Half Life 2 is not a good FPS

[not a zaar]

Half Life 2 is a great adventure, and a cool series of setpieces and some sci-fi lore, but as far as FPS standards go it's pretty lacking in my opinion. Let's take a look:

Weapons - Arguably the most important part of an FPS. Most of HL2's weapon feel weak and powerless (especially the pistol and the smg,) except maybe for the revolver, which has a pathetic ammo capacity and is hardly ever needed thanks to the dumb-as-rocks enemies which are content to slowly strafe or run right at you while shooting. The gravity gun is cool, but it's more of a gimmick than a weapon as far as I'm concerned.

Game progression - The game basically rushes you from one setpiece to another, with the occasional locked in area while you listen to characters drone about crap you don't care, all the while you're jumping around and crowbarring anything breakable in frustration. The only time in the game I really felt like there was any tactics or intense action was the assault on Nova Prospekt, which was cool, but doesn't make up for the rest of the game.

I could go on, but I'm assuming at this point already half of you are not even going to bother reading a 'wall of text' of this size, so let's see if we can get some debate going about this.

 

[WrongSprite]

Its not a great game full stop...

 

[Jadak]

I wouldn't say it's not good, but it's certainly not great.

 

[dontworryaboutit]

Yeah, the weapons in Half-Life 2 are not very well designed, they feel weak, and are generic. Except for the Gravity Gun and the antlion pheromones which are awesome.

Also the A.I. is totally pathetic. They rarely take cover and just stand in the middle like a open target. Your team mates are far worse. Valve fortunely fixed all those problems in the expansions packs.

Still, Half-Life 2 is a great game but I wouldn't call it a great FPS either. Half-Life 1 was far superior in my opinion.

Magnum. I always pretend I'm Dirty Harry.

Correction: FILTHY Harry.

 

[Mariena]

I agree that the SMG, pistol were just.. egh.. and the awesome revolver's ammo capacity made it virtually "useless", but the guided RPG was pretty cool and I really liked the Combine pulse rifle (and especially the alternate fire. Disintegrating your enemies, how cool is that?).

I found the episodes to be a lot more interesting gaming wise, and I feel that Half Life 2 was just a big show to display all the cool features, lighting and.. oh god.. the physics. Oh look, another physics puzzle. Yes, we got it now!

However, I really enjoyed the environments and just looking around. The game was quite immersive. I take it you have all listened to Breen's speech in the messhall? It's just that the actual shooty part was lacking, but I don't really mind that.

 

[D_987]

By todays standards Half-Life 2 is good, but not great - by 2004's standards it is amazing.

 

[Steelfists]

Half Life 2 is a great adventure, and a cool series of setpieces and some sci-fi lore, but as far as FPS standards go it's pretty lacking in my opinion. Let's take a look:

Weapons - Arguably the most important part of an FPS. Most of HL2's weapon feel weak and powerless (especially the pistol and the smg,) except maybe for the revolver, which has a pathetic ammo capacity and is hardly ever needed thanks to the dumb-as-rocks enemies which are content to slowly strafe or run right at you while shooting. The gravity gun is cool, but it's more of a gimmick than a weapon as far as I'm concerned.

Game progression - The game basically rushes you from one setpiece to another, with the occasional locked in area while you listen to characters drone about crap you don't care, all the while you're jumping around and crowbarring anything breakable in frustration. The only time in the game I really felt like there was any tactics or intense action was the assault on Nova Prospekt, which was cool, but doesn't make up for the rest of the game.

I could go on, but I'm assuming at this point already half of you are not even going to bother reading a 'wall of text' of this size, so let's see if we can get some debate going about this.

The AI is not dumb as rocks. Have you tried blocking a route with items from the Gravity Gun (not a gimmick, due to the revoulutionary physics meaning you can pick up almost everything it adds a lot to the gameplay) they will find other routes around. They also work together, just like in HL1.

The two earliest weapons are crap, of coure they are, you get better ones as you go along obv.

 

[Nargleblarg]

Oh at first I thought it said Half life 1 was bad phew I almost just started flaming.

Ya Half life 2 wasn't as good as the first but it wasn't terrible I mean it's still better than Halo 2-3.

Also your FPS standards are probably just used to halo and COD that will make you hate it.

