Poll: Half-Life 2
- Thread starter imaloony
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I loved the original HL and so I went and bought HL2 on it's release date, partly on the back of the hype in every PC Magazine which said it would be a life-affirming orgasm of a game.
I just plain hated it.
I thought the story was actually fairly weak. I get that it was a 1984-esque dystopia and that the earth had been overrun by aliens and so on, but I didn't think the story was told in a particularly clever or engrossing way. Then and now, if you complain about the storyline or the plot holes you get hordes of Valve-fanboys descending on you and telling you that you're either thick or that the plot holes were deliberate attempts at mystery and intrigue and you 'just don't get it'.
To give Valve credit, City-17 was depicted brilliantly and it was very atmospheric. The beginning as you get off the train, seeing the station, the checkpoints and Breen's greeting were very immersive but the atmosphere started to evaporate quickly as I found myself in a cupboard piling up some crates.
A lot of HL2 seemed to me like a contrived excuse to use the physics engine. I like the odd puzzle in an FPS because it serves as a nice break from the murdering of things but in HL2 I felt like the designers had decided that HL2 should be a FPS second and a Menial-Job-Simulator first. Every time I was starting to have fun it was halted so that I could do some box shifting, seesaw construction or pulley operating.
The guns didn't really feel as if they had much force behind them; fine for the basic pistol but even the magnum didn't seem to do much. An injured enemy looks and behaved exactly like a healthy enemy - no limping when wounded etc. It's a minor quibble I know but when Valve went all out to make the game immersive and atmospheric, would it have killed them to do some damage modelling? Seeing a combine soldier take a magnum shot to the leg and then sprint off as if nothing had happened just reminded me that I'm playing a game. Yes, a combine soldier may have all sorts of surgery and drugs to stop them feeling pain but a .357 round to the leg will shatter bones and tear muscle which would make it difficult to prance off like a gazelle even if you were pain free.
Friendly AI was annoying, my allies kept crowding me or getting in my way. Example: On one occasion I was trying to avoid a grenade but Alyx was standing in the doorway and wouldn't shift, which led to me being exploded. That sort of thing happened all the time and it was a massive annoyance.
Finally; there was far too much driving involved. I've never been a big fan of forced driving sections in games which aren't primarily about driving. The Airboat and buggy sections seemed like needless padding to me and any creeping sense of realism was swiftly swept away when I noticed that Gordon Freeman seems to operate the steering wheel with his mind rather than his arms. Again, you might say this is nitpicking but Valve put an awful lot of attention to detail in some areas - such as level design- so why is it unreasonable to expect to play as someone who has use of his hands?
Anyway, half life 2 sold in huge quantities so I think it's fair to say that I'm in the minority of people who don't like it. If you liked HL2 then that's absolutely fine with me - I doubt my post will change your mind anymore than you could change mine. I suppose I just felt let down after I enjoyed the original Half Life so much.
( Though recently, I picked up the Orange Box for the XBox 360 - mainly to play Portal - and decided to give Ep1 and Ep2 a chance. I definitely preferred Episodes 1 & 2 to the original HL2, in fact I'd got as far as to say I actually had fun. Maybe I'm a convert after all )
PS: Last time I made mention of not liking the physics puzzles I was accused of having stolen Yahtzee's opinions. If anyone is that bothered by the coincidence of two separate people coming independently to the same conclusion about a game feature, I'll be happy to link you to the review I wrote on HL2 at the time of its release.
I just plain hated it.
I thought the story was actually fairly weak. I get that it was a 1984-esque dystopia and that the earth had been overrun by aliens and so on, but I didn't think the story was told in a particularly clever or engrossing way. Then and now, if you complain about the storyline or the plot holes you get hordes of Valve-fanboys descending on you and telling you that you're either thick or that the plot holes were deliberate attempts at mystery and intrigue and you 'just don't get it'.
To give Valve credit, City-17 was depicted brilliantly and it was very atmospheric. The beginning as you get off the train, seeing the station, the checkpoints and Breen's greeting were very immersive but the atmosphere started to evaporate quickly as I found myself in a cupboard piling up some crates.
