Subtle Effect?

[r2000]

Whats your favorite subtle little effect or feature in HL2?
Yes I know this has probably been done to death. But I'm currently working on a mod project (planning would be better to say), and i was just curious.

 

[Laivasse]

A load of things....but quite often it's reflections. The fact that you can see the reflection of the world behind you in the X-bow's scope, and different things reflecting off metrocops' visor glass, standing by a red barn and having a blurry red reflection on your gun. Little graphical stuff like that kills me.

I like pretty skies too. The sunset area by the dam is just so killer in terms of atmos, with all the massive space and serenity, due quite a lot to the lighting and sky. Let's forget the dodgy shadows though.

 

[jondy]

The specularity maps on weapons. Even though they use cubemaps, along with the bumpmapping it just looks miles away from anything else. Farcry's weapon models suck in comparison. The standard HL2 pistol is a fantastic display of this.

EDIT: Also normal maps; they're used in a way that's less obvious that Doom3 but when the light catches models in a particular way and you see that extra detail, it looks superb.

 

[$kelet0r]

For me it was characters
the way alyx hugs herself when she feels overwhelmed or breens touching his fingers to his temple when he laughs

 

[clarky003]

the Ghost children you hear in the playground :O

 

[AJ Rimmer]

For me it was characters
the way alyx hugs herself when she feels overwhelmed or breens touching his fingers to his temple when he laughs

Oh yeah! The way that characters don't clip into each other when touching each other is faaar better than any other game.

 

[clairelovestlc]

when i first got the game i was amazed at not only how realistic the characters looked, but how realistic there reactions are aswell, to all different situations
( except when they stand there like a sack fulla sand as u whack em with the crowbar that is)

 

[ríomhaire]

The bump-mapping. Looking at an antlion from a certain angle makes you want to cry. ;(

 

[J_Tweedy]

the way you can impale combine against walls with the crossbow- thought that was pretty neat.
Also the car battery puzzle on the highway- thought that showed off the detail of the game the best.

 

[Sufferin-rebel]

I'll have to pick the bit when u r on the roof waiting for the cart to be sent to u in ravenholm and u got Fast zombies crawling up the drainpipe.. It will nice to see ravenholm from that view..

 

[r2000]

The reflections off of weapons.

 

[Anticitizen]

Soundtrack... I blabbed about this elsewhere. The right kind of track at the right moment does much to get the player into the mood, whether it's ambient (for subtlety) or beat-driven (for adrenaline).

Also, having objects that you can interact with in ways other than breaking them. Like the Combine 'scope in one of the abandoned houses on Highway 17, which allowed you to look over the water to the NLO base (G-man spotting).

Also, character-quirks. Grigori's raving about ruin and salvation (and then his rather nice attitude once you get to meet him properly), Kleiner's absent-mindedness, things like that...

And those other small things in the game that engage a player's attention or feelings, like the ghost-voices of children clarky003 mentioned.

 

[Marx! II]

Double on the soundtrack, made the bridge my favorite area.

 

[gabriel]

when i first played it, for some reason i was amazed by the way NPCs get down and crawl over ledges instead of just falling off.
I also loved the way bullets hit the water and the way the helicopters make ripples in the water. it just looks beautiful

 

[Anticitizen]

when i first played it, for some reason i was amazed by the way NPCs get down and crawl over ledges instead of just falling off.

Ah, yeah... that's another thing. Water Hazard, right? You're in the airboat racing through a ditch when a bunch of metrocops drop down from a ledge some distance in front of you. And then *WHAM*, away they fly... the fluidity of their movements was what made the best impression.

That reminds me... metrocops should have been given the AI to move out of the way when you come rushing at them. The AI in the game didn't really stand out (although it was more than what I was used to, so I was happy with it). I think that's probably because of my inferior machine, and the Source engine scaling the gameplay to help it cope. I'd really love to engage some seriously crafty enemies. Ones who would hide for an extended period after being hurt, and then use stealth instead of brute-force to get you.

