Super LTTP: Half Life 2

[Dobie]

Half Life 2 has been in my gaming pile of shame since forever. Never played it once, despite owning Orange Box on the 360 since day 1--I played Portal, and then shelved it. I love shooters. LOVE them. They're pretty much all I play anymore, despite trying and enjoying other genres. So its been downright embarassing to say I've never played HL2. Decided to remedy that today. Put it in for about an hour, here's my initial impressions...

LIKE

Story--Don't remember much from HL1, but I liked the underground railroad thing, and the humor and personality in the game thus far.

Puzzles-I wasn't expecting so much platforming and puzzle elements, but they are cleverly implemented.

Enemies--The Helghast-like dudes are pretty generic so far, but the man hacks are pretty awesome.

Weapons--Love them.

DISLIKE

Loading...--I'm assuming this is because I'm playing on the 360? Because it really takes me out of the world.

Dpad weapon assignments--Again, prob because I'm on the 360, but for some reason, I want to push up for crowbar, and side or down for pistol. Not sure if I can configure this.

Controls--They're not bad, but perhaps I just need to get used to them. Ladders, jumping, sensitivity just don't "feel" right. Can't place it precisely what it is I don't like yet, other than it feels slow and imprecise. I've played with the settings and bumped up sensitivity, haven't found my sweet spot. It has lead to some frustration during platforming segments and fighting, but I haven't died because of it yet.

[Therealqtip]

This has to be the most overrated games of all times. *flame sheilds activate*

First of all without cutscenes this is the most boring game I have ever played, yes i know the cut scenes are cut scenes you can move in but the only thing I do instead of paying attention is to try to jump on Alyx's or whoevers head. There are some fun parts like driving the boat around, but whatever. The begining of the Half Life games are the most boring things I have ever encountered in a game. I cannot stand them and I have been through those things like 4 times each.

So yeah it has to be my number one most hated game

[Leo_A]

I couldn't disagree more.

I love the Half-Life series and it's always nice to see another person discover it and enjoy it. Half-Life 2 barely seems to have aged at all despite being nearly 6 years old now.

[TheDomesticInstitution]

Half Life 2 and the 2 other Episodes in The Orange Box are amazing. One of the most seamless, story-driven shooters ever. It was a very immersive experience for me, and could only wish there were more episodes to play. If you're a fan of FPS type games, and don't like HL2, it's sort of hard for me to understand.

[G-Boobie]

Half Life 2 and the 2 other Episodes in The Orange Box are amazing. One of the most seamless, story-driven shooters ever. It was a very immersive experience for me, and could only wish there were more episodes to play. If you're a fan of FPS type games, and don't like HL2, it's sort of hard for me to understand.

Indeed. The people I've encountered who dislike the Half-Life series tend to be less interested in contiguous narrative and doing things other than murder in their FPS than I am. They'd rather be shooting from intro to credits. That's totally fair, but my favorite parts of HL2 are the sections where you're not killing anything. The environments are still the most impressive I've ever seen in a game, from City 17 to Ravenholm to the Citadel.

I guess if you need control actively taken away from you for a cut scene to play in order for a video game narrative to get your attention, the games aren't for you. Otherwise, there's a great story in there. All it takes is a little bit of suspension of disbelief and some patience. You WILL murder plenty of dudes: just relax a goddamn minute and see what other excellent stuff the game has to offer.

[Richter Belmount]

Half Life 2 and the 2 other Episodes in The Orange Box are amazing. One of the most seamless, story-driven shooters ever. It was a very immersive experience for me, and could only wish there were more episodes to play. If you're a fan of FPS type games, and don't like HL2, it's sort of hard for me to understand.

Story isnt my favorite point of the series. I really love Half life 2 for its immersion , gameplay and pacing , the environments seem like they are really designed well to get you really into the game through the graphics , sounds of the levels ,hit detections and sounds of the weapons. I love the pacing of the game , it almost feels like I'm playing something old like Doom 2 and I can just Dash through the level quickly if I'm good enough and know the level because it doesn't hold me back or hold my hand so it slows down the gameplay. And the weapon selection is awesome , I love the weapon roster almost as much as the counter strike source roster , that shotgun in half life 2 is one of the most satisfying weapons to use in the game , fuck the gravity gun.

