is a pet hate of mine. HL2 is another fps in which it feels more like holding a cursor over a bad guy and pushing a mouse button untill they fall over than shooting them. Infact the combat hasn't moved on an inch since the original, and feels oddly dated and out of place in such an otherwise evolutionary game. This is one area that Valve certainly didn't raise the bar.

It wasn't the combat in the original HL that made it great, though, it was how we could identify with Gordon and the unfortunate predicament he found himself in. He was just a guy at work (if an uber scientist can be 'just a guy') trying to survive a terrible accident. This is something we can all relate to, and the reason why HL sticks you in the shoes of the protagonist more than any fps before or since.

In HL2 Gordan's been transformed from an everyman's hero into Master Chief - Valve may as well have replaced the HEV suit with a cape - wondering from location to location, seemingly aimlessley, destroying everything in his path. There's little motivation or explantion for what's going on (being told to go an see some guy is as satisfying as a Rare platoformer that asks you to collect 100 bits of fruit for no bloody reason), and little satisfaction in reaching your goal. Not at one point did I feel like the Gordon in HL, or anything other than your generic fps action hero. Infact, change the name on the box, a few models and skins, and nobody would have been any wiser.

This is the most damning criticism. HL put me behind the crowbar. In HL2 i'm still the guy behind the keyboard and mouse.

Now we have the gravity gun and physics. Early in the game the use of physics to solve puzzels screamed of possibilty. A few hours and a few simple counter lever puzzels later and you realise this promise is little but hot air (Zelda has been doing this for years), and the gravity gun is little more than a weapon (although a very cool one). Sure, you can rip off a radiator and use it as shield, but when faced with such incompetent enemy where's the need? There's rarely an opportunity to put the gravity gun to creative use, little/no scope for thinking outside the box, and few reasons to use it for anything other than throwing projectiles at bad guys.

Despite how negative this all sounds I did enjoy HL2. The first two chapters are as good as gaming gets and had everything, and more, that made HL great. One second you're stepping off a train into 1984, then suddenly you're on the run, being chased by the man. This was all good - run away, hide, survive - and made all the more exciting/believable by Valve's superb use of scripted events. Unfortunately the momentum wore off and I soon found myself on an unsatisfying journey (albeit through the most detailed and beautiful gameworld i've experienced) punctuated with poor combat and a few awful vehicle sections.


I doubt anyone has read this far, feels good to get it off my chest though

I enjoyed your post, and concur with just about all the statements you made here Warbie. I really coulden't have said it better myself mate. The problem I see in Half-Life 2 is more than just combat however, it's the abscence of a certain immersive factor that Half-Life just did SO well. I feel "pushed along", feeling like a superhero.. just like you said, instead of some average nerdy scientist who become quite handy with a crowbar. It feels that all the time they spent saying they revolutionized narrative / story telling in FPS they took a certain aspect of fun out of the Half-Life universe.. a feeling of independence and creating your own story. And for the record I read the entire post

 

[Ennui]

Relax Warbie, I have a feeling we'll get what we're looking for with BlackMesa Source .

I won't get into that either, lol :hmph:

 

[DeusExMachina]

snip

I completely and utterly agree.

 

[Mac]

i hate every game ever made that i've played.

life > games.

cuz I don't have a life.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

HL2 is, IMO, the greatest story telling experiance in a game. No characters have ever been this great. Kliener is just so ridiculously fussy; Alyx plays it cool most of the time. They are all human, all have different personalties. In Halo, Master Chief has one of those cheesy "yo I'm a hero voice". Now, if I want to sencelessly blast things through the same room over and over again for 30 mins, I'll play Halo, but I prefer a game that has a good storyline too.
Ever left Alyx in the dark? She will slowly panick more and more, eventually just shaking and shivering, up to the point of crying: yes, actaul crying. Now, any other game would make this a scripted seqeunce, but in HL...no. In Halo, all the characters are all brave, never show fear...their slightly inhuman, and thats what seperates Halo from Half-life.
To round off, I'd rather play 20 minutes of HL2 than two hours of Halo. The mutliplayers terrible IMO. Don't get me wrong, Halo is a great game, just not that great.

Also, the Marines in HL1 do have an atroucious amount of hitpoints, its true.

 

[DeusExMachina]

Durpa durr, Master Chief practically is inhuman, he's been bred to be a super soldier since the age of 6 and he's in his 40s by Halo 1, he's lost just about all of his friends. Of course he's not going to be scared. Cortana's an AI...there's nothing to fear in her case.

Granted, I'm not saying Halo is a better game than Half-Life 2. I'd much rather play Half-Life 2 than any of the Halo games. Doesn't mean I don't have problems with some of the things in HL2 and I definitely don't think it has the best immersion or story in all of videogames.