 

[Flying-Emu]

What difficulty were you playing on?

The standard difficulty is piss-weak, but the harder one is... well, harder. Admittedly, the AI is inferior to today's standards.

Maybe because it's five years old.

As for your issues with the gameplay, I have one thing to say.

What the fuck?

Not intense? You're telling me that when you're running from a pair of Combine helicopters screaming bullets after you as you duck and cover behind thin sheets of metal while Combine soldiers fill you full of lead isn't intense? What IS intense for you?

When you play an older game, you need to take into account its age. This is like playing Super Mario Brothers (for the NES) and saying it gets repetitive, cause all you're doing is jumping.

Side Note: I still get a boner every time I hear the Combine soldier's death scream.

 

[plastic_window]

As far as I was concerned, the low ammo for the magnum makes sure that you DON'T keep using it over and over again. It keeps you on your toes, looking for ammo and having to use your pea-shooter of a pistol or waste all the grenades for your SMG.

The structure is a little too boring as well, I agree. The driving sequences, in particular, feel tedious. They could have just had several locations right next to one another and kept the action up.

 

[Jamous]

Yeah, the weapons in Half-Life 2 are not very well designed, they feel weak, and are generic. Except for the Gravity Gun and the antlion pheromones which are awesome.

Also the A.I. is totally pathetic. They rarely take cover and just stand in the middle like a open target. Your team mates are far worse. Valve fortunely fixed all those problems in the expansions packs.

Still, Half-Life 2 is a great game but I wouldn't call it a great FPS either. Half-Life 1 was far superior in my opinion.

Magnum. I always pretend I'm Dirty Harry.

Correction: FILTHY Harry.

Magnum's are awesome! But rarely used it in Half-Life 2 due to very short ammo campacity.

Too true... But when you storm a huge mob of ppl the game's still awesome.

 

[The Hairminator]

no cool weapons? How about antlion-gland? Ah, the awesome moments <3

 

[fix-the-spade]

Side Note: I still get a boner every time I hear the Combine soldier's death scream.

Don't say that near a psychiatrist...

 

[Flying-Emu]

AI is far better than most games had to that point

Even for its time Half-Life 2 had bad A.I. There were first-person shooters that came before or during the time Half-Life was released that offered superior A.I.

Games like Far Cry, No One Lives Forever 2, Descent 3, Call of Duty, Halo {Yes, you heard that right.}, and Half-Life 1. Its a shame considering Half-Life 1 had amazing A.I. for its time and they're still pretty good till this day. Valve fortunely made the A.I. much smarter in the expansion packs to create really solid A.I.

Erm.

Halo 1's AI was horrific. Sure, they might hide behind a rock on Legendary difficulty once in awhile, but usually they'll just run around and shoot at anything pink and hairy. Or green and metal.

As for Call of Duty, the focus in the games was a bit different. Half-Life 2 was less of a "Let's blow the fuck out of Nazis/Combines" and more "get from Point A to Point B." It's almost like an Adventure game rather than FPS, since the focus is on advancing the story. And how do you do that? Move, dammit!

I really dislike it when people call HL2 a bad FPS because the weapons are lame or something like that. It's because that wasn't the focus of the game. The focus was the story. All the people who say "You have to sit and listen to a bunch of crap you don't care about" should be playing a less story-driven game. A game where you can shoot aliens without having to give a rat's ass about the story or something.

Really. Judge a game based on its focus. You don't judge Halo by the fact that its story was generic sci-fi "kill the aliens" until the Arbiter and his faction decided to join. And even then, that story's been done a billion times before. And better.

 

[MarsProbe]

This is where somebody says something really cheesy like "Half-Life 2 is not a good FPS, it's a great FPS".

Unforrtunately, it turned out it was me.

But really, what is the point of this discussion. Half-Life 2 was a great game back when it was released. It should be judged based on its merits at that time, not how it stands now. Though if you are judging it based on it's merits on release, why take 5 years before doing so?

 

[A random person]

I consider it the greatest FPS ever made, but the guns do feel a bit weak. Doesn't really matter with such great atmosphere and epic setpieces, though (Water Hazard is awesome fast chasing and Highway 17 is awesomely atmospheric even for the game, with the bridge!).