twmac

Half Life 2: I'm really missing the point

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For the record, as much as I enjoyed the main Half-Life 2 game I found Episode 1 rather trite and uninspiring. It's only noteworthy point for me is the new heights Valve has soared to in terms of NPC connection and interplay -- Alyx is simply brilliant in every aspect.

Please, for me, at least play up until you've done the bridge. :chaste:

That's my most favourite gamespace to date as I write this; it's unlike any other set piece I've played, blending several highly contrasting gameplay formats/structures (platforming, FPS, stealth) into one section so brilliantly. It's also quite breath-taking to just see in my opinion -- I really hope you get that far and enjoy it too.

Yes, to both points.

I hate to say it, since I totally bought into the Half-Life 2 universe since I first bought it off Steam 2 or 3 years ago, and Episode 2 was incredible: I liked is as much as the original. However, I can honestly say that I found Episode 1 to be a chore. It was virtually a rehash of the original game. In fact, my advice to anyone else still on the wall about Half-Life 2 would almost be to buy Episode 1 first, as a sort of trial, since it's essentially a clone of the first game compressed into a 5-hour gaming experience. That frustrated me so much. It really made me appreciate the variety and the inspired genius of the first game. Even on this thread, people attribute HL2's greatness to it's gameplay, artistic direction, architecture, storyline, personality, etc. but ultimately what Valve did right was to combine all of these aspects to create possibly the first modern gaming experience which has the emotional power of a film or a novel. Half-Life 2 was an example of what games can be if we can be as a story-telling medium. Episode 1, on the other hand, was just a "game".

And yes, my favorite part was the bridge as well. I saw it as kind of an extension of the "duct-crawling" concept of the first game (and a precursor to Portal's (spoiler) escape sequence) in that is gave the player a look behind the scenes at the sort of infrastructure of the world they are playing in, deepening the experience. We've driven across bridges in games countless times, but how many times have we stopped to think about what exactly constitutes a bridge and if a bridge is a structure beyond simply another stretch of road to get from here to there? Plus, the sheer elegance and simplicity of scaling this sort of larger-than-life work of engineering and then looking down and realizing that all that's in between you an the river hundreds of feet below is a narrow i-beam is one of the most compelling and memorable experiences in modern gaming.

So yeah, give it another try :grin:

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Half-Life and I have never had a good relationship. The first one was hyped beyond belief. "So immersive", "technically impressive", "unbelievably interactive", "non stop excitement", "the best game ever made", "flawless" etc.

I bought it and was almost immediately... horribly let down. The sameness. No characters (the same two or three characters you come across). No interactivity (make the microwave explode, open lockers, use soda machines!). Nice set pieces, but lots (and lots and LOTS) of corridors and crates and outside: fake looking scenery.

I enjoyed the soldier's AI, though.

I persevered. I played and completed because I felt as though I "should" love it. But really I never completely enjoyed myself: Hype had ruined it for me.

HL2: I decided again to give it another try. Valve had come on in leaps and bounds since I last visited the universe. The polish was so bright the game practically shined... Amazing set pieces, too. Got up to the bit where I expect zombies were about to attack and stopped playing, though.

I'm not a twitch gamer, I've decided, and I generally dislike feeling tense while I'm playing a game.

I just don't think HL is for me.

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I remember now that the first thing I'd mention when talking about how awesome HL1 was back in the day, was how cool it was that there's no interruptions, no missions and cut-scenes. From beginning to end you're always there*, and I loved it. I don't know if that's really what made me love it so much, but there's something only Valve does, which makes their games stand out and be liked by me 500% more than anything else, and I don't know if it's one or two particular things, or if it's just that everything's just so well designed.

*Except when you're knocked unconscious

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I remember reading about the "no interruptions" thing, but really there are sections that stop and load (and way back when, for not an inconsiderable amount of time) and it did feel "level based" to me. Ah, well.