A lot of HL2 seemed to me like a contrived excuse to use the physics engine. I like the odd puzzle in an FPS because it serves as a nice break from the murdering of things but in HL2 I felt like the designers had decided that HL2 should be a FPS second and a Menial-Job-Simulator first. Every time I was starting to have fun it was halted so that I could do some box shifting, seesaw construction or pulley operating.
The guns didn't really feel as if they had much force behind them; fine for the basic pistol but even the magnum didn't seem to do much. An injured enemy looks and behaved exactly like a healthy enemy - no limping when wounded etc. It's a minor quibble I know but when Valve went all out to make the game immersive and atmospheric, would it have killed them to do some damage modelling? Seeing a combine soldier take a magnum shot to the leg and then sprint off as if nothing had happened just reminded me that I'm playing a game. Yes, a combine soldier may have all sorts of surgery and drugs to stop them feeling pain but a .357 round to the leg will shatter bones and tear muscle which would make it difficult to prance off like a gazelle even if you were pain free.
Friendly AI was annoying, my allies kept crowding me or getting in my way. Example: On one occasion I was trying to avoid a grenade but Alyx was standing in the doorway and wouldn't shift, which led to me being exploded. That sort of thing happened all the time and it was a massive annoyance.
Finally; there was far too much driving involved. I've never been a big fan of forced driving sections in games which aren't primarily about driving. The Airboat and buggy sections seemed like needless padding to me and any creeping sense of realism was swiftly swept away when I noticed that Gordon Freeman seems to operate the steering wheel with his mind rather than his arms. Again, you might say this is nitpicking but Valve put an awful lot of attention to detail in some areas - such as level design- so why is it unreasonable to expect to play as someone who has use of his hands?
Anyway, half life 2 sold in huge quantities so I think it's fair to say that I'm in the minority of people who don't like it. If you liked HL2 then that's absolutely fine with me - I doubt my post will change your mind anymore than you could change mine. I suppose I just felt let down after I enjoyed the original Half Life so much.
( Though recently, I picked up the Orange Box for the XBox 360 - mainly to play Portal - and decided to give Ep1 and Ep2 a chance. I definitely preferred Episodes 1 & 2 to the original HL2, in fact I'd got as far as to say I actually had fun. Maybe I'm a convert after all )
PS: Last time I made mention of not liking the physics puzzles I was accused of having stolen Yahtzee's opinions. If anyone is that bothered by the coincidence of two separate people coming independently to the same conclusion about a game feature, I'll be happy to link you to the review I wrote on HL2 at the time of its release.
I thought its was good. But my favorite FPS of all time is Timeplitters Future Perfect. I have yet to play a FPS that I can enjoy as much as that!
Didn't say they didn't.imaloony said:
Um, yeah, they do.imaloony said:
Flamma_Man said:
Then why didn't you just kill it and THEN do the platforming?imaloony said:
Run away, the zombies aren't that fast. Then just shot/throw things at the poison headcrabs and then deal with the zombies.imaloony said:
WARNING: BLOOD TOXINS DETECTED!imaloony said:
You'd notice that you only get temporally poisoned and the suit gives you anti-toxins, which it also says.
Don't recall fighting that many in Episode One.imaloony said:
No, but being a meaty, undead zombie helps, throwing objects at them does wonders.imaloony said:
Barney tells you where the supply crate is.imaloony said:
Why would you turn away from the conversation? Better yet, how can you not hear them when not looking at them? Possible problem on your end?imaloony said:
Again, most likely a problem on your end, I'm fine doing this.imaloony said:
Okay.imaloony said:
Would you rather have the combine down your throat the whole time playing or do you want a break?imaloony said:
Game play purpose.
Plus, have you noticed the flying cameras?
Most people didn't seem to have these problems, however I will say that the only time I EVER got lost or confused during this game was in City 17, after killing a Strider, people told me to "Go towards the horse."imaloony said:
I look and see no horse and then realize that I have to balance on a few guard rails and jump down over a wall.
I tell people about this too and they tell me that they had no problem navigating this part.
