half-life

[Moosferatu]

I'm ashamed to admit that I've never played either Half-Life. I'm thinking of getting the original Half-Life soon, but I don't know which version to get. Should I get the original 1998 version or Half-Life: Source? What's the difference? Also, are its expansion packs worth playing? Valve has a pretty good deal where you can get Half-Life, Blue Shift, Opposing Forces, and Team Fortress Classic for $15 ($5 more than just Half-Life).

[Marek]

You can just get HL: Source. It's exactly the same game except slightly nicer looking.

I only played the Blue Shift expansion and enjoyed it a lot. You pass through a lot of locations also seen in the original game, except you see it from another character's perspective.

[toblix]

Yeah, I'd recommend playing HL, then Opposing Force and then Blue Shift. There's a lot of visiting old places and seeing stuff from other points of view and stuff like that. I love it. I've never tried HL: Source, but I guess I'd rather play the Source version if you have the opportunity.

If not, and you choose to play the original HL, make sure to install Blue Shift before you play, since Blue Shift comes with a HD pack which makes some models nicer in the original game.

[Thrik]

Weep, double post. Keep scrolling!

[Thrik]

Oh man, never played Half-Life? Do so, for sure — a true classic.

There are very few differences between the original and the Source version, with the only significant changes as far as I'm aware being HL2-esque water and some ragdoll physics on characters. I'm not sure about the last one, though.

Opposing Force is also definitely worth getting, and is probably the highest quality expansion ever produced for a game that I can think of. Basically, you play in the same timeframe as the original game, except as part of a side with vastly different motives: the soldiers sent in to dispose of Gordon, and everybody else in Black Mesa.

I never played Blue Shift, but I heard that it was also pretty good, albeit not up to the level of Opposing Force. It's very much like Opposing Force, in that you play the game from the perspective of a character. This time, however, it's one on roughly the same side as ol' Gordon.

But Opposing Force is truly excellent, and also reveals a lot more about the eventual conclusion of Black Mesa plus what led up to it that isn't revealed in the original.

[Jayel]

Opposing Force was truly something. It was one of those rare expansions that was actually better than the original game (albeit not as ground breaking). You'll definitely have to play the original first to appreciate it though.

Blue Shift was... disappointing to say the least. No new environment, no new characters, no new weapons or enemies, and no memorable moments. Comparing Blue Shift to Opposing Force is like comparing Contract JACK with NOLF.

[miffy495]

Opposing force... drool. I wasted much of my time as a thirteen year old playing that game. Blue shift, worth a look, but can be beaten so damn quickly and really not worth full price. Getting all of them for $15? Are you fucking crazy? BUY IT!

[toblix]

Wow, I really don't remember thinking Blue Shift was so much less gooder than Opposing Force.

[Thrik]

going off of what I've heard in the past and what's been said here, Blue Shift is more of a rehashing of what was achieved in Half-Life and Opposing Force, with little new content (unless you count the high definition pack, which sadly isn't included with the Source version as far as I'm aware) or stuff that hadn't been seen before. It wasn't a bad game, as such. Opposing Force, however, introduced a lot of new things to the gameplay and design.

Half-Life 1 was so generally awesome with regards to the modification scene, though. There was no end of single-player mods, many of which were great fun and had some fantastic scripted scenes which were around the same level as Valve's own.

I hope that we see similar stuff coming out for HL2 eventually. I'm not aware of any other than MINERVA that're particularly ace, although it did take a while for the community to really kick in with HL1 too — perhaps we'll see a repeat.

[schepton]

Have you played HL2? If not just buy the Silver package on Steam and you get HL2 plus every other game valve has to offer.

[SpiderMonkey]

I think my opinion is much the same as what has gone before me:

The Source version is exactly the same except it comes with the HL2 flashlight, water and ragdolls. Also with the Source version you get the same chapter setup as in HL2, which is its biggest selling point - being able to dive back in to different points of the game, without having to trek through it all.

OpFor covers pretty much exactly the same ground as Half-Life itself from a design standpoint. Somehow it manages to still feel totally fresh and compelling, despite that.

