Poll: Let's clear this up. Do you like Half-Life 2?

[Netrigan]

I tried very hard to like Half Life 2, but gave up around the same time it expected me to shift a construction sites worth of bricks onto the end of a giant plank so I could jump to a ledge that I should have been able to simply climb up.

Yes, you made a physics engine. Whoopdy-skip. *turns off console*

I played it when it came out, so having a proper physics engine was a pretty big deal... and it was kind of cool to stack bricks on a see-saw... the first time. It would have made much more sense to have its physics puzzles be a little more mechanical in nature. Shove something off a ledge to open a door, pull a switch to release floaters in the water. Having me manually pick up items (in a game where you have no arms not attached to a weapon) and do things with it just sucks. Gravity gun... all kinds of cool. Invisible hand grabbing... all kinds of suck.

Really any game that incorporates any kind of box stacking gets really old, very fast. I always get a little nervous when a game has a GRAB key. It's a first person shooter, not a first person stacker.

 

[curty129]

Yes, it was an excellent game and a lot of the backlash it gets on this forum comes from contrarian dicks.

Does the animal question mean as opposed to or or as opposed one another?

If it's the former: I prefer having the ordinary sidekick.

If it's the latter: The dog, since dogs have more mass and are better at killing things.

"Assuming they have the same attack power."

 

[JeanLuc761]

Halflife 2 is, I'm reasonably certain, at least so far, not to put too many commas to it, my absolute, favouritest, FPS experience, ever.

But seriously it is. There's not one thing I dislike about it -except- that fight scene in Nova Prospekt. By that one I mean the one with 4 entryways, 3 turrets, and about 6 minutes worth of heavily armed guards. I play the entire series on hard mode with the exception of that one fight scene.

It took me a while to figure that fight out, but my solution was surprisingly simple (if time consuming). I grabbed the two turrets from the earlier "defend this location" and used the gravity gun to carry them all the way to that fight. When the fight came, I had five turrets covering every possible entrance. I don't think I got shot once.

@OP I love Half-Life 2 and I'd pick a dog as my sidekick. Why? DOG in Half-Life 2. Nuff said.

 

[Nazulu]

Very much so, it's a good all rounder that allows me to screw around more than usual (gravity gun), discover hidden places and it challenges me in many different ways. Basically it's very well designed just like my other favourites OoT and Super Metroid.

 

[WanderingFool]

I tried HL2 on a friends PC, and found that while I liked alot about it, that was all from an observers perspective. Once I started playing...yeah... not so much.

Thing is, its sort of like Scott Pilgrim to me, I dont know why I dislike it, but I just do. Of course, all the videos and stuff with HL2 and GMOD are still enjoyable, so I guess I can only enjoy HL2 from the sidelines.

Also, Im not sure whether I would want a Dog or a Cat. I would want a smart-ass talking bird... with a mowhawk...

 

[spartandude]

i would go sar far as to say that apart from bioshock, the orange box is the best first person shooter(s)

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

I like Half-Life 2, but people who hate it still should get it for access to Source SDK, and get the butt-kickin' mods for it.

As for the question: DOGGIE!

 

[Outright Villainy]

Halflife 2 is, I'm reasonably certain, at least so far, not to put too many commas to it, my absolute, favouritest, FPS experience, ever.

But seriously it is. There's not one thing I dislike about it -except- that fight scene in Nova Prospekt. By that one I mean the one with 4 entryways, 3 turrets, and about 6 minutes worth of heavily armed guards. I play the entire series on hard mode with the exception of that one fight scene.

I agree heartily with this comment. And the aformentioned fight scene being a load of balls. I was never too fond of Nova Prospect anyway though, and I though Ravenholm was overrated.

Still a fantastic game mind, and the episodes just expand on that. Episode 2 has some of my favourite level design ever.

 

[paronomasiac]

I didn't like HL2. I didn't hate it, either. The Half Life series has been spectacularly dull to me. I played the first game, and, perhaps because I'm supremely dense, found exactly zero plot. There was no reason for anything happening, and no reason for Gordon Freeman to be the protagonist: it just was. I honestly had no concept of any story happening in the game world, and then it was over.

Half Life 2 almost had a plot for me. Stuff was blowing up and NPC's were inciting me to go to new places and do new things. Well, that's not entirely true. They had me go to new places and do the same things over and over again. I didn't know of any reason for doing so. I didn't even know why enemy humanoids were attacking me. But I didn't care. I had no empathy for the characters and no belief that there was any reason for me to do anything in the game world, except for the fact that I was on rails and had to move forward until the game was completed.