Also, there should be more opportunities in the game for the player to use an enemy's technology or strengths against it, e.g. using the gravity gun to throw back a grenade, or reprogramming turrets to be hostile to the Combine.

 

[oldagerocker]

The walls looking really, realistic. The Texturing and normal maps on the environments was amazing imo, mostly shown off in the Apartments binks.

 

[tinyxipe]

Sooo many good things! I loved the overall atmosphere of the game. The general creepiness and feeling of oppression at the trainstation on arrival really stood out as a first impression. I remember being ordered down that hallway and seeing the citizen in the interrogation room. When the CP told me to get in the room, I stood there for a long moment, thinking "I really don't want to go in there..." Very convincing.

 

[Speedingorange]

the way the whole story, and all the settings, make you think " i really wish i knew how all of this happen, i wish i could of seen all these accidents, and all the battles that have taken palce before this one" and also everytime you find a corpse you wish you could have been there when he came to his sticky end, or been there when they first infected ravenholm..... anyone ells know what i mean?

 

[jondy]

Yeah; like there's a kindof history to the settings independant of you playing the game

 

[Speedingorange]

yes thank you! thats what i mean...

stuff like... what derailed this train,

how did the people in this house die? how did the combin attack? or was it the xen creatures

what happend to the buzy streets? how did everyone get herded up?

how did the dead guy in this tunnel die? was he cornerd and unable to escape? or was it a barnacle...

just stuff like that.. like see them building all the traps and little puzzles to keep the combine out... would be awesome yet terifieing to whitness.

i imagine it would be something like dawn of the dead... people would at first become free lance for fun killing, fortifieing a local buss with wire on the windows and so on and mounting a gun on the roof.. or making there car a small tank... to take on the ant lions... but eventually it all proved futile,...

thats what i love about hl2! and its so subtle coz its all only hinted at! and the rest is in your imagineation!

 

[biffs]

for me it was dust... just floating there.....

 

[Flyingdebris]

stuff like the resistance members wearing stolen combine uniforms or how the propellers on the engine blocks in ravenholm have a nasty brown crust from being used so often. Or how if you leave your buggy unattended, when you come back you'll sometimes find a seagull on it and little pieces of bird crap. Also the tiny lttle intricate movements of the pulse rifle reloading itself

 

[aPacifist]

For me it's the way Alyx's hips move, especially when she's standing and talking to someone, and especially when viewed from behind. Her body language is so realistic.

 

[Xune]

The loading times.

Such seamless transitions between levels left me gobsmaked and really aided in my immersion in the game.

 

[FictiousWill]

The warped glass shader on the first floor of that apt just after the train station - I'm pretty sure everybody oohd and aahd at that. You know the one, lead to the mailboxes and bicycle dead end?

 

[Hunter_8472]

The detail. The sheer detail.
Things like the Pulse rifle reloading, The sparks bouncing off things, the warped reflections in water, the bubble trail left by bullets speeding through the canal at Gordon.

I was a little disappointed to find that most of the few plants are sprites, but I suppose a huge number of actual plant models would have excessively strained most people's PCs.

 

[J_Tweedy]

For me it's the way Alyx's hips move, especially when she's standing and talking to someone, and especially when viewed from behind. Her body language is so realistic.

Haha watching the hips eh? I suppose i can forgive you because she almost looks real...sort of.

 

[mime genocide]

i liked the sound, the sound foot steps make on differnt sufaces. the chatter of the combine radios and the sound of there gear rattaling around as they run. and its all in 7.1

 

[Jintor]

Birds. The seagull on the car, that was pretty nice.

 

[Drackard]

Everything for me really.... if i had to choose though it would probably be ...... Sorry i can't decide lol i loved it all, althought i never heard voices in the playground i may go back and listen a bit more carefully... is it in a specific part or just in general lol, i might have just rushed through it.