Honest Opinion on Half-Life 2

[NecroLord]

Thread title.
What is your honest opinion on Half-Life 2? Is it better than the original? Is it guilty of opening the way for scripted cinematic bullshit in FPS games?

Personally, I find it pretty good, not better than the original, of course, but it has some cool moments. The Grav Gun is OK, I can see how using tools found in your environments can be used to kill enemies. The scripted scenes do get on my nerves however. Voice acting is great, facial animations are really good, as per Source Engine (VTMB as well).

Anyway, what do YOU think?

 

[Ash]

Rather bland, yet still one of the better FPS of the terrible 2000s. 7/10 at best. Retarded fanservice, stupid anti-climactic god mode finale, pathetic waifu worship (and she ain't even hot), overly linear level design mixed with big open nothingness vehicle sections, laughable team squad combat sections and mindlessly commanding an army of antlions to do all the gameplay for you. Cool asf rocket launcher that you rarely get to use, just in scripted war of the worlds tripod attacks. Bland setting, none of the intrigue of the first. Platforming, navigation & puzzle focus of the first game significantly reduced. Utterly boring plot.

There are genuine cool, fun & inventive moments but they are few and far between a lot of mediocre shit. Despite all this awfulness it's like top ten 2000s FPS material, that's how shit 2000s FPS were.

 

[Lemming42]

Weak and unimpactful combat, terrible enemy AI, and shockingly poor pacing, with several parts that stretch on far too long. Half-Life 1 pretty much wasted no time at all, other than arguably in "On A Rail", while HL2 does nothing but waste your time with inane shit like the infamous buggy and boat sections, as well as the whole "Follow Freeman" thing that doesn't work on any level and yet still goes on forever.

HL1 knew to cloak its poor combat in heavily scripted encounters - it doesn't matter that the combat kind of sucks when you've got constant distractions and clever ideas like the pipe maze to get around the tank in "Surface Tension", the Vortigaunts-vs-HECU battle in "On A Rail", and so on. HL2 meanwhile never does anything to mask the shallowness of its combat, and instead does the exact opposite - it highlights its own weaknesses with nonstop boring-ass shootouts against the Combine.

Occasionally there is a good idea, but they always get dragged on way too fucking long, the Antlion bait bit being the worst example I can think of.

Also suffers from a story that's boring and badly written but keeps forcing itself on you with endless shit cutscenes (but it's not a "cutscene" because you can jump around - NEXT-LEVEL IMMERSIVE STORYTELLING!!!)

The Gravity Gun is basically the only thing from HL2 that hasn't been done better both before and after the game's release.

 

[Frank Capicoli]

Forgettable outside of Ravenwood and the antlion area tbqh familio.

 

[Jaesun]

For me, seeing the giant fucking walker things in Half Life 2 was pretty damn cool. That was a Holy shit! That is soo fucking cool! moment. The game as a whole, not so much.

Half Life for me, is still just a way more fun and enjoyable game.

 

[NecroLord]

Rather bland, yet still one of the better FPS of the terrible 2000s. 7/10 at best. Retarded fanservice, stupid anti-climactic god mode finale, pathetic waifu worship (and she ain't even hot), overly linear level design mixed with big open nothingness vehicle sections, laughable team squad combat sections and mindlessly commanding an army of antlions to do all the gameplay for you. Cool asf rocket launcher that you rarely get to use, just in scripted war of the worlds tripod attacks. Bland setting, none of the intrigue of the first. Platforming, navigation & puzzle focus of the first game significantly reduced. Utterly boring plot.

There are genuine cool, fun & inventive moments but they are few and far between a lot of mediocre shit. Despite all this awfulness it's like top ten 2000s FPS material, that's how shit 2000s FPS were.

I agree on most points.
The squad based shit is annoying and Alyx might even be considered a Mary Sue.
The arsenal you get is also rather bland compared to the original.

 

[Ash]

Seeing it consistently in top PC games lists just shows how low people's standards are.

 

[Cross]

It's a very bland game. It has "alien" enemies that are indistinguishable from humans in fancy SWAT gear. The characters that help Gordon have clearly all been focus group tested to be as inoffensive as possible.

The encounter design and AI are very poor, so much so that it's easy to make them bug out. Enemies sometimes won't even react to you shooting them, since they're in the middle of scripted behavior or whatever. Speaking of scripted behavior, that's ultimately the biggest problem of the game. Valve was more interested in producing a tightly-scripted rollercoaster with a bunch of shallow gimmicks than they were in designing fun gameplay. It's not an issue of the developers running out of time or failing to perfect certain mechanics. This was their actual vision for the game.

The Gravity Gun is basically the only thing from HL2 that hasn't been done better both before and after the game's release.

