how come there's no half life clones?

[tehweave]

Doom 3.

If you've ever played the original half-life you'll notice a lot of the themes are similar in the two games.

You start off on a transport that takes you to the main area.
You get debriefed for your mission and are given a weapon (crowbar/pistol)
You witness a portal opening up sending (aliens/demons) into the laboratory, killing or mutating most people.
YOU are the ONLY ONE who can stop them.
At some point you actually go to the (aliens/demons) home (Xen/Hell) and kick their boss' ass.

Of course at this point in Half-Life the game is over, but Doom 3 comes back, kicks more demons asses, then ends.

I don't know, am I the only one who saw the similarities in the two games?

 

[fix-the-spade]

Because Half Life is just boring...there I said it.

I'm entitled to my opinion.

You are the right man... but with the wrong face... in the wrong time... but the right place... Mr Legion, there isss sssomething that doesss not quite ffit within thisssworld of yours...

 

[MarsProbe]

Tell me, what exactly did Halo innovate?

A bland, faceless lead character in a big suit of space armour? Other than that, no idea.

Just to balance out the inevitable Half-Life 2 bashing with some inevitable Halo bashing. There ya go.

 

[Amnestic]

A bland, faceless lead character in a big suit of space armour? Other than that, no idea.

No, that was Half Life

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Well, what constitutes a "Halo clone", in the first place? Yahtzee has thrown the term around a lot (or some variation of it), but what does it mean? It seems to mean any first-person shooter with regenerating health and vehicle sections. And Halo obviously didn't invent either of those things, but they certainly made them popular. So what did Half-Life make popular? Lack of cutscenes is probably the big one. And maybe starting out sans weapons. Both of which I've seen imitated a fair bit.

It's hard to point to anything short of a brand-new genre and say everything that follows it is a "clone". "Grand Theft Auto clone" works because GTA pretty much invented the sandbox game. "Doom clone" works too, but saying it will make you sound like an old fart. Taking a couple features and saying they ripped them off from one particular game is pretty tricky, since most FPS franchises at this point are all stealing from each other.

 

[Anticitizen_Two]

don't moan to me if you don't agree, IGN just put it at #1

Well then, allow me to moan about IGN instead.

IGN is a website filled with hacks who like to refer to themselves as games journalists because it makes them feel special. IGN is populated by the biggest sellouts in the entire games industry. Every big-name title receives at least a 9 from IGN regardless of quality, because the site is so set on making as much money as possible that they put expressing their opinions after not alienating any fanbase on their list of priorities. They also swoon over graphics, often allowing their opinion on a game to be entirely swayed by graphics (Crysis made their top 25 PC games. No, you heard that right.). In addition to being sellouts, their reviews are incredibly poorly written. Their review for BFBC2 praised the respawn system and regenerating health for providing a "more realistic combat experience." In all likelihood, my cat could walk across my keyboard and create a better review than the IGN staff could. And worst of all, IGN is so into getting the big bucks that they couldn't even stick to games journalism, and had to also start writing half-assed movie and television "reviews" as well. These are somehow even worse than the games reviews, as evidenced by Quentin Tarantino's masterpiece Inglorious Basterds scoring less than the G.I. Joe movie. IGN wouldn't know quality if it slapped them in the face.

Allow me to close my rant with my interpretation of how IGN scores games:

Big-name titles that are actually good: 9.5 or higher
Big-name titles that suck: 9.0 AT THE VERY LEAST. We don't want any fans to be offended, now.
Amazing games that not as many people have heard of: 8.5 AT THE VERY MOST. We don't want to rock the boat too much.
Very good games that not as many people have heard of: 8.0
Incredibly good, obscure games: 7.0 - It's not like people are actually gonna read these, and we don't want everyone catching on to the fact that we give 9's to FUCKING EVERYTHING.
Genuinely terrible games (not big-name titles, of course): 6.0
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons/Ages: 10. No, I am not making this up.

i know, i was just using them so people would shout at mre less. AND IT WORKED!

Ooh... clever. Very well played, sir.

 

[Treefingers]

so, why are there so many GTA/Halo clones but no half life 2 clones?

Because Half Life 2 didn't innovate anything, it pushed existing game features to the limit and put them to the best use. Plus, it took years to make Half Life 2, any game studio seeking a quick buck by making a clone of an existing game know better than to take that long.

Tell me, what exactly did Halo innovate?

Umm... The 2 weapons at a time thing, vehicle sections (which it did WELL, unlike it's clones)... the method it used for loading. Regenerating health.

Mostly though I think it showed that FPS games could work well on consoles.

Anyway, this is kind of off topic. Lets not start a flame war.

Well 2 weapons had definately done before, so had fun vehicle sections, regen health too, reload I'm not sure on.

Oh had it? It what? (not in a dick-ish oh yeah prove it kind of way. Just out of interest. On the 2 weapon and regen thing).

I guess mostly it just did them really well and thus popularized them, which is perhaps a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it.

