I honestly though BG was the greatest RPG of all time. then I bought it again, and am terribly disappointedaftohsix said:
it picks up around BG2 though, the interface is much better at least 
Enough with the constant praise of Half Life 2
- Thread starter DioWallachia
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it picks up around BG2 though, the interface is much better at least 
If you people don't remember, Half Life 2 introduced a lot of things that are so overdone today that we don't actually care about them in HL2.
It's the "Jerry Seindfeld in Unfunny" trope. He basically shaped modern comedy and if you watch the show today, it has the hype backlash all over it.
It's the "Jerry Seindfeld in Unfunny" trope. He basically shaped modern comedy and if you watch the show today, it has the hype backlash all over it.
You could put it down to the fact that I've been spoiled by more modern 'melee buttons' as opposed to having to switch to a melee weapon. See, when I stab somebody in Call of Duty or punch somebody's lights out in Halo, I don't usually plan on doing it, it's a spur-of-the-moment -holy shit where did you come from- smack.DioWallachia said:
As for interactive cutscenes...they're just SO pointless. Why are they there? You're locking me in a room while two....y'know what, compare it to being in a room with a couple, and not being allowed to leave. They're freakin' making out, and all you can do is look awkwardly elsewhere. And the worst part is, the guy has the key in his pocket. So you're locked in. You can't very well interrupt them and say give me the key, so you have to wait until they finish and let you leave.
I just hate it. I like cutscenes. I do. I love seeing the animation - costume and character design - to the point where I replayed Assassin's Creed Brotherhood just to see the Helmschmed Drachen armour being used. When playing Half Life 2, all I do is bounce about and wait for the next area to open. It's horseshit. If you're going to restrict me to one area for plot exposition, make it a cutscene. At least then I can have a cup of tea, sit back and watch, rather than implying I'm doing something important.
I don't mind radio conversations though. Not Gears of War ones, where you can't do shit till they're over, but like mid-mission dialogue in Halo: Reach. Conversations as your playing, and not halting the action for them.
First of all, your Title is enough to make people completely dismiss your point of view (and your posts entirely) because you do 2 things, demand that they stop praising a game that is widely loved,DioWallachia said:
Seriously man, what is it you want people to tell you? Why the game was great? The internet will never give you a straight answer. I can't answer that because that is a subjective opinion, but objectively Half Life 2 is a major success. Just look at Metacritic for a start. 81 positive reviews, 0 mixed and 0 negative Professional Reviews and close to 1500 positive user reviews. Only 43 mixed reviews and 86 negative reviews and most of those are hilariously venomous about their pure undiluted hatred towards the game. Seriously, read them:
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/half-life-2/user-reviews?dist=negative
Just to juxtapose my first point earlier, when people read your title, this is what they see. No matter how reasoned your topic was (though I would suggest you revise your OP, brevity is key when your looking for an opinion...)
So where to next, I could try and explain how it has impacted the FPS genre, but being of an uneducated background I can only go so far:
***It wasn't the first to attempt life like physics, but it incorporated so effortlessly within the game you almost forget about it... thats a good thing! The new gimmick does not detract from the rest of the game, unlike most average games where gimmicks are pretty much the only selling point.
***The combat is very traditional FPS, with a bevy of interesting and potent weapons that really spice up the combat. It's fast and fluid. AI is competent but there has been better.
***The graphics have aged notably to this day, but it was groundbreaking back then. Coupled with the physics it was the most awe inspiring game of it's generation. It has been mentioned before, both as a compliment and a slight, that HL2 was so densely packed with fancy graphics and effects some consider it more of a tech expo then a traditional game.
***The narrative and it's structure was the best thing since sliced bread in it's day. Seamless transitions from action to plot-forwarding sequences kept players in the flow from start to finish. Top notch voice work and lip syncs, above par animation and good writing all came together so well it made the world feel alive. The "show don't tell" aspect of the world was something the Original started, but Half-Life 2 just completely outdid itself. The world, though linear, fell large and fleshed out.
Half-life 2 didn't revolutionise anything, but evolved much of what the genre held as staples back then. As others have mentioned the overall piece is greater then the some of it's parts.
