HL2 is way easier than HL1.

[Heyitsfree]

In Half Life 1, when playing on hard, being within a couple feet of a grenade launcher blast would kill you. In Half Life 2, even on hard, none of the soldiers even launch a grenade.

I have two questions: 1. Did anyone else notice this change in difficulty? 2. Why is HL1 so much more difficult?

 

[Vermintide]

1. Yes

2. Because it came from a time when videogames were far more unforgiving, and Valve were a much smaller studio who could not afford to spend time on the extensive playtesting, balancing and fine tuning that they put their products through nowadays.



That said I don't know what you are talking about, the soldiers throw grenades all the time... It's great fun the pick them up with the gravity gun and throw 'em back Hard mode on HL2 is easily a match for the original, although yes, the normal mode is definitely easier.

 

[Colonel Kernel]

Hmm, yeah, maybe the first time you play HL1, you get overwhelmed pretty quickly, but the more you play it, the more you get to know how their AI works - thus outsmarting them.

I think it as the HEV suit in HL2 is a better version, rigged with stolen Combine spice.

 

[Heyitsfree]

That said I don't know what you are talking about, the soldiers throw grenades all the time... It's great fun the pick them up with the gravity gun and throw 'em back

Sorry, I meant they never use the grenade launcher part of the MP7.

 

[Vermintide]

Ah, my bad.

In all honesty it'd probably start to feel a little unfair if they did. The MP7 grenade is a lot faster and presumably far more difficult to avoid than the one from HL.

In general, I'd say the Overwatch AI is far less aggressive than the Black Ops were; however I wouldn't say it is easier/less intelligent. I remember in the first HL, I would always just run backwards around a corner, and watch the bodies pile up as the morons came running one by one around that corner, into a hail of buckshot.

 

[doomish]

I think part of it is how much ammo they give you in HL2. You get pistol ammo out the butt, even in the later chapters. By then you have the gravity gun, so if you run out of ammo for a given weapon you can just switch to that. The original Half-Life didn't have a Gravity Gun-type weapon.

 

[Heyitsfree]

I'm pretty sure everything in HL1 has more health too. Especially the soldiers. The combine soldiers in HL2 can be downed with one well placed right trigger shot from the shotgun. I don't think the same is true for the HL1 HECU.

 

[IronicBob]

Of course it is. HL2 doesn't have that b***** Gonarch.

Words cannot express how much I hate that thing. If I wanted the experience of getting teabagged to death, I'd listen to a James Blunt album.

 

[Barnz]

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1317502 ?

 

[Heyitsfree]

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1317502 ?

Are you accusing me of something?

 

[Vegeta897]

We don't appreciate topics that sleep around.

 

[kupocake]

The only real problem I have with Half-Life 2 difficulty is the apparent lack of difference between the settings. Half-Life 1 can keep the 'six shotgun shells and they die' approach to difficulty, but Valve's player-death phobia needs to have nothing to do with the hardest setting. If people aren't playing the game to completion because they're dying too much on 'Hard', the rest of us shouldn't have to suffer for their inability to navigate option menus.

 

[ozzy_15]

hl2 may be easier than hl but hl has better weapons

 

[otis]

I actually played through HL on hard not to long ago just to run through it again, and I must say I did jump a few times.

 

[SGRaaize]

They're both fairly easy even in the hardest difficulty

 

[TheRage]

Yeah Half-Life 2 is more easier than HL1. Because Half-Life has more puzzles and traps. And HECU's fire rates are so fast.

 

[Mindshifter]

Extremely superb pacing makes up for relatively easy gameplay in HL2 IMO. HL2 is still the better game.

 

[TheRage]

...For the Source Engine.

 

[Kyzr]

Extremely superb pacing makes up for relatively easy gameplay in HL2 IMO. HL2 is still the better game.

I was just skimming through this thread when I noticed
"Hl2 is still a better game." Half life 1 is the greatest game of
all time. I will fight you if you disagree.

 

[Mindshifter]

Okay, fight me.

 

[Shem]

It depends on what aspects of the game you're talking about. Half-Life might have more challenging enemies, but Half-Life 2 has a variety of physics-based puzzles that can confuse some people. They are both unique in their own way.

And besides all of this, we are essentially comparing apples and oranges. These two games were both released years apart, have different elements, different enemies, different puzzles, and so on and so forth. They are entirely different, despite being in the same franchise.

 

[Colonel Kernel]

I'd say that the thing that depends the most for chosing your favorite Half-Life game is the time in which you play the games (in a sequential order, of course).

Now, lets say I played HL1 back in the 'ole days (which apparently I haven't) - at the time when Quake, Delta Force and Doom rulled (at least in my country). Then all of a sudden, Half-Life comes along with its unique story,way of telling that story and, nevertheless, its beautiful engine. I might have gone game-nutts, if I was a whitness.

The, if you have played HL1 for a first time around 2004, the game that would've grabbed your attention the most wouldn't be the first game - it would be who other than Half-Life 2.

Now, saying you're like me - discovering this unique franchise at a very late state - around 2008/9 - you wouldn't be all that much excited. HL1 is a long-long way from your time, HL2 and its episodes too and now Episode Three/Portal 2 is on it's way! Now those games might be your all-time favorites..

But that's not exactly the case with me - although missing all those years of Half-Life entertainment, I'm trying to put myself in the skin of a gamer from that point in time.
Or, on the other hand, you might not give a damn how old the game is - "as long as you're swimmin', nothin' ain't gonna get you trippin'".

Now, there, I hope this ties up some loose ends.

Edit: I might say only one thing - Damn dad, why couldn't it happen 10 years earlier.

 

[Asknoone]

I actually played through HL on hard not to long ago just to run through it again, and I must say I did jump a few times.

Aaaack. You mean to say you jumped in the likes of Residue Processing and Xen? What a loser.