Yet Another Half-Life 2 Discussion

[Lyric Suite]

Yeah. Also, Skyrim is the greatest RPG of all times.

 

[Akratus]

Because of course there's only masterpieces, and pieces of shit. And saying Half-Life 2 is the latter makes the discussion so much more lively.

 

[Havoc]

I would never call HL2 a masterpiece. Never understood the hype. It was a okay game, bad pacing, cool weapons, annoying sidekick and that's it. HL1 was a lot more fun.

 

[Jozoz]

This is a great review.

He rightfully scolds the game on its weak gunplay and bad AI, but he explains why the game is good anyway. It's not a combat related reason.

He even directly says that he can understand people expecting more Half Life 1 being disappointed with HL2.

 

[Volrath]

Half-Life started the decline, Half-Life 2 put the final nail into the FPS genre.

 

[corvus]

First game was great, especially Opposing Force. HL2 appeals to dumb people that are impressed by muh cinematics and bland characters who you're forced to listen to for way too long. Well, except for Father Grigori. He should be the player character in HL3.

 

[buzz]

There is also the extreme linearity thingy that kinda sucks the fun out of the game:

Spoiler

And yeah, yeah, I know, "linearity is not inherently bad" whatever. I disagree with that statement, I think non-linearity always made a game better on various levels, even adventure games with elements of non-linearity are obviously superior to straight-forward "solve puzzle, move to the next room" idiocy. Even in Half Life 2, the sections that give a bit of freedom (like Highway 17 with the abandoned houses that I mentioned earlier) were better because of that tiny hint of more exploratory freedom.

Besides, decent or good linear games usually compensate with other things. HL2 by comparison feels like jack of all trades, master of jack-shit.

The only things it excels at (and arguably the reason why all newbies love it so much) is atmosphere, and the visual and sound direction. But even there I'd raise a criticism or two about the drastic tone changes between some of the levels, specifically how out-of-place Ravenholm feels tone-wise from the rest of the game. It looked like someone accidentally threw a level from Painkiller into HL2 and they just went with it.

 

[Monkeysattva]

Meh. I liked it. Guess I'll have to pack my bags and go to the sewers...

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I dunno. I enjoyed the first HL. But HL2 was a step down in so many ways.

 

[DraQ]

I still didn't like the game. Production values up the wazoo but sooo fucking stale and uninspired. Not to mention pandering and insulting.

This video actually explains what was wrong with the game pretty well:



Except i'd go further and argue that the game was not simply a bad sequel, but just plain bad.

I consider HL2 pretty good, but there is no avoiding the fact that it was a bad sequel.
It wouldn't have taken much to fix it, but it didn't have it.

Of course that doesn't make the overexcited teen in the video even a tiny bit right in any of the points he is trying to make:

• No, HL2 is not a reboot.
• No, Source was pretty fucking sweet piece of an engine - it looked impressive, scaled well, including all the way down to pretty laughable hardware configurations, and generally worked well
• No, Kleiner *was* a character in 1 which every HL1 player capable of reading should know, having read TFM, although visually he was a composite character (or individualized distillation of sort) of particular sort of 'clones' populating HL1 - like a number of other HL2 characters

(Ok, half of the points, he gets somewhat better afterwards.)

The teen is actually pretty good, if you can stand him being a teen and a bit of a turbodweeb. I watched his other videos and what do you know, he's not edgy or anything, seems to get his facts straight and talks about the games quite indepth. I liek. He also got my sympathy for criticizing how AWESOME they try to make Freeman because you can take that segment of the video and put it in a Hitman: Absolution review instead and it would be as true.

I totally agree the guns were shite and I figured that out even in my first playthrough. The game is practically barren and the physics stuff isn't impressive at all. Wasn't REALLY at the time and surely isn't now.

Yes, he actually gets much better and more to the point after he stops whining about awkward pauses, moaning about reworking some generic NPCs into individual ones and voicing his butthurt over a bunch of continuity sketches.

Admittedly he then raises some very good points about aliens and their variety, weapon variety, SMG being shit tier weapon and so on.

I don't really agree with Black Mesa being necessarily that much more interesting than City 17 - which may be generic Eastern European city occupied by generic space nazis, but BM itself is a generic massive secret gubmint research base, valid points regarding it being well constructed place (a good if rather obvious observation) notwithstanding.

I also don't agree with weapons - save for MP7 which is shit( )tier OSIPR - being bad (even though gunplay is kind of weak), the weapons that are in HL2 mostly fill their niches admirably, the problem is with lack of additional cool and interesting weapons to supplement the basic collection of boomsticks.
In HL1 we had Tau Cannon, Gluon Gun, Hornet Gun, laser trip mines and Snarks, in HL2 we had , and .
Similarly alien variety, in HL1 we had tons of incredibly varied alien fauna and a few diametrically different sapient aliens. In HL2 we have 2 extra types of headcrabs and 2 corresponding types of zombies which is nice, antlions which are also nice, and then nothing. The problem is not that what is in game is shit, the problem is with what isn't there but should.
Hence "bad sequel" is a valid conclusion, regardless of the quality of the game itself.