Of course the game has it's drawbacks:
***Though lenient by the times "hardcore" fps gamers, Half Life 2 still employed the old 100 point health and armour system and required frequent scavenger hunts to top up. Though Valve were fairly liberal with the placing of health items and stations, it was enough to break flow every so often (though it did give time to explore after a heavy firefight, and there were plenty of things to find).
***It's vehicle sections were... clunky, and that's being nice. The feeling of weight it offered was nice, but the implementation just felt odd. The driving sequence was also a tad bit too long.
***Some of the area specific twists, like Squad mates in latter levels and the aforementioned car sequences all felt sub-par to the overall adventure. They felt slapped on, though weren't terrible in that respect either.
***The game had no conclusion (still doesn't).
If you can't appreciate the game itself, then just look at the engine. The source engine is still used widely today, though it has had many updates since Half Life 2. The engine also revolutionised modding and mod communities by essentially making it a core part of the experience. Seriously, look up Source mods and Games made by indie devs with the source engine. No other AAA engine is that widely used by the average joe with a pension for game design.
You can, by all means, not like the game and even hate it as they are subjective and based on individual experiences and interpretations. But objectively, Half Life 2 gets its praise because it deserves it.
We praise it "constantly" because some guy makes a thread every fucking day about how a game made 8 years ago contains elements that are naturally going to feel somewhat outdated.
The best fucking thing about it is that it is a near perfect example of one of the best ways to take advantage of storytelling within the medium, it has naturalistic (I'm not sure that's entirely the word I want to use, but the one I really do want to use has run away) dialogue spoken by believable characters, it has better physics - bizarrely - than most games now can manage, and its got just the right amount of cock-teasing mystery and unease spread across its universe to truly engage your imagination.
AND IT GIVES FREE BLOWJOBS.
The best fucking thing about it is that it is a near perfect example of one of the best ways to take advantage of storytelling within the medium, it has naturalistic (I'm not sure that's entirely the word I want to use, but the one I really do want to use has run away) dialogue spoken by believable characters, it has better physics - bizarrely - than most games now can manage, and its got just the right amount of cock-teasing mystery and unease spread across its universe to truly engage your imagination.
AND IT GIVES FREE BLOWJOBS.
This. This pretty much describes the structure of every grossly repetitive thread that is posted by the unimaginative person that thinks to themselves: "What shall I post on the forum today? I know! I'll make a topic about how I don't like Half-Life 2! Why that will essentially make a genius! And popular too!"Somonah said:
Its like asking why any game that is declared awesome is good, if you dont see it, its hard to understand.
HL2 is one of a handful of games i can think of off the top of my head where i know people who consider it a good game, even if it isnt the kind of game they usually play. Part of this is the variety, part of it is the good gameplay and part of it is just the silly bits vavle throw in, cause its a valve game.
Personally, not the best game ever many, possibly my favourite fps, no actually metroid prime takes that spot.
But why HL2 anywho? I know games that get a heck of a lot more praise for even less reason than that, yet its the one that gets all the attacks as been called the greatest game ever.
I know a valve fanboy who considers them the greates games company ever and owns every game they ever made cause he thinks they are that good. Even he has said that HL2 isn't the greatest game ever.
Mind you, he shares my view that if the greatest game/book/film etc ever is made, that the entire genre will die because there is no way to equal the best thing ever.
Oh and to call upon the comparisions to new fps games, why is it people call older games bad because the graphics are worse? That is possibly one of the stupidest arguments i have ever heard. You know pacman? I still enjoy playing that and its like 30 years old. The original final fantasy? A year or two older than myself, very basic graphics, yet i have spent more time playing that than some of these massive super games that are around today. Also comparing old and new fps is hard to a point as the fps genre is one of the newer ones.
But to wrap all this up as the various points have taken a large amount of room, people have different tastes, like different games and it happens that HL2 seems to appeal to more people than a lot of games too. Maybe its because its different in a world where a large amount of fps games are either cod or halo rip offs (or cod and halo themselves) and variety is the spice of life.
Or maybe its because of the orange box, several games for the price of one of these blockbuster games with cutting edge graphics.
Maybe its because its one of the games thats aged well, opinion may vary there.
In all, asking for reasons why anyone game is good/better than the rest, its a pointless task, i once read an article that declared halo was the best game ever because you got to save humanity from an invasion and be the hero, which also describes a heck of a lot of games, literally hundreds, so why did this article declare this as something new and the sole reason for halos success?
