Can someone explain half-life to me?

[thom_cat_]

Half Life 2 piggybacked that success and to be brutally honest its unredeeming. The AI is attrocious and the forced plotting and tiresome 'physics' are simple tech demos for kiddies that Squee when some splines reticulate

The AI was fabulous in HL2! and the physics added a whole new level to the level design and combat.
To be honest I think the story in HL1 was badly told and hard to understand. I mean random portals? To Xen? With a big monster? Then the government comes in and kills everything? You kill the boss and then some random man beams you into a train and asks you to work for him?

Hl2 shrugged off the lame other world aliens and added characters and a complex storyline. It added more mystique to Gman and more depth into every character, from the scientists (kleiner) to the combine or the resistance.

 

[egwidalin]

-Did you play it on xbox or computer?

computer, was much cheaper, even if i do generally like console fps more, i thought playing on what it was intended for would be better

Mate, If i can warn you about the ONE glaring problem with the Escapist community is their ability to convince you that not liking Half Life is YOUR fault. A gaming experience cant be improved, for yourslef ,retrospectively by someone else telling you that it was good : person 1 " that film was shit" person 2 "no it wasnt, it was a Tarantino, he's a genius with a bajillion fans world wide, It was a work of genius and your to dumb to have seen it" person one: "oh your right it wasnt". HL/Tarantino may indeed be inspred works of genius but they are both about enjoyment, if you didnt enjoy them then thats that.

All this comes from someone who loved half life, played it when it was first released as the first game on a new computer. HL 1 was revolutionary at the time but as many revolutionary things do it spawned Cliches. Can't say i really got on with HL2 the physics were fun, but even a team of my best mates trying to convince me it was god incarnate could make me enjoy it as much as them.
Stick to your guns whilst repecting others weaponary. Have fun here!

i like this guys explanation the best

 

[elitecrewer]

What aspect of the two games is done better in any other game? Almost nothing. Story, character development, a world conveyed believably despite being linear), simply the best level design ever, the best physics ever, the best graphics ever at the time of release, one of the longer FPSs ever, the most varied etc etc etc.

 

[Overlord_Dave]

The thing is, Half Life 2 WAS revolutionary when it first came out, it's just that so many games have been inspired by it and tried to do the same thing.

This.

Effective half-life denotes the halving of radioactive material in a living organism by means of radioactive decay and biological excretion. A decay constant is needed to calculate the half-life. It is the sum of the biological and physical decay constants, as in the formula:

With the decay constant it is possible to calculate the effective half-life using the formula:

The biological decay constant is often approximated as it is more difficult to accurately determine than the physical decay constant.

And this.

/thread

 

[Jupsto]

The thing is, Half Life 2 WAS revolutionary when it first came out, it's just that so many games have been inspired by it and tried to do the same thing.

this.

 

[Jupsto]

I found this a while ago.

This will explain everything in 60 seconds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slRsexrhbG8

Lol'd

 

[AlyxX]

Half-Life was the first game that didn't use cutscenes but had the story unfolding in real time for the player. That was what made it so groundbreaking.

Half-Life 2 had many groundbreaking aspects such as the quality of the animation, voice acting and scripts, not to mention the Gravity Gun was pretty new at the time.

Portal speaks for itself.

How could you miss those things?

 

[JediMB]

there was something wrong with my copy of the game. one of the items i needed to progress through the first level (i think it was some bio-suit) WASN'T THERE, so i didn't even get to see any action. i just wandered the halls wondering what the fuck to do.

it was a long time ago, i don't remember if it was a bootleg or not. with an error that huge, it probably was.

I find this hard to believe.

Just follow the green line on the wall to the personnel changing room, go to the left from there, and you'll see three brightly lit chambers on the wall. Two red and empty, while the third is green and contains a suit.

Just hit the middle button on the computer to open the chamber and claim your suit.

 

[SomeBritishDude]

Personally I didn't see what all the fuss was about either. Half-Life 1 and 2 where lands mark games apoun their release, sculpting the path for all the generic FPSs that we have today. I enjoyed, but it wasn't amazing.

People made more of a fuss about the story and characters than they should. The storys style was interesting but only int he way it was told. For the most part it's just another FPS story. An no, Alyx is not the greatest character in a game EVAR. In fact, shes not even the greatest female character. Hell, she wasn't that great full stop. She not bad just not great either. The forced way in which she speaks is a little odd, like her lines have been over rehearsed. Best thing I could say about her is she's not annoying, but this is probably because she can't die in the episodes.

I do have to say though I LOVE episode 2. The story really picked up here and I really started to get what the fuss was about.

Portal however I think is genius. I love puzzle games, I love FPSs and I love a game that makes me laugh. Portal had all of this, combined with Half-Lifes interesting method of story telling and a amazing game machanic it's probably one of my faviourte games of all time, if not my favourite end of. Sure it's short, but I see it like a piece of chocolate cake. When you eat chocolate cake you have a slice, eat the whole thing and you'll be sick. Portal was just long enough to keep me happy and just short enough to stop the novelty wareing off.