[Spartacus]

I think the thing that I’ll always remember from Half-Life is that both games managed to induce a sense of Acrophobia. Pretty amazing since I never really considered myself to have a fear of heights. In the first game it was near the end while jumping across bits and boulders floating in space. In the second it was walking on the support beams under a wind swept bridge.
Can’t say as I really remember the story, but that’s not surprising, considering my wife of 27 years still needs to remind me that her birthday or our anniversary is coming up. When she asked me to pick our wedding date I choose December 7th – a day which will live in infamy. I knew I would always remember it, plus it seemed kind of appropriate. But noooo, she had to change it to the 5th or the 9th or something. I forget.
In the first Half-Life they opened a portal to another dimension? Gee, has that been done before? In the second Half-Life I thought I saw vampires or something in a graveyard. It didn’t even make sense.
I guess having stories in games are necessary. I wouldn’t want to play without one, but damned if I really remember any of them.
But I always manage to remember at least one thing about each and every game I’ve played. In Half-Life it was the Acrophobia. In the game I’m playing now – Rainbow Six 3, it will be screams I hear when I manage light someone on fire with a white phosphorus grenade. I’ve heard a lot of scream acting in video games and horror films, and I’ll give kudos to this voice actor for creating the sound of pain. It’s so damn funny every time I hear it, it’s become addictive.
It’s slowly dawning on me that what I REALLY love playing ARE shooters. Put ‘em into any context – war, crime, sci-fi – I don’t care. Just let the controller shudder appropriately when I fire, let the bodies shred apart appropriately when I hit ‘em, and for God’s sakes make ‘em scream while they’re dying!
If all the other types of games in my collection were to disappear tomorrow, and I was only left with the shooters – I’m not even sure if I would mind so much.

[TheDomesticInstitution]

Story isnt my favorite point of the series. I really love Half life 2 for its immersion , gameplay and pacing , the environments seem like they are really designed well to get you really into the game through the graphics , sounds of the levels ,hit detections and sounds of the weapons

The story itself is bizarre, I agree. But I was referring more to it's immersion and your character's implementation in a well conceived world. I feel more like I'm interacting with a narrative, rather than playing a game.

[Lerxstnj]

Probably my favorite game of all-time. I love the vast amount of weapons, the story, the enemies, the puzzles, the large open environments, the controls, the graphics & sound, the usage of the gravity gun for more than just a weapon & figuring out where to go next. To lessen the loading times, some of this goodness would have to be altered. So, I like it as is and feel that the loading was handled pretty well. Using those turret guns while having enemies attack from every side was probably the most intense part of the game for me.

[kedawa]

This has to be the most overrated games of all times. *flame sheilds activate*

First of all without cutscenes this is the most boring game I have ever played, yes i know the cut scenes are cut scenes you can move in but the only thing I do instead of paying attention is to try to jump on Alyx's or whoevers head. There are some fun parts like driving the boat around, but whatever. The begining of the Half Life games are the most boring things I have ever encountered in a game. I cannot stand them and I have been through those things like 4 times each.

So yeah it has to be my number one most hated game

I can't make any sense of this post at all.
Are you saying you don't like it because the cut scenes are interactive rather than some CG fluff that takes you out of the game?
Why would you play through your 'number one most hated game' four times?

[heybtbm]

I think we can all agree...

The Gravity Gun is the single most perfect weapon in the history of FPS's.

Ever.

(The Auger from Resistance is a not-so-close second)

[Kitsune Sniper]

Loading...--I'm assuming this is because I'm playing on the 360? Because it really takes me out of the world.

No, we PC players have it bad, too. And a recent update broke several aspects of the game -- like the boat ride in the early areas? You lose the boat's momentum as you go from one stage to the next, which... really kills the moment.

[carlcarlson]

I think we can all agree...

The Gravity Gun is the single most perfect weapon in the history of FPS's.

Ever.

