Half life 2 is overrated

I agree with most of what Darkside had to say, that the process of playing through the game itself is so much more enjoyable in HL compared too HL2. "Chore" is as good a word as any that can be used to describe the HL2 gameplay. You just want get rid of it till you get to the "cheese", however the cheese here is definitely quite cheesy and predictable as hell (imo). Be it, Alyx promptly coming back to life, or Dog's timely interventions, or Eli's death. The troubling thing with the narrative in HL2 is that it never plays with your expectations and doesn't have any big or spicy plot twists, and although some might say this makes the game more "realistic", it also results in a far lesser emotional range being triggered by the events, compared to games like System Shock 2, or Portal.

People keep saying that I just don't like the way Valve are making there games now, etc., so it is hopeless to expect anything different, but the supreme example of Portal, which I rate just next to HL in terms of a singleplayer experience, says otherwise.

Portal shows the importance of deliberate minimalism in certain areas, the plot points (although there aren?t many) aren't fed to you by cheery, bright eyed people, but in a very controlled and intelligent manner. Instead what Portal has set out to do is provide an enigmatic solo experience, dashed with humour, wit, and absolutely f***ing fantastic gameplay that never gets repetitive (sounds very reviewy, I know, but it deserves it). Portal's antiseptic surroundings and scenario manages to exude far more allure, feeling, and dread than any of HL2's constantly shifting vistas, because it has a very good footing within the plot, and it manages to be an intriguing story, without ever getting ahead of itself, with just enough unexplained stuff for speculation, and enough covered to leave a satisfying experience.

Half life 2, at this point, simply seems like your ordinary plot, spiced up with big physics words, and appears to be getting ahead of itself, as it takes itself so seriously. Yes, I know it has famous author Marc Laidlaw working on it, and you can relax with the "HL2 doesn't feed you the story, you have to look for it", because I definitely know every plot-point as I stated earlier, and it is not a bad story by any means, but I have read far better stories in videogames, and HL2 simply doesn't hold a candle to any decent story you could get in a sci-fi show, or novel. My point with all of this is that I fail to see why people call it the best ever when the things it does best, and that is storytelling, and immersion, has been done better in other games already.

Granted, it is an extreme minority of games that are overall better than HL2, but HL2 has had the luxury of stemming off from the legacy of HL, and being in development for 6 years, but as for being fun and wanting to play and cherish it over and over, there are many games that are better than HL2.

But as I say this I want to make clear that I did not target HL2's replayability with the previous statement. Some games are simply not replayable, no matter how good they might be. I got the same level of enjoyment from Mafia (not everyone likes it, I know), and Max Payne, and while I can keep going back to Max Payne, and instantly begin to enjoy the firefights, I won't necessarily be that eager to boot up Mafia and play through it again. But I do respect Mafia for the fantastic experience I got from it, and can at least cherish it forever, for it delivers on its intrinsic worth remarkably, without relying on any gimmick or hype.

I cannot say the same for HL2.
 
I finished HL2 and all the episodes without cheats.

So proud of myself.
 
hool10 said:
I got a kind of dirty secret on the HL series. I have never beaten Nihilanth without the use of noclip and god mode. He zaps you, you can't fly high enough, he teleports you to crappy mazes, there is vorts at the bottom. It's incredibly tough. So yeah, I have never completed HL without using those 2 cheats at the end.
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As Landstander said, you can easily defeat the Nihilanth on the ground. That is how I beat him the first time I played the game, and he never got the chance to teleport me. I'll tell you my secret recipe for beating him:

1. "FREEEEEEEEEEMAAAAAAAAAAN..." right when the screen goes black and he starts talking, switch to the gauss gun, charge it up, and fire. You're aiming for the crystal directly in front of you; so right before your platform crumbles and drops you into the muck, right before he has a chance to do anything, boom, one of his crystals is gone. Repeat using the gauss gun with the last two.

2. Find a large stalagmite. There's a very specific one, I don't feel like popping the game open and taking a picture but you'll know it when you find it because it's HUGE, and you can get right under it so that the point obscures him. He can't see you and you can't see him, and that means his portals will hit that stalagmite and fizzle out. You're going to stay here.

3. Now, this only works in Half-Life, and not Half-Life: Source for some reason (which threw me off when I played through HL:S), but the hivehand targets and destroys his projectiles. Those little ball lightning ones that mess you up so bad? Hivehand primary fire. Gets rid of all of them. Keep that as your last inv (Q) weapon.

4. Unload everything you've got into him. And I mean everything. Just tear the shit out of him with all your weapons. Now, if you've got grenades and satchels, you can use those too; toss them onto the bounce pad and they'll fly up to him. Time your grenades, and time your button presses with the satchels and you'll waste him. Very important: try not to use rockets at this time.

