Half Life 2 (first impressions)

[Etra488]

Alright, so everyone says this game is the best single player fps, of basically all time. It is difficult to not have this game come up when it comes to well-polished shooters. Steam was offering the Orange Box with all the HL2 dlc's for $20 and I picked it up.

I had never played it. I thought the first Half Life was exciting, ground-breaking, and completely amazing. I have nothing but praise for the first Half Life.

First impressions for Half Life 2: wow, this game is really really boring. It has all the pieces of it's predecessor, but I'm just not feeling it. I'm two hours in, I have no idea what City 17 is, why the aliens from the first game are domesticated, or what the hell is going on. The gameplay has me on rails. The enemies are the cops, the saw-drones, and the spotlight drones. Not a lot of variety, not very interesting.

And I'm seeing a lot of repetitive sewer textures.

You didn't know what was going on in the first game either - but you were also there when the accident happened. The panic and confusion was part of the game. Half Life was almost a survival game more than it was an aggressive shooter, though those elements were strong as well.

But this game - you enter the world and it's already fucked up. The GMan from the first game just dumps you into a shit-storm and off you go. You meet Alex and the doc and they give you a place to go - no explanation for why. And Freeman doesn't speak up so I'm frustrated - I'd have some questions to ask.

I have no doubt the game will get around to explaining itself eventually, but for right now, I'm ready to stop playing. I breezed through Portal and had a great time - that game was actually pretty compelling. A creepy robot tries to burn you and it's your choice to live and fight back.

But unlike Portal, Half Life 2 is very apparently trying to be more, and given the hype for the game, I'm expecting more. Just not seeing it.

I'll update when I have more information. But right now, the game is very boring.

*** *** *** *** *** ***

Shamus from Twenty Sided compared Homefront to Half Life 2, and as it happens I think he's got a lot of good ideas. The Orange Box was discounted on Steam so I picked it up to see what he was talking about.

Alright, just wrapped up the jet ski stage - took me forever to figure out I had to blow up a pair of barrels in order to advance - I hate it when games pull shit like that. If I had to describe the entire game up until you meet Alyx* and she gives you the Gravity Gun, I'd call it all filler.

*** *** *** *** *** ***

Ran into some problems with the story:
[ul][li]A lot of characters are survivors of Black Mesa.[/li]
[li]They're continuing the experiments with alien assistance, and no problems about it. No red flags, no crises of conscience as they reopen the pandora's box that claimed the lives of so many of their friends/colleagues.[/li]
[li]Are the aliens seriously being retconned into misunderstood genius monsters? What the hell?[/li]
[li]Black Mesa apparently wasn't a disaster or a tragic loss of life. No reference to the dozens of dead scientists or soldiers.[/li]
[li]So then what really did happen at Black Mesa if everyone is being so cheery about it? It's not like someone's creating a cover-up; the characters I am speaking to were also there. They ALSO ran from Marines and hid from monsters. So what the crap?[/li]
[li]Walk into a building called "Black Mesa West." Seriously, are we back in New Mexico, or is this some other Black Mesa?[/li]
[li]News clipping about Earth surrendering, what's that about?[/li]
[li]The chick Alyx argues with - she wishes she had been in Freeman's shoes during Black Mesa - does she not know it was a house of horrors? Gordon is a techie - he's a physicist who had to murder alien monsters and other human beings in order to survive. Freeman is not a commando. Can someone set her straight?[/li]
[li]So wait, if we're still within the lifetimes of original Black Mesa survivors - that can't put the game beyond 10-15 years at the maximum. Where the fuck did something like "dog" come from? That has to be re-purposed alien technology - but the aliens in Half Life 1 didn't have tech - they were just monsters. So where the fuck did mecha like that come from?[/li]
[li]If the game is "10-15 years later" is no one curious where Freeman's been all this time or why he hasn't aged?[/li]
[li]The apparent dictator is already spreading propaganda dispelling the myth that Gorden is some science-messiah. Gordon's been alive for 45 minutes and already people have heard of him and are worshiping him in a terrible play-on-words with his name. What the hell?[/li][/ul]

So anyway, just before the characters got around to telling Gordon simple information, like what day of the week it is, the Combine attacks and Freeman gets separated from Alyx.

"Dog, take Gorden through Ravenloft! Er, Ravenholm, I meant Ravenholm. What a silly slip of the tongue - Ravenholm isn't even supposed to be a scary haunted house-style adventure... oh wait that's exactly what it is. We'll meet up on the far side!" Or something.