Bonus points for recognizing Xen as conceptually awesome.
Negative points for not beating the shit out of gamified mechanics, like 25 damage rockets fired from APC, LEDs on grenades and beep mines pattern dropped from chopper.

Awkward pauses always felt to me like natural extension of the HL1 NPC interaction - if you activate a character in HL1 Gordon "Playerglove" Freeman is supposed to be saying something, but the game doesn't put any lines in his mouth (because Playerglove), same with somewhat more elaborate "dialogue" in HL2.

Hmm, that's weird. I remember trying using the gravity gun too post-Ravenholm and I always felt there was not enough "ammo" for it, not enough objects for me to jab at the enemies. And then you're much too busy controlling ant-lions, making sure your turrets don't fall off in Nova Prospekt or shooting rockets at striders.

But I guess it could've been useful in some sections of the game, like during the coastal/dune buggy level where you can scavenge abandoned houses and shit. Coincidentally I think that's my favorite part of the game.

After somewhat lengthy introduction of gravgun (entire Ravenholm) accompanied with ammo scarcity (which put player out of comfort zone - good), the grav gun dropped into its natural niche of quirky and circumstantial utility weapon. Pulsing Combine soldier in the face was much more effective than smashing him with a hunk of scrap although if you have already picked up this hunk of scrap (to use it as shield or for whatever reason) then flinging it in attacker's face was pretty obvious course of action.

 

[octavius]

For me the defining moment of HL2 was when you had to drop a washing machine from a ledge to advance. The physics engine was just to make adventure game puzzles instead of leading to emergent gameplay.
IOW, a huge disappointment.
It didn't help that the game too ages to really start, and when it did, it was enemies pop up and Gordon pops them. It gets tiresome when just about every encounter is an ambush, and you start being able to spot them a mile away, but there's no clever way to tackle the ambushes, just pop-a-mole.
HL2 is not a bad game, just horribly overrated.

 

[an Administrator]

It was a bit overrated..
But i really loved puzzles and physic mechanics.
Most annoying thing for me was linearity. Especially in episode 2. You just follow one way,shoot things in your way or solve a puzzle to proceed.
And there were much more exciting weapons in HL1.

 

[Ash]

This video actually explains what was wrong with the game pretty well:
Except i'd go further and argue that the game was not simply a bad sequel, but just plain bad.

This video fucking nails it. Kid has earned himself a subscriber. Few get such an honor.

 

[Average Manatee]

HL2 is a bad FPS. If you want babies first adventure game with a waifu, muh physics/muh facial animations, and bad jokes, play HL2.

 

[GrainWetski]

Half-Life started the decline, Half-Life 2 put the final nail into the FPS genre.

The FPS genre is in a worse state than the RPG genre ever was. Every year, they find new ways to rape its dead corpse(while all the gay cannibals gladly eat all the cum covered bits they can get their hands on) and there's no sign of a necromancer anywhere.

 

[Akratus]

This video fucking nails it. Kid has earned himself a subscriber. Few get such an honor.

 

[Sodafish]

Some people take this shit way too seriously. Yes HL2 isn't a good game but neither is it literal AIDS. Kid needs to stop being such a tryhard autist.

 

[Hegel]

So, was the game good or not?

 

[Ash]

Some people take this shit way too seriously. Yes HL2 isn't a good game but neither is it literal AIDS. Kid needs to stop being such a tryhard autist.

He repeatedly states the game had its merits and wasn't necessarily bad. Who's the autist, the one providing knee-jerk reactions before actually watching the video...or the kid who does his research, has a good eye for game design and argues his corner well?

 

[Sodafish]

He repeatedly states the game had its merits and wasn't necessarily bad. Who's the autist, the one providing knee-jerk reactions before actually watching the video...or the kid who does his research, has a good eye for game design and argues his corner well?

"Research"

And I did watch the vid btw.

 

[an Administrator]

I can't understand this amount of hatred toward HL2 on Codex
HL2 wasn't that bad . some of you guys treat this game like Oblivion!

 

[Major_Blackhart]

It's Oblivion with guns!

 

[Akratus]

 

[Average Manatee]

I can't understand this amount of hatred toward HL2 on Codex
HL2 wasn't that bad . some of you guys treat this game like Oblivion!

-Dumbs down combat options and make combat generic and horrible.
-Far worse atmosphere and setting
-Cringeworthy dialog
-Shits over lore
-Horrible AI that the devs want to convince us is revolutionary.

Am I talking about Oblivion or HL2 here?

 

[an Administrator]

It's Oblivion with guns!

Thats fallout 3