(The Auger from Resistance is a not-so-close second)

I do love the Gravity Gun, but what ever happened to the welding gun? I remember when the game leaked prior to release there was a welding gun that was a hell of a lot of fun to mess around with. I remember my buddy and I welded a bunch of barrels to the ceiling and then rained them down on enemies that wandered by. It was endlessly entertaining.

When HL2 was finally released I was really bummed to find it didn't have the Welder in it anymore.

[NayusDante]

I can't imagine playing it on anything other than a PC. The recent updates did screw it up a bit, but it's nothing truly game-breaking. Aside from that, it's held up extremely well.

While it's certainly a great game, I personally don't consider it the "best" by any means. About halfway in, it starts to get boring, and it doesn't really pick up until the end. Ravenholm is probably the lowest point in the game for me, being very disorienting and rather boring to go through. By the time you're commanding antlions and fighting striders, though, it's fun enough to just continue to the end. The gameplay was good enough to keep my interest the first time, but I wish I could run through it the same way again.

I played it through the first time I started, but since I've quit at Ravenholm countless times. The two Episodes were just the right length, and I enjoyed each from beginning to end. If HL2 were split up into three units like those, I think it would be more bearable, but I have trouble keeping interest in one shooter for that long. RPGs succeed at being long because you're always unlocking a new spell or something that builds on the gameplay. With shooters, you have everything pretty early on, and it gets repetitive. That's great (and personally, preferable) in a multiplayer shooter, but in a 20-hour single player game it starts to drag.

[Therealqtip]

I can't make any sense of this post at all.
Are you saying you don't like it because the cut scenes are interactive rather than some CG fluff that takes you out of the game?
Why would you play through your 'number one most hated game' four times?

I havnt played it four times, it would be something like this i start it the first time then get bored and like a couple months/years come back and do it over till finally I beat it. and well hated it

[Nature Boy]

I did the same thing with my copy of the Orange Box - picked it up, played Portal, then put it down again (I can't remember what I put it down for - maybe Mass Effect or something).

When I did get around to playing it again I blew through HL2, Ep1, and Ep2 and loved every minute of it. I definitely agree with the previously mentioned immersion comments - I definitely felt like I was in that world.

I've never actually played the first one, though I did make the effort to secure a PS2 copy of the game at one point. Someday I'll go back and check it out (probably when I hear something about Ep3 - anyone heard anything?)

[NayusDante]

No word on ep3 yet, other than some videos of Gabe Newell doing sign language studies.

[Ed Oscuro]

I ended up writing a novel (AGAIN) so here's a quick summary:

Half-Life series good points:
* Graphics, sound, music, general setting, backstory, but 2004 is getting old.
* Cool integration of engine features with gameplay
* Good natural-feeling combat, no "monster closets" or other Quake / DOOM moments (which are fine but not for everybody)
* Multiplayer for everybody!
* USER MODS! Completely new games!
* Real Long term support, not in the iD Software sense of "here's the source code, now go churn your own ice cream because we're too busy with upside down spider baby faces, that I'm sure you'll also enjoy, to do it properly." Half-Life 1 is based on the Quake engine code - released to the gaming public in 1996!
* The flashlight finally looks sort of okay! (real-time shadows have gotten better in time for Left 4 Dead 2 anyway.) The engine still isn't too heavy for modest computers though.

Half-Life series iffy points:
* Story has turned into a soap lately.
* That "cool integration of engine features with gameplay" has led to gravity gun overuse. I'd expect portal gun overuse but Valve can't make this too mindbending or too much puzzle-oriented or more people are going to get lost.
* The weapons generally suck and don't believe otherwise. I totally want to go fight aliens with a 9mm pistol and submachine gun!
* Gordon can carry fewer rounds of ammunition than he used to!
* And finally, this badass exoskeleton can only run if you don't use the flashlight! (And they said this was a newer version? It doesn't even give the full lecture anymore.)
* No challenge? Take it to multiplayer. Though Episode 2 has some sincerely punishing segments on the hardest difficulty, and there's Achievements difficult on any mode.

