Zero Punctuation: Half-Life 2 Update - Gravity Gun > Modern FPS
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
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I used to hate Half-Life 2. I bought the Orange Box for Portal, but didn't enjoy HL2 at all. I found it dull and overly difficult. However, I recently went back to it, turned the look sensitivity up, and found myself having a lot of fun. I'm now very confused as to why modern FPS games aren't like this. It might just be the novelty of having more than two guns at a time, but the Half-Life way of doing FPS games seems a much better model than, say, Halo's (Even though I love Halo 3).
I only got around to playing the Half Life games a few years ago and man are they over-rated. Maybe it was a timing thing? Like, compared to Doom and Pokemon Blue/Red it must have seemed unique, maybe even fun.
But today? Half Life & 2 just look like any other terrible Steam Greenlight games.
Imagine if Half Life had never come out, and that an indie dev of today put it up on Early Access on Steam.
I can't imagine it wouldn't get an absolute shellacking for its un-intuitive gameplay, boring set-pieces and terribly written unskippable cut-scenes.
But today? Half Life & 2 just look like any other terrible Steam Greenlight games.
Imagine if Half Life had never come out, and that an indie dev of today put it up on Early Access on Steam.
I can't imagine it wouldn't get an absolute shellacking for its un-intuitive gameplay, boring set-pieces and terribly written unskippable cut-scenes.
Yeah, a lot of Half-Life 2's problems could've been averted if it just gave you an action button to attach and detach from ladders, instead of having to move against and away from them like a fussy magnet.
Ladders are the true end-game bosses of old-school first-person games. They're one of the deadliest enemies in Deus Ex.Casual Shinji said:
OT: I think I need to give Half-Life 2 another shot at some point. I've tried it twice and each time I've gotten shortly past Ravenholm and then all of my interest in continuing to play just fizzled out. There's nothing particularly wrong with the game (though those airboat sections are tiresome), but I've never found that style of shooter to be particularly interesting or fun. Well, okay, that's not true, as I did like playing Doom back in the day when I was too young and bad at games to get past the first level or two and I grew up on Star Wars Dark Forces II, but over the past decade I've come to realize that I severely dislike "medkit"-style health systems.
I don't know. Personally, I feel like Half Life 2 totally holds up. The trapped-room cutscenes can be a bit restrictive, but they usually come after long spells of gameplay, so in my own case, I never actually feel trapped by them. They feel more like a reward or a moment's respite from all the action.
The pacing is absolutely fantastic as well. Good mixture of troughs and peaks as well as a constant sense of agency. I can easily get immersed in that game because it never feels like I'm not Gordon Freeman. I also like how you can visit almost all of the areas you see in the distance a la Dark Souls when traversing either with the car or the hydroplane.
The pacing is absolutely fantastic as well. Good mixture of troughs and peaks as well as a constant sense of agency. I can easily get immersed in that game because it never feels like I'm not Gordon Freeman. I also like how you can visit almost all of the areas you see in the distance a la Dark Souls when traversing either with the car or the hydroplane.
I feel the same about both the cutscenes and the pacing: I actually liked how tedious the boat sections were, because at the end when they bolt a gun to it it becomes pure bliss to blow up everything.Sigmund Av Volsung said:
I actually just started replaying the game (had to download it again for some shared resources with a source mod I wanted to try), and I've been thoroughly enjoying it. I'm right at the part where gordon gets the gravity gun, and I'm more than a little eager to start shooting radiators at combine.
Oh ladders, truly the hardest obstacle to get through in older FPS game. And when I say hard I mean that if you weren't getting so intimate that you had bits of ladder on your groin, then you probably weren't close enough to said ladder and fell off and died before you reached the top.
I feel like BioShock managed to live up to the way Half-Life 2 told its story, which is very helpful given that HL2's story is weak as described.
As for the gameplay, Gravity Gun aside I never really got all that excited with, but at least the gameplay was probably a beta for the infinitely better Portal and Team Fortress 2 in The Orange Box so all is well.
As for the gameplay, Gravity Gun aside I never really got all that excited with, but at least the gameplay was probably a beta for the infinitely better Portal and Team Fortress 2 in The Orange Box so all is well.
I know this is a tired response but unlike many military shooters (of which Halo does not belong to, incidentally) that don't actually put the effort into balancing the levels and enemy distribution, Halo does. Half the fun of Halo is determining how many enemies you desire to kill, which weapons to swap out for each over and what play style you want. Most people like to complain about always having a general Assault Rifle or SMG with a special weapon but the games are easily playable without such tactics and pistols are reasonably effective.09philj said:
Coming from someone who has worked in Hammer on a very amateur level, re-visiting Half-Life 2 was stunning because you understand the strengths and weaknesses of the engine and how much work went into each map. Granted I am knee deep in the Source engine what with TF2 and everything, so maybe I'm just biased.
Funny because that's what they already do since the original release: Press the use-key when you're somewhere near a surface you can stand on and the game moves you there gently. Assuming you're not just walking right off of the ladder onto said surface because it's to either side of it.Casual Shinji said:
Seriously, I never had ANY problem with the ladders in either Half-Life. In fact, I would consider HL2 the best way ladders work I've ever encountered.
Or it's just a good game in both cases, which still holds up. I find the gameplay VERY intuitive, the set-pieces are not boring (mostly because there are barely any, just showing how unneeded those really are) and the writing is very subtle (as writing is not just what characters say but everything else regarding to what happens, too - but yes, the dialogue in the first game was rather strange. Bad in a good way)Silentpony said:
Black Mesa tried to "update" the gameplay of Half-Life back when it was released (Black Mesa, not Half Life) and... it just didn't work. The guns felt broken (SMG with a forced burst-fire on single click? who thought THAT was a good idea? And where is my damn shotgun in Office Complex?), the ladders THERE didn't work (are they made of magnets? I wasn't able to get OFF of them even if I tried to because it forced me to use the use-key to get off - but drew me to it when I was as much as in the same zipcode as the ladder!) the enemies were too overpowered (literal reaction-time of 0.3 seconds when not aware of players existance, 0.1 when - combined with the cheapest and meanest aimbot), unneeded changes (let's NOT give the player the first weapon when he encounters the first enemy and instead for him to kill about 15 zombies by using a security guard...), cheap deaths (when you DO get your first weapon, the crowbar, you're forced to smash some boxes - and they decided to hide an explosive box among them. HOORAY FOR GARANTUEED DEATH! Followed by having to deal with mentioned guard again...), over-relyance of advanced mechanics while ignoring the basics (not ONCE you can use the normal jump anywhere in the game, 100% of the jumps require the duck-jump. THEN WHY IS THE NORMAL JUMP IN THE GAME TO BEGIN WITH?)
Needless to say, I never bothered to get further than three or so hours into the mod before I decided to quit, uninstall, install the original again and power through all three original Half-Life games in one go instead. It was a lot more fun.
I used to think that way... but I've come to really like it. And the gameplay isn't unintuitive. It just doesn't funnel you along an entirely linear path like most hand-holding modern shooters. Also, Half-Life redefined shooters. Before Half Life, shooters were like DOOM and Quake. After, they weren't. Ergo, without Half-Life, the history of the shooter would be entirely different.Silentpony said:
Well, not gently... It snaps you onto it, like a magnet, and then bumps you off when you press it again. Sometimes knocking you right off the walkway you're trying to get to.Bindal said:
I actually forgot the game did asign the 'use' button for getting on and off ladders, but it was rigid as hell. It also didn't stop the analog stick from occasionally kicking you off if you nudged it to the side a tad too far, or snapping you onto it if you moved too close. Both the 'use' button and the analog stick functioned to get onto ladders, and it made for a sloppy affair. Just as mapping accelerate, reverse, and steering all to just one analog stick made vehicle control sloppy.
Ofcourse, I did play it on the 360.
Half life 2 is like half life 1 with all the interesting enemy and weapon variety thrown out the window to be replaced with boring physics puzzles.
Sorry, I prefer hornetguns, little alien puppies, deadly vacuum cleaner laser beams and a fisted barnacle over the amazing choice of assault rifle 1 or assault rifle 2.
Sorry, I prefer hornetguns, little alien puppies, deadly vacuum cleaner laser beams and a fisted barnacle over the amazing choice of assault rifle 1 or assault rifle 2.
When I played Half-Life 2 I realized an hour in, that my character was an lunatic copkiller with who liked to bash people's skulls in with a crowbar. A crowbar he is too insane to even know how wield, so he just bashes thing with it. like a maniac. All other characters just seems to ignore that he is just standing there droolling when they speak and give him stuff. For god's sake he doesn't even know how to operate a ladder! Stop encouraging him. The alien invation is probably just a figment of his deranged imagination.