Beyond some people been crazy, its because everyone is different, i know some people who just play cod and fifa games, some who only play rpgs etc, unless your into that game, theres no easy way to explain why its good, why cant people just accept this?
HL2 is one of a handful of games i can think of off the top of my head where i know people who consider it a good game, even if it isnt the kind of game they usually play. Part of this is the variety, part of it is the good gameplay and part of it is just the silly bits vavle throw in, cause its a valve game.
Personally, not the best game ever many, possibly my favourite fps, no actually metroid prime takes that spot.
But why HL2 anywho? I know games that get a heck of a lot more praise for even less reason than that, yet its the one that gets all the attacks as been called the greatest game ever.
I know a valve fanboy who considers them the greates games company ever and owns every game they ever made cause he thinks they are that good. Even he has said that HL2 isn't the greatest game ever.
Mind you, he shares my view that if the greatest game/book/film etc ever is made, that the entire genre will die because there is no way to equal the best thing ever.
Oh and to call upon the comparisions to new fps games, why is it people call older games bad because the graphics are worse? That is possibly one of the stupidest arguments i have ever heard. You know pacman? I still enjoy playing that and its like 30 years old. The original final fantasy? A year or two older than myself, very basic graphics, yet i have spent more time playing that than some of these massive super games that are around today. Also comparing old and new fps is hard to a point as the fps genre is one of the newer ones.
But to wrap all this up as the various points have taken a large amount of room, people have different tastes, like different games and it happens that HL2 seems to appeal to more people than a lot of games too. Maybe its because its different in a world where a large amount of fps games are either cod or halo rip offs (or cod and halo themselves) and variety is the spice of life.
Or maybe its because of the orange box, several games for the price of one of these blockbuster games with cutting edge graphics.
Maybe its because its one of the games thats aged well, opinion may vary there.
In all, asking for reasons why anyone game is good/better than the rest, its a pointless task, i once read an article that declared halo was the best game ever because you got to save humanity from an invasion and be the hero, which also describes a heck of a lot of games, literally hundreds, so why did this article declare this as something new and the sole reason for halos success?
Beyond some people been crazy, its because everyone is different, i know some people who just play cod and fifa games, some who only play rpgs etc, unless your into that game, theres no easy way to explain why its good, why cant people just accept this?
You realize you could have just gone and looked up a review of the game from 2004 to find out why people liked it for a fraction of the effort it took to make this retarded thread right? Also, there are forum threads from 2004 that you can read from normal people to find out why people liked it. Its literally takes 2 seconds to Google search it. Or is it 2 seconds for me, and 4x to 5x that in your country?DioWallachia said:
So OP, what is your decision?
Your plight was that the mindless hype and counter-hype of this game has deprived you of witnessing the meaningful dialogue you needed to understand what the game is, and the tiresomeness of it has put you off trying the game for yourself.
Your request was that people put aside the mindless hype and provide you with specific details as to why or why not the game is good.
Though this thread may have had a rocky start in that regard, your request has been met. You have been provided with a plethora of level-headed reasonings and very specific examples of things that are good as well as things that are not good in Half Life 2. As a player of the game, I honestly do not believe there is a great deal more to be said than what already has.
With that said, it is now time to pull this topic to a close. The ball is in your court ... Have the reasons and examples provided been inadequate to shake you of your hype aversion, and thus will you go on to never play the game? Or have you at long last been convinced that it may be tolerable to experience the game and -wonder of wonders- develop your very own opinions on it?
Your plight was that the mindless hype and counter-hype of this game has deprived you of witnessing the meaningful dialogue you needed to understand what the game is, and the tiresomeness of it has put you off trying the game for yourself.
Your request was that people put aside the mindless hype and provide you with specific details as to why or why not the game is good.
Though this thread may have had a rocky start in that regard, your request has been met. You have been provided with a plethora of level-headed reasonings and very specific examples of things that are good as well as things that are not good in Half Life 2. As a player of the game, I honestly do not believe there is a great deal more to be said than what already has.