So, I guess only some of the aliens are bad. And the aliens that are good don't mind if we kill the other ones.
[ul][li]First Freeman crawls through the sewers to get to the doc's lab, where the teleporter misfires.[/li]
[li]Then Freeman takes a jet ski through more sewers and levies to outside the city to Alyx's dad's secret laboratory, which has full water and power utilities. Sure.[/li]
[li]Then the Combine attack the secret lab - what a damn shame - and now Freeman is inside another city that's been wrecked by the aliens.[/li][/ul]

Still waiting for the game to tell me what the fuck's been going on.

*** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Right, to I got to the Priest and he's taking me to the mines, because "I wouldn't want to stay in Ravenholm."

Alyx didn't say anything about the mines, and where did dog disappear off to? Why am I here again? Where am I going?

Oh, that's right: I'm in an unfamiliar city, at night, being attacked by monsters. I don't know anything what's going on. I don't know where I am. This game...

*** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Right, I reconnected with the... the resistance I guess. They're not government and they have the stereotypical raggedy clothing. So I guess they're freedom fighters - or the Taliban.

Who are these people? Why is Gordon listening to them? They know him - but a lot of people know me. And I certainly wouldn't risk breaking an elderly man from an internment camp for no reason. Why am I taking orders from Alyx? This game does a really piss-poor job of getting the player emotionally involved.

And... I am quitting after 5 and a half hours of play, at the bridge. I just cut the power and now have to take down the gun ship.

So far, I'm not seeing what everyone is excited about. And you know what? I even like the graphics. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past came out in 1994 and was very presentable and had a lot of story (text). That's me benchmark. Since 1994, game developers have had the technology to tell a compelling story through video games. So I don't hold HL2's age against it.

I'm not seeing where this game cut it's teeth. I see interesting weapons, some cool set pieces, but "cool moments" don't make a great game. So far, this is not Game of the Year material.

 

[MrVeryOriginal]

Really? My first impression to the game, and this is probably because it was my first experience with a valve game, went some where along the lines of "Oh this is cool, you can talk to people on the train. I wonder what that guy at the beginning was talking about. Oh, cool I can pick up stuff, sweet!Take that Police Man! man, there's a lot of dialog from these citizens. OH MY GOD THE VENDING MACHINES GIVE YOU SODA!!!!!!!" Although up to that time I didn't play a video game with an interactive physics engine.

Even if it does seem to look a bit repetitive Half-life 2 does have a lot of memorable moments, escaping the combine in city 17, I don't want to spoil the rest. There's a lot of fun to be had and little things like the PSA's from Dr. Breen Help set the atmosphere. The best thing to do is not expect a game to be something and let it surprise you. You say You're expecting MORE, but trying to expect something and pointing out all the little insignificant flaws isn't a way to play a game. Unless, of course, You're Yahtzee and you're doing it because you're YAHTZEE, and clever!

 

[subtlefuge]

I'm really sorry to say anything, but why exactly are you doing this?

The game is 7 years old, it's been played to death, and you're reviewing it with <5% completion.

The enemies aren't that great in the game, it's just something you kinda have to put up with. There will be several incredibly interesting ones added later.

By 2 hours you should have made it to where every question that you have is explained. You're probably close.

If you consider puzzles to be filler, you probably won't like what's to come.

Spoiler: And remember...

7 years is a long time.

 

[Lenvoran]

I've got to agree with you. Half Life 2 was kinda meh for me. Though in all honesty, nothing has given me enjoyment like good old Tribes did. Half Life 1 was alright, but not really anything particularly spectacular either.

The only actual Valve game I really enjoyed thus far was Portal. Everything else seemed far too familiar in concept and scope.

 

[EllEzDee]

My first impression of the game was that it sucked. Took me a year to complete it because it was that bad.
I suggest playing through EP1 and EP2. That's what i did, and it gave me an incentive to go back and playthrough HL2 in one sitting to fully experience the story. After that the game became a lot more fun.

TopTip: The game gets fun once you finish the water sections. Another thing: Keep an eye out for lambdas (you'll recognise it if you google lambda). They lead to caches of weapons/ammo which is nice in itself, but to reach the cache you usually have to get through a nifty little puzzle. It adds another layer of fun to the game, sheds some light on the rebel's struggle to fight the combine, and has an achievement too!

 

[AceAngel]

Killing the final boss in Half-Life released the Vortiguants from their slavery.

Most of the aliens are domesticated because the Combines led an organized assault on Earth.

Half-Life was always about rails, with partial exploration.

No one is supposed to know what City 17 is until they get deeper in the story.

Cops are genetically corrupted humans, the drones are drones and the spotlight thingies are neighbor watch.

The game is about 6 years old. Tiled textures = less drawcalls.

Half Life wasn't a survival game out of nature. It pulled many cheap ambushes on the player, cheap deaths, forcing you to quick-load many times. You also didn't regenerate health.

