Poll: Halo or Half-life?

[Izakflashman]

Half life proved you could have an awesome story in a first person. Halo made sure me and my friends had something to do.

 

[Taylorcrw]

the story in Half-life 2 is so cryptic that I had to go on wikipedia. At least in Halo you know whats going down.

Ehh, that tells more about you than about the games.

No, not really. Halo presents many of it's aspects, at least the core story aspects clearly without holding many secrets either through the instruction booklets or the cut scenes. Further information and the extra detail can be found in the extended universe books however this detail is not needed to understand the story of the games, just like Star Wars and it's extended universe. You don't need the books to know that Darth Vader is Luke's father.

Half-Life 2 on the other hand (I'm using number two as an example but I could use the first, I just don't want to) doesn't explain much. It starts with you on a train in what you are told is called city 17. You don't know why it is City 17 though. First thing you notice when you got off the train is the Combine. You aren't told who the Combine are or what their doing on Earth but you gather that they are jerks. Walking around a bit I picked up that they conquered Earth in a war called the seven hour war, I guess it lasted for seven hours but not much more detail is given about what happened to Earth, it's a mystery. The Combine themselves are pretty mysterious through out the game as well. Slowly different aspects are revealed but nothing is really explained about them, heck I had no idea that Metrocops are humans and how would I, nobody ever says it and with their gas masks that makes them look just like the other Combine. How was I supposed to know what they are? I consider knowing thy enemy to be an important part of a game, it gives me reason to want to fight them (or to not want to fight maybe) and explains to me why fighting them achieves something, Half-life 2 does neither of these and suffers because of it.

And then you have the G-Man. Nobody knows what he is, and maybe thats the whole point but having the most important character to the story also being the most mysterious is just plain stupid. You have Eli say he knows about the G-Man as well but that just adds more mystery. I have a feeling this stuff will be cleared up in the next episodes but it still gets rather annoying.

Half-Life 2 just leaves so many things unexplained, things I consider important motivation for me to play. The game places you on a linear path and expects you to walk forward without any real motivation while the Halo games always have a clear motivation for walking down that linear path. I still love HL2 but the story is not it's strong point.

Although you seem to be the fanboy sort that thinks someone must be stupid for having gripes with the poorly executed story and motivation in one of your favourite (or so I assume) games so I feel like this post has been rather a waste of time.

Your being really hard on this guy/girl lol calling him a fanboy for a sentence.

on topic Half-life for singleplayer but halo3 for the online
so I cant decide

 

[TheEvilDuck]

Halo = uninspired, uncreative, and haunted by squeaking 12 year olds.

Half-Life = innovative, strange, and unique.

Tough call. XP

 

[Jursa]

You do realize that you just created a Halo vs Half-life post on a Valve fanboy website...
That aside, Half-life definitely, Half-life is about a guy with glasses fighting against aliens, Halo is about a guy with a spacesuit fighting against aliens, there's no competition.

 

[CakeDragon]

Half-Life. I actually cannot wait for the Episode 3 whereas I've never really been bothered about new Halo games.

 

[Spider Expert]

I found Half Life to be bland..

.. Honestly.

 

[curlycrouton]

Half Life, purely for the line: "The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. So, wake up, Mr. Freeman. Wake up and smell the ashes."

 

[meece]

Half Life - awesome story, awesome gameplay = amazing game.

At least that's what I found it to be anyway ¬_¬

 

[Utarefson]

Halo for it's great gameplay and Half-life for it's great story.

 

[Ruffs]

Half-Life.

A little bonus for me, my last name is Freeman.

You shall be our new god!

 

[DarkMessiah]

Here's my post from the first time this thread was made.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.93026#1450595

 

[SP MeaslyBinkie]

Halo = You play as a hulking suit of armour that talks but doe`s not have a face that fights Aliens and parasites while trying to save mankind from extinction with a super weapon created by a ainceint and cryptic race.


Half Life = You play as a scientist that wears a hulking suit of armour that has a face but doe`s not talk and also fights parasites and aliens while also trying to save mankind from whatever fate awaits it with a cryptic being shadowing you.

