Half Life 2 Misconceptions.

[Pearwood]

I'll finish episode one when Valve drop the fanboy attitude and work on the half-arsed ps3 port. If I want to play fps then I really suck on pc, I'm so used to console controls I'm far too inaccurate with a mouse. But the game itself is fine I just wish my version of it was as good as the pc version where I can't aim at those annoying flying robot things for shit

 

[Harlemura]

The thing that mislead me was that is was a fun game. I didn't enjoy the gameplay. Searching every nook and cranny for health packs and ammo just so I could stand up in a firefight for more than three seconds and use the decent weapons got so freakin' boring.
The only thing that kept me going was the story. I can't knock it at all for it's gripping-ness, I never would have played it all the way through if it didn't keep me wanting to know what happens next.

 

[Giest4life]

I don't like regenerating health---it adds an additional strategic component to the game. With regenerating health, it doesn't matter what difficulty you're playing on, if you can find enough cover that is.

 

[MasterMongoose0]

I watched that GammyGoose (I probably just butchered his name, my apologies) video series on youtube, and that gave me a much greater understanding of it. I'm surprised it hasn't been referenced here more. He helps to show the elaborate detail and care Valve put into the game that a non-series fan might otherwise miss.

That said, I still don't understand the "incredible story" aspect of the game. From what I played, you went from point A to B like any other shooter (but in a great atmosphere). The dialogue was well-written and the characters were charming enough, but the plot itself was completely uninteresting to me.

The gameplay was always fun to me though. I loved the gravity gun, the saw blades, the crossing the desert, and the absolute joy of the super gravity gun.

 

[dududf]

But hell, the multiplayer is fun anyways!

There wasn't a mutliplayer. Half-Life 2: Deathmatch was a stand along game.

Zombie Master. You have a point, and I agree, but Zombie Master.

Wait dude, zombie master is out?

FFUUUU!!!!

 

[Souplex]

It's age is not an excuse for it's averageness.
Before 2004 we had: Duke Nukem, Metroid Prime, Halo, GoldenEye, and Half Life 1. All of them came before Half Life 2, and all of them are still good to this day. Half Life 2 is not.

 

[dududf]

It's age is not an excuse for it's averageness.
Before 2004 we had: Duke Nukem, Metroid Prime, Halo, GoldenEye, and Half Life 1. All of them came before Half Life 2, and all of them are still good to this day. Half Life 2 is not.

Wait what?

I still love Half life 2. The base game is awesome, and all the mods for it just makes it that bit more awesome. True, it hasn't aged all that well but it's still very good.

To each to his own I suppose.

 

[The Amazing Tea Alligator]

But hell, the multiplayer is fun anyways!

There wasn't a mutliplayer. Half-Life 2: Deathmatch was a stand along game.

Zombie Master. You have a point, and I agree, but Zombie Master.

Wait dude, zombie master is out?

FFUUUU!!!!

lol - for a looooong time, yes. (maybe half a year or so.)

 

[Thunderhorse31]

It's the same story with any old-school game - there are people here who are going to argue that Half Life 2, PoP: The Sands of Time, Morrowind, God of War, Metal Gear Solid, etc. are the best FPS, platformer, RPG, hack-n-slash, and stealth games, respectively, but newer players might disagree entirely because:

The fact that you consider God of War and Half Life 2 old school makes me feel very old.

Old school for me is Golden Axe and Space Invaders...

Okay okay, I might have thrown that term around too flippantly. I feel your pain, my first video game was "Boxing" on Atari, so perhaps "old school" needs to be qualified more carefully from now on.

What I really meant was "last generation." Hell, the problem even exists in current-gen games. You try getting a kid who has played nothing but Modern Warfare to go back and play Call of Duty 2 for the first time, and tell him how awesome it was in 2005. Odds are they'll think the game is shit, simply because there's no "run" button or Commando perk. All I'm saying is this: people can be pretty damn short-sighted, regardless of what game/genre/generation we're talking about.

 

[Scobie]

DELETED

 

[Anah'ya]

I would just like to say that crowbars are for geeky video game characters.