 

[Treefingers]

Tell me, what exactly did Halo innovate?

I think it showed that FPS games could work well on consoles.

Goldeneye had already irrefutably proven that FPSes were better for consoles.

Well, for one, FPSs arent better for consoles.

Although imo Goldeneye is the superior game, I think that Goldeneye showed that FPSs could be done on consoles whilst Halo confirmed and refined it.

 

[CLEVERSLEAZOID]

I don't consider regenerating health innovative, more like dumbing down the genre.

Half-Life was god, and I still consider it one of the most revolutionary FPSes of all time.

Much like Wolfenstein, DOOM, Quake and Duke Nukem 3D were back in the day, apart from the fact they spawned the genre.

 

[Zersy]

Because Half Life is just boring...there I said it.

I'm entitled to my opinion.

No you entitled fact !

 

[Lucifron]

Half Life 2 was just a tarted up Doom/Wolfenstein clone.

there are no other games with 9 different guns, a variety of levels that all fit together, as opposed to each level ending and starting in a space ship taking you from the scrap yard to ravenholm.

Most of the older FPS titles had 9 different guns because they were all on PCs where they were hotkeyed from 1-9.

As for 'variety of levels', even Halo had a 'variety'. There were the beaches, the forests, the snowy cliffs, the Covenant spaceh ships...

Give me a break... Half-Life 2 introduced and used good physics as it had never been done before, and the Source engine introduced a range of realistic improvements which hadn't been seen before either. The game was a huge step forward for the entire genre, and it paved the way for some of the most popular titles to be released during the last decade. Don't marginalize it.

 

[MarsProbe]

A bland, faceless lead character in a big suit of space armour? Other than that, no idea.

No, that was Half Life

Despite the fact that Gordon Freeman actually has a face (that we get to see). Plus that's a Hazardous Environment Suit, not armour. So yeh, it was definitely Halo we have to thank for that.

 

[Amnestic]

Despite the fact that Gordon Freeman actually has a face (that we get to see). Plus that's a Hazardous Environment Suit, not armour. So yeh, it was definitely Halo we have to thank for that.

A face, but no voice. You could argue that both (Face and voice) make the character and that Master Chief is a far deeper character because we actually get to hear him talk, even if it is just a few lines. Not only that, but we get to see MC's body language as well in addition to his dialogue and lines. Never get to see that with Dr. Freeman.

And the HES is just orange coloured armour. Don't kid yourself. It has plates, it protects you from damage, it even has a shield capacity to it. It's power armour. Maybe not SPESS MEHRINE power armour, but power armour nonetheless.

 

[MarsProbe]

Despite the fact that Gordon Freeman actually has a face (that we get to see). Plus that's a Hazardous Environment Suit, not armour. So yeh, it was definitely Halo we have to thank for that.

A face, but no voice. You could argue that both (Face and voice) make the character and that Master Chief is a far deeper character because we actually get to hear him talk, even if it is just a few lines. Not only that, but we get to see MC's body language as well in addition to his dialogue and lines. Never get to see that with Dr. Freeman.

And the HES is just orange coloured armour. Don't kid yourself. It has plates, it protects you from damage, it even has a shield capacity to it. It's power armour. Maybe not SPESS MEHRINE power armour, but power armour nonetheless.

Perhaps so, but Freeman still wins, by virtue of being something other than a soldier. Before Master Chief even existed, Freeman was giving us all hope by showing that even if you were a slightly lanky dude in a lab coat, you could still pick up a gun and kick some serious alien ass, or whatever you want to call it'

Anyway, this tedious discussion is over. No matter what one says, MC is still a dull, vacuous, uncharismatic cypher. The poor guy.

Fin.

 

[OmegaXzors]

Because Half Life is just boring...there I said it.

I'm entitled to my opinion.

And that's my opinion, too. /thread

 

[Amnestic]

Perhaps so, but Freeman still wins, by virtue of being something other than a soldier. Before Master Chief even existed, Freeman was giving us all hope by showing that even if you were a slightly lanky dude in a lab coat, you could still pick up a gun and kick some serious alien ass, or whatever you want to call it'

So Freeman wins because...he's a nerd? Great character you have there. I think you mistyped by the way, you probably meant to say "slightly lanky dude in a magical suit of power armour and implied special abilities far beyond what would be expected for a theoretical physicist, you could still carry up to 9 guns at once in addition to numerous grenades and a crowbaw and kick some serious alien and innocent scientists, you mudering shithead ass."

But hey, I'm sure those were just oversights on your part.

Anyway, this tedious discussion is over. No matter what one says, MC is still a dull, vacuous, uncharismatic cypher. The poor guy.

Again: How is that any different from Gordon Freeman?

Oh, Gordon has a crowbar. And his power armour is orange not green.

Seriously, Half Life is a good series. It's an enjoyable FPS. Gordon Freeman is not the character you want to be enshrining above all others because he doesn't have a character. That's why machinima like Freeman's Mind exists.