VERDICT: Great for the time, but the content (if only the look of it) is seriously stale after 6 years being used in multiple installments. They're in a trap of not wanting to do a total makeover and having things look incomprehensible - but with each new installment of the main franchise it feels like less and less progress is being made. Portal was a good diversion, though the story is nuts enough that I'm wondering if it can ever be folded into Half-Life 2 with a straight face. Doubtful. Can you see Gordon Freeman loving up to a companion cube? I can't.

I'd like to point out that the "Helghast" looking soldiers of Half-Life 2 are not at all Helghast, but rather they are wearing an East Bloc variety of gasmask. Yes, it looks scary. No, it's not another riff on Jin-Roh, which is way overused. Keep also in mind that Killzone was released on November 2, 2004; Half-Life 2 was in development for five years and released 14 days later. Not that anybody was saying it, but the familiar Combine "chickenshit Metrocop" (as Barney calls 'em) was probably not influenced at all by that other sad development saga.

Ravenholm is probably the lowest point in the game for me, being very disorienting and rather boring to go through.

For a lot of people "Trap Town" is a highlight. I will agree that there are some parts that are disorienting; you go through the same point at multiple heights and it's easy to go "wasn't I just here?" and lose your way. On my recent play this happened to me, but I keep running around and eventually I find my way out. Then again, there's another point later on - where you drop into an area where there's a run across some rooftops, with a poison headcrab-chucking zombies, where you can run a circuit over and over. So again I'd agree the area feels a bit directionless. That said, not being herded down a single path can be a good thing, and hunting around for something big and hard to fling at a zombie can be satisfying (the first few times anyway - where I left off I was in the middle of trying to play all the way through using only physics objects - it's one of the Achievements, and Valve seems to love pointless tortures that drag on and on - can anybody say Guardin' Gnome or Little Rocket Man?

----------

Recently I redownloaded Half-Life 2 to play through with Achievements (which are FINALLY on PC, WOOHOO). Valve's Achievement system is, in their own words if I'm not mistaken, not "robust" and sometimes doesn't work against you (but don't pull out an Achievement Manager, that's a no-no and can get your ass banned from Team Fortress 2 or other games).

I'm a bit split on the game, myself - rather like the original Half-Life.

From the standpoint of value - wow! From 2004 onwards, I've gotten a damn good deathmatch game (HL2DM includes the slam which is a beefed-up version of the Half-Life / Duke Nukem 3D laser tripmine, and the game has very nice-looking maps and also very nice fan maps - my favorite is one on an island with some tunnels underneath), Lost Coast and some other stuff. Sure, some of this is actually free (Lost Coast and HL2DM have both been free at times as tieins with graphics cards or other things) separate from HL2.

The big point with Half-Life was fan mods - there have been some amazing new free campaigns to play through - They Hunger and so on. Support has been just as good as the Quake series, and the setting of the Half-Life series has always lent itself to user creations - you can go from alien to city with ease, unlike the Quake games with their focused bleak art style. The original box for Half-Life mentions (iirc) that you can make your own house in Worldcraft - I never tried but it's possible.

For Half-Life 2, I have felt this has been somewhat less the case. There are all sorts of new facilities for making maps easier, but people still manage to make ugly stuff, and it's easier to make something look decent but boring (i.e. too much in the style of HL2 itself - very easy when you're using all the same art assets! With HL1 mapping, trucks, tanks and stuff are generally all made by hand in the world editor so you get a balance between unskilled ugly and some intriguing new ideas - with HL2 people still make Frankenstein's creations with the assets but it's very easy to just use what's there). Then again, there have been fan creations that are nearly as good as the "real thing," so I can't say this has been a downside. I guess that with HL1 there's more to be said for the power of the imagination, and the ease of creating new lo-fi content.

Bottom line for user mods seems to me to be: there hasn't been as much interest or really competent works done as under HL1. HL1 modding gave us the world's #1 online game, Counter-Strike, after all; with the Source Engine, Valve itself has been busy plugging the gaps in their offering so that there is no major market uncovered in their library - for amateurs or professional competitors to break into.

From the standpoint of story, location, graphics - not bad at all! Pretty good actually. (No spoilers here, but they have gone over the top in the soap direction lately; I think the beginning of Episode 1 marked a change in tone, but it's really gone out of control by the end of Episode 2 - a return to the "cowboy / lone gunman" feel of the original game would be welcome with me).

