Small details that make this game superior

[A.I.]

White blooming light that fades on/off based on what angle you look at it and from what distance

This pic made it on my wallpaper desktop. In fact I loooove Source's lightning much more than Doom's although D3 engine might be more advanced. But let's not argue about that.

HL2 is so detailed game, that you must play it through a couple of times to see how refined it is. I think that this is a first game for me which you love more the more you play it.

 

[lans]

Loved the glass effects. Also loved the graphics in and in the underground part of the the citadel - the whole matrix-esque "humans like cell" thing, and the rides within it.

 

[ummno]

I love how barnicles try to eat crates and barrels when they suck it up. They attempt to grab hold it for 3 times then give up

 

[Mannex17]

While my friend was playing the leak, he was at the part where the dropship drops a bunch of overwatch right before the bridge part, and they were all strafing around shooting at him.

There was a lone egg-crate sitting in the middle of the area, and one overwatch was strafing and shooting at him, and didn't see it, tripped over it, and ate dirt. He didn't get up. :hmph:

 

[Tim F]

erm....break a few legs?
anyway, i really liked the ai :thumbs:

New Zealand has unbelievably stringent laws for personal injury suits, so fifty bucks and a free two hours will get you anything from a bungy jump to a zorb (google) to a tandem skydive. Barring disaster or war I'm headed back there in two weeks, and I'm coming back with a ring. Cheers!

 

[Black Mesa corp]

MY favourite small details would be the way barnacles splurge out goe when they die and the way you can pick up different limbs on bodies with the organic gravity gun, to name alot... :rolling:

 

[miked4o7]

The entire game just completely owns.

I love the bridge part... especially running as fast you can along the thin beams a few hundred feet above the ground as the gunship is firing at you. Also, the race in the buggy against the oncoming train once you go on the top of the bridge was intense. Every single part of the game was just executed perfectly.

It's easily the best game I've ever played.

 

[[46] pushit [2]]

Look up.

dammit, that would have been really cool...a hydra and all..actually in the

 

[marshmallow]

Whaaaat? I only saw Lamar once, when he crawls in a vent. Then I'm teleported outside the secret lab. The next and last time I see Kliener in the flesh was after Alyx and I teleported back to the lab 'a week later'.

Did I somehow miss some of the game?

Yeah, I guess so. As you are about to be teleported Lamar falls out of the vent. Kleiner asks what's going on and Barney, in a memorable line, replies, "It's your pet....THE FREAKIN' HEAD HUMPER!" Then Lamar leaps into the teleport. On the beach Lamar is there with you. He walks around for a moment and then leaps in an attempt to catch a bird.

If it wasn't for Lamar, this game would be a lot shorter. =]

 

[hashashin]

I was playing "Follow Freeman" earlier today, and wiped out a squad of combine in the building with the generators. I went around to loot their bodies, and realized one of the combine soldiers wasn't quite dead. He was curled up on the floor, shivering and twitching. I took out the pistol and put him out of his misery, and then he went limp and stopped moving. Slightly disturbing, and a nice touch.

 

[Moquia]

When you damage the gunship at the end of Water Hazard, one of the pilots fall out.

The sound scanners and manhacks make when you hit them with the crowbar.

 

[hardcorus]

there are many many things I could mention about HL2 but I won't because...well...I'm having a hard time typing on this laptop in the dark....

Intamin mentioned a bunch of stuff I was going to mention so that saves me a word or two. The staying off the sand...damn neat...

One of my favorite parts of the game would have to be when you're treking across the bridge (underneath it of course) to the other side. You can hear the wind whistling past you. It was just really immersive and I love that. (Not that other parts weren't immersive too, this one just sticks out in my mind the most). Another one of my favorite parts is(are) the ride(s) you take in the Citidal...damn I love that part...

 

[cjborton]

I loved how the crossbow implemented (semi) realistic ballistics, with the bolt dropping in height as it traveled. If only they could apply that to all weapons.

