What I want HL3 to be like

[SWAT Pointmann]

To be honest, I really did not enjoy HL2 very much or the following episodic games. They weren't terrible, but they just completely lacked the charm and feel of Half-Life 1. HL2 lacked most of the cool weapons and enemies that HL1 had. It had a pathetic multiplayer. Anyhow, I would like to see HL3 take a more HL1 inspired root by having more HL1 enemies and weapons. I'm not saying the game just completely be like HL1, but just have more HL1 influence. HL3 should also have a functional multiplayer out of the box. I want to see original map designs, none of this copy and paste single player map bs like we saw in HL2 DM. I don't want to see gravity gun spamming. We should be able to pick main characters like Gordon Freeman,Gman, etc. Having slider bars like in HL1 DM to change the characters color could be added. Heck they could even elaborate on it a lot more. I also think HL3 should more of the ideas from the HL2 leak. And please, for christ sakes, HAVE A REAL BOSS FIGHT! The gunships at the end of HL2 was a pathetic boss fight. Please have challenging boss at the end that's really big and elaborate like the Nihilanth. I think you should be able to see Gordon's legs when you look down. Pressing buttons, you should see Gordon's hand physically pressing buttons. I think there should be a completely new engine for HL3. I think the Source engine is started to show its age and looks pathetic compared to new offerings out there. It's just a quake engine on life support. They can do a lot better then Source. I really want to see Adrian Shepherd mentioned in HL3, or perhaps they could make a future expansion pack. I highly doubt Gearbox will ever make an expansion for HL3, as making expansions for the HL1 was just an internship before they got big, so Valve will have to do it.

 

[99.vikram]

Many of the opinions you have will be deeply unpopular here, just a warning! For example, I've heard people laud the end of boss fights as a great improvement for gaming, while I find it retarded. I personally don't play games to live out realistic situations, I want spectacle and fantasy. I loved that ridiculous three headed plant thing in Blast Pit (I know it had a name...); those kind of self deprecating bits were completely missing from HL2. In that sense, HL2 (+ episodes) must be treated as a game with a different DNA than HL1. About the multiplayer you cannot legitimately complain, Valve made it clear it wouldn't be much and they have released much better multiplayer games since (CS:S, L4D, TF2.)

HL2 is still by far the best game since 2000 (for me) although that title is getting easier to defend with FPSes seemingly only getting less imaginative with each passing year. Portal was awesome, and quite challenging in a different way, but I want an FPS that's both Half-life gritty and Mario tough and they just don't make 'em that way anymore. While the rest of the industry picked "social" gaming over story/gameplay, Valve picked story/gameplay over epic-ness. If any company can pick up that mantle, I will be a happy man.

 

[EWLTM]

Well i want it to be even more realistic and deep. Half-Life was a little bit silly for me with those Bosses (Gargantua, Nihilanth etc.) but well fun. HL2 was much more ''realistic,, and inspired by real life (fascism, genocide etc.). In HL3 i want to see even more of that also more interaction with world, Legs and hands should be seen as well. My personal wish would be HEV suit control improvements, like controlling shields, acceleration and even more abilities.

 

[Acepilotf14]

I completely agree. The 'Boss' fights in HL2 were terrible and ill-imagined. HL2 was much too realistic, it's supposed to be a fantasy sci fi game. If you want realistic, play Arma or something.
however all that other stuff you said is dumb

 

[SWAT Pointmann]

I completely agree. The 'Boss' fights in HL2 were terrible and ill-imagined. HL2 was much too realistic, it's supposed to be a fantasy sci fi game. If you want realistic, play Arma or something.
however all that other stuff you said is dumb

What was dumb about it?

 

[Acepilotf14]

What was dumb about it?

Half Life doesn't really need multiplayer at all. It has Counter Strike and TF2 and etc for that.

 

[SWAT Pointmann]

Half Life doesn't really need multiplayer at all. It has Counter Strike and TF2 and etc for that.

I enjoyed Half-Life 1 deathmatch. I guess you weren't around when it was in its hay day. When Half-Life 3 comes around, I doubt you'll see TF3 along with it. Counter-Strike 2 is possible. I'd rather see CS2 as a full fledged stand alone game though.

 

[Glenn the Great]

Valve needs to return to their Half-Life 1 roots while freshening up their gameplay with their next title. My problem with the Half-Life 2 series (and this is really leveled at the Episodes, number two especially) is that Valve just isn't very good at the whole outdoors thing. Decent, yes. Better than other games have attempted, yes, but still nothing to write home about. Whether it's the streets of City 17 or the wilderness of White Forest, Valve just doesn't do the whole outdoors thing with the same charm that they pull off with the indoors industrial style which made up almost the entirety of the original Half-Life.