 

[ideitbawx]

there was something wrong with my copy of the game. one of the items i needed to progress through the first level (i think it was some bio-suit) WASN'T THERE, so i didn't even get to see any action. i just wandered the halls wondering what the fuck to do.

it was a long time ago, i don't remember if it was a bootleg or not. with an error that huge, it probably was.

I find this hard to believe.

Just follow the green line on the wall to the personnel changing room, go to the left from there, and you'll see three brightly lit chambers on the wall. Two red and empty, while the third is green and contains a suit.

Just hit the middle button on the computer to open the chamber and claim your suit.

believe it man, my brother and i checked that entire room, not to mention the entire FLOOR, and couldn't get anywhere. i think my brother eventually used a cheat code or something to get to the next level, where the whole lab where he worked was destroyed.

regardless, we never played it that much, though at the time i was really impressed with how visually stunning the game was. i'd never seen characters with moving mouths in sync with the audio that actually moved like real mouths. i know it sounds retarded, but that's the one thing i remember most.

"why do we have to wear these rediculous ties?! lol"

 

[ben---neb]

I played Half Life 2 for the first time when i got the Orange Box. It was one of the few shooters I've ever played. It was awesome mainly because I fell in love with Alyx.

Recently I bought Bioshock for £4. I couldn't get into it. Every time I played I kept thinking, it's ok but Half Life 2 did it better.

Then I bought the orginial Half Life for £3. And I hated it. Because it was so many years after its release i just couldn't get into it. In my mind Half life is totally over rated.

So part of your apathy about Half Life 2 is a) because you've grown up with other more "actiony" games and b) because you lack any taste in good PC games. Sorry but that's just the way it is.

 

[Aardvark Soup]

I've recently started to play Half-Life 2 and I really like the game. I think the reasons why are its originality, the way action sequences and puzzels are balanced, spectacular scripted events, the feeling that every level is interconnected and the simple fact that once I start playing I'm almost unable to stop.

 

[Iron Mal]

One thing that I notice is that most of the time Half Life fans paint a rose tainted image of this game that actually makes me dislike it more than I normally would it if literally was a reletive unkown (I think a lot of the hatred for Half Life comes from the fact that so many people label it is their 'best game evarr' when it really isn't that good).

Totally subjective statement.
As was the rest of your post.

Undeniably, Half Life 1 and 2 were extremely critically acclaimed upon release, are still critically acclaimed, sold extremely well, and are on numerous 'best games of all time' lists. You may not like the game, and that's fine, but don't say 'it's not that good' as an absolute statement followed by paragraphs of 'I think' and 'I don't like' and 'I would want'.

Quite frankly, no-one cares what you think or want. I and many others would greatly disagree with you, but to what end? You aren't changing your mind, and neither are we. What was the point of your post? You think people are going to suddenly realize the multiple-award winning game(s) they love is actually not great because of your dynamite post? Please.

The only reason people are posting in this thread is to answer the OP's seemingly genuine question.

Seeing as games are made for the sole purpose of entertainment it is a given that pretty much any opinion anyone has about them is inevitably going to be subjective.

As for no-one caring and my post having no point...I resigned myself to not being able to influence anyone with my ideas before I even began writing on this forum so the main purpose of my post was simply to convey my opinion (the sharing of opinions and ideas in a public space is, after all, the main purpose of a forum) so if no-one cares what I write then I don't care that they don't care (everyone is entitled to their own opinion and they are also free to openly state said opinion whether we agree with it/like it or not).

Also, critising my subjective opinion by citing other people's subjective opinions doesn't make your arguement any stronger or more valid.

 

[Zephirius]

The irony in that is it makes you look like a dumbass for obviously not reading the OP.

Sigh...

I'm pretty sure they knew what the OP was asking about.

It's not about whether they knew that, but whether or not it seems like they did. And if you go on about the half-life of things in a thread on a gaming forum full of Valve fans, it's obviously a desperate attempt at humor. Or maybe that's just what I think, considering I see posts like that all the time.

 

[TheFacelessOne]

I believe so to. Half-Life series are pretty much bland. The only thing I found to be "holy shitting" myself about is the amount of weapons in the first Half-Life. And the Aliens. Those were pretty original.

But I think Portal is indeed one of the best games I've ever played, mainly because of the humor and the creativity. That was a pretty original game.

 

[Whoolpurse]

At the time it was revolutionary, nothing else like it! I played Half-Life 2 for the first time on Orange Box, I had always heard about it so I figured I would get it. It was more than I expected, great story, good levels, cool guns, good characters. I have played many FPS in my life and Half-Life just takes the cake.

But... the cake is a lie! (I know it's not funny anymore, I just had to do it, I never did)