5. His head will open up. NOW use rockets. Angle them up, fire ABOVE him, then bring your targeting laser down quick so the rocket goes right into his head. That's how I beat him the first time, and in all the times I've beaten him since, that was the most exhilirating one. I've never been able to duplicate how cool it looked, despite like three hundred playthroughs. :LOL:

You play it smart and he won't teleport you anywhere. You can even ignore the vortigaunts he summons for the most part, or dispatch them with two pistol shots to the eye. I ignore everything he summons.
 
vanillacrazycake said:
I fail to see why people call it the best ever when the things it does best, and that is storytelling, and immersion, has been done better in other games already.
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Do you understand the differenc between fact, your opinion and common opinion?

Fact: Valve put a lot of work into HL2 and changed the direction of the series somewhat.

Your opinion: It didn't pay off.

Common opinion: It paid off.

Understand yet?? :|
 
Everything that I am saying is definately from my perspective only, and I do realise that the common opinion on this topic is different to mine, but I don't see a reason you have to jump on everything that goes against the opinion. I am not going to start adding imo at the end of every sentence.

The reason I made this topic was to bring my different perspective forwards. I don't expect anyone to change their opinion about the game, but I do feel people are a bit too blindly in love with the game, although I may be wrong.
 
Consider your perspective put forward, considered, thought about for a moment, then put on a shelf and ignored. :thumbs:
 
You only have yourself to blame. You signed up to a Half-Life 2 fansite, and your very first post explained how you thought it was overrated. What were you expecting? Flowers?
 
I have a dirty secret. I have never even played most of HL1.
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I too have never played through HL1.

I tried with HL1 source once after I got HL2, but I quit after there was no save feature, I couldn't be arsed having to manually save. Lazy, perhaps. But the games graphics were naff to.

I was never a HL1 nostalgia player TBH.

I have great respect for the first HL and what it achieved, and I look forward to the Black Mesa mod when it will be nice and modernized and acceptable to my current standards, but until then I'll just be Nurar, teh HL2 dolt.

Vanilla, your first post on www.halflife2.net was "HL2 is overrated.

It could almost come across as a bad attempt at trolling?, I dunno. Regardless, how you expected to get high praise for your highly enlightened outlook on gaming, I dunno.

As for opinions, well, they're like assholes, everyone has one.

So no, no-one here cares especially if you think Halo and F.E.A.R. are the greatest games ever and every little gripe you have with HL2. Seeing as this is a HL2 fansite, well....what did you expect?. Thats how I came to the conclusion, troll.

Thank you.
 
Nice Strat darkside, I never would have thought the hornet gun would do that. Though I did learn to hide from his teleports, it's funny when he gets angry and keeps spamming them :p
 
Pi said:
You only have yourself to blame. You signed up to a Half-Life 2 fansite, and your very first post explained how you thought it was overrated. What were you expecting? Flowers?
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I rather give him props for not presenting his opinion as either:

A. An idiot
B. A fanboy of another game come to slag the series

So you know, just because I think he had a right to put forth his position on a Half-Life site even if it was unfavorable, I think I WILL give him flowers.

*Gives Vanilla some carnelians*
 
What I was expecting was to see if other people are capable of seeing the flaws that I saw within the game as well, and a fansite dedicated to the game in question was a logical place to put forward my grievances towards the game, rather than a random forum where I may not get any reaction at all.

It is obvious that you have to be prepared towards hostilities as well when you take a step like this, but some of the hostile comments that I get, reek of nothing more than basic trolling, which do not add anything useful to the thread. Yes, I know this is the INTERNET, and a FANsite, but I was pleased to see that some people saw my point as well, even if not fully agreeing with everything I had to say.
 
vanillacrazycake said:
What I was expecting was to see if other people are capable of seeing the flaws that I saw within the game as well, and a fansite dedicated to the game in question was a logical place to put forward my grievances towards the game, rather than a random forum where I may not get any reaction at all.
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:rolleyes:
 
That may have come across as a bit snobby, but seeing 100% positive reviews every site I went to really struck me, without anyone addressing the flaws I have mentioned, so again, I am not trying to be elitist, if that was what you thought.:thumbs:
 
In HL1, I would noclip around the levels. They were too hard!


/runz
 
Pi Mu Rho said:
You only have yourself to blame. You signed up to a Half-Life 2 fansite, and your very first post explained how you thought it was overrated. What were you expecting? Flowers?
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Exactly what I have been saying lol. Yeh ok you felt a need to present a different opinion towards the game, for the fact that it has recieved flawless reviews :)rolleyes:), but its not like your the first, we have had them before, you are probably the first who presented the argument in a coherant fashion so that people actually read what you wanted to say, not just ban their ass.

