Honest Opinion on Half-Life 2

[Hellraiser]

Does any one give an actual fuck about Half life's story?

At this point after all these years I doubt anyone still does, that ship has sailed a long time ago. Back when episode 2 was released though, which was a mere year and something after episode 1, it wasn't unreasonable to expect that there's going to be some kind of conclusion to the plot threads introduced in the 2 episodes. At the very least those 2 were fairly consistent and without glaring continuity issues going from episode one to two.

Nowadays in hindsight we can just call the g-man a plot tumor used to justify writers making asspulls and mystery build-up with no payoff, taking pages from the contemporary to it Lost/nuBSG school of writing. I mean if they actually had the story planned out for the 3 episodes including a conclusion to the damn thing, it would have been made already over a decade ago. But hindsight is always 20/20.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

Does any one give an actual fuck about Half life's story?

At this point after all these years I doubt anyone still does, that ship has sailed a long time ago. Back when episode 2 was released though, which was a mere year and something after episode 1, it wasn't unreasonable to expect that there's going to be some kind of conclusion to the plot threads introduced in the 2 episodes. At the very least those 2 were fairly consistent and without glaring continuity issues going from episode one to two.

Nowadays in hindsight we can just call the g-man a plot tumor used to justify writers making asspulls and mystery build-up with no payoff, taking pages from the contemporary to it Lost/nuBSG school of writing. I mean if they actually had the story planned out for the 3 episodes including a conclusion to the damn thing, it would have been made already over a decade ago. But hindsight is always 20/20.

When it started to bleed into other games it annoyed me. Making black mesa a joke lyric in a gag song at the end of Portal was fine. Shoving actual plot elements for episode 3 into portal was not acceptable in any way to me.

 

[Beastro]

HLs story is the problem with movie sequels but on steroids.

You know the movie routine where a one off movie is successful so a pair more are ordered and somehow shoehorned into becoming a trilogy when the first is self contained. The added two come a few more years after the first and so get a lot more shoved into them that doesn't fit with what the original laid out and just keeps pushing more and more. The Matrix movies are the best example. The sequels weren't necessary.

HL is like that only worse, akin to if Neo apent the first movie as a nobody and then magically came back only to be revered as The One because everyone keeps insisting that he is and the Matrix suddenly isn't what it was said to be but is now being pushed as even bigger than what it is.

 

[Morenatsu.]

if you're really that upset about alyx making your wait through noncutscenes you're probably playing for the wrong reason

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

HLs story is the problem with movie sequels but on steroids.

According to Half life 1 has 30 minutes of unskippable scenes. HL2 has 80 and Aylx has 120. Since they all take 12ish hours to beat on a first play through I would be inclined to say it's a growing problem. Episode 1 is 3 hours to finish and 40 minutes of this crap. Episode 2 is 5 hours to finish and has 40 minutes too. Who the fuck wants to spend almost a third of their play time watching these dialog scenes? And that's not counting when NPCs are walking with you/opening doors and won't STFU.

 

[Machocruz]

Played HL2 multiple times when it came out, played with mods, so obviously I enjoyed it, but always thought people overrated it, then and now, especially compared to 1 which had a better setting, better weapon and enemy variety, better human/humanoid adversaries, just a better overall adventure and set pieces from beginning to end.

And I just know that in the unlikely event of HL3, it will just go with the same content as 2, when it should really be a new setting, as different to 2 as 2 was to the first. But they'd use the same weapons, enemies, setting as 2. That's what most developers do with a series, they just recycle what was in the game that made more money.

 

[9ted6]

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 think people were more interested in the setting than the story. Half Life was never anything more than a glorified tech demo but the dystopian future it was set in was at least a little intriguing even if we don't get to see much of it. Half Life roleplay servers in HL2DM and Garry's Mod were really popular for several years and though they've pretty much died out you can still find a few moderately active ones in server lists.

The actual story was never good or consistent though, it was just a series of handwaves, retcons and asspulls to make the bare minimum justification for the player to go between setpieces and watch Valve show off their engine. It was at its most interesting when it dealt with individual characters and the Resistance and least interesting when it dealt with the Black Mesa staff and G-man. The forced shared universe of Half Life and Portal was shit too.

