Negative comments about Half-Life 2?

[Asknoone]

I think what were seeing is that my antlions are radically advanced in comparison to yours. In conclusion, I've the best Antlions there ever were.

Hey, chill yourself. You said that you saw the antlion trying to open a box which is obviously untrue. An antlion attacking a box at random is hardly an example of the wonderful AI you were talking about, is it?

You’re actually calling me a liar? Whilst all fingers point to it being a bug, it was exactly what I saw. The Antlion attacking a crate on the sand. I was in the boathouse. I opened the door, it was bashing the crate, and it left. Then I went outside and I shot at it, at which point it did a back flip, grabbed me by the legs and forced me into the sea until I drown.

Sadly, only the crate thing is true. I'm not saying this is OMG AI, I'm simply saying it was a cute little bug thing with the antlion attacking like an animal. Though to say I'd lie about something like that (a videogame..) is ridiculous.

 

[pomegranate]

You mentioned purely in the context of discussing AI in the game: "Antlions have really cool behavioural patterns that few seem to notice." Asked to elaborate, you gave the example we're talking about now. It's not a lie, but it's certainly sneakiness by omission.

And by the way, you contradicted yourself (or at least change your mind) about whether or not what you saw was a bug in the space of three posts. :cheese:

 

[Asknoone]

No, I just got carried away with the what the Antlion did. I did not mean to mislead people. And who knows? Perhaps it is possible to trigger it? I've come across dozens of interesting things.

More than likely a bug, but you never know.

I did change my mind. I was rational for a moment.

 

[votka]

They are certainly right about HL2 being too easy. I'm playing through it again and barely having to put in the slightest effort. At first I thought I'd accidentally set it to easy, and even allowing for improved knowledge of the game, not running out of health and ammo, knowing where the enemies are (in fact I think there are far too few enemies in HL2 compared to the size of the levels) etc, this is a bit ridiculous. A good example is how the big enemies (striders, gunships) are made completely trivial by the infinite rockets available, with loads of cover so they never actually do much, or even any damage.

If the strider fights were in a huge area such as where you fight the helicopter in Route Kanal, with rockets spread out around the place (or even better, cunning ways of bringing them down, such as how you killed the gargantuas in Half-Life) then that would be more challenging and memorable. I can still remember the first time I electrocuted the gargantua, but my best memory of the strider is in the videos they showed at E3 years ago.

It's not good for a game's prominent enemies to be so easy; the big demons in Doom 3 (the ones on the box art) just run straight at you like everything else, in HL2 the striders and gunships pose no threat. These are potentially great enemies, but I don't think the game as it is now does them much justice. Take the humble zombie for example, a simple enemy made far more sinister with the fast and heavy versions, and also more threatening to the player than a strider.

As for the linearity, I think this is caused by the constant stream of orders from NPCs. In Half-Life, early on you're told to reach the Lambda complex, and you gradually make your way there. Occasionally an NPC gives you advice, but most of the way you're alone. In Half-Life 2 by comparison: first Barney tells you to find Alyx, then you're told to go through the canal; then you're told to reach the coast; then told to go to Nova Prospekt etc. Taking orders from, escorting and protecting NPCs so often is tedious. You can't even talk to most of them even for a simple response or a little bit of their background story. I've got a bad feeling that episode 2 will involve Alyx baby sitting me half the way, or a string of dumbass NPCs to defend.

That said, I think Half-Life 2 is a great game with loads of originality, but if I was forced to choose a favourite between the two, I'd still go for Half-Life :dozey:

 

[achilles_d]

Alyx baby sitting me half the way

I wouldn't mind that , and to be honest I like coop with intelligent AI like Alyx not those dumb citizens that get in ur way 90% of the time.

I don't think being alone is as much fun as coop.

 

[CrazyHarij]

anybody remember this?

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=57732

 

[votka]

I wouldn't mind that , and to be honest I like coop with intelligent AI like Alyx not those dumb citizens that get in ur way 90% of the time.

I don't think being alone is as much fun as coop.

Reading my post again, I think I was a bit unfair on the game; it has great gameplay, graphics, sound and characters, but I would stick by the comment of having a much harder difficulty level. I would like to see the striders in large scale physics-based catastrophes rather than pelting them with a continual chain of rockets; to knock them off balance, or collapse a building on to them, slice the body in half or something.

I miss the short conversations between soldiers and scientists in Half-Life that you stumbled upon, such as the two marines discussing who Freeman was, or questioning having to kill all the civilian scientists. Unless I've missed it, you don't hear the combine soldiers or resistance saying anything along these lines. Little details like that make the game much more fun for me to play.

 

[Asknoone]

anybody remember this?

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=57732

Didn't you and Dal set that up or something to argue both sides? #
Though if you were serious, I disagree very strongly with all of your points. Half-life 2 > Half-life anyday. :E

 

[McGooTheWise]

MY OXYGEN!!!!

*gasps*






*dies*

OHH NOES! WE LOSTED JINTOR! O_O

FUXXING HAT3RS!

Umm... Yeah.. so, just saw something funny, when you go to the door at the beginning of hl1, to get into the AM lab, and any other doors, if a cop opens them, they move their mouth to the beep... does this mean that the "beep" comes from them? Not exaxctly a negative, but kinda weird...