Half Life wasn't confusing, it was the terrible voice acting and quality of it that left many in the dark.

In both games, GMan makes it's clear that he is a business man, and hence, threats your like an asset.

They hint as to why Gordon doesn't speak (Metro Cop knocks him on the jaw with baton, cheap excuse, but it could be worse).

If you're playing a game, just to validate the hype of other people, please stop playing.

I personally hated Avatar, was let down by Batman AA, and felt ripped off by ME, also, I'm enraged by Angry Birds. Why? Because I let the hype get to me. Thankfully, I didn't get hyped by Portal, so I enjoyed it by myself, however, from all the hype people make out of it, I know for a fact that I would have been pretty underwhelmed by Portal if that was the case.

 

[Lem0nade Inlay]

Since it's been hyped up, and you've only played a tiny portion of the game (Route Canal gave me the shits the first few times I played it, but now I love it), I can see where you're coming from.

However the reason for me that it was the greatest singleplayer game of all time was mostly the atmosphere and the environment detail. The combat wasn't amazing (it gets better when you get the gravity gun) but I still enjoyed it.

My first impression was even more confused than yours (I hadn't played HL1), so I was like
"Okay who is this guy....oh a train....where the fuck am I....is that a human?....Ow why are they beating me....hey I can throw stuff!"

EDIT: Forgot to note, the level after the one you're playing now is a ***** as well. It seems to go on forever but once you finish it, and the short level after, shit gets real.

 

[The Youth Counselor]

Cops are genetically corrupted humans

Otherwise you're spot on.

 

[subtlefuge]

-snip-

I don't consider there to be any spoilers of a 7 year old game, but there's no reason to post everything in a thread where someone is playing through it for the first time.

 

[kane.malakos]

What you have to accept is the style of story-telling in Half-Life 2. It's a very atmospheric game, and a lot of the questions you have can be discovered by newspaper clippings on bulletin boards, radio announcements, or logic. There are cutscenes, but most of the story is told through the atmosphere. It's not to everyone's taste, but even without paying attention to the story the FPS elements get a lot more variation, and they're a lot of fun. Once you get the gravity gun in particular.

 

[Deadyawn]

Really? My first impression to the game, and this is probably because it was my first experience with a valve game, went some where along the lines of "Oh this is cool, you can talk to people on the train. I wonder what that guy at the beginning was talking about. Oh, cool I can pick up stuff, sweet!Take that Police Man! man, there's a lot of dialog from these citizens. OH MY GOD THE VENDING MACHINES GIVE YOU SODA!!!!!!!" Although up to that time I didn't play a video game with an interactive physics engine.

I had pretty much the same thought process. "cool I can pick stuff up. And I can throw it too! Neat! Oh wait I'm being chased...OMG a television! I can throw that too..." In fact I spent at least twenty minutes throwing every single item those citizens owned out the window. I did get a bit sick of the water levels after an hour of them but things definitly pick themselves up after that.

 

[MrVeryOriginal]

Come to think of if, aside from the cutscene at the beginning and at the end, there aren't any cutscenes

 

[AceAngel]

-snip-

I don't consider there to be any spoilers of a 7 year old game, but there's no reason to post everything in a thread where someone is playing through it for the first time.

There is no need for someone to post their superficial opinion about a 6-7 year old game when they barely touched the 2 hour mark, when half of the elements and statements they made are:

a) Answered later on in the story, in EP1 and EP2 (for people who are idle in mind, Wiki can help).
b) Answered in HL1, both in the start, middle and end (for people who couldn't understand what was being said, due to the enviromental chatter, Wiki can help).

Sorry, but King Kong is King Kong, you can at least watch the whole movie before saying something that doesn't hold up. Drones? Really? That's how far they got and they complain about it? This isn't even trolling, this is simply being lazy and thinking half informed opinion is worth the whole game.

Cops are genetically corrupted humans

Otherwise you're spot on.

Sorry, I think I might have been referring to the Overwatch Elite in a hurry, so yeah, my mistake. The normal Metro Cops are humans without any mutations.

 

[Etra488]

Guys, I am MISTER spoiler warning. I always read the last chapter of a new book because I want to know how it ends before I get there.

I read the plot of every movie before I see it, etc etc. The more information I know, the better I can study the game as I play it. It helps me to see a plot hook if I know to look for it.

Also, I think not being totally blind allows me to be more merciful to the developers. If I know what they were trying to do before I play the game, then I can see where they succeeded. Otherwise, the entire thing would be a gut reaction and that's unreliable.

 

[Lawnmooer]

I have the feeling you haven't been paying attention to what is being said...

Alex and the doc tell you to go somewhere because you're a wanted criminal getting chased by the cops.