And at that note I don't really know why I bothered to reply. The OP said it perfectly fine. Half Life 2 is a gem, no questions asked, but it's a classic that has a few too many years behind it. It's like me trying to convince people that Thief is the best stealth game ever and that they should just go and try it, just to realize that they would never appreciate the lack of flashy graphics and modern game mechanics.

Which.. is a bit sad, but that's not the point here.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

[

What I really meant was "last generation." Hell, the problem even exists in current-gen games. You try getting a kid who has played nothing but Modern Warfare to go back and play Call of Duty 2 for the first time, and tell him how awesome it was in 2005. Odds are they'll think the game is shit, simply because there's no "run" button or Commando perk. All I'm saying is this: people can be pretty damn short-sighted, regardless of what game/genre/generation we're talking about.

All very true.

I do think that the medium is constantly making little improvements, so for example MW2 will obviously run smoother and control better than COD2, which I think can put a few people off.

Then again I played Silent Hill 2, Fallout 1 and 2 for the frst time last year and loved them all to bits. I think it's just a little harder for younger gamers to overlook the flaws in older games (dodgy controls, low quality graphics etc) that us older gamers perhaps don't notice as much.

 

[butternut]

This is probably just me but... The vehicles on HL drove like crap? really??

On my first playthrough of HL2 when they gave you a car and said "now you can leave people as smears on the road as well as smashing their face in with a crowbar" I didnt find a single problem with the controls at all.

Now take Halo... Ive only recently played that for the first time and I can bearly control the vehicles at all.

Also, one word that sums up my love for HL2: Gravity Gun.

 

[Jolly Madness]

But hell, the multiplayer is fun anyways!

There wasn't a mutliplayer. Half-Life 2: Deathmatch was a stand along game.

Which you got for free if you owned HL2 on steam, and it's really just HL2 with different maps and all the same weapons and models.

 

[The Austin]

SNIP

Wow, obvious troll is obvious then?

OP: Dude, some people don't like Half Life. You can't convince them otherwise.
And making a thread explaining why people "don't get it" just makes you look like a fanboy.

 

[Arachon]

I would just like to say that crowbars are for geeky video game characters.

And at that note I don't really know why I bothered to reply. The OP said it perfectly fine. Half Life 2 is a gem, no questions asked, but it's a classic that has a few too many years behind it. It's like me trying to convince people that Thief is the best stealth game ever and that they should just go and try it, just to realize that they would never appreciate the lack of flashy graphics and modern game mechanics.

Which.. is a bit sad, but that's not the point here.

Objection your honour!

By that logic, I would not have enjoyed Fallout 1 the first time I played it (which was about 2 years ago, 11 years after the game was released).

 

[maturin]

That's just it... the design of most modern FPS games have taken MUCH from Half-Life 2. So, someone who has played nothing but modern games and then tries HL2.. They're not going to be impressed. If only they realized that Half-Life 2 practically started the realistic physics craze (not the first game to do it, just the first popular game to do it well), continued the anti-cut scene narrative from the first game that so many others use now, etc...

The main thing is that Half-Life still does the borrowed elements better than almost every game on the market since, and in one very polished package.

 

[Anah'ya]

I would just like to say that crowbars are for geeky video game characters.

And at that note I don't really know why I bothered to reply. The OP said it perfectly fine. Half Life 2 is a gem, no questions asked, but it's a classic that has a few too many years behind it. It's like me trying to convince people that Thief is the best stealth game ever and that they should just go and try it, just to realize that they would never appreciate the lack of flashy graphics and modern game mechanics.

Which.. is a bit sad, but that's not the point here.

Objection your honour!

By that logic, I would not have enjoyed Fallout 1 the first time I played it (which was about 2 years ago, 11 years after the game was released).

That was not logic. That was an observation about the majority of people out there. Otherwise not even I could enjoy Thief anymore, considering how outdated it is. Though tell my boyfriend or any of his friends to play it and they will wrinkle their nose at the graphics and stop playing after five minutes.

... oops. Accidentally quoted to people.

-_-

 

[Liberaliter]

I didn't know people had misconceptions, most people seem to love it. Ah well, another useless thread.