Honest Opinion on Half-Life 2

[Morenatsu.]

black mesa is a linear series of corridors

 

[Lemming42]

That's true but that means the marines are slowly filling it up and making it harder to get through. Gordon tears through the warehouses in We've Got Hostiles at like 10 AM or whatever and kills the first responders, but presumably by 1 PM (by which time Gordon's probably finishing Blast Pit) the military had that place locked down. Also if you accept Gearbox lore then the facility got nuked not long after Gordon went to Xen, and only people who were either in Xen or in Barney's car at the time had a way out.

I guess maybe Eli had Mossman taking point for him, she seems like she could basically tank the HECU.

 

[Beastro]

I can never forgive HL2 for having such a weak assault rifle. I could only play it with a trainer to give the crossbow infinite ammo so I could use the only real weapon that felt like it had punch to it.

 

[Beastro]

I don't know how anyone who played it in 2004 can say it was outright bad.

I can.

The boat bit was boring, Ravenholm was boring, the buggy was boring, Nova Prospekt was boring.

I played through it it finish it and never touched it again.

 

[seco]

HL2 is good and no ammount of hate circlejerking will change that, cope.
No other forum or imageboard seethes over HL this hard.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

Yeah the weirdest thing in HL2 is Eli being alive. Like, he was literally in the Sector C labs, how the fuck did he get out. Was he just like ten seconds behind Gordon the whole game. I guess Laidlaw's answer would probably be that G-Man whisked him to safety for some nefarious reason (I can't remember what the plot of Ep2 is with regards to Eli and G-Man, so if it's exactly that, then fair enough).

The problem with any HL2 NPC surviving is there's 10 clones of them throughout the original. Which Barney is THIS Barney? Which black science man is this black science man? I understand reusing the characters but it creates more questions than answers.

 

[Valestein]

Yeah the weirdest thing in HL2 is Eli being alive. Like, he was literally in the Sector C labs, how the fuck did he get out. Was he just like ten seconds behind Gordon the whole game. I guess Laidlaw's answer would probably be that G-Man whisked him to safety for some nefarious reason (I can't remember what the plot of Ep2 is with regards to Eli and G-Man, so if it's exactly that, then fair enough).

The problem with any HL2 NPC surviving is there's 10 clones of them throughout the original. Which Barney is THIS Barney? Which black science man is this black science man? I understand reusing the characters but it creates more questions than answers.

The only actual scientist NPC from the original was Rosenberg(i think that's his name) from Blue Shift and i don't believe HL2 Barney is the one from that game(not sure if the expansions are even canon).

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

Yeah the weirdest thing in HL2 is Eli being alive. Like, he was literally in the Sector C labs, how the fuck did he get out. Was he just like ten seconds behind Gordon the whole game. I guess Laidlaw's answer would probably be that G-Man whisked him to safety for some nefarious reason (I can't remember what the plot of Ep2 is with regards to Eli and G-Man, so if it's exactly that, then fair enough).

The problem with any HL2 NPC surviving is there's 10 clones of them throughout the original. Which Barney is THIS Barney? Which black science man is this black science man? I understand reusing the characters but it creates more questions than answers.

The only actual scientist NPC from the original was Rosenberg(i think that's his name) from Blue Shift and i don't believe HL2 Barney is the one from that game(not sure if the expansions are even canon).

Every security guard is called Barney by the community. Blue Shift's Barney never interacts with Freeman in his campaign but multiple Barney's fight along side Freeman in base HL1. So one of them has to be the real Barney and also has to have been with him when he dropped his crowbar or close by. It's a big problem with HL2's story circle jerking Freeman so hard.

 

[Lemming42]

The only Barney with the surname Calhoun is the one from Blue Shift, so it's virtually got to be him in HL2. For Eli, his HL2 dialogue places him as the guy who opens the retinal scanner to the observation room for you after the disaster. Everyone else is a mystery.

What's really strange is that almost all survivors are people from Sector C - Eli, Mossman, Kleiner, Breen, Magnessen. That's bizarre since it's ground zero of the resonance cascade and one of the deepest parts of the facility, the survival rate there should be the lowest. Given how Gordon had to risk death about three hundred times to make it out from there, you have to wonder what the rest of them were doing, especially since none of them had HEV suits. They also somehow swung by the dormitories to grab baby Alyx while they were escaping.

 

[Modron]

They also somehow swung by the dormitories to grab baby Alyx while they were escaping.

They took the employee elevator, while Gordon put his faith in the marked exit route.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

The only Barney with the surname Calhoun is the one from Blue Shift, so it's virtually got to be him in HL2. For Eli, his HL2 dialogue places him as the guy who opens the retinal scanner to the observation room for you after the disaster. Everyone else is a mystery.

The problem with that is that Barney never interacts with Gordon. How can Barney C owe Gordon a beer if he's never the one fighting with Gordon to say the line? Any Barney you make it doesn't work one way or another.

 

[Morenatsu.]

only the things that literally happened on-screen in my playthrough are canon

 

[Nifft Batuff]

It was the first example of mandatory online connection requirement even for single player gaming. They manage to open the gate to this shit only because there was the name "Half-Life" stitched on it.