 

[Gray Fox]

HL2 is, IMO, the greatest story telling experiance in a game. No characters have ever been this great. Kliener is just so ridiculously fussy; Alyx plays it cool most of the time. They are all human, all have different personalties. In Halo, Master Chief has one of those cheesy "yo I'm a hero voice". Now, if I want to sencelessly blast things through the same room over and over again for 30 mins, I'll play Halo, but I prefer a game that has a good storyline too.
Ever left Alyx in the dark? She will slowly panick more and more, eventually just shaking and shivering, up to the point of crying: yes, actaul crying. Now, any other game would make this a scripted seqeunce, but in HL...no. In Halo, all the characters are all brave, never show fear...their slightly inhuman, and thats what seperates Halo from Half-life.
To round off, I'd rather play 20 minutes of HL2 than two hours of Halo. The mutliplayers terrible IMO. Don't get me wrong, Halo is a great game, just not that great.

Also, the Marines in HL1 do have an atroucious amount of hitpoints, its true.

Realistic characters does not equal better characters.
Certainly not in games where you are a one man army taking out hordes of enemies, it can even come as an unpleasantly sharp contrast between the characters and the rest of the world. And when you have a protagonist that doesn't speak it comes that much more akward when hints of a romance are beeing created between you and your sidekick.

 

[knut]

Combat is both easy and dull and the weapons, bar the lovely shotgun, feel weak. Enemies don't react to being shot - there's no flinch, no squeal of pain, nothing to indicate bullets are thudding into them - which is a pet hate of mine. HL2 is another fps in which it feels more like holding a cursor over a bad guy and pushing a mouse button untill they fall over than shooting them. Infact the combat hasn't moved on an inch since the original, and feels oddly dated and out of place in such an otherwise evolutionary game. This is one area that Valve certainly didn't raise the bar.

Call me un-original, but ''agreed''. The SMG is probably one of my most hated weapons in any game. It just felt so... flimsy. And it the noise started to really grind into me eventually. I'm glad it was a bit more powerful in Episode 1. (Well, I think it is anyway) The Pulse Rifle was abit meh, but in short bursts you can empty a room pretty quickly. I liked Halo/2 for the reactions of the enemies, but you got to remember that these are Combine soldiers. They've had all emotion taken away from them and most of their body is operated by machinery. I think, anyway. However, the CP's have no excuse to standing in the same postion as you fire your pistol into them. Would of been better if they had clutched at thier guts/wound when hit.

I'm not going to dive into this whole Halo vs HL debate, but one of the main arguements I see here is Halo having repetative levels. I know alot of people get this from the level 'Assault on the Control Room' and then the repeat 'Two Betrayals', but the rooms you travel through is what the Forerunners have as their architecture. Dull to you, but thats what they wanted for their buildings. Its like the Citadel and the Combine architecture. Its dull, sleek material thats used wherever the Combine have a presence. Apart from all the cool stuff to look at in the Citadel (moving pods, Synths, Stalkers repairing stuff, etc) that is also a pretty repetative level with samey architecture. I'm not complaining, though, as I liked both enviroments in both games.

The Covenant ships, too, are another arguement for Halo's repative levels. Well, yeah, but thats what the Covenant want for their ships. They are not going to have different looking areas for every corridor as... well, its silly. As anyone ever been on a battleship before? The insides of a ship are also samey and repetative. It's just how it is. If anything, making the ship seem more like a ship, being dull and none-caring for its image, is more realistic to me, if you get what I mean.

Bleh, I'm rambling.

 

[theotherguy]

snip.

uh, no. Bungie mappers ran out of budget and creativity so they cloned the same rooms over and over and added different enemies. It's not a design descision, its more of a time/budget decision. It was a really shitty choice in my opinion.

EDIT:
I agree with the weapons. SMG1 and AR2 are probably some of the worst weapons I have seen in a while. the pistol is also bland.

It redeems itself, however, with AR2 secondary fire, the shotgun and the magnum. (all of which have a really powerful shot that usually kills combines in a very quick manner resulting in an awesome reaction from the ragdoll)

I would agree with combat AI as well. In halo, all of the enemies seemed to react to you so much better than in hl2, running around crazily when you threw a grenade, or surrendering and running away, or shouting taunts, rolling over to dodge you, etc. Although this wouldn't fit in the hl2 universe very well, I definatley wanted to see more reaction and dynamics from combine soldiers and aliens rather than, "I have a gun, and I'm running around. I might shout "grenade!" every now and then or signal to the others, but I have no emotion" It would have been cool if combines realized an iminent grenade explosion, and then jumped out of the way or something, or if they were like hl1 marines and occasionally got injured and limped.