 

[hardcorus]

I loved how the crossbow implemented (semi) realistic ballistics, with the bolt dropping in height as it traveled. If only they could apply that to all weapons.

I really enjoyed the sound of that gun aswell...it was a really satisfying sound.

 

[Spiffe]

yea its just the small details that make this game so good. like when you shoot something in the distance (like an explosive barrel) the sound actually arrives a second or so later, as you would expect in real life. also the bullet effects when you're underwater are mindblowing. the sound is distorted just as you would expect it to be, it actually sounds like youre underwater and the bullets whizz past you leaving a trail of bubbles.

valve are so far ahead of everyone else, they should almost be given a handicap to make it fairer.

Yeah, the sound is awesome. Like when a barrel or a grenade explode near you, it beeps in your ear. and then the sound is a bit muted with some filter. That is awesome.
And the sound changes in different envorinments.
this has been in games before, just never so well done as in HL2

 

[Spiffe]

-The antlion flying sound. When I first heard that the antlions could fly I didn't know if it would look that good in game. But valve pulled it off perfectly. The sound their wings make flying around is great..

I agree...
In fact I found that sound very creepy.
it's scaryer, (in a way), than ravenholm when you are competly sorrounded by antlions and you shoot like crazy and run away to get some space. Then you hear that sound like. *bluphphphphph* And it gets louder and louder and you can't see where the h*ll that antlion is!
cool

 

[cjborton]

Yeah, for someone that has a bug-phobia that would make them piss their pants.

 

[krupa]

i saw a bird and shot it. it fell to the ground. after that i was like wow. i wasnt amazed by ragdoll because i had my fair share of it from hitman and max payne 2.

 

[MoFo]

Yeah, I guess so. As you are about to be teleported Lamar falls out of the vent. Kleiner asks what's going on and Barney, in a memorable line, replies, "It's your pet....THE FREAKIN' HEAD HUMPER!" Then Lamar leaps into the teleport. On the beach Lamar is there with you. He walks around for a moment and then leaps in an attempt to catch a bird.

If it wasn't for Lamar, this game would be a lot shorter. =]

and also, when you come back to the lab after that, kleiner goes ''has he got lamarr?''

and the crow from the beach is now sitting on the floor in the lab!

 

[Shadow112090]

i think that the way the characters look around, talk and even walk gives them this apparent "life force"

 

[randomexcess]

Bits that really stood out -

- The first time in Kleiner's lab, the magnifying glass on his desk is an amazing touch

- At one point in the citadel there's a big blue wibbly column with an energy beam in the middle, if you throw bodies into it they travel through it in slow motion, rotating slowly with limbs flailing

- The Overwatch rifles's second fire mode, when it disintegrates people just looks awesome

- What Spiffe mentioned - when shells are raining around you, one goes off next to you and you're deafened, sometimes with a ringing in your ears, I found myself just stumbling around the battlefield feeling geniunely shell-shocked ...

- Something I've only just remembered. When you're driving the speeder, that big smoke stack that collapses across the road. That blew me away.

 

[Sorze]

Most of this game is awesome, but one thing that was awesome and caught me completely by surprise was this...

You know the part with the buggy where the road is destroyed, so you have to go down on the beach instead. I just felt like trying my luck so I turboed right out into thin air and pulled a sweeeet backflip!!



Stuff in this thread is making me aware of all the stuff I missed... :hmph: :cheers:

 

[MGSRevolver]

-When you are introduced to the fast zombies in Ravenholm for the first time... I stepped out onto a roof, and I was admiring the skyline in that area, and then I heard the shriek and saw the thing bounding towards me.

-In the very beginning of the game, when you're wandering through the apartments... I was still very much stuck on the epic scale of it, and how smoothly the game was running... anyway, some guy in an apartment was trying to calm his wife, and when you approach him, he looks up at you without saying a word. His expression alone conveys a perfect "you've come at the wrong time" message. Then, as you continue through the building, the resistance are watching out for you and leading the way for you. There's a moment of calm, and you look towards a door, and the combine bust their way through and smack some guy with a stun stick. Even though I was unarmed, I really wanted to protect the rest of the people in the building. GOTY.