 

[Morenatsu.]

wolfenstein 3d is a tech demo
ultima underworld is a tech demo
doom is a tech demo
system shock is a tech demo
duke 3d is a tech demo
quake is a tech demo
unreal is a tech demo
thief is a tech demo
trespasser is a tech demo
blood 2 is a tech demo
unreal 2 is a tech demo

the truth is all 3d games are tech demos not actual games

 

[Average Manatee]

Half Life 2 was definitely tech demo-y. The main advancements of the engine were physics (you're forced to use the gravity gun constantly and complete physics puzzles) and facial animations (cue apparently 80 mins of being forced to wait around while an NPC talks to you). Not sure how HL1 could be seen to be in any way a tech demo, unless you consider things like "very basic AI allies" and "mostly continuous gameworld" as "tech".

 

[Morenatsu.]

The game being more casual while also having new tech to show off = they didn't care about the gameplay, it's a tech demo, it sucks. Game shoves physics in your face and wants you to play with it = TEEEECH DEMOOOO!!! Not like it's an actual mechanic or anything, its just demo.

Did any of you ever stop and think what the value of the technology even is in the first place. Like why have interactive physics. What is the point. Clearly it must just that they wanted to simulate boxes falling over just for the sake of it. Just so some guys would go 'wow, I didn't know computers could do that' and that's the only reason. Or something. That must be it.

 

[Average Manatee]

Clearly the gravity gun was not a valuable innovation given next to no games have that anymore.

It's not innovating tech that makes something a tech demo, it's shoving in poor gameplay segments to showcase your tech that makes something a tech demo. If the gravity gun and stupid puzzles didn't exist the game would be improved. We'd still get to enjoy enemies ragdolling like crazy from RPGs/grenades, or shooting the supports of a balcony to make people fall off, or watching headcrabs go flying when you nail them with a shotgun, or enjoying the bouncing ball of get fucked the combine rifle shoots, or watching enemies get skewered and pinned by the crossbow.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

Half Life 2 was definitely tech demo-y. The main advancements of the engine were physics (you're forced to use the gravity gun constantly and complete physics puzzles) and facial animations (cue apparently 80 mins of being forced to wait around while an NPC talks to you). Not sure how HL1 could be seen to be in any way a tech demo, unless you consider things like "very basic AI allies" and "mostly continuous gameworld" as "tech".

The game being more casual while also having new tech to show off = they didn't care about the gameplay, it's a tech demo, it sucks. Game shoves physics in your face and wants you to play with it = TEEEECH DEMOOOO!!! Not like it's an actual mechanic or anything, its just demo.

Did any of you ever stop and think what the value of the technology even is in the first place. Like why have interactive physics. What is the point. Clearly it must just that they wanted to simulate boxes falling over just for the sake of it. Just so some guys would go 'wow, I didn't know computers could do that' and that's the only reason. Or something. That must be it.

Maybe the studio that made it's biggest titles by giving mod teams jobs and giving them support to make games looked at their next big release and asked what tech they could give modders to enable them to make better mods they could then treat the same way they did games like Counter strike? If only such a thing existed and we could assume one of the goals of the Source engine was to give these people new tools. Which lead directly into Garry's mod, one of the largest and most successful mods of all time directly.

Clearly the gravity gun was not a valuable innovation given next to no games have that anymore.

It's not innovating tech that makes something a tech demo, it's shoving in poor gameplay segments to showcase your tech that makes something a tech demo. If the gravity gun and stupid puzzles didn't exist the game would be improved. We'd still get to enjoy enemies ragdolling like crazy from RPGs/grenades, or shooting the supports of a balcony to make people fall off, or watching headcrabs go flying when you nail them with a shotgun, or enjoying the bouncing ball of get fucked the combine rifle shoots, or watching enemies get skewered and pinned by the crossbow.

Realism kind of killed the fun physics games outside of party games didn't they? Havoc did the same thing and got implemented in everything and now muh realism scares games away from fun but silly ideas like shooting a crate into a guy's face. Might tax the useless lighting engine too much when it explodes into gibs.

 

[KD6-3.7]

You all loaded your pants when you saw the gravity gun.

HL2 had more systems built for it alone than any other game, except maybe Crysis.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Clearly the gravity gun was not a valuable innovation given next to no games have that anymore.

It's not innovating tech that makes something a tech demo, it's shoving in poor gameplay segments to showcase your tech that makes something a tech demo. If the gravity gun and stupid puzzles didn't exist the game would be improved. We'd still get to enjoy enemies ragdolling like crazy from RPGs/grenades, or shooting the supports of a balcony to make people fall off, or watching headcrabs go flying when you nail them with a shotgun, or enjoying the bouncing ball of get fucked the combine rifle shoots, or watching enemies get skewered and pinned by the crossbow.

