Half-Life 2

Once upon a time, because I'm a dumbass, I ripped this game for being too puzzle oriented. The truth is, it's an amazing game and I feel nothing but dirty shame for ever having criticized it.

I picked up The Orange Box yesterday. That has to be like the best bang for buck in gaming history.

*awaits My Usernames Always Really Suck post*

tis some good sheet. ive been playing counterstrike on and off since i was 16 now, and im still amazingly into it. popping skulls on counterstrike just feels amazing.

i know its great... im still waiting for half-life 2 episode 3...

chadsband

it's a very linear game draped in sorta nonlinear clothing

BUT besides that i can't fault it. it is about the closest to an epic spielberg movie in game format.

ep1 was boring, ep2 was great. and lost coast was like a nice little indie short thing if a bit HAY LOOK AT TECH.

but yes once you acknowledge the limitations implied by the genre, HL2 is no.1

i just wish they didn't feel the need to acknowledge the fact HAY LOOK MA I DONE MADE A PHYSICS ENGINE HYURRR every 5 minutes.

if ya'll have episode 2... check this mod out, it's awesome!

http://www.moddb.com/mods/research-and-development

my computer could barely run it, everything was striated neon green and lavender and it lagged a lot

still the best game I installed on that PC before it imploded though

edit: except MYST

Best fucking game I've ever played. Don't play games anymore but I completed this and one episode after it. fucking brilliant. fucking brilliant.

  On 7/22/2009 at 2:02 AM, kaini said:

it's a very linear game draped in sorta nonlinear clothing

 

BUT besides that i can't fault it. it is about the closest to an epic spielberg movie in game format.

ep1 was boring, ep2 was great. and lost coast was like a nice little indie short thing if a bit HAY LOOK AT TECH.

but yes once you acknowledge the limitations implied by the genre, HL2 is no.1

 

i just wish they didn't feel the need to acknowledge the fact HAY LOOK MA I DONE MADE A PHYSICS ENGINE HYURRR every 5 minutes.

I'm not sure it ever pretended to be non-linear did it?

You need to get to Episode 2, cause that just takes the Half-Lifes to the next level. I mean, ZOMG.

And after that you can play Portal as a little cherry on top.

Where the fuck is Episode 3 already though, I've thought all year that for sure it would be out this fall.

Cant wait for orange box 2

Yes its great

Yeah, they should do Half-Life: Episode 3, Portal 2 and Left for Dead 2. That'd out-orange the first Orange Box for suresies.

HL2 is great. I think it was this and Doom 3 that got me into building my own gaming rigs

might install Portal again, I remember that being challenging

  On 7/22/2009 at 2:02 AM, kaini said:

it's a very linear game draped in sorta nonlinear clothing

 

BUT besides that i can't fault it. it is about the closest to an epic spielberg movie in game format.

ep1 was boring, ep2 was great. and lost coast was like a nice little indie short thing if a bit HAY LOOK AT TECH.

but yes once you acknowledge the limitations implied by the genre, HL2 is no.1

 

i just wish they didn't feel the need to acknowledge the fact HAY LOOK MA I DONE MADE A PHYSICS ENGINE HYURRR every 5 minutes.

100% agree. I put all my crits in the other HL2 thread. Mostly i don't criticize it for what it is (apart from the shitty characters and dialogue), but for not being what it could have been. Imo it doesn't live up to its full potential.

HL 2 is probably my fave game in the past 10 years. I don't really play games much, but that fucked me up, and all the episodes as well.

GRAVITY GUN YEAHHH!!!!

Oh man, I just discovered this game. I am already on episode 2 now. Do you guys really think episode 2 is best? Does it beat the original HL2 in your opinion? So far it is kind of... plain, I guess. I guess they did give you that antlion lair type of level, which is new. I'm about to get the vehicle though so... that should be cool. Do I have lots to look foreward to after that?

I used to be really into Counterstrike and Day of Defeat [more so DoD], and I could never run HL2 on my PC, but I have an intel Mac now and am seriously thinking of installing windows just to play games.

the box is correct, "best game ever made" =p

i spewed enough in the other thread but i just want to say that if you don't like half life 2 i am going to hurt your family.

  On 7/22/2009 at 8:20 AM, Bubba69 said:

Oh man, I just discovered this game. I am already on episode 2 now. Do you guys really think episode 2 is best? Does it beat the original HL2 in your opinion? So far it is kind of... plain, I guess. I guess they did give you that antlion lair type of level, which is new. I'm about to get the vehicle though so... that should be cool. Do I have lots to look foreward to after that?

the climax is pretty good, and there is a sequence in a barn which is excellent, but on the whole it's pretty much a reheated version of Half Life 2. If you are a fanboy you'll love it; if you're like me you'll enjoy it but shrug a bit. I'm really over "on rails" style gameplay, no matter how cleverly done.

lumpenprol go away

ok...i've got to ask though, have you ever played Planescape: Torment? The original Fallout games, or even Fallout 3? Deus Ex? The Thief series?

It's not that Half Life doesn't deserve to stand alongside these games - Half Life 1 was particularly revolutionary at the time - but there is so much more untapped potential for richness and storytelling and yes, rpg elements.

I guess I find Half Life games are a bit like Pixar films. Extremely well constructed, but a bit formulaic and confining.

Peace out :-)

Edit: Portal was great though, and deserved every accolade it received.

yeah i played those games and they weren't that great. you just don't like FPS is all. that's fine.

I know what you mean, but I don't think that's really true. I mean, I'm a huge fan of Clive Barker's Undying, I thought that was a superb game, and it's basically just an FPS. Besides, the boundaries of FPS are quite blurry. Is Bioshock an FPS, or an FPS-rpg hybrid? I would argue that FPS-rpg hybrids can more simply be called *good games*. There's really no excuse for a "pure" FPS in this day and age. Hell, even Far Cry 2 had dialogue trees, friends and enemies, and other interesting notions tacked on...and Far Cry 1 was basically the definition of FPS.

I'm not a Half Life hater, I played all the way through the Orange Box and enjoyed it immensely. But don't the episodes feel even a bit stale to you? I found myself thinking: oh great, more ant lions...oh great, more headcrabs...oh great, more vortigaunts with their sometimes stereotypical and only occassionally funny mystical mumbo-jumbo...oh great, Eli captured again...oh great, Alyx in jeopardy again...oh great, more physics puzzles...oh great, another vehicle that drives marginally better than the dune buggy...oh great, another helicopter to destroy...oh great, more striders...

As a game maker myself I think they could have put more spark in things, added new characters, a richer storyline, and less Disney. This has nothing to do with whether it's an FPS or not. I mean christ, if you're going to make a new ant lion queen, why not create a new model that can be skinned to the old animations, don't just do a cheapo texture change! But, different strokes for different folks...

that's a bummer man. you cheated yourself out of a great experience :(