By Blue Shift, you can tell that the photocopy of a photocopy has led to some serious degradation in quality. Generic level design and lower production values (inc. broken scripting) abound. For serious fans seeking story-completeness, only, imo.

If I was playing HL for the first time now, I'd probably go with Source. I'd really enjoy the game but I don't think I'd be left gagging for more, in the same way that we were in 1998, so I don't think missing OpFor would be "missing out" in quite the same way it would've been back then.

Have you played HL2? If not just buy the Silver package on Steam and you get HL2 plus every other game valve has to offer.

For some reason Valve don't do Gold/Silver/Bronze anymore. Now you can buy what used to be Silver, but it's called the "Valve Complete Pack" and it costs you $79.95 instead of $59.95. Bummer, huh?

[Campaignjunkie]

Blue Shift spoilers! Beware!

Okay, I guess I disagree with everyone else here - Blue Shift is my favorite one. I see it as a prototype of HL2's character interaction. It introduced an important NPC whom you have extended contact with (Dr. Rosenberg) and some interaction (he boosts you out of the traincar, you help him operate the teleport sequence). I also really like the design of the coolant storage facility, and how it all elegantly loops back to your starting positions.

Yes, it's short, but that also means it's focused: You escape Black Mesa. That's all there is to it. No new enemies / weapons required. It's not an epic messianic journey because it's not supposed to be - after all, you're no Gordon Freeman or Adrian Shephard. You're Barney Calhoun, and you just want to get the hell out of there in one piece.

[miffy495]

There's short and then there's too short. It's not that I don't like short games. I've found in recent years that I spend far more time on the road than at home, so my portables are the systems on which I enjoy the epics, and the console and PC games need to be beatable within around 10 hours or I'll never end up finishing them. Still, with Blue Shift, it was like tha aliens didn't even WANT to kill me. They were just going through the motions and as a result, so was I. Quite dissappointing, really.

[LOPcagney]

OK LISTEN UP

my personal oppinion is to play through half life the original and op. force (i loved the new weapons) and blue shift. i'd say, DO NOT (theres no perticular emphasis he, i just capitalized it to get your attention) do half life source first. its ugly. the only thing really source in the whole game is the water and the physics. which seem out of place in the amazing albiet dated game. play it the way it was roiginally meant to be played, and go back to half life source as a novelty. as far as the valve complete pack goes, i can only say, think before buying. most of my favorite mods (i.e. source forts) are available free, and the complete pack is basically for those of you who think you'll actually play counterstrike and day of defeat more that once.

[Moosferatu]

Yeah, I'm just going to get the original collection to start with, and will probably pick up the sequel later in the summer. Now I've just got to decide whether or not I'm going to pay five more dollars to get a hard copy, or just get it off Steam.

[schepton]

Does anyone else think that HL1's A.I. is better than HL2?

Those marines in HL are tough sob's.

[manny_c44]

Yeah the AI in HL1 was way better, but it was heavily hand-scripted for specific enviornments (if you ever tried making a map in Hl1 you would have to create the AI aswell, setting way points and what not), HL2 was all about large enviornments so they probably opted for a more "real" but massively dissapointing AI system. It was downright generic.

[Thrik]

I think HL2's AI is actually capable of being a lot more engaging that it seems. MINERVA quite surprised me with how well the AI worked, in contrast to regular HL2 which was fairly easy.

As far as I'm aware, HL2's AI works in a very similar fashion in that it can be specifically waypointed and whatnot.

[miffy495]

Yeah, I'm just going to get the original collection to start with, and will probably pick up the sequel later in the summer. Now I've just got to decide whether or not I'm going to pay five more dollars to get a hard copy, or just get it off Steam.

If it helps, here's what happened with me. I never actually owned HL1 up until summer 2004. I'd played it, sure, but it was a copy I'd borrowed from a friend. He lent me that and opposing force and I devoted a good period of time to them. When HL2 was imminent, I decided to pick up my own copy of the first one (on it's own, not in any pack) and played through for my second time. When HL2 came out, I picked up my preorder and installed it and steam. Steam asked me if I wanted to register any other valve games, so I went ahead and registered Half Life. Much to my surprise, it thanked me for registering my copy of the Half Life Platinum Pack (all the expansions, DoD, Counterstrike, the whole deal) and told me that I could now play them all through Steam. (no CD required) I spent $20 Canadian on Half Life and ended up having Steam give me the entire collection through a glitch. I don't know if I'm incredibly lucky or if this has happened to other people, but it's something to consider.