Codex asking for decline, please make games less interactive kthxbai.

This website sucks.

 

[Hellraiser]

While I liked the physics puzzles in general, they were decent as puzzles go and there was the novelty factor, some of them just felt out of place. As much as I loathe seeing "'muh immersion is broken by X" complaints I need to do one myself regarding those puzzles. Some of them seemed simply way too coincidental, unnatural, clearly the work of a game designer etc. and thus not like actual "random" obstacles a fugitive/rebel skulking through post-apocalyptic ruins might really encounter.

I guess part of why that might be the case could be valve's "no-retard-left-behind" QA that famously had the guy who kept running around in circles in the mines/caves from Episode 2 before they "fixed" them, and the final version of each puzzle went through multiple iterations until the lowest common denominator could easily figure out what is a puzzle and what's just a random pile of garbage being used for decoration by the artist/level designer.

As for the gravity gun in general, it was fine when it was treated as just another tool in your arsenal and the player had choice, it was bad when the designer forced you to use it as your only option outside of the puzzles. Particularly during the endgame where the super gravity gun got really boring really fast, and to make things worse they made the begining of ep1 focus around it also.

 

[NecroLord]

While I liked the physics puzzles in general, they were decent as puzzles go and there was the novelty factor, some of them just felt out of place. As much as I loathe seeing "'muh immersion is broken by X" complaints I need to do one myself regarding those puzzles. Some of them seemed simply way too coincidental, unnatural, clearly the work of a game designer etc. and thus not like actual "random" obstacles a fugitive/rebel skulking through post-apocalyptic ruins might really encounter.

I guess part of why that might be the case could be valve's "no-retard-left-behind" QA that famously had the guy who kept running around in circles in the mines/caves from Episode 2, and the final version of each puzzle went through multiple iterations until the lowest common denominator could easily figure out what is a puzzle and what's just a random pile of garbage being used for decoration by the artist/level designer.

As for the gravity gun in general, it was fine when it was treated as just another tool in your arsenal and the player had choice, it was bad when the designer forced you to use it as your only option outside of the puzzles. Particularly during the endgame where the super gravity gun got really boring really fast, and to make things worse they made the begining of ep1 focus around it also.

Had no problems with the puzzles.
Hell, I thought some of them were pretty cool and not involving stupid keycards like in some older shooters.

 

[Nutmeg]

Keycards aren't puzzles they are routing constraints.

 

[Semiurge]

You all loaded your pants when you saw the gravity gun.

HL2 had more systems built for it alone than any other game, except maybe Crysis.

Half of these didn't play Half-Life 2 when it was still new, which is why they can't appreciate its significance. Some codexers weren't even born yet when it came out 20 years ago. It didn't take long for other games to adopt the same mechanics and ideas that are still a staple today.

Half-Life 2 in 2004 was like Wolfenstein 3D in 1992. They had people playing with mouths agape.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

You all loaded your pants when you saw the gravity gun.

HL2 had more systems built for it alone than any other game, except maybe Crysis.

Half of these didn't play Half-Life 2 when it was still new, which is why they can't appreciate its significance. Some codexers weren't even born yet when it came out 20 years ago. It didn't take long for other games to adopt the same mechanics and ideas that are still a staple today.

Half-Life 2 in 2004 was like Wolfenstein 3D in 1992. They had people playing with mouths agape.

There was also the hype around episodic gaming for Episode 1-2 and hopefully an episode 3 shortly after. We were used to episodes taking longer than expected and it was clear the model was failing (eventually became DLC or service games) but Episode 3 felt like something special was on the way and the 3 episodes were Half-life 3. I'm guessing the young crowd's first exposure to HL2 was TF2 and Garry's mod after Valve started selling loot crates.

 

[Semiurge]

Perhaps Doom in 1993 is a better equivalent than Wolfenstein 3D. Wolf3D laid the groundwork for FPS's, but Doom was something totally new. Despite being more of the same, at the same time. Half-Life 2 is to those pre-DirectX 9 games what Doom was to Wolf3D, thanks to its photorealistic graphics, physics simulations and sophisticated A.I.

 

[Nutmeg]

I don't remember HL2 being so jaw dropping spectacular.

I was very impressed by how well it ran though on my outdated PC at the time tho.

