Poll: Half-Life

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Chribbdizzle

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Jul 14, 2009
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The first game is interesting, sure, but not essential if you want to understand and enjoy the second one. I would personaly start with the first one, at least to try it. If you find it to old and anoying (it is veeeeeeeeeeeeery anoying at places.) just switch to the second and look up your blanks. The second is in my opinion the best game of all time. The episodes just ad to this. Needless to say, I kinda want the third episode.
 

Laughing Man

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Oct 10, 2008
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Well I am gonna throw some oil on this fire.

Play the first one, whilst the storyline is fairly simple it is a vastly better game to the second ones. The setting may feel contained but it doesn't feel like you are simply checking boxes or just doing levels.

HL2 may have been genius at the time of launch, although I would debate that it suffers from clicheitus.

Driving section: Check
Zombie limited ammo section: Check
Different driving section: Check
Section where your character loses all weapons for no real reason: Check
Section were you have to fight off retarded AI whilst teamed up with even dumber AI: Check
Section were you are outnumber and out gunned and require pure luck to win: Check

Everything in HL2 felt segmented, for this section you will do this and for this section you will do that, were as HL1 actually felt like you were naturally progressing through the Black Mesa base and HL1 had some seriously good set pieces. The Blast Pit is a good example, yes effectively it was no different to the doom levels where you had to collect three different keys to complete the level but it was done in such an integrated way to your environment that it worked beautifully. There is nothing like that 'level' in HL2.

Okay the downside to HL1 is that you have to spend some time on the alien homeworld which is a bit... meh but it is such a small section of the game compared to the rest that it is forgivable. On the other hand the zombie hordes sections that appear in HL2 are just tedious and zero fun and are the primary reason why I dropped HL2 Ep1, once I hit yet another, you trapped with Zombies with limited ammo, section I just decided that the game was too tedious and too cliched to be worth continuing on.
 

danosaurus

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Mar 11, 2008
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Arkmagius said:
squid5580 said:
Paperplanes79 said:
all the scientists who (somehow) escaped from Black Mesa
Yeah what's with that? I totally watched all those guys die numerous times.
I'm putting it down to clones seeing as it's the future.

Also - Play Half-Life 1 if you can put up with dated graphics because it really is an incredible adventure.
Half-Life 2 is good, just not Half-Life 1 good.
 

HardRockSamurai

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May 28, 2008
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No, Half Life 2 isn't one of those games where you really need to know the story. While the story is really good and worth knowing about, it doesn't really have too much of an impact on gameplay, plus most of the characters explain the story along the way.
 

scryon596

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Jul 14, 2009
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well, i played HL2 first but it left me wondering how gordon became so liked by the other characters in the game. So i would say play 1, then 2 for the most enjoyment
 

Yooz

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Mar 12, 2009
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I played Half Life 2 a few years after the initial release. I love every Single. Second. of it.
 

DazZ.

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Jun 4, 2009
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If you dont play the first one first, would you play it after?
Don't know why I expect you to know what you would do after experiancing a game you havn't played but id say play the first, first.
(Its not that long if your itching to play 2)
 

AbuFace

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Jul 8, 2009
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The Shade said:
If you have the opportunity to play HL1, then by all means, do it. Excellent game.

But if it's really out of your way to do so, go ahead and start HL2. You can sort of piece it together as you go. (Though I would recommend at least reading the wikipedia summary of the first one.)
I think this sums it up rather nicely.
If you can play HL1, give it a try - It won over 50 game of the year awards for a reason. Playing HL1 and its expansions can really flesh out the universe and the scale of what happened and make you appreciate HL2 that much more. If you can't play them though, it won't stop you from enjoying HL2.
 

barryween

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Apr 17, 2008
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Paperplanes79 said:
I would say no because Half-Life 2 has a pretty great stand alone story. But if you going to play Half-Life do it first because you probaly won't finish it after Half-Life 2 because Half-Life 2 is VASTLY superior.
Basically you should just /thread right there. You sir, summed it up completely.
 

Zirat

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May 16, 2009
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Well, since you own the Orange Box you shouldnt be in such a rush. You should play the games in the order they came in so you can get the full story experience and see if you can put the piece's together on your own as the games go along.
 

space_oddity

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Oct 24, 2008
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metalmmaniac said:
So I finally got a copy of the orange box on ps3. I am excited to play, but I was just wondering, do you guys recommend playing half-life before half-life 2? Does playing Half-Life 2 (without playing the first) take away from story/gameplay?
Was in the EXACT same situation about 2 weeks ago, decided to go ahead anyway.
I wiki'd the story of HL1 and was fine.
 

Skeleon

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Nov 2, 2007
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I feel that Half-Life 2's storyline is pretty much completely independent from Half-Life 1.
Sure, the G-Man appears (but you don't really learn much about him in HL1) and you meet Headcrabs and Vorganauts (spelling?), which were some of the enemies in HL1, but other than that everything's new.
So... go right ahead and play HL2.
 

Gamer137

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Jun 7, 2008
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Played Half-Life in third grade or so. Did not even get past the first laser that appeared after two or so headcrabs. Only finished it last Janurary.
 

steveo_justice

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Apr 4, 2008
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Yeay, everything is a lot cooler when you play through the original half-life, and get up to date with the plot. The gameplay is a lot cooler when you spend the first half of the series just with the collio gunplay, and then step up to the deeper physics stuff in the orange box.

Byt the way, you bought it on something besides the PC, so that makes you a dumbass. Dumbass.
 

MBFCPresident

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May 15, 2009
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I've played it but I haven't finished it yet. I'm finding it difficult, partly because I'm busy but mostly because it's frustrating as all hell and not that much fun.