Maybe my problem is just a matter of taste. I've played many games in my time, most of them easily forgotten, but Half-Life 1 is still one of my favorites because the gritty industrial research environment spoke to me. I liked the game because I liked its setting. Now that we've got this whole Combine thing going on, Valve has distanced the Half-Life series too far from where it started. You could take the Half-Life 2 series, change the character and enemy models, remove the few explicit references to the original game, slap a different label on it, and then it would be about as unrelated to Half-Life 1 as all your other genero post-apocalyptic shooters like Borderlands.

Going from being a research scientist in a top secret U.S. Government facility to blowing up daddy-long-legs in a European forest is so different from the original that someone who hasn't been following the series would wonder WTF is going on. And now it looks like we're scheduled to trudge around in the Arctic next time. Why is the game moving so far from its roots? Is Valve afraid they'll be accused of staying within their comfort zone? Valve has proven that they can do an Industrial Research setting with utmost mastery as they've just demonstrated in Portal 2. To be perfectly honest with you, Portal 2 feels more like a Half-Life game to me now than either of the Half-Life 2 episodes did.

I think they should stick with what they know and improve upon it. They don't have to branch out and try to be everything to everyone, just let the thousands of other games out there do their job. What with Steam, it's not like they'll go broke if they don't try to force their games to appeal to a wider audience...

Now if you want to know why Valve has shelved HL2Ep3.... it's because the Half-Life 2 series is looking more and more like a dinosaur. Before you take that the wrong way, this has nothing to do with their graphical engine. It's fine... they incrementally update it, and games like Portal 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 look just as good (while performing better) as any other modern game when played at maximum settings. If Valve simply labeled their next minor build of Source as "Source 2", those responsible for parroting "Source is showing its age" would pipe down.

No, the reason that HL2Ep3 has been shelved is because the Half-Life 2 style of gameplay is rapidly growing stale in comparison to modern offerings. They're still stuck in the 90's mentality of run, jump, point, shoot, reload, then run over health packs when you get get hurt. The Half-Life 2 series has essentially the same gameplay as Quake. Their route of innovation thus far has been through the Gravity Gun (Ep2's excuse for new weaponry was just a few new hurty-things you could hurl with it.) With games like Dead Space breathing fresh air into the shooter genre (Kinesis Module == GravGun no longer a unique trump card), and games like Mass Effect and Deus Ex:HR making strides into cover-based shooting that actually feels practicable and fun, Half-Life is increasingly looking like a dinosaur, and not from a graphical standpoint. This realization hit Valve like a ton of bricks, and that is why they had to stop to investigate new styles of gameplay. Hopefully this new F-Stop mechanic will be their ticket to getting Half-Life out of its rut.

 

[99.vikram]

I think they should stick with what they know and improve upon it. They don't have to branch out and try to be everything to everyone, just let the thousands of other games out there do their job. What with Steam, it's not like they'll go broke if they don't try to force their games to appeal to a wider audience...

The way I see it, Valve have every right to make any kind of game they want. Presumably, they were bored with the indoor research facility setting and wanted to try out everything else under the sun, which is perfectly okay. EXCEPT they left fans like me hanging, fans who thought the scienciness of the original was what gave it it's unique flavour. Since the days of HL (and Deus Ex and Sytem Shock) that setting hasn't been done well IMO. It's as if the world said, "Science?! Science isn't cool! Let's have war, WAR!!" And so we have war - war during WW2, war in the near future, war against aliens. And people like me, who were completely in love with Half-life and Gordon Freeman, who spent hours imagining the layout of Black Mesa, all the cool stuff that was probably being researched there, the Xen ecosystem and fauna, the Gman's mystique... we were left hanging. I'm still waiting for the spiritual sequel of Half-life, and I'm hoping I find it in Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Now if you want to know why Valve has shelved HL2Ep3.... it's because the Half-Life 2 series is looking more and more like a dinosaur...(stuff abut Fstop)

Now I'm the first guy to defend an artist's right to reinvent himself, but just because new forms of play are found does not mean that old ones have to go out of style. Valve needs to give us their In Rainbows.

 

[lord_raken]

So you want them to return to their roots and yet move on from 90's style gameplay?

You could take the Half-Life 2 series, change the character and enemy models, remove the few explicit references to the original game, slap a different label on it, and then it would be about as unrelated to Half-Life 1 as all your other general post-apocalyptic shooters like Borderlands.

HAHA!... oh wait... your serious? Besides Borderlands being an open-world multiplayer action RPG and the HL serious being single-player, Linear, FPS... this criticism could be applied to almost EVERY FPS sequel out there. Because, beyond gameplay mechanics what sets games apart ARE their settings, characters, and backstory.