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Well yeah, of course there are discrete maps, but the transition was never more than a pause, and then you were still right there, not suddenly being air dropped into some battlefield, or fading from black to the back of a truck.

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When The Orange Box came out, I was gifted the original Half-Life 2 and really excited about it.

But then, I played it for about two hours, got completely stuck, and quit.

I've not replayed the game sense then. But yeah, I didn't love it. PC Shooters are not my favorite thing to begin with, but HL 2 really didn't grab me the way, say Prey or No One Lives Forever did.

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I was thinking about why people wouldn't like the Half Life series. It struck me that the early parts of Half Life 1 are more like a survival horror than a shooter. What with the surprise-attack headcrabs and slow zombies, there's no actual gunplay until you meet the alien slaves.

Half Life 2 saves the horror for Ravenholme, but the start is still all about escape and evasion rather than shoot-outs.

Still, I fail to see how people can not like it. Ah well ;(

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When The Orange Box came out, I was gifted the original Half-Life 2 and really excited about it.

But then, I played it for about two hours, got completely stuck, and quit.

I've not replayed the game sense then. But yeah, I didn't love it. PC Shooters are not my favorite thing to begin with, but HL 2 really didn't grab me the way, say Prey or No One Lives Forever did.

Respectfully, what do console shooters have to offer that PC shooters don't?

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I can relate to the topic creators feelings about the game. After much pressure I was finally able to slog past Ravenholm before I quit again due to a save being corrupted, but the whole time until that happened I was enjoying myself less than everyone else seemed to have been and just trying to keep going until Alyx joined me.

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I actually just beat Half-Life 2 last week or so. I had owned it since the beginning of the year but just never got around to playing it and didn't know what all the fuss was about it so it wasn't that high on my priorities list, but when I went through my Steam list looking at unfinished games I just decided to give it a go, I fuckin loved it. Definitely one of the best games I've played. I don't really see how anyone can actually dislike it, maybe be indifferent, but there is so little wrong about it. I rarely got stuck, the level design is so great.

Also I've never played the first one. Gonna move on to the episodes next.

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In hindsight. Ben was right, this game was just not for me.

I played HL2 for a further 10 minutes, put it down and never looked at it again.

I did play Portal though and it is gold (EVEN on a console).

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I would note that being drunk generally doesn't help you enjoy things that have a lot of detail or require a bit of thought. I could see a few beers might not hurt Doom 3, but in Half-Life 2 the richness of the world comes through little touches you might miss even if you're sober but not focused enough. I would refuse to watch Transformers sober, but I wouldn't mix Tarkovsky's Solaris with alcohol. That would be terrible.

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Right, fuck it then.

It has been almost two years, and this thread has been unearthed. I WILL complete Half Life 2 before the end of the year. Soberish

or get to that bridge bit Wrestle mentioned

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imho if you don't get much further than 10 minutes in again I would give up on HL2 but not on the whole series. Play HL2:Episode 2.

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I'm totally flabbergasted by hearing about people who don't like HL2, even after giving it a fair go. It's totally incomprehensible to me, and I think it's awesome that there's some segment of gamers that actually don't like the game.

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imho if you don't get much further than 10 minutes in again I would give up on HL2 but not on the whole series. Play HL2:Episode 2.

I don't know, the first time I played HL2, I hated it until about 30 minutes or so in, seemed like a tech demo until I got a gun.

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Maybe the reason I didn't enjoy it all that much is because of the expectations I had going into it. I mean, I was expecting to have (what I'm told is) the best game companion ever made and just looking forward to that the whole time, but now it seems like she's only in the episodes?

I'll have to try playing it again after a few months, with different expectations. Although I'm going to play the episodes as soon as I can.

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It's indeed interesting to hear several people not getting into a series of games that stands in my list of top all-time games, but you know... games, whether they are art or entertainment or both, are subjective. It's not like math where you can say that 1 + 1 definitely and unequivocally does not equal 3. To some people, the movie Crash is the best movie ever made. To others, it's Terminator 2. Who's to say who's right (except in that case, the Crash people are definitely wrong).