What, that gimmicky gun that doesn't even work on enemies until the last few minutes of the game?

Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy came out before Half-Life 2 and did the "shooter with telekinesis" thing far better.

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic came out after Half-Life 2 and has a telekinesis spell that's far superior to the Gravity Gun.

 

[Fargus]

It's a piece of shit and i hate it. Almost everything about it is decline. Truly ruined the genre for good. Uber shit. Everyone who enjoys it is an uber shit-eater.

Spoiler

Ok, not really. I think the second game is a fun shooter for its time with interesting lore, enjoyed the story and characters too. I like both games. But the vehicle sections in HL2 are tiresome, not really my thing.

Irrelevant but, HL2 and EPs are 10 times more fun in VR. When you get swarmed to death in antlion siege in EP2 or panic reaload during antlion-guards charges... really something. Every shootout with combine feels awesome. Ravenholm turns into survival horror. Ironically the driving sections are 10 times worse in VR lol

 

[Chuck Norris]

Jesus Christ, now Codex is shitting on HL2 too?

 

[ghostlife]

played the mod that makes it co-op with buddies a while back and had a blast

it still blows away any shooter that existed in 2004 and wasn't made by id

it's biggest fault is too many cutscenes & how every puzzle is just "DID YOU KNOW WE HAVE A PHYSICS ENGINE??"

 

[Ash]

Anything can be made "a blast" by introducing co-op/friends, because your level of engagement with the game is sacrificed in favor of messing around and socializing with friends. That is not how a game should be critiqued.

Many shooters existed in 2004 (e.g many, many 90s shooters) that utterly destroy Half-Game 2.

 

[ghostlife]

Many shooters existed in 2004 (e.g many, many 90s shooters) that utterly destroy Half-Game 2.

like what

 

[Ash]

Doom
Doom 2
Doom 64
Unreal
Turok
Turok 2
Quake
Quake 2
Duke Nukem 3D
Shadow Warrior
Blood
System Shock
System Shock 2
Heretic
Half-Life
Half-Life: Opposing Force

Even many of the not quite legendary/less interesting 90s FPS have a more solid core, e.g.

Dark Forces
Alien Trilogy
Exhumed/Powerslave
Quake 2 N64
Disruptor
Hexen
Hexen 2

As for 2000s FPS prior to HL2, it's close because they are all decline, but I'd rather replay RTCW, Doom 3 or Red Faction over HL2. It's just blandness personified. The thought of having to watch all those shitty scenes again, ride that stupid boat or shoot endless boring combine whack-a-mole makes me nauseous.

Then there's all the third person shooters I'd rate above it too, but no need to go there. Codex isn't ready for my knowledge on the subject.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

a tech demo made out of setpieces. not really engaging tbh

 

[El Presidente]

Great game, aged really well.

 

[ind33d]

HL2DM was underrated and I miss it every day

 

[DemonKing]

I preferred the original (even if in retrospect its use of scripting basically doomed modern FPS campaigns to a great extent), but the one thing HL2 got right was the delivery of the narrative. Instead of audiologs left lying around like so many games rely on to tell their story everything was organicaly delivered by NPCs with great facial animations and voice acting as well as environmental storytelling. It's almost 20 years later and still a lot of games haven't caught up.

 

[Ivan]

Classic. One of my favorite FPS arsenals: particularly the revolver, crossbow, shotgun, and the gravity gun. The assault rifle, smg, and pistol are ass.

 

[AlwaysBrotoMen]

Not as good as HL1. But better than fps like FEAR and Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
I feel the first Farcry was way better than HL2.

 

[Darth Roxor]

It might just as well be the most overrated game of all time to me, even more so than Biocock. Everything about it is bland and uninspired.

 

[Jaedar]

Overrated beyond belief. It's a fine fps, although very gimmicky (vehicle sections, physics puzzles, antlion level). Enemies are pretty boring and the guns are super generic (with the exception of the energy ball alt fire and the crossbow sniper).

It had impressive tech for its time, but that doesn't age very well.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

It was a revelation in 2004, and still holds up fairly well today. Case closed your honor.

Edit: Typo

 

[Ash]

I think you mean "revelation". Also no it wasn't. Just for those that are impressed by shiny graphics and other unimportant fluff. The actual game experience brought little new. Even elaborate physics were already a thing for a few years at the time. 14 year old me had more standards than most; was not impressed at the time. And playing it today...fuck that.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Bro half-life 2 sucks let me tell you
gravy gun? psi-ops.
physics? trespasser.
vehicle? halo.
alex? lmao get a girlfriend you fuckin loser

PWNED

go play a real game like harry poter 3 ps2 or something rooflez