Why do people say Half Life 2 is one of the best games ever made?

[Jacco]

I dont think its bad, its certainly good. But I dont really think its BGOAT territory. It didnt bring anything new to the table in terms of genre defining innovation and while not horrible, its story wasn't as good as Half Life 1.

So tell me, why does everyone fawn over it like its the best game ever made?

 

[Sassafrass]

Because people have this wonderful thing called opinions.
They back up their opinions with their opinions on why they think Half Life 2 is the best game ever made.

In short, opinions.

 

[LarenzoAOG]

Oh you poor thing, you haven't taken well to being unfrozen from the cyro lab have you?

Use the search bar and look at all the other threads like yours (there has to be literally dozens by now).

P.S. Can we not use the "Oh look it's this thread again" picture? At this point it's lost all meaning.

 

[Dickdatduck]

I think s/he is wondering why so many people seem to share the same opinion about this game.

 

[JeanLuc761]

Boy, certainly haven't seen this thread before!

As Sassafrass said, it mostly boils down to opinion, though it's also to be respected for a few very distinct aspects:

1) While physics-based puzzles were nothing new, Source engine had the most realistic physics engine to date, and the gravity gun was heralded for being staggeringly innovative and entertaining.
2) Like most Valve games, Half-Life 2 is the product of exceptionally good level design.
3) Unlike many story-driven games, Half-Life 2 tells its story through the environment and the characters; very little is merely "fed" to the player.

 

[Phlakes]

2008 called, they want their criticism back. Minecraft is the cool thing to hate now, apparently.

 

[Signa]

I happen to agree with the OP. I liked HL1 far more than its sequel. HL2 wasn't bad by any means, but I think TF2 was a far better showcase of Valve's talent.

 

[Balobo]

I dont think its bad, its certainly good. But I dont really think its BGOAT territory. It didnt bring anything new to the table in terms of genre defining innovation and while not horrible, its story wasn't as good as Half Life 1.

So tell me, why does everyone fawn over it like its the best game ever made?

As much as I loved Half-Life 1, its story wasn't very strong and HL2 definitely had the better one.

I don't believe that it really "innovated", per se, but polished the standard FPS features to a large extent and then added the physics engine to it. The story telling techniques were pretty innovative, however.

 

[Souplex]

Oh, it's actually an elaborate prank.
It would reflect quite badly on us as a whole if we actually thought that piece of average was amazing, instead when Half Life 3/episode 3 is finally released, we're going to dump pig's blood on Gabe Newell.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

Everyday I wake up and when I wake up I think to myself, "why?" And the answer I come up with everyday is Half-motherfucking-Life 2
Why? Because I was taking a short cut through a dark alley one night when a bunch of thugs jumped me. One of them was Half-life 2. Most thugs take the whole wallet but Half-life 2 took only the money, left the wallet and my IDs inside. I didn't have to cancel my credit cards or get a new license. It was great. The end

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I'm afraid unless we ask those people what their reasons were, we can't ever really be sure.

In the mean time, the safest assumption would be that they say that because they think Half Life 2 is one of the best games ever made.

 

[Zhukov]

Eaarrggg...

If you really want an answer to that question, why don't you try reading a few of the other several dozen threads on the exact same fucking topic?

 

[tokyodove]

i dont know about anybody else, but personally i just find the story fantastic, it hits the right note with me.

 

[Nazulu]

Well, it's probably because they (and me) found Half-Life 2 is one of the greatest gaming experiences they have played so far.

It has amazing design, a nice range of different challenges, the story is nothing special but I prefer how it's handled instead of reading walls of text or listening to boring cinematics, the gravity gun can be used to solve almost every challenge in this near perfect engine, the graphics are still good, game play is great and there is really no big flaws you could point out.

 

[Zanderinfal]

It was really great. The reasons I loved it as much as I do are;
Good story: well fleshed out,
Amassing level design (in my opinion),
Very nice engine with great graphics for it's time, aswell as..
MODS.

That is all.

 

[Encentrik]

For me, I personally found the expansion of the Half Life universe, along with the best Physics engine at the time and still one of the best, to be the reason that I hail it as one of the greatest games. The story itself was good but it's the way that it progressed that made it memorable; add in a colorful cast of characters along with some wonderful set piece moments and you have a game that became an instant classic. I also believe that unlike most sequels that are made within a couple years and look remotely similar, the jarring different between Half Life and HL2 is staggering.

Overall it's the improvements that made it so memorable, at least that's what I believe.