I don't know if this will help anyone but these are the points of each game that I loved the most:

HL1 : This has to do more with historical context at this point and I can definitely see this game as too long and basic for people approaching it for the first time today. But at the time, after games like Doom, Quake, Heretic, etc. Half-Life WAS a quantum shift within the FPS genre. I remember playing it the day it came out (well actually... i got my hands on "Half-Life: Day One" early but... whatever) and even though there were loading screens, they were definitely shorter than the other games of the time (anyone play Sin?) and moreso, they were continuous, so the segmentation of the game really was more about chapters or areas than maps. That gave the game a general sense of progression in terms of story rather than game, which was awesome. And the original AI was top-notch. I remember re-loading over and over just to deal with the squad tactics differently and see how they'd react. They try to flank you, flush you out with grenades, they commnicate with a set of vocab that you can overhear... all very awesome. NOTE: Half-Life: Source has the same AI as HL2, namely, it sucks. All the people do is: if you're shooting them, try to get out of your line of sight. ugh. I also appreciated the length (i believe it's a full 24 hour game rather than the 6-12 we're used to today) and the abrupt shift of Xen.

HL2: I really love how the gameplay consistently changes throughout the game. The game constantly introduces new weaponry or dynamics that change the way you progress. It certainly kept me from ever getting bored but I can see how if there's a section (like Ravenholm) that you don't like, you can take comfort in the fact that it will change after you make it through. I remember when it came out the main criticisms were that the two travel sequences (airboat and buggy) were too long. Eh, to me that just establishes the distance that you travel. It would be nowhere near as effective to have some fade out/in cutscene with you driving off to the sunset then arriving at your destination. Those two sequences are critical to the scope of the game.

Episode 1: Yeah, I generally agree with previous comments. This is the weakest of the series (if you don't count the original's expansion packs). It's basically a distilled re-telling of HL2 in reverse order. That said, there's still a few interesting pieces that generally makes it enjoyable, but there's nothing new here. In my opinion the best thing about it is the ending.

Episode 2: I will also agree with previous comments on this one. It's the best of the series in terms of pace and tone. You never feel like you're doing anything for too long but you do a hell of a lot of different things. There's some new elements, a new character or two, yet another update to the engine (man those massive particle effects are amazing) and an honest tearjerker of an ending.

Hopefully that maybe makes people curious to give them another try, but I understand if they're just not for you. whether you like them or not though, I don't think anyone can call them bad games.

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Maybe the reason I didn't enjoy it all that much is because of the expectations I had going into it. I mean, I was expecting to have (what I'm told is) the best game companion ever made and just looking forward to that the whole time, but now it seems like she's only in the episodes?

I'll have to try playing it again after a few months, with different expectations. Although I'm going to play the episodes as soon as I can.

I can agree with you about Alyx. I'd have to say while I was playing and you're on your own, I was always looking forward / hoping for an upcoming part where you'd meet up with her. I just found her to be a great and believable character. Possible I'll enjoy the episodes more if she is around more.

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Yes, Alyx was a very believable character. I actually missed her when the game ended. :violin:

I still have to play the 2 episodes!

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You're in for a pleasant surprise then; Alyx is present for almost the entirety of the episodes, and she is even improved upon (try shining a light in her face and generally messing with her in Episode 1).

In fact the first trailer for Episode showed Alyx about to have a... nasty accident. The fans' outcry was so great that they apparently changed the plot.

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In fact the first trailer for Episode showed Alyx about to have a... nasty accident. The fans' outcry was so great that they apparently changed the plot.

If they did, and it was for that reason, then they're stupid. Anything that brings out a sincere emotional reaction in your audience is a good thing. If it's a sad reaction, it usually means it's bittersweet. Team Ico's games are proof of that.

Although I can't see them changing things like that now. Not with Old Man Murray on board, anyways. (Discovering that website this past summer was one of the best things to happen to me.)

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