With that said, it is now time to pull this topic to a close. The ball is in your court ... Have the reasons and examples provided been inadequate to shake you of your hype aversion, and thus will you go on to never play the game? Or have you at long last been convinced that it may be tolerable to experience the game and -wonder of wonders- develop your very own opinions on it?
This is fucking hilarious. From what I can see some people forgot (or never knew) what games were like back in the day so some mechanics seem old and crap to them. Some people are impatient when it comes to cut-scenes so they get irritated when they cant skip the interactive cut-scenes of a game reliant on the underlying story that you just about have to tell yourself.
I played HL1 rather late. 2008 from memory. HL2 was 2009. I had grown up on old games such as Doom so I had grown up on older mechanics. I was engrossed in the HL1 story when I played it. I like immersion. I have absolutely terrible patience for many great games like Mass Effect and many of the Final Fantasy games. I don't doubt they are great works but when I am not immersed I am just not interested. It would make sense to me that some people don't like the immersion depth that games like Half-Life require.
It's just a shame they cant see past their own limitations to realise what some games accomplish.
I played HL1 rather late. 2008 from memory. HL2 was 2009. I had grown up on old games such as Doom so I had grown up on older mechanics. I was engrossed in the HL1 story when I played it. I like immersion. I have absolutely terrible patience for many great games like Mass Effect and many of the Final Fantasy games. I don't doubt they are great works but when I am not immersed I am just not interested. It would make sense to me that some people don't like the immersion depth that games like Half-Life require.
It's just a shame they cant see past their own limitations to realise what some games accomplish.
I just dislike all of the hype that Gordon Freeman seems to get as the protagonist of the series.
I'm inclined to agree that it isn't the perfect experience a lot of critics make it out to be.
The vehicle sections were as terrible as they were unnecessary and the vaunted always-in-first-person cutscenes did not work at all when you were asked to stand in a room and listen to people talk instead of moving through a story event (the fact that so many people invent games for themselves during these sections should speak for itself). The capstone on the whole thing is Gordon Freeman himself. A silent protagonist simply does not work in a game with a story and characters as developed as this unless he's actually supposed to be mute, in which case we should still see him communicating in some way. I had a lot of fun playing it, and I appreciate that it was trying new things, but a lot of them didn't work and it's a much more flawed experience than most users of this site had lead me to believe.
Edit: Actually, thinking back on it, I might still prefer Half Life 1.
The vehicle sections were as terrible as they were unnecessary and the vaunted always-in-first-person cutscenes did not work at all when you were asked to stand in a room and listen to people talk instead of moving through a story event (the fact that so many people invent games for themselves during these sections should speak for itself). The capstone on the whole thing is Gordon Freeman himself. A silent protagonist simply does not work in a game with a story and characters as developed as this unless he's actually supposed to be mute, in which case we should still see him communicating in some way. I had a lot of fun playing it, and I appreciate that it was trying new things, but a lot of them didn't work and it's a much more flawed experience than most users of this site had lead me to believe.
Edit: Actually, thinking back on it, I might still prefer Half Life 1.
DioWallachia, what's the matter, little fella? I read your first post, and summarised it.
You believe that popular opinion requires justification. You also fail at contextual analysis and criticism. You fail in every level on that regard, and harbor a poor understanding of objectivity versus subjectivity. Therefore, your perspective is reduced to a mere rant. Whom are you trying to convince to the contrary?
And why?
The focus of your abysmal critique doesn't even matter- it could be HalfLife 2, or Justin fucking Bieber. Abject pointlessness. Pray, continue!
You believe that popular opinion requires justification. You also fail at contextual analysis and criticism. You fail in every level on that regard, and harbor a poor understanding of objectivity versus subjectivity. Therefore, your perspective is reduced to a mere rant. Whom are you trying to convince to the contrary?
And why?
The focus of your abysmal critique doesn't even matter- it could be HalfLife 2, or Justin fucking Bieber. Abject pointlessness. Pray, continue!
/ just looked up hype aversion.
I find it a very confusing and weird concept. "Lots of people like this, and so i must not like it."
Odd.
I find it a very confusing and weird concept. "Lots of people like this, and so i must not like it."
Odd.
In fact the OP says he hasn't even played this game. Than what's the point of this thread? Is this guy some kind of hipster who wants to show how much he hates popular things?AC10 said: