Half Life is shit

[Morenatsu.]

Black Mesa is shit and the original Xen was cool

 

[NecroLord]

Black Mesa is shit and the original Xen was cool

Exactly.
You don't need fancy graphics to make an alien world look good.

 

[Gundroog]

Original HL was a great game, even if you don't consider the massive positive impact it had (you shouldn't when talking about game quality anyway). It's not the best FPS out there, but they took Quake's engine to do something fun and original. There weren't too many other shooters out there where you felt like you were participating in the story and not just clearing out levels while vacuuming items.

HL2 on the other hand, only really has the cool mods and indie devs that it spawned to redeem it. It was a downgrade in virtually every way. Gameplay, art design, level design, etc. But worst of all is that I think HL2 and CoD2 were among the first to start the trend of more cinematic and naturalistic (i.e. less video-gamey) presentation in FPS and to some extent in games in general.

Past mid-00s, almost every single triple A game would try to be more grounded and immersive, moving away from more arcade style movement, massive arsenal, more abstract level designs, key hunts, health packs, and other things that could expose the fact that a video game is a video game.

Thankfully, indie devs got that covered these days.

 

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

Black Mesa is shit and the original Xen was cool

Half-Life is amazing,
Black Mesa is relatively average
Black Mesa Xen is utter garbage.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Half-Life 2 is actually great but it just suffers from the Silent Hill 2-ism of spamming the player with resources

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

HL2 on the other hand, only really has the cool mods and indie devs that it spawned to redeem it. It was a downgrade in virtually every way. Gameplay, art design, level design, etc. But worst of all is that I think HL2 and CoD2 were among the first to start the trend of more cinematic and naturalistic (i.e. less video-gamey) presentation in FPS and to some extent in games in general.

Past mid-00s, almost every single triple A game would try to be more grounded and immersive, moving away from more arcade style movement, massive arsenal, more abstract level designs, key hunts, health packs, and other things that could expose the fact that a video game is a video game.

City 17 is atmospheric as all fuck. It puts black mesa to shame in that department. Nova Prospekt is pretty solid in art direction and visuals too.

What about bullet storm?

Half-Life 2 is actually great but it just suffers from the Silent Hill 2-ism of spamming the player with resources

HL2 is a cinematic FPS game. It's not a survival horror game. It's one horror segment does limit your resources and forces you to use what you find laying around and the gravity gun instead.

 

[Morenatsu.]

HL2 is a cinematic FPS game. It's not a survival horror game. It's one horror segment does limit your resources and forces you to use what you find laying around and the gravity gun instead.

You're right, it's not survival horror. It's Adrenaline Horror.

Low resources makes it so things are more than just optional toys for fun. Since when was only survival horror allowed to do that? And also notice that I compared it to SH2 which definitely does not limit resources. Both games drown you in items so they can make sure you're always at full health, HL2 takes it even further with its 'dynamic resupply' crates that won't let you be in trouble no matter what. Thankfully you can turn all this stuff down through the console. Then you can larp the E3 demos of your dreams.

Also Ravenholm never really felt that hard or limiting.

 

[Gundroog]

City 17 is atmospheric as all fuck. It puts black mesa to shame in that department. Nova Prospekt is pretty solid in art direction and visuals too

The whole opening of the game is one part where they actually put a lot of effort into the art and general presentation. Can't agree with Nova Prospekt though. It is atmospheric if you look at it from a distance, but it has the same issue as the majority of the game – decent color palettes, but no detail or much thought put into a layout. NP had a lot of empty cells, corridors, massive rooms that randomly have a few washing machines and driers scattered around what feels like a pool. There's an absolutely gigantic shower palace with maybe 8 shower heads total.

Once you're done with the prologue, paying any attention to levels in terms of art design only hurts them. Episode 2 was far stronger in this regard than HL2 or EP1. It's far more consistent, and it feels like they actually learned how to do proper scenery while making it. Previous games would usually shove some buildings in the background, or do literally nothing, like with the extensive car section where you either look into the draw distance for, or mountains that are just steep enough to not bother with the background.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

Low resources makes it so things are more than just optional toys for fun. Since when was only survival horror allowed to do that? And also notice that I compared it to SH2 which definitely does not limit resources. Both games drown you in items so they can make sure you're always at full health, HL2 takes it even further with its 'dynamic resupply' crates that won't let you be in trouble no matter what. Thankfully you can turn all this stuff down through the console. Then you can larp the E3 demos of your dreams.

Half-life never had an ammo shortage either. What is your complaint here? That Half-life isn't a shit show like Doom Eternal? I like having the option to use the guns I want to use when I want to use them.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Low resources makes it so things are more than just optional toys for fun. Since when was only survival horror allowed to do that? And also notice that I compared it to SH2 which definitely does not limit resources. Both games drown you in items so they can make sure you're always at full health, HL2 takes it even further with its 'dynamic resupply' crates that won't let you be in trouble no matter what. Thankfully you can turn all this stuff down through the console. Then you can larp the E3 demos of your dreams.

Half-life never had an ammo shortage either. What is your complaint here? That Half-life isn't a shit show like Doom Eternal? I like having the option to use the guns I want to use when I want to use them.

My complaint here is

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

City 17 is atmospheric as all fuck. It puts black mesa to shame in that department. Nova Prospekt is pretty solid in art direction and visuals too

The whole opening of the game is one part where they actually put a lot of effort into the art and general presentation. Can't agree with Nova Prospekt though. It is atmospheric if you look at it from a distance, but it has the same issue as the majority of the game – decent color palettes, but no detail or much thought put into a layout. NP had a lot of empty cells, corridors, massive rooms that randomly have a few washing machines and driers scattered around what feels like a pool. There's an absolutely gigantic shower palace with maybe 8 shower heads total.

Once you're done with the prologue, paying any attention to levels in terms of art design only hurts them. Episode 2 was far stronger in this regard than HL2 or EP1. It's far more consistent, and it feels like they actually learned how to do proper scenery while making it. Previous games would usually shove some buildings in the background, or do literally nothing, like with the extensive car section where you either look into the draw distance for, or mountains that are just steep enough to not bother with the background.

I think you're judging the game unfairly. Of course episode 2 has better art design because PC specs increased to accommodate it. The physics engine of the time took a lot of resources and you had to manage what you put on screen. Long draw distances into fog give a great sense of loneliness and the cliff face is basically irrelevant because you're whizzing past it in a vehicle.

You seem to have a weird expectation for what is effectively a physics tech demo. It's like saying Quake 1's art direction isn't as good as Quake 3, when Quake 1 was quite limited by the machines it was intended to run on and couldn't have high res animated textures all over the place. I'm sorry I was a bit busy shooting things to count the shower heads and didn't consider a place repurposed for torturing people might not be up to your hygiene standards. I'm sure there's games for people who can't enough unrealistic shower head numbers but I'm not sure what they are.

 

[Gundroog]

It's all a matter of working within your limits. I know they were limited, but that didn't stop them from creating an amazing opening and then falling off from that.

Long draw distances into fog give a great sense of loneliness and the cliff face is basically irrelevant because you're whizzing past it in a vehicle

Ok but it's not like there's anything else going on. A lot of that section is fog on one side, an unnatural cliff on the other, and an empty road ahead. All a matter of taste obviously, but I feel like they could've done something better.

It's also very fitting that you mention Quake 1, since art direction in Q1 is far better than Q3 and arguably Q2. It suffers a lot from inconsistency because it was 4 different people doing whatever they wanted, but McGee, Romero, and Willits were great at constructing memorable environments despite the archaic hardware. It also stood out thanks to the dark fantasy theme blended with sci-fi, while much more cohesive and fleshed out Q2 was atmospheric but relatively drab and uniform with its brown and gray levels.

I'm sorry I was a bit busy shooting things to count the shower heads and didn't consider a place repurposed for torturing people might not be up to your hygiene standards. I'm sure there's games for people who can't enough unrealistic shower head numbers but I'm not sure what they are

Brother we both played that game, I know how little goes on in the FPS department, so there's plenty of time to see your surroundings. You should give HL2 a replay as well because it's impossible to miss the absurdity of the room where you fight that Antlion Guard. It's literally an enormous prison shower room that has no showers. There's nothing to count, there's just one little nook with some showers. What's worse is that it's connected to another shower room like that. It's not a problem if you don't pay attention, but you're the one who said "Nova Prospekt is pretty solid in art direction and visuals too".

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

Quoting seems broken for me today, sorry about that.

Dude, I'm shooting a boss. I don't give a fuck about the shower heads. I've replayed HL2 multiple times and this is literally the first time I've ever even considered shower heads exist. You're being very autistic when you're complaining the boss arena lacks the right number of shower heads. You're probably the only person on the planet who even noticed let alone cares about that detail.

 

[Gundroog]

You're missing the point. Shower heads aren't a problem, it's that the whole location is nonsensical and lacking in detail and thought put into it. It destroys the immersion and turns the prison into a shoddy video game level that someone probably rushed out the door. Almost every chapter past the openings stacks up this thoughtless level design. They went for naturalistic presentation, but ended up with locations that almost never feel like real places once you're past the opening. And you know they understood that cause it only got better over time and absolutely peaked in Alyx.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

...It's a game about shooting aliens and Zen exists. Nova prospekt isn't a problem you're making it out to be.

 

[schru]

The room, or set of rooms, in question actually has sixty shower heads in it, five in each showering spot. Some of the shower installations are missing, but it can be seen how many the room originally had by the depressions in the floor. Apart from this, the room is also fitted with toilet bowls and basins, so it's not a shower-room but a general bathroom. Rather strangely though, it also has what look like water sprinklers, since they're suspended over the light fixtures, but would that be really necessary in a fully tiled room?

At any rate, Valve's designers certainly got better at arranging the visuals of pretty much every section of every level in its games, but to say that Half-Life 2 doesn't have lots and lots of thoughtfully designed and great-looking areas is silly.

 

[Lemming42]

I think a lot of potential surrealness in HL2 comes from the fact that you're covering an amount of ground that must be far larger than what you're actually seeing on screen, and there's often really weird unnatural barriers confining you to a location.

Like, what's going on with Sandtraps? Is that a route people generally use to travel from Lighthouse Point to the Antlion cave? If so, why is it in complete disarray, and filled with corpses and Antlions? Where did those two guys at the start come from - did they set off from Lighthouse Point and immediately die on the very first step of the journey, or did they come from the cave and do all the insane see-saw shit and then inexplicably perish on the final step of their trip? If it's not meant to be a well-travelled route, then how do those two camps reach each other - and why are they sending Gordon (and those two other guys?) through the nightmare deathtrap route?

And yeah, Nova Prospekt is bullshit as well. It's the Combine's main place for Combine-ifying people but it's also a decaying badly-guarded prison with half the floors missing, and only like two things you see there denote the purpose the story is claiming it has.

It's mostly jarring because HL1 almost works as a 1:1 scale representation of the facility - there's a few weird surreal rooms but mostly you get a really good sense of where you are, how far you've travelled, what the purpose and history of the area you're in is, etc, which isn't usually the case in HL2.

 

[9ted6]

You're missing the point. Shower heads aren't a problem, it's that the whole location is nonsensical and lacking in detail and thought put into it. It destroys the immersion and turns the prison into a shoddy video game level that someone probably rushed out the door. Almost every chapter past the openings stacks up this thoughtless level design. They went for naturalistic presentation, but ended up with locations that almost never feel like real places once you're past the opening. And you know they understood that cause it only got better over time and absolutely peaked in Alyx.

HL2 gets dumber the more you think about it. I also agree that the environs feel less natural and more surreal, or rushed, after you leave C17 and I'm not a fan of that. I never understood how NP was supposed to be a huge Combine prison when most of it's abandoned and falling apart.

HL's story was never really believable or engaging and the atmosphere's all over the place. The story was the g-man puppeting you to the next showcase of Valve's new tech. HL1 just did its hallway of game tech exhibits in a more entertaining way.

 

[Morenatsu.]

And yeah, Nova Prospekt is bullshit as well. It's the Combine's main place for Combine-ifying people but it's also a decaying badly-guarded prison with half the floors missing, and only like two things you see there denote the purpose the story is claiming it has.

It's mostly jarring because HL1 almost works as a 1:1 scale representation of the facility - there's a few weird surreal rooms but mostly you get a really good sense of where you are, how far you've travelled, what the purpose and history of the area you're in is, etc, which isn't usually the case in HL2.

Hey, Lemming, did you forget that giant-ass building slapped on top of Nova Prospekt that has walls and walls of prisoners? Which we don't really ever explore much of directly*? How do you know their prison is so shit.

Also the Combine's forces being much weaker than expected is kind of the point of the story, I don't know. Maybe you can complain about that and how you don't agree with stories like that for some reason, or maybe you should complain about how convenient it is that Alyx can just type or zap her way through everything because she's a genius hacker gurl (even though these kinds of characters exist everywhere and it's not especially HL2's thing), but those kinds of things don't really have anything to do with decaying buildings.

*Actually you should probably complain about this but it's too big-brain for any HL2 haters to come up with or something.

 

[Lemming42]

We already went through this in another thread, I'm pretty sure, about the Combine being shit and very vaguely defined in the released game.

As for NP, why have they put their futuristic space-tech prison - which does still appear to be shit - on top of a shitty collapsing Russian prison, which they're not even using for anything? Why is the exterior so badly guarded (okay, Earth is a backwater that the combine don't care about, but come on, other than the Shitadel this is the closest thing they have to a HQ)? It seems like the reason they placed their own prison on top of the original Earth prison is just because... they're both prisons. I'm pretty sure the designers just thought it'd look cool to have alien architecture blending with Earth architecture, but god only knows what's meant to be happening in-story. They've literally put their otherwise-impenetrable space-fortress on top of a shitty old building that any dickhead (eg Gordon) can walk through to gain easy access to their most sensitive areas.

Do the Combine walk through the collapsed shower room and the flooded supply closet on their way to work every day? The latter is right next to the bit where you find Eli. Oh, time to check on the prisoners, let me just jump over this fucking electrified water. Plus you have to take a rickety-ass old service elevator to get there. It's like if I decided to build a new hotel, but I just made one quarter of a hotel and shoved it into the ruins of a different hotel nobody's been in since 1945, and made it so guests have to walk up the deathtrap rotted wooden staircase to get to my swanky new penthouse.

 

[Morenatsu.]

they obviously just take the force-fielded hallway right across from it

 

[Lemming42]

The hallway next to the deathtrap electrified flooded supply closet that nobody can be bothered to sort out (which has barnacles, iirc???), and which they built their prisoner-control-room-thing next to? Their top secret control room that can be reached with the old service lift?

 

[Morenatsu.]

if you had a basement you'd understand

 

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

City 17 is atmospheric as all fuck. It puts black mesa to shame in that department. Nova Prospekt is pretty solid in art direction and visuals too

The whole opening of the game is one part where they actually put a lot of effort into the art and general presentation. Can't agree with Nova Prospekt though. It is atmospheric if you look at it from a distance, but it has the same issue as the majority of the game – decent color palettes, but no detail or much thought put into a layout. NP had a lot of empty cells, corridors, massive rooms that randomly have a few washing machines and driers scattered around what feels like a pool. There's an absolutely gigantic shower palace with maybe 8 shower heads total.

Once you're done with the prologue, paying any attention to levels in terms of art design only hurts them. Episode 2 was far stronger in this regard than HL2 or EP1. It's far more consistent, and it feels like they actually learned how to do proper scenery while making it. Previous games would usually shove some buildings in the background, or do literally nothing, like with the extensive car section where you either look into the draw distance for, or mountains that are just steep enough to not bother with the background.

I think you're judging the game unfairly. Of course episode 2 has better art design because PC specs increased to accommodate it. The physics engine of the time took a lot of resources and you had to manage what you put on screen. Long draw distances into fog give a great sense of loneliness and the cliff face is basically irrelevant because you're whizzing past it in a vehicle.

Episode 2 also just has genuinely good art direction and level design, irrespective of the engine improvements.

The design of the outdoor areas especially feels a lot better than HL2, where the outside areas are basically nature-themed tubes/canals. EP2 is still quite linear, but the open spaces feel a lot more open despite not actually being all that big, and the arena design (such as the house with the combine advisor or the first ambush with the Hunters) are brilliantly designed arenas compared to the ones in HL2. Episode 2 has a tendency to let you explore an area first (like the radio shack with the Hunter ambush, or the barn with the Advisor) and then fill it with enemies once you've gotten the lay of the land, and I think that works in it's favour.

The Episode 2 Finale is basically perfection in terms of the HL2 formula.

Of course Episode 2 also has some bad areas, like the Antlion tunnels and generally the first 2-3 chapters where it's mostly exposition and minor puzzles/combat sections. Although I really like the standoff part with the mine tunnels, that's a good spin in the HL2 formula.

I can completely understand WHY people don't like HL2's gameplay, especially coming off the first game. It's far slower paced, has more limited weapons, tankier enemies, and less interesting arenas with more cutscenes. But if you like HL2's gameplay, Episode 2 is basically the peak of the series because it does everything right.

You seem to have a weird expectation for what is effectively a physics tech demo. It's like saying Quake 1's art direction isn't as good as Quake 3, when Quake 1 was quite limited by the machines it was intended to run on and couldn't have high res animated textures all over the place. I'm sorry I was a bit busy shooting things to count the shower heads and didn't consider a place repurposed for torturing people might not be up to your hygiene standards. I'm sure there's games for people who can't enough unrealistic shower head numbers but I'm not sure what they are.

Quake 1's art direction IS better than Quake 3's, though.

Quake 1 may feel boring on the surface, but it's consistent and coherent. The transition from the techbases to the alternate dimensions is thematic, the enemy design fits the art style of the game well, and when played with the music enabled it has a very distinct mood throughout which is maintains well.

Quake 3 has some GOOD art in it and some beautiful levels, but being a deathmatch themed game it has no consistency or coherency. It's basically a grab bag of maps of varying styles with no coherent style.

Also, you can't handwaive away a game's flaws by saying it's "a tech demo". HL2 needs to stand on it's own merits, which it does relatively well but far from perfectly.

As for Nova Prospekt, I think from a worldbuilding perspective, I believe it was essentially maintained as a regular prison for a while until the Combine slowly started using it for more and more things, so it's possible it's a weird frankenstein of last-minute extensions. The Combine have clearly shown a willingness to use and repurpose human technology and structures already, like their command centre in Episode 1 which is basically a hollowed-out apartment block, or their re-use of our train stations for their train network.