But it just goes back to the fact that most people on here have played Half-Life 2 a few times, know the story and the game inside out, and most of us think its a truely epic game, so I really dont know what you were actually hoping to achieve by posting it here, except pretty much everyone disagreeing with you, or in a lesser case, being slated to death.
 
vanillacrazycake said:
What I was expecting was to see if other people are capable of seeing the flaws that I saw within the game as well, and a fansite dedicated to the game in question was a logical place to put forward my grievances towards the game, rather than a random forum where I may not get any reaction at all.
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What you saw as serious flaws were trivial niggles to some of us.
In fact, I saw huge flaws in F.E.A.R (repetion and lacklustre level and weapon design) that may not have bothered you at all.

Why is that so hard to get? :|
 
I read some review site saying that you had to use those jump pads to get up to his brain. Ok, I'll use those tips in the future. IMO the only time you can make fun of Valve for their games is Half-Life: Source and Half-Life: Deathmatch Source. Also Blue Shift but that is'nt Valves.
 
I have to agree with the TC on a few things. I absolutely love Half-Life 2, but there are some things about it that bother me. Oddly, despite the fact that I love the game I can't think of a single sequence in the game that was actually that much fun to play. Most of it felt completely scripted. I never felt like I was making any choices in the game. Episode 2 on the other hand felt much more like I was in control of things. Also, the combat sucks in Half-Life 2. I thought that when it came out, and I still feel that way now after having played through it several times. The combat doesn't even feel like a gun fight. It feels more like a point and click adventure where I click on the enemies and they die. It just doesn't have the feel of a fight. Other games have nailed the feel of combat much better than this game. The first Half-Life had a better feel to the combat than the second one for instance. I actually felt like I was fighting the enemies in it. I really have no clue why I even like Half-Life 2 that much. I can't think of anything in the game I really enjoy playing. However, I do like the story and the world feels real around you. I guess the atmosphere is what I would say makes this game so good. That and I actually care about what happens to the characters.

The only character I have any real complaints about is Alyx. At times it feels like they just put her in the game to tell me when to look to see a scripted sequence that Valve wants to make sure I won't miss. While it is nice that the game gives me a heads up, it comes off as forced most of the time. Not to mention she tells me to do things like look at at a bridge before anything is actually happening. How the hell does she know its about to fall down?
 
There are flaws but those flaws are minor inconvinises such as "slow" AI and.....thats the only one I can think of...I guess HL2 is pretty much flawless.
 
HL2 is the best game ever. The dialogue is very good for a game, maybe not as good as things like mass effect but still very solid. The game-play is epic and the fights are really good. Comparing it to Halo, I mean what the **** they are so different. That's like comparing GTA to Gran tourismo, yeah you could argue that GTA is about driving but it also has alot more.
How can you say that the game is predictable, Halo is very linear and all you do is shoot bad guys then you fight a boss then you fight more bad guys. The HL2 fights are spaced out and it's one of the best made games of all time.

P.S. why are you on the Halflife2.net forums if you don't like Half-life 2?
 
Because he got banned for the "we dont like Half-Life2" forums.
 
/me is not surprised a day old thread is 7 pages long with a title like that :p

This is a board for discussing game content, not whether you like it or not.

P.S. Unlike you, I have a naked girl standing behind me.
 
for how much I love the games, I have to say I think that something is wrong about how the combat feels.

I'm talking about the way the player moves, the damage weapons do, the innocuous nature of the overwatch soldiers, the very small arsenal.

The game is great, and the gameplay is also. I just feel the game needs some little tweaks, and that half-life 1 was much more kick ass in certain aspects.
 
Druckles said:
/me is not surprised a day old thread is 7 pages long with a title like that :p

This is a board for discussing game content, not whether you like it or not.

P.S. Unlike you, I have a naked girl standing behind me.
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I don't believe you. Take and then post a picture. :afro:

Oh, and OP guy? I'm not sure how a game where you have to fight aliens who invaded due to the hubris of man while simultaneously being observed by a mysterious government agent to save the world is supposed to be un-cliched. Hell, most of the characters were stereotypical scientists and security guards.

Most of your argument is "I don't like the combat". Oookay. I don't like the combat either. Tis cool.

And a few of the characters in HL2 (I'm looking at you, Kleiner( are fairly generic and boring.

But seriously, saying HL1 was better is... seriously pushing it. But I agree with the rest of your points. Except for the dialogue flatness.
 