[SpiderMonkey]

Does anyone else think that HL1's A.I. is better than HL2?

Those marines in HL are tough sob's.

From a technical standpoint, HL2's AI is vastly superior. Of course that doesn't matter so much if the player perceives it differently. I think the disparity can be explained with one simple observation: for a player to perceive an AI as intelligent, it has to display its decision processes very openly and vocally. If you look at almost any game considered to have "good AI", what is most notable about it is that it doesn't shut up talking about what it's doing. For non HL examples, consider Thief's guards, or those little shits in Halo running away from you, wailing with their arms flailing.

The thing is, with HL1, the Marines were very vocal -

"OH SHIT!" when you dropped a grenade at their feet, etc.

With HL2, the sound guys put these extremely cool, menacing voice filters on the Combine soldiers' voices, so while they do say probably as much as the Marines, it's really hard to pick out what they say. In the same way that if a Thief guard said nothing, it would seem really dumb, my opinion is that the Combine seem less intelligent because of this.

As far as I'm aware, HL2's AI works in a very similar fashion in that it can be specifically waypointed and whatnot.

It's true that they both use waypoints, but that's really where the similarity ends. Without their waypoints, the HL1 AI was totally screwed - if you look carefully you can see the AI only travel between their waypoints; they stop on waypoints to shoot at you; they put their grenades down on waypoints.

The HL2 AI needs waypoints to be placed to do anything more complex than "run straight at the player shooting", but they use them mostly for planning rather than simple navigation. On a local scale they can easily find their way around without them, and they can also find and move to their own cover without needing to be told where that cover is by a level designer. There are also a lot of more options for dynamically customising their behaviour (setting battlelines, etc) that probably don't need detailing here.

If I had to pick apart the design goals for the HL2 AI, I would choose "reliability" and "flexibility", rather than "intelligent". Sure they aren't as bright as games set in one environment type (FEAR/FarCry spring to mind), but they work in corridors, in urban fighting, out in the open, etc etc, and they never break (in the "running continually against a wall"/etc sense of breaking). Oh and I guess I should throw the definitive, classic AI design rule on the end here, since I could probably make some point about it: "Enemies should be fun to play against first, intelligent second."

[Jayel]

I like games with dumb AI. It makes me feel super smart. Also, exploiting dumb AIs in stealth games is 99% of the fun.

[baconian]

it was the shock of HL1's AI that sticks in your head, it was the first time a game came close to convincing me it was smarter than me.

HL2's AI is miles ahead though, for all the reasons Mr. Monkey elucidates above.

Artificial stupidity is where the real action is, though.

[Marek]

I only really noticed HL2's AI when I played it on hard. I was surprised when I fled to a tunnel away from a particular combat scene and the guys actually kept chasing me through them.

[Redwall]

The one time I noticed some (probably scripted) AI was when I ducked under a tunnel in the ground during one of the big Strider fights and the Strider bent its legs to kneel down and continue shooting at me. Scared the shit out of me, actually, because I'd never seen them do that before.

While I agree HL1's Marine AI was much better, you also didn't fight the Marines all that much, which was one of the (few) things that disappointed me about HL. The Xen aliens were just like any other game monster; the Marines were interesting. (The same symptom is found in other games as well: Halo, Far Cry, etc. God knows why developers replace intelligent enemies with stupid ones. Too much work, I guess.)

those little shits in Halo running away from you, wailing with their arms flailing.

I actually read a thing by the guy who did Halo's AI where he explained (among other things) that originally, the "Leader dead! Run away!" line was played much less; but people didn't realize that the grunts were running away until they made the line play every time it happened. So your comment about visible AI is very true.

[MrChlorophyll]

Those little Halo grunts were so cute. And also my favourite character from whichever Halo book that was. I feel bad killing them after a while.