Now I love both of these series but this makes my blood boil,they are both the same and different in certain ways such as combat Half Lifes combat is more straightforward whilistHalos is slightly more tactical in the way of having to be prepared for everything with only 4 counters(Grenades,Meele,and your two main weapons)but helping you by making your health regenerate.You could even say the Vehicle sections are different as in Halos being less realistic and easier to use in combat whilist Half Lifes being more realistic and more suited to getting to A to B but all in all its up to you to like what you like.

 

[mr_trooper]

[/quote] I consider knowing thy enemy to be an important part of a game, it gives me reason to want to fight them (or to not want to fight maybe) and explains to me why fighting them achieves something, Half-life 2 does neither of these and suffers because of it.

[/quote]

personally, the arguments i see that you've made only serve to reinforce why HL2 is BETTER than halo2, in the story sense alone. i dont know about you, but i wouldnt like to be handed every detail on a silver plater, carefully and politely informed of whats going on. halo more or less leaves nothing for the imagination, its just a straight forward, by the book plot, which has been done in many other ways, many times before.
half life 2 in the otherhand (i havent played the first one sorry!), brings you into uncertainty from the beginning. like you said, you dont need to be TOLD that the combine are evil, you WORK IT OUT yourself! i suppose valve simply assumed their target audience would have the initiative to figure out the 'good guys' from the 'bad guys'. half life 2 leaves you guessing, leaves loose ends untied, and generally, sucks you in


so we havent been given the entire script beforehand, does that really mean the story suffers because of it?



oh and btw, apologies for fucking up the quotes, im really no good at this am i:S

 

[DragunovHUN]

First thing you notice when you got off the train is the Combine. You aren't told who the Combine are or what their doing on Earth but you gather that they are jerks. Walking around a bit I picked up that they conquered Earth in a war called the seven hour war, I guess it lasted for seven hours but not much more detail is given about what happened to Earth, it's a mystery. The Combine themselves are pretty mysterious through out the game as well. Slowly different aspects are revealed but nothing is really explained about them, heck I had no idea that Metrocops are humans and how would I, nobody ever says it and with their gas masks that makes them look just like the other Combine. How was I supposed to know what they are? I consider knowing thy enemy to be an important part of a game, it gives me reason to want to fight them (or to not want to fight maybe) and explains to me why fighting them achieves something, Half-life 2 does neither of these and suffers because of it.

And then you have the G-Man. Nobody knows what he is, and maybe thats the whole point but having the most important character to the story also being the most mysterious is just plain stupid. You have Eli say he knows about the G-Man as well but that just adds more mystery. I have a feeling this stuff will be cleared up in the next episodes but it still gets rather annoying.

Most of this is explained in either Half Life 1, its expansions or in Half Life 2. Except for the g-man but he's supposed to be mysterious. He also appears in the game several times as a sort of easter egg.

The Halo books are nice, but since the whole story of Half-Life began with the first game, the black mesa incident, there is no need for that much backstory. In fact it would be hard to make any, since you witness the events of Half Life from 3 different perspectives. (Gordon Freeman obviously, the Barney Calhoun in Blue Shift, and finally a soldier tasked with cleaning up the Black Mesa mess in the Opposing Force expansion). The events of Halo in contrast, started god knows how long before the first game so there's plenty to cover.

Going by that logic, Halo didn't really explain much about the rings either. All we know is that they were built by some "forerunner" and they kill stuff if activated.

Although you seem to be the fanboy sort that thinks someone must be stupid for having gripes with the poorly executed story and motivation in one of your favourite (or so I assume) games so I feel like this post has been rather a waste of time.

You're so very wrong there. I truely enjoy the Halo universe. I have all the games, and i've read the Fall of Reach book.

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

Notice how more people pick half-life? Although halo is definately the more popular, in terms of sales anyway and online players, and offline players. Now that is interesting anyway I picked both, although if I could only have one it would be halo.

Remember that most of the people on this site came because of Zero Punctuation making the number of Half-Life fans and Halo haters disproportionately larger than the general gamer populace.

I prefer Halo, but I do like Half-Life. It's really the vehicles that do it for me.

 

[Abedeus]

What kind of a question is that? That's like comparing a brand new mountain bike to a three-wheeled toy for 5-year olds.