Half-life 2, .....a little disappointing

[lambdana]

Ahh yes MGS, a solid title

I'm 30 now which I suppose is old in "gamer" years. I actually don't get around to playing games very often these days. HL2 is the first game I've played since the first one in 98. My tastes have become fairly refined, and it takes me quite awhile to get around to playing something I want.

My first system was the Segamaster system, but before that I had played atari, colleco , activision, and even the pong system. After that ofcourse is nintendo , turbographics16 and then the Sega Genesis. Everyone wanted the 24bit NeoGeo but nobody could afford it at $1000 bucks. I later bought a TurboDuo which was a CD-rom and card machine. Then waited forever for the dissapointing CDrom expansion console for the genesis.
What alot of people don't know is that Pioneer actually came out with a LaserDisc game console called the LaserActivePlayer Which was cool looking but proved to be doomed as the LD format was short lived and DVDs came out. Philips even got in the game with a console, but I can't remember the name of it.(was it EVO) anyone ?
Then I sold whatever I had and bought a Supernintendo which I loved. Sony came out with the platStation and it was all over. Sega could't repeat the success of the genesis and was reduced to software development. Nintendo64 had a few good games but didnt last, Atari tried to make a comeback with the Jaguar64 and was the first to have aliens vs predetor. That system died right on the toilet(I think the joystick did it, or should I say keypad) After that the new PS2 was mine and kids bought the Nintendo game cube, sega just made games and microsoft got in the game too.

For all of the systems I've owned and some of the ones I didn't , I've probably played 70% of all the titles for each one, and I'm sure thats gotta be over a thousand titles but I'm sure as hell not going to count.

Around this time I stopped buying consoles and just used a PC. This is when I got into halflife, and after that mindblowing experience I decided to take a break from all games and focus on other things.

8 years later I pop in HL2 and the rest is history.

 

[63]

95% of the whole game is gun battles with armored soldiers in various abandoned buildings with a few aliens thrown in here and there and a tiny bit of storyline.

YEAH TOTALLY A CS CLONE.

I'm 30 now which I suppose is old in "gamer" years.

Average age for a gamer these days is 32.

 

[Aurora26]

You have a very valid point, but I don't think it matters all that much.

Yes, valve certainly has been conservative on the enemy variety side in HL2, I was expecting to see the return of bullsquids and houndeyes, yet they never even made an appearance in Episode 1. In fact the only new enemy in Episode 1 was a combination of two previous enemies. Yes I also understand there are reasons for this (new enemies like the Hydra turned out to be no fun to fight etc.)

But does this ruin the experience of the game for me? not in the slightest, because the rest of the game is just that good.

That being said, I also believe that HL2 doesn't exactly measure up to HL1. However this has nothing to do with the quality of the game, but the fact that it IS a sequal, and I don't think any subsequent game could top the original. Playing HL1 for the first time was a mind blowing experience, an event unique to its time, and one that can never really be repeated because we all have some idea what to expect for the future games.

 

[Planetary]

Don't forget the Stalkers.
Though they're more of an obstacle then a real enemy.
I have a big theory about why houndeyes and bullsquids don't appear, but that's another thread, for another day.

 

[i am HOLLYWOOD]

Maybe he played Half-Life2 Deathmatch and thought that was the game. . .

 

[Buzz787]

I am on the last part of Dark Energy. I can't destroy the main fusion???? with the orbit balls in time. I time out. Assignment terminated. I am terminated in approx. 5 sec. I have made aleast 50 attempts. The walk-through on Gamespot says to forget about the gun ships and keep firing at the Main Core. Again, I time out.

Any ideas anyone????????????????????

 

[Que-Ever]

lambdana .....a little disappointing.

 

[Narvi]

ESPECIALLY Metal Gear Solid.

What, you didn't enjoy blowing up a minigun-wielding giant black man with multiple stinger missiles? Or fighting a dude who used BEES as his weapon? What about fighting an awesome cyborg ninja? Partypooper.

 

[CyberPitz]

lambdana .....a little disappointing.

Is it bad that when I looked at this thread title and wanted to post the EXACT same thing?