 

[ciox]

You all loaded your pants when you saw the gravity gun.

HL2 had more systems built for it alone than any other game, except maybe Crysis.

Half of these didn't play Half-Life 2 when it was still new, which is why they can't appreciate its significance. Some codexers weren't even born yet when it came out 20 years ago. It didn't take long for other games to adopt the same mechanics and ideas that are still a staple today.

Half-Life 2 in 2004 was like Wolfenstein 3D in 1992. They had people playing with mouths agape.

Nah, those people are the ones who will tell you all FPS besides a random Doom sourceport are all shit, even though they are 19 years old.

I recall perfectly what playing Half-Life 2 was like, it was exactly like what playing through Thief 2: The Metal Age was like, a strong initial adrenaline rush of playing your favorite game with some improvements, that burned out before the game was even over, leaving behind a bad aftertaste, a feeling that something is missing compared to the previous game.

 

[Beans00]

You all loaded your pants when you saw the gravity gun.

HL2 had more systems built for it alone than any other game, except maybe Crysis.

Half of these didn't play Half-Life 2 when it was still new, which is why they can't appreciate its significance. Some codexers weren't even born yet when it came out 20 years ago. It didn't take long for other games to adopt the same mechanics and ideas that are still a staple today.

Half-Life 2 in 2004 was like Wolfenstein 3D in 1992. They had people playing with mouths agape.

Nah, those people are the ones who will tell you all FPS besides a random Doom sourceport are all shit, even though they are 19 years old.

I recall perfectly what playing Half-Life 2 was like, it was exactly like what playing through Thief 2: The Metal Age was like, a strong initial adrenaline rush of playing your favorite game with some improvements, that burned out before the game was even over, leaving behind a bad aftertaste, a feeling that something is missing compared to the previous game.

That describes Ash really well, he only played doom for the first time in 2007 lol.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

You all loaded your pants when you saw the gravity gun.

HL2 had more systems built for it alone than any other game, except maybe Crysis.

Half of these didn't play Half-Life 2 when it was still new, which is why they can't appreciate its significance. Some codexers weren't even born yet when it came out 20 years ago. It didn't take long for other games to adopt the same mechanics and ideas that are still a staple today.

Half-Life 2 in 2004 was like Wolfenstein 3D in 1992. They had people playing with mouths agape.

Aye, they're full of shit. I don't know why people feel like they have to lie, who are they trying to kid?

The hype was unreal from day 0 when it was first revealed in PCZone magazine, to those high quality bink trailers that dominated download sites.
It killed any and all momentum Id and doom 3 had, and the beta client leak broke the internet and topsites.

It put ATi ahead of Nvidia in marketshare for the first and far as I know last time -because 97 and 9800's were the cards to play HL2 on.

It was so good that no other game in existence could have gotten us to accept the bullshit that was early steam.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

It killed any and all momentum Id and doom 3 had

I disagree on this. Half life 2 sold it's self on physics and Doom 3 sold it's self on it's lighting system and graphics. HL2 wasn't a slouch in either but Doom 3 looked stunning back then and would constantly get multi page coverage and covers. HL2's hype was bigger but Doom 3 wasn't competing with it the same way modern games often compete. I wanted Doom 3 and I wanted Half-life 2 and I was going to enjoy both of them on their own terms. FPS fans were used to juggling multiple games so it wasn't an either/or when Doom 3 released 4 months earlier and had it's little duct tape mod controversy dominating it's discussion at release.


From Wikipedia.
In the United States, Half-Life 2's PC version sold 680,000 copies and had earned $34.3 million by August 2006. It was the country's 17th best-selling PC game between January 2000 and August 2006.[51] It received a "Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA),[52] indicating sales of at least 300,000 copies in the United Kingdom.[53] Forbes reported on February 9, 2011, that the game had sold 12 million copies worldwide.


Doom 3 was a commercial success for id Software. id expected to sell 4 million copies of the game.[81] In the United States, the computer version sold 760,000 copies and earned $32.4 million (~$45.5 million in 2022) by August 2006. It was the country's 16th best-selling computer game between January 2000 and August 2006.[82] Its computer version also received a "Gold" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA),[83] indicating sales of at least 200,000 copies in the United Kingdom.[84] By the beginning of 2007, over 3.5 million copies of Doom 3 had been sold worldwide (compared to 2-3 million copies sold for the original Doom and 2 million for Doom II),[85][86][87] making it the most successful project by id Software at the time.[88][89][90]