I'm half convinced you're trolling

I think they should stick with what they know and improve upon it. They don't have to branch out and try to be everything to everyone, just let the thousands of other games out there do their job. What with Steam, it's not like they'll go broke if they don't try to force their games to appeal to a wider audience...

Valve has stuck to what they know: Good storytelling. Are you really arguing that the train bridge collapse at the start of EP2 was a mistake, or the strider battle at the missile silo? If they had not tried to experiment they would have stagnated. Creativity is about trying new things! If they had stuck to endless underground corridors, HL2 would have been boring as hell.

You know what... you aren't a troll... you just have a ragging nostalgia-boner. which is fine. HL1 was monumental, and is still an amazing game. But don't let your preference for the original lead you criticize creativity.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

I thought HL2 was great, but it just didn't capture me like HL1 did. Although I have played through it, I just didn't like Ep1. But I felt Ep2 was close to how I felt about HL1.

To be honest I want to see more of the disrupted ecology in the next episode. We had the sense that humanity couldn't cope with the portal storms and the combine invasion thereafter, but other than pigeons and crows, there has been no signs of other Earth wildlife that have survived. Perhaps see "the fittest survive" mentality to the game design. Packs of wolves and houndeye fight it against one another, or work together...

 

[tabernumse]

i like HL2 way more than HL1, and i think the episodes are even better..
I really hope for a new engine in HL3, even though Portal 2 has proven that the old source engine is still upgradable to look awesome, but still..
it just can't compete with the other engines out there anymore...

 

[tabernumse]

Valve needs to return to their Half-Life 1 roots while freshening up their gameplay with their next title. My problem with the Half-Life 2 series (and this is really leveled at the Episodes, number two especially) is that Valve just isn't very good at the whole outdoors thing. Decent, yes. Better than other games have attempted, yes, but still nothing to write home about. Whether it's the streets of City 17 or the wilderness of White Forest, Valve just doesn't do the whole outdoors thing with the same charm that they pull off with the indoors industrial style which made up almost the entirety of the original Half-Life.

ehm.. i think it's just a matter of taste..
i simply loved the atmosphere and the beauty of the outside world in EP2..

 

[SWAT Pointmann]

ehm.. i think it's just a matter of taste..
i simply loved the atmosphere and the beauty of the outside world in EP2..

I don't think it held a candle to other outdoor games like Crysis and Far cry.

 

[tabernumse]

I don't think it held a candle to other outdoor games like Crysis and Far cry.

I don't think you can compare those games, just like that... I definitely wouldn't want EP2's outside world to be like Far Cry or Crysis...

 

[SWAT Pointmann]

I don't think you can compare those games, just like that... I definitely wouldn't want EP2's outside world to be like Far Cry or Crysis...

Perhaps I can't. I still think indoor enviorment is still where Half-Life shines.

 

[Racemate]

Well i want it to be even more realistic and deep... HL2 was much more ''realistic,, and inspired by real life (fascism, genocide etc.). In HL3 i want to see even more of that also more interaction with world, Legs and hands should be seen as well. My personal wish would be HEV suit control improvements, like controlling shields, acceleration and even more abilities.

Also, I'd like HL3 to be less linear, and not so hard scripted as HL2, that some situation could be solved in at least several ways, for instance, not only fight our enemies, but have a chance to use stealth, or deceive them.

Another point, no matter, if it's sci-fi, or more realistic, it should be logical, for example, people cannot appear in a room from nowhere, which was empty a moment before, unless there's a teleport or something, or endless ammo-box in the place, where it just cannot be, and so on. All of those inconsistencies just don't let me immerse in the gameplay completely.

More advanced AI would be nice, too.

 

[Tunnelsnake]

I think that moving from an underground environment to an outdoor one really helps present a feeling of claustrophobia and being caged then escaping and being "free". Much like Fallout 3 did in the beginning with Vault 101. When I play through the games I fell enclosed in an industrial and modern place, but when I play in Ep2 I feel more able to move around. I think that diversity and change is what gives the Half-Life games their style.

 

[tabernumse]

I think that moving from an underground environment to an outdoor one really helps present a feeling of claustrophobia and being caged then escaping and being "free". Much like Fallout 3 did in the beginning with Vault 101. When I play through the games I fell enclosed in an industrial and modern place, but when I play in Ep2 I feel more able to move around. I think that diversity and change is what gives the Half-Life games their style.

i feel exactly the same way... especially in HL2 EP1 after the chapter low life, where you've been shooting zombies in pure darkness.. it's nice to get out and kinda get some fresh air

 

[Kyzr]

What made the first half life the greatest game ever made is the mood it puts you in. The mood of being all by yourself, of taking on an unbeatable force all by yourself. Now sure there were scientists and security guards, but they tend to die fast and not stick around. Now half life 2 goes for a different feeling, one of fighting oppression.