Alex doesn't tell you about the mines because she gets trapped behind rubble, dog isn't with you because he is helping clear that rubble.

I recently played through HL2 + Episode One and everything made sense to me since I was paying attention to what was being said.

 

[Etra488]

Lawnmooer, I thought dog was supposed to go with me through Ravenholm. That's what Alyx said. And then he disappears on me.

Why is Gordon being chased by the cops? I was wandering through an apartment building when they were conducting a raid... looking for something. Were they looking for Gordon? Why would they? How do they know I'm important - is Gordon important? I thought Black Mesa was under a cover-up - that's why the Marines were sent in to pacify the science team. So who would know about it?

Everyone seems to know Gordon's face and he seems to be some kind of big deal... why?

So Gordon flees from the police, taking hits, and then Alyx rescues him. So far as the police were concerned, Alyx is a known terrorist could have been rescuing anybody. Why were the police in a foot pursuit with Gordon at all?

I'm 5 and a half hours in and the game hasn't told me. I've been going through the motions and... you enter a location, you kill the bad guys, you enter a new location, solve a puzzle, enter a new location, kill bad guys... the same bad guys over and over.

The only thing new from the first Half Life game is the inclusion of physics-based puzzles. And while those are cool, were they why this game was hyped? Am I under-valuing that gameplay?

 

[subtlefuge]

There is no need for someone to post their superficial opinion about a 6-7 year old game when they barely touched the 2 hour mark

That's the main issue.

Here are the others:

1. This is a User Review forum, this isn't a review.
2. There is no effort put into whatever this is, streams of consciousness are not interesting.
3. It's like someone transcribed the audio for a shitty youtube let's play and decided to post it.
4. The "everyone loved this game, but I didn't" shtick got old somewhere around the invention of the internet.

 

[JET1971]

Lawnmooer, I thought dog was supposed to go with me through Ravenholm. That's what Alyx said. And then he disappears on me.

Why is Gordon being chased by the cops? I was wandering through an apartment building when they were conducting a raid... looking for something. Were they looking for Gordon? Why would they? How do they know I'm important - is Gordon important? I thought Black Mesa was under a cover-up - that's why the Marines were sent in to pacify the science team. So who would know about it?

Everyone seems to know Gordon's face and he seems to be some kind of big deal... why?

So Gordon flees from the police, taking hits, and then Alyx rescues him. So far as the police were concerned, Alyx is a known terrorist could have been rescuing anybody. Why were the police in a foot pursuit with Gordon at all?

I'm 5 and a half hours in and the game hasn't told me. I've been going through the motions and... you enter a location, you kill the bad guys, you enter a new location, solve a puzzle, enter a new location, kill bad guys... the same bad guys over and over.

The only thing new from the first Half Life game is the inclusion of physics-based puzzles. And while those are cool, were they why this game was hyped? Am I under-valuing that gameplay?

Alyx clearly said for dog to take you to the entrance to ravenholm and nothing about going through ravenholm with you but to head off to her father as soon as he got you there. that was clearly stated by alyx and you didnt pay attention i suppose.

the reason the police are chasing you is because you are on the "most wanted" list because Gordon defeated the combine at Black Mesa. the combine control City 17 through Breen where you were placed by the G-man. they spotted you and were attemnpting to arrest you on Breens orders. you had no weapons so you fleed the area as best you could when they cornered you and Alyx came just in the nick of time to save you. when Alyx is leading you to the lab she points out Breen to you and explains what he is doing. thus you put 2 and 2 together and realize why they were after you.

HL2 isnt a normal FPS where you run around and kill things as the goal. the goal is to play the story not playing the action parts of it and they tell you the rest. Thats why in the "cutscenes" you can move around, pick things up and even required to perform an action in them. HL2 is probably the only FPS that did a play the story from start to finish without cutscenes quicktime events or anything else that removed you from the game aside from load points of its time. and most likely still is. all questions you have are slowly answered by the AI that talk to you as the game advances. if you miss it then thats because you were not paying attention. and there are questions that still unanswered because they were not answered. such as the G-man and what his plans are for you and who/what he is!

If you were thinking HL2 was going to be a fast paced shooter like COD or BFBC2 and its all about action and the story is secondary to the action then you were expecting something its not. in HL2 the story is what its about and action is part of that story.

*edit
I forgot to add something... In the game you are playing as Gordon Freeman, he has no idea what is going on because G-man pulled him out at the end of HL1 and he wakes up on the train to City 17. so basicly you the player are in his shoes not knowing whats going on and learn it as you go! Barney starts you on the path to learning whats going on, and some of the civilians also give you clues as to the city and what has been happening since HL1. thats one of the great things about this game! the story isnt handed to you, you need to discover it yourself!