What I'm trying to get at is, some people really just notice things differently.[/quote]
Ok.imaloony said:
I don't think you're a douche. You're just expressing an opinion.imaloony said:
Well, people sometimes like to find out their own path without all the arrows in the direction pointed out to them as people have expressed, but people have their opinions.imaloony said:
It's so players don't exploit this and just let the NPCs kill everything. That's why they made them NEAR invincible so that players wouldn't then be annoyed with them dying easily.imaloony said:
Might have been due to you running ahead since I know which part your talking about.imaloony said:
Yeah, sorry for acting like a prick earlier.imaloony said:
Which makes it even more baffling with how you have trouble with head crabs.imaloony said:
Well, anyway, you seemed to have more trouble with this game than most, and I'm sorry for that.imaloony said:
Again, sorry for being a jerk before.
I apologize as well.Flamma Man said:
I didn't quote the whole thing because it seemed like a waste of space and there wasn't much I wanted to comment on, mostly just on the zombie part.
I did. I was running out of shotgun ammo so I ran off to do some platforming where I thought the zombies couldn't get me and then a poison crab hit me in the back of the head...
I thought that developers who make allies invincible balance that out by making them ass-retarded or have weak weapons.
I admit allies dying wasn't THAT big of a problem and only happened a few times, but I suppose it just made me flash back to Oblivion, where I failed a mission like 10 times because a stupid NPC kept falling off a bridge into a lava pit, making it so that I couldn't get the ring from his body I was supposed to get if he died.
Plants for the upcoming Episode 3.Ekit said:
I hope.
If people get infuriated they will remember the game and it will be clear in they're minds. Making an announcement more relevant. Instead of "And Episode 3 of Half-Life! 'No one cares any more'".
I agree with Jumbo Palace, it's a good game, but there seems to be too much praise.
Maybe it's the mod engine.
And yeah, whats the deal with Portal? To me it isn't anything new, I played older games with Portal like devices, that weren't even the main focus.
And it is a bit short, and trying to that many puzzles that are so inticate and simple at the same time, it can give you a headache, and so can the portals.
Maybe it's the mod engine.
And yeah, whats the deal with Portal? To me it isn't anything new, I played older games with Portal like devices, that weren't even the main focus.
And it is a bit short, and trying to that many puzzles that are so inticate and simple at the same time, it can give you a headache, and so can the portals.
Only thing I actually felt the need to comment on.imaloony said:
With all due respect, but TF2 on the consoles is far from the game it is on the pc; Its like we have TF3 already; All classes have gotten updates (Well, engie this week) tons of new game modes and balance fixes etc.
Give it a shot, but play it on the Pc.
I agree mostly with the original review. I wish I had time to read the 7 pages worth here but I'll say HL2 really disappointed me because I thought it was going to have a phenomenal storyline and immersive experience but turned out to have neither for me. I really enjoyed the first level as the prisoner-esque civilian but the game just turned out to be a mindless FPS with a cool gun. But even the gun was more of a "remove clutter from your way" device. Actually I will give credit to the puzzles however they were pretty tricky to identify.
I'm not really sure what they could have done to include more story elements (if that was even desired by the team). Maybe more interaction with Dr. Breen (similar to Portals immersion with gLados) because the end level was pretty entertaining. I have played through all the episodes and I may or may not play future ones. I'm so sad that I hate this game!
I'm not really sure what they could have done to include more story elements (if that was even desired by the team). Maybe more interaction with Dr. Breen (similar to Portals immersion with gLados) because the end level was pretty entertaining. I have played through all the episodes and I may or may not play future ones. I'm so sad that I hate this game!
From what I see, the OP is just fundamentally bad at the game. Some people just aren't cut out for certain genres. I had a friend that spent two hours driving around in the second level of Halo, dumbshit oblivious to the fact that he had been driving around in circles non-stop. Later when playing the second game he was watching the cut scene where Captain King sails down to the enemy ship on a bomb. He comments on how big the ship is. No, not the city sized alien one, the tiny human one that gets lasered.
Half-life 2 hasn't aged very gracefully, and these days I wouldn't count it among the best and understand some of the criticism. But judging from the OP's complaints, it's more an issue with his ability than the game itself.
Half-life 2 hasn't aged very gracefully, and these days I wouldn't count it among the best and understand some of the criticism. But judging from the OP's complaints, it's more an issue with his ability than the game itself.