 

[bbson john]

I am on the last part of Dark Energy. I can't destroy the main fusion???? with the orbit balls in time. I time out. Assignment terminated. I am terminated in approx. 5 sec. I have made aleast 50 attempts. The walk-through on Gamespot says to forget about the gun ships and keep firing at the Main Core. Again, I time out.

Any ideas anyone????????????????????

Why the hell you post it here?

Anyway, did you waste too much time on climbing up to the top of the teleportation chamber?

 

[heer0]

Commentary Track ON shall heal you from all your torments, my children...

 

[Narvi]

And Half Life 2 has commentary, heer0?

 

[heer0]

nope, but Ep1 and LC have, Ep2 will have too

 

[Rapstah]

I read somewhere that Portal would, too, but I'm pretty sure that's not correct anymore.

 

[Narvi]

I read somewhere that Portal would, too, but I'm pretty sure that's not correct anymore.

Why the hell not?

 

[Rapstah]

"So we made this puzzle. You use the portal gun."

It wouldn't really add anything to the experience. All the technological advantages are explained in the EP2 commentaries.

 

[Sheepo]

"So we made this puzzle. You use the portal gun."

It wouldn't really add anything to the experience. All the technological advantages are explained in the EP2 commentaries.

There's still plenty of stuff for commentary, general gameplay ideas, objects and enemies, art styles, you'd unlock it like in Episode 1 so they'd even be able to talk about the small amount of storyline they'll probably reveal, etc.
Hell I even read in an interview Valve was considering TF2 commentary.:cheers:

 

[Rapstah]

How'd TF2 commentary be?

I can imagine Dustbowl with that...

 

[Sheepo]

The interview didn't say much about how but I think they spoke about a feature like being able to make your own nodes in levels and stuff.

 

[Rapstah]

Well sure, the EP2 engine will support them.

 

[Sheepo]

http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200703/N07.0327.1745.51023.htm?Page=4

"GI: Is there any single-player element, with bots or anything like that?

Walker: You?d have to write nine different bots for TF?that?s the problem. (laughs) You don?t write just one.

GI: If there?s no single-player mode, how?s commentary mode going to work?

Walker: We have multiplayer commentary already. We actually did that. I don?t think we know yet exactly what features we?ll have. One of the things after Episode One we really wanted to do was get more stuff in the commentary. We wanted you to be able to look at concept art and be able to look at a model and rotate it around. We still hope to get something like that in. We?ll see.

GI: It?ll be a little tricky though, doing it in-game.

Walker: It?s all right. You can start it on your end. Start a listen server and go through commentary. That said, we would like to do multiplayer commentary. We have this idea of multiple layers of commentary, where there?s a tactics layer, where the commentary is saying, ?Here are good places to build sentry guns,? that sort of teach you to play the game as well. We?ll see. I think what we?d really like is for those sorts of things to be plugged into the community, so the community can do it themselves. I mean, you might find a fantastic place to place a sentry gun or to defend or as a spy, ?I like to go here, and I disguise and move to here and then I undisguise,? whatever. Maybe you come up with that, and we?d like a way for you to use the commentary system to share that to everyone else in the world."

I'm sorry this thread has gotten so off topic but the original topic kinda sucked anyway. We were just totally verbally beating some idiot who got scared and stopped posting. I guess this is now a commentary thread.

 

[Narvi]

"So we made this puzzle. You use the portal gun."

It wouldn't really add anything to the experience. All the technological advantages are explained in the EP2 commentaries.

You don't see the value of developer commentary on how they made Portal puzzles? By that logic Episode 1 didn't need commentary as it's all about making levels with enemies and stufff.