From the standpoint of gameplay: Hmm. Half-Life was groundbreaking when it came out with a variety of objectives, but ultimately the freshness of objectives and gameplay start to run out as Half-Life trends more towards the puzzle and less towards the twitch end of the spectrum. I suppose I won't have reflexes for Quake forever, but Half-Life maps do get stale, especially with all the focus on cinematic scenes.

More importantly, to me, is the fact that enemies and bosses are generally not very interesting. The big attempts in Half-Life 1 to really create memorable bosses are generally flops and only carried by how said critters look and appear - a Gargantuan flipping a car onto a couple marines is a good one; the Big Momma / "giant running testicle" was another, but in terms of gameplay, they're not very interesting.

Then again, it's nice to be free of the Quake-style "you need X weapon to balance Y monster's resistances" where all the weapons are alike. Half-Life 2's weapons are more "realistic," in that shotguns aren't balanced against rockets; they are specialist weapons and treated accordingly. Both games have ammo management, but where in Quake this means keeping your stocks of ammo balanced against each other, in Half-Life this means only being able to use some weapons, like the magnum (which is of course hilariously overpowered in Dirty Harry fashion, putting the lie to "realism" claims; this is true of Counter-Strike as well) or the grenades rarely.

Unfortunately for the Half-Life series, this has been the model for every serious war game since before Rainbow Six and the original Delta Force, and other games. Half-Life does let you shoot fun guns with much more abandon than war sim shooters (aside from ones like Battlefield), but the crowbar - pistol - shotgun - submachine gun with grenades - rocket - exotics lineup is beyond stale after having been flogged with only small changes in its current lineup since 2004. I think that the appearance of Portal technology in not just the game Portal, but in Episode 2, means that help might be on the way. I don't blame Valve for sticking with real-world weapon ideas even for an alien invasion; there's a good set of reasons for it (they don't have the capacity to "ship in" loads of exotic alien weapons, and instead they rely on local stocks of weapons - not to mention local fighters); the lack of a real long rifle (aside from fixed snipers) in the Combine's stocks doesn't often really even ping on my radar, but what they do use is still pretty lame. I don't know, though - shooting any kind of bullet-goes-to-the-target or laser beam weapon gets old after a while; they all do essentially the same sort of thing (and personal shotguns are a 1600s technology concept, at best).

[Dobie]

Ed, that post was epic. I will say that I just made the helghast comparison because I couldn't remember what they were called exactly, and that's what I played first--no intentional implications of Valve "stealing." :-)

I find it interesting that NayusDante referenced Ravenholm as the point where it gets boring, because that's about where I put it down last. Just got the shotgun, decided to save that bit for later, but I haven't gone back yet.

Not sure if there are more vehicle sections, but I can say I'm personally DONE with the swamp boat. Hope there's not more of that. It was pretty cool at first, but got tiresome by the end.

The gravity gun is indeed glorious. I LOVE the thwack of a sawblade into a wall. So satisfying. I also 'd when I hit an enemy with a paint can and it got covered in white. Nice touch I wasn't expecting. I also about peed myself when I shot two enemies through with a single magnum shot. I hadn't used it up to that point, because the first pistol was so underwhelming. I only brought it out because my smg was running out of ammo.

So far, I'd almost classify HL2 as an Oblivion IV with guns. Just a big open world with interesting characters and interactions, though much more linear than Oblivion. Not condeming HL2 as a shooter, but it seems to me that the shooting takes a back seat to the physics, story, and platforming elements.

I will definitely continue playing through this and the subsequent episodes over the next month. A great game during the slow summer release months.

[maxlords]

Add me to the list of people who can't stand Half-Life. I've never managed to finish either the first or second game (and I've tried several times). Every time I play em I just get absolutely bored. They feel so generic to me...like the game has no personality at all.

That being said, I generally prefer story-driven single player games above all else....so it's not that I don't like story or anything. I just don't like Half-Life. On the other hand, I can't get enough of the original Deus Ex, which came out around the same time and is also heavily story driven....

For the record...I also thought Portal was crap