-There was this one part towards the end of Highway 17 - maybe the beginning of Sandtrap - where you get stuck in a small section. You need three batteries to open a big door to get your buggy through... but I couldn't find the third battery. So I blasted a few cars over to the door, ripped some of the metal panels off a fence with my crowbar, and built a ramp for myself. I launched myself over the wall, and when I landed, I thought, "I bet only 1/8 of HL2 players actually got to do that." That's what made it special for me, how everyone had different awesome experiences... and the fact that VALVe knew about this, and wanted this. They created it that way.

 

[frances_farmer]

I was playing "Follow Freeman" earlier today, and wiped out a squad of combine in the building with the generators. I went around to loot their bodies, and realized one of the combine soldiers wasn't quite dead. He was curled up on the floor, shivering and twitching. I took out the pistol and put him out of his misery, and then he went limp and stopped moving. Slightly disturbing, and a nice touch.

thats just a physics glitch

 

[AJ Rimmer]

I just heard Alyx explain what Ravenholm is for the first time, I didn't even know about that little speech until today, it really is in the details!

 

[Intamin]

Yeah, the problemis this: do you want to soak in all the environmental aspects of the game while not paying attention to what the characters are saying or vice versa? Had to play it again (not all of it, but I will when I have more time) just to hear what the characters had to say b/c I missed so much of it due to the sheer graphical superiority in HL2. GOTM (Millenium) .

 

[cky]

Hmm, most of the things i would say have been sayd already, but there is one thing though.

Im on my second way trough the game and today i was figthing the striders (cool enemy). i didnt have any rockets left so i tried to use the secondary fire of the pulserifle. That worked great. The body of the strider blasted into peaces with a lot of yellow stuff while the legs just falled to the ground. I didnt knew that they could blast like that and it looked so cool.

 

[JustinSane]

I hadn't played HL1 for like years before this came out so I didn't remember much of it, just the main stuff roughly. So in water hazzard after you've taken down the chopper, you head up on that little hill with a building on top of it, opposite to the dam. There I killed the combine and noticed this sign that says something like "Observation" and and an arrow pointing to the other side of the building, so I made my way to the edge and looked at the dam and saw this tiny figure, zoomed in and saw the G-man. I was like "woooaah, that's pretty fecking creepy" (in a way).
Yeah, I know that it's not anything special, but to spot out G-man without expecting it at all was really really intimidating, seeing him watch at your direction and walk away

Of course there ware many many other great moments and details but this was the first one that really blew me off

 

[red_LED]

Definitely sound effects and physics for me. I love spawning a large battle of civilians (smg1) and combines (smg2) and using noclip to get about a mile distance away from them, the gun shots are all muffled and delayed, sounds like a real war from inside a city or something.

 

[Skyjack]

... Breen was fantastic though, absolutely perfect.

I loved how Breens' speaches get more angry, desperate, and scared as you cause more trouble.

 

[Fenbab]

I first realized what this game was REALLY about was when i got to the bridge, it is WAy high (as I am sure everyone knows) and I thougt "Hmmm it cannot be THAT perfect, I mean if I trow something in the water it will dissapear in mid air or at sea level but no water effect" watching the barrel I trew spin and then go into the water amking a splash and then eventually trowing myself and listening to my splash made me get vertigo the rest of the bridge.. having the constant fear of slipping and falling all that way was one of the best game experiences of my life

one other good moment was when I first shot a shattering glass, the first thing I thought was "Oh this is good, but it's probably badly made, I mean if I shoot under the hole I just made creating an isolated piece of shatter it's going to fly" but no, the glass enters a chain reaction and brakes shatters unaffected by my bullets this is great!

And one third thing that just occured to me: The Dog I mean it's a dog! OK its tons of metal bound in a destruction machine, but it gets happy, it plays catch, it closes the wings that make his head like a dog does with his ears when cuddled.. i mean what more of a dog do you want?