 

[heer0]

...I guess this is now a commentary thread.

my fault :angel: :E

We could play the game and forget about the comentary, but most people don't even have an idea how much work it is to create a game. Forget about the engine (graphics, sound, e.t.c), to make the game playable Valve had to constantly 'observe' the mood of the player, that is, to make the gameplay smooth, to make sure there are no 'battle fatigues' (to give the player some rest after much of a fighting), it's not fun just to go from the beginning to the end blasting everything up (like in Serious Sam !rulz! ), and to ensure the Vistas work properly. Not to mention the ENORMOUS work Valve did on the characters, Alyx for example. I'm usualy able to see 'behind the scene' of the game, as a developer and fan, it is allways interesting to know how a favorite game is created, and Valve just gives us this information via the Commentary. Thanks Valve! :thumbs:

Now we're really off topic

 

[ktimekiller]

Skeletors absolutely right in that I'm of the old school mindset requiring a game to have a satisfying ending and a few bosses, (blowing up Breen felt great but I require alittle more of a fight, especially at the end of the game) what alot of newbies fail to understand is old is not always bad. (with the exception of graphics)lol

To say that well gee the games story is alot more realistic with less crazy aliens and all is crap. ITS A GAME , THE STORYS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE REAL. Yeah why don't we make the game really real and have no aliens or teleportation or gravity guns. Ya that would make the story even more believible ! hey wait a minute wouldn't that be something like counterstrike. C'mon guys , do you not see my point?

Even though its a game, it should make sense, not some random shit like a huge bullsquid comes out through the air firing torpedos and shooting lasor out of its eyes and landing creating a huge earthquake or whatever... There are reasons why they did what they did in hl2, because it made sense.

 

[nokori3byo]

Also, let's make some distinctions on boss fights. There's nothing "old school" about them. They just require a different approach to keep with the evolving genre. The original Half-Life managed to include them without some cheesy health bar popping up and requiring you to launch a billion rockets at them (exception being Nihilanth). The tentacle, for instance, was a boss that worked seamlessly. The gargantua appearances also required other, more thoughtful approaches than simply shooting them to death. That's why they worked so well. Surely something like this could have been squeezed into Half-Life 2? Of course, I do believe that's what the hydra was all about, and it had to removed for known reasons.

Well said, Absinthe.

Re: bosses in Half-Life 2. First of all there are some. The fact that the chopper is the only one (or at least one of the only ones) of its kind in the game, may give it the aura of being the only proper boss, but is this really the case? I believe the game offers many instances of a boss situation being created, not by the identity of the opponent, but rather by the nature of the encounter. The several waves of Striders encountered at the end of Follow Freeman, seem less like bosses than military objectives. Why is it then that the lone Strider at the end of Our Benefactors seems very much like a boss? Perhaps it's the fact that a) it's encountered in a confined area b) it's gunning specifically for the player c) it must be defeated (or eluded) for the player to progress to a new level. The same is true of the lone Strider at the end of Ep. 1, a game which acts as a kind of curtain call for all of HL2's mini-bosses (or "grunt bosses" as a well-known wiki entry on the subject calls them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boss_(video_games)#Bosses_by_type
).
Personally, I had no problem at with the exclusion of more traditional, and conventionally monstrous bosses from HL2. They worked OK in the original game, but part of the reason--as Absinthe has pointed out--was that they were actually an innovative spin on the towering meat shield bosses of the past. More to the point, I just don't think that kind of boss would have gelled with HL2's atmosphere of historically nuanced horror. Indeed, one of the game's notable improvements over its predecessor was to get past the cartoonish Chuck Jones-style monsters of the first game and offer a more plausible alternative. What's scarier, a bullsquid of a fascist dictatorship's death squads?

 

[lambdana]

need some help

on a completely unrelated subject, I'm having a little prob with diablo 2.

I downloaded this old game the otherday and the diablo 2 file consists of the cd1 BIN and then the CUE file next to it. then CD2BIN and CUE and CD3BIN and cue. Six files in all.

I installed the first file and tried to play but asked for the "play CD" you need to run with it. I see no playcd file so I am assuming that the BIN cd1 had to be copied to a CD and put in the tray, but that Does not work, and when I play it from deomon tools it says the same thing.

Can anyone help me on this?

 

[Rapstah]

D:

Seriously, heh.

EDIT: Why are you asking for help HERE?

 

[Danimal]

Remember when I said I'd ban you last?

I lied.

 

[Rapstah]

In again before lock.