You honestly cant compare the two games because they have different feels to them. You wont be wrong in saying half life 2 is better then half life 1, or vise versa.

Oh and also, one of the things that I enjoyed most about the first half life is when I first see the sun. It was a truly moving experience, spending so much time underground and then finally seeing the sky, even if it is for a few seconds and even of there is an airstrike being called on your position. Still amazing. Just a random note.

 

[Paulaner]

The mood of being all by yourself, of taking on an unbeatable force all by yourself.

Totally agreed. I love fighting alone, that's why I found Alyx and the rebels annoying and mood breaking. HL is not a team based military game, it's Gordon Freeman vs. the world.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

let me immerse in the gameplay completely.

Despite the fact Freeman is so fully pumped up with Morphine that he is officially the Walking Dead

 

[Sam Raven]

I thought about this for a long time and what Glenn the Great said about the move from indoor passageways which gave the Half Life 1 its visceral Stephen King-like horror element to outdoor environments was pretty accurate.

But then again it was inevitable Valve would not want to be stuck with the same formula. The CS: Source map of de_prodigy gave me an idea of what a Half life 2 game would have been like mostly indoor.

 

[mrmrmr8]

Do you know what bugs me? When people say what Half Life is and isn't. Half Life is one thing, Half Life 2 is different. If you don't like the differences then too bad because I like them.There are 3 atmospheres of the Half Life series. The closed industrial environment of Half Life 1, the City environment of Half life 2 and Episode 1, and the Open Nature environment of episode 2. Please stop talking about how the industrial environment is what Half Life is about.. because that is just an excuse for saying that you like one environment more. Another thing, being alone does NOT define Half Life. The same thing as I said before, just because something different happens, does not mean that it does not fit. Who said that Half Life isn't a team based military game? Why can't it be like that?

 

[RavenHolm456]

dO YOU LIKE gREEN BEANS HA HA HA

 

[Paulaner]

Who said that Half Life isn't a team based military game? Why can't it be like that?

Developers can do whatever they want, that's for sure. But, in my opinion, successful franchises have to be faithful to a common guideline. You can improve graphics and gameplay, change settings and locations, change characters, but something must tell you that you are still playing Half-Life and not Call Of Duty.

 

[Paradoxical]

I preferred Half-Life 2's atmosphere. I think the subtlety accounted for a more immersive experience overall. It's all about the mystery for me. The first Half-Life was designed around dated technology...they had to over-compensate a little. I have to say though, that Big Mama thing looked...obscene...and the Nihilanth resembled a cross between a disfigured baby and a floating Buddha.

 

[Vortigaunt98]

If you played Portal 2 you may know that Borealis is in Aperture Science. Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance should get to the Aperture Science and put a time bomb and bomb explode in the GLaDOS lair. Then Chell save Gordon and Alyx. Or GLaDOS trapped Gordon and Alyxand then begins Portal 3.

 

[Styloid]

I think a good comparison is The Terminator and Terminator 2. Both were good movies even though the sequel was completely different in tone, style, and scope; the same can be said about the Half life series so far. I thought the direction Valve took HL2 was pretty unexpected but in the end you have two distinct games, both with their merits, that let you experience different parts of the HL story.

One thing you're not going to get with HL is the cohesive, tight-knit kind of sequels you see in the Mass Effect, Gears of War, or Uncharted series/trilogies (sequels almost every other year). This is simply because the gap between HL1 and 2 was 6 years and HL1 itself was an out-of-nowhere success so I doubt they were thinking about cashing in on sequels during its development. In the grand scheme of things, if the HL story continues for many more games, I think the original HL1 will be sort of The Hobbit to the later games' Lord of the Rings or The Magician's Nephew to the Chronicles of Narnia.

That said, I would like to see future HL's tie in elements from the existing games better, just not at the expense of reducing scope. I'd also like more pure science fiction in the story, along with details and explanations, to go with the run and gun action movie script.

Partially related: I found the closest game to HL1 is FEAR 2-- play the first half of the game while thinking of experimental aliens instead of ghosts.

 

[SpotEnemyBoats]

Half-Life 3/episode three would look ****ing awesome if it implemented DX11 features like tessellation, which would give the characters and environments greater depth and realism. I also hope Half-Life 3/Episode Three isn't the last of Freeman's tale.