I never did finish it, I just turned it off in extreme boredom.

 

[mireko]

Yes, it was an excellent game and a lot of the backlash it gets on this forum comes from contrarian dicks.

Does the animal question mean as opposed to or or as opposed one another?

If it's the former: I prefer having the ordinary sidekick.

If it's the latter: The dog, since dogs have more mass and are better at killing things.

"Assuming they have the same attack power."

Feh. That makes it a little harder to decide since that implies some kind of super-cat.

I'd still go with a dog though, since they're less likely to get high and sleep on my couch all day.

 

[slackbheep]

I'm not going to say you're wrong if you don't like HL2, but there's a good chance you didn't play it. From my own experience talking to people of this opinion

 

[icame]

Greatest game ever made.

 

[BioHazardMan]

No offense to anyone, but I found Half Life 2 to be pretty run of the mill, it's a good game I guess, but not even close to how far people put it up there.

 

[Hyper-space]

Half-life 2 annoyed the hell out of me with its incredibly restricted environment. Hell, you could not even go back to grab a gun, as there were invisible walls or magic-doors that randomly popped up after you pass a certain point. Also, i am pretty sure they copy-pasted a part of the air-boat course and used it twice, as i thought i had gone circles at one turn.

What also bugged me, was the incredibly elaborate and tom-and-jerry style environment puzzles, i do not buy that all of that shit was put up there just so it could conveniently knock down a gate or whatever. Plus the level-design is incredibly frustrating, especially the Ravenholm part, which despite being the most fun part of the game (the sole reason being gravity gun + buzz saw = slicey-slicey), made no attempt at explaining where you should go/look for, simply dropping you into a town with 1000 different directions and alleyways, all short of the correct one ending in a brick-wall or un-scalable fences. This would not be so bad if there were ANY exploration to be done in this game, why make so many different paths when there is only ONE path that will progress the game.

Shit be crazy brah.

EDIT:

I'm not going to say you're wrong if you don't like HL2, but there's a good chance you didn't play it. From my own experience talking to people of this opinion

...or that he did not buy into the hype?

 

[Vaer]

I LIKE Half Life 2 but I don't LOVE it, for me it's a good solid shooter and when HL3 comes out I'll get it but that's about it, it is way overrated and when it came most of the press said it's the new benchmark for the FPS genre but FarCry that was released the same year in my opinion was a lot better in most aspects.

So to answer the question more clearly, I chose yes, I don't really understand why people wouldn't like it if they like the fps genre but I do agree that it is overrated.

PS: if you played it on a console you probably hated it, cause it is a PC GAME, but I really would never get why people like playing a fps on a console...

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

I do like it. But I really couldn't give a shit about what you or anyone thinks about it. Because we're both human beings, and you can think whatever you want.

What exactly are we clearing up again? Because if it's the fact that the Escapist still doesn't understand what an opinion is, I think we can safely say "mission fucking accomplished".

 

[WorldCritic]

Overall, it's pretty good, if a bit too hyped (MY OPINION!) As for a sidekick, I would have the cat. Why? Because cats are awesome.

 

[Daveman]

I like it because it's not one of these modern FPS games with 2 guns maximum and silly rules that stop you having fun. That and the see-saw puzzles, they NEVER get old.

 

[Dango]

Yes, I like it, but it's not as incredibly revolutionary as amazing as so many people make it out to be.

And I would prefer a cat... or a catgirl if possilble.

 

[Fredzor]

No.
With fond memories of the orginal game I bought Half-Life 2 when it was released (the first of many, many games I've bought through Steam), but it ended up disappointing me. The setting was interesting, but the gameplay (with the exception of the physics puzzles, which was an innovative concept, even if the puzzles themselves were on the simplistic side) was stuck in the past. It was painfully and - obviously - linear, and the silent protagonist was jarringly at odds with the storytelling. The game constantly hailed me as a hero, but it never gave me a chance to do anything more than act like lab-rat in an obstacle course, constantly running from one NPC to the next. Maybe this was the point, I don't know; I got bored and quit about two thirds of the way through.

Portal, on the other hand is brilliant. And in a sense a brilliant commentary on lab-rat maze construction of Half-Life.