I think the old games are better then the Modern day ones to be honest.

HL and HL2 are perfect examples.

Ok so the physics in HL2, res of the textures, and the fact the Head crabs had the ability to detatch themselves from zombies, was pretty cool... But other then that, HL2 mostly just pushed my processor up to speed (and RAM), and shitted me with Steam. Thats not to say its a bad game, but compare it to HL, and HL really just lacks in graphics and physics... (which is why BM:S will be awesome when it comes out).

Bring back Return to castle Wolfenstein and HL, heck, bring back Duke, and Doom. They were the golden days, the days of classics. No amount of graphics or physics will ever beat them.
 
All HL lacks is graphics and physics compared to HL2? Hoho. I'd add good gameplay, storytelling, characters and polish to that list. It's just nostalgia speaking for you.
 
Blackiris: Play Duke Nukem 3D with the new texture and model pack that makes it looks good and try out the gameplay. It's shit.
 
Samon said:
All HL lacks is graphics and physics compared to HL2? Hoho. I'd add good gameplay, storytelling, characters and polish to that list.
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hoho? hoho? :p lol.

HL had way better characters then HL2... And as for the story telling? That was the brilliance of HL. It had a solid, great story, that was totally understandable, and the great thing about it was, it didn't need a whole bunch of dialog to tell it.

I mean you pretty much wake up in HL2 and have to find out an already existing story 'through dialog' and posters put up round the city. We never even see the invasion of the Combine, unlike the invasion of Xen. In HL you play the story from start to finish. You are the story, you cause it to happen in HL, and the story is the game as you play through it.
 
Rapstah said:
Blackiris: Play Duke Nukem 3D with the new texture and model pack that makes it looks good and try out the gameplay. It's shit.
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hehe lol :D.

It's been so long since I've played good ol duke I havn't even installed the update pack for the graphics yet.

Point I was making, is that they were the days... you know? Now it's all about making things 'look better', making bodies 'bounce round' when they die.... Like you just said they're even releasing graphics updates for poor duke to try and catch up with modern day gaming.
 
HL had no characters. It had character archetypes saying things. There was the brainy one and the stupid one.

That was it.
 
Narvi said:
HL had no characters. It had character archetypes saying things. There was the brainy one and the stupid one.

That was it.
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Fair enough... :).

I guess they had Rosenburg in Blue shift? and the G-Man in HL1... But I know what your getting at... What I met to say is that HL had better 'character archetypes' then HL2.
 
Rosenburg is an appalling character. He shouldn't even be considered above the likes of the boffins in HL1, nor mentioned in the same breath as the far more complex HL2 characters.

blackiris said:
I mean you pretty much wake up in HL2 and have to find out an already existing story 'through dialog' and posters put up round the city. We never even see the invasion of the Combine, unlike the invasion of Xen. In HL you play the story from start to finish. You are the story, you cause it to happen in HL, and the story is the game as you play through it.
Click to expand...

"Through dialogue". This is a bad thing??
 
Yeah, since HL1 was so information free, I keep getting the feeling that Valve is just making shit up on the spot...
 
Samon said:
Rosenburg is an appalling character. He shouldn't even be considered above the likes of the boffins in HL1, nor mentioned in the same breath as the far more complex HL2 characters.



"Through dialogue". This is a bad thing??
Click to expand...

No, it's not a bad thing... I'm just saying, HL needed very little dialog to tell its story, while HL2 was mostly made up of dialog, while contrary to what you said, HL has a great solid 'storyline' and doesn't need all that other crap to tell it.

And your missing the point I was saying about Rosenburg, I was merely trying to point out how there were at least a small hand full of characters in HL. I wasn't implying they were anywhere near the standard compared to HL2. Then again - HL didn't need characters to tell the story, it relied on it's fantastic game play :D.
 
How much did you get to know about the HL1 story just by playing it then? Nothing.
 
because of the 'character archetypes' saying things.

Minimal dialog contributed to HL's story telling... But it relied more on gameplay. You played out the story...

When people ask what HL's story is, they'll tell you 'its about Gordon freeman fighting his way out of an alien infested research facility' or something to that degree. And when playing HL, it was the player who made that story, you are Gordon Freeman.

HL2 already has its own story, and you pretty much wake up toward the end of it, to help the resistance finely over throw the combine after there reign over humanity for so many years. It's barely even about Gordon... It's more about the combine. All you really are is a soldier fighting against another tyrant, leading a group of resistance..
 
It's too bad HL1 gameplay is nowhere near as refined or polished as HL2's. (I've just come off playing HL1 again).
 
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