 

[Hellraiser]

The boat bit was boring, Ravenholm was boring, the buggy was boring.

Best parts of the game for me along with the civil protection manhunt section before the boat, probably due to the post-apocalyptic environment and ambience. For me the game significantly drops in quality after Highway 17, guess they ran out of good gimmicks by that point.

I don't get the seemingly common hate the vehicle sections get online TBH. I guess it's coming from people who suck at driving vehicles on a keyboard+mouse.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

It was the first example of mandatory online connection requirement even for single player gaming. They manage to open the gate to this shit only because there was the name "Half-Life" stitched on it.

HL2 only had to go online to decrypt your files. But you're correct it did have to go online through Steam (which sucked back then) to install the game.

 

[Semiurge]

Edgy takes on an older masterpiece - the thread.

 

[Jvegi]

Half Life 1 made my enjoy fpp platforming, so it was definitely exceptional.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

 

[Hagashager]

Up until Xen, Gordon just sort of manages to survive various near-death scenarios. It's only when he gets to the Lambda base that he becomes like some kind of massive swinging dick figure who goes rushing into the borderworld alone. Probably the most impressive thing he does prior to Lambda Core is taking out the Blast Pit tentacle or the Power Up Gargantua.

As for the Gearbox lore, it is definitely weird. Barney doesn't really do anything (except survive a short trip to Xen) and as for Shepard... I dunno what's going on with Race X at all, or what the Gene Worm was, or if any of that is really canon.

Yeah the weirdest thing in HL2 is Eli being alive. Like, he was literally in the Sector C labs, how the fuck did he get out. Was he just like ten seconds behind Gordon the whole game. I guess Laidlaw's answer would probably be that G-Man whisked him to safety for some nefarious reason (I can't remember what the plot of Ep2 is with regards to Eli and G-Man, so if it's exactly that, then fair enough).

I believe it is. G-Man says explicitly during the dumb Sleeping Beauty analogue in the antlion caves that he plucked Eli and Alyx.

 

[schru]

Just Alyx.

 

[Hellraiser]

Just Alyx.

Just before his death in episode 2 Eli said to Gordon that he wants to talk about their mutual friend, this was after and in response to Alyx delivering the g-man's message to Eli - "prepare for unforseen consequences". So Eli knew the g-man and thus it is safe to assume the g-man also "saved" Eli.

Lololol biggest unresolved cliffhanger in gaming history and for no good reason

 

[Beastro]

The boat bit was boring, Ravenholm was boring, the buggy was boring.

Best parts of the game for me along with the civil protection manhunt section before the boat, probably due to the post-apocalyptic environment and ambience. For me the game significantly drops in quality after Highway 17, guess they ran out of good gimmicks by that point.

I don't get the seemingly common hate the vehicle sections get online TBH. I guess it's coming from people who suck at driving vehicles on a keyboard+mouse.

I hate it because it's "drive for a bit until you run into a roadblock, get out, go through a little shooting section, unlock roadblock, run back to vehicle, drive for a bit more until you run into a roadblock, repeat".

It was ok a few times, but that just drags on too far.

I agree with you that the initial run away is the best part, which annoys me all the more that it's at the start and over so soon leaving the rest of the game to play.

 

[schru]

Just Alyx.

Spoiler

Just before his death in episode 2 Eli said to Gordon that he wants to talk about their mutual friend, this was after Alyx delivers the g-man's message to Eli - "prepare for unforseen consequences". So Eli knew the g-man somehow and thus it is safe to assume the g-man also "saved" Eli.

Lololol biggest cliffhanger in gaming history and for no good reason

I remember that part too, naturally. It could imply that, but the plucking remark referred only to Alyx. It seems to me that it rather suggests that this was how he came to exert influence over Eli (and more generally on the Black Mesa team in HL2, which I thought was immediately apparent, though never stated, and it added a nice feeling to that premise that the situation was an odd set-up, something most ignore entirely and instead complain that the writing is bad because everything is too much of a coincidence) ... and unlike with Eli, the G-Man has a more immediate control over his daughter, so I think their circumstances were different.

(No comments about Half-Life: Alyx, please, I haven't played it yet.)

 

[Hellraiser]

I remember that part too, naturally. It could imply that, but the plucking remark referred only to Alyx.

I mean yeah, at this point this is all just speculation and again lolololol unresolved cliffhanger for almost 17 fucking years.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

I remember that part too, naturally. It could imply that, but the plucking remark referred only to Alyx.

I mean yeah, at this point this is all just speculation and again lolololol unresolved cliffhanger for almost 17 fucking years.

Does any one give an actual fuck about Half life's story? Every game hand waves shit away and retcons stuff so fuck it. I played all the games at release and would say I'm a big half-life fan but.. who the fuck cares about science nigger and his mutt daughter? Alyx was incredibly annoying all through episode 1 and any good will is lost when she won't STFU and locks you in a room for 10 minutes playing with the props while the story happens around you.