Is it just me, or does Half-Life 2 completely suck now?

[Midnight_Son]

Someone’s suffering from Same Old Goddam Shooter Syndrome. (SOGSS.) Go play something else or step outdoors now and then.

[Reldan]

@DrCrypt

Likewise, just because it’s “mysterious” doesn’t mean they know what the big reveal actually is. Look no further than Lost (or the X-Files, for that matter) for an example of a group of people making it all up as they go along and fooling fan boys into thinking it all was figured out from the very first.

To my mind, it’s pretty clear that Valve did not have Half-Life 2’s plot in mind when making Half-Life 1. Sometimes, in fact, I wonder if Half-Life 2 wasn’t (for a while) a completely different game set in an Orwellian sci-fi dystopia that Valve, half-way through development, ultimately decided to convert into a Half-Life sequel. It actually explains a lot.

Battlestar Galactica as well, or pretty much any manga/anime that goes for more than 26 issues. It’s common practice to bamboozle your audience by proposing questions with no answers, and answering them with even more questions. Do it often and quickly enough, and you can spackle over your own plot holes with creamy bullshit, and the majority will never be the wiser.

You can string people along for years doing this.

[Libra]

I’m not sure what it is, but Episode 2 runs like complete ass on my system in the outdoor areas. I’m not sure what the deal is either because I was/am able to run the original Half-Life 2 and Episode 1 on high detail/high resolution and they both run fantastic. I’ve got a 6800GT and an A64/3200+ w/ 2GB of RAM so I’m not sure what the deal is. I turned off AA and turned down anisotropic filtering. Motion blur is off, etc.

It runs OK on the indoors sections, but still not anywhere near the framerates on get on HL2 and/or EP1. Strange indeed.

[McCrank]

Im loving episode 2 so far, but Im only on Chapter 3. Best FPS I’ve played this year besides Condemned.

-Chris

[Matt_Perkins]

@wumpus

I whiled away the time by picking up room items with the gravity gun and shooting them at Alyx. Also, muttering “c’mon, you nasty octaroon” under my breath.

I had no idea what that meant till someone else pointed it out, wumpus. Really classy of you.

[Bill_Dungsroman]

@wumpus

I think this was the first time I’ve ever played a Half-Life game and having literally no fun at all. Sad, really.

I’ll push a little farther and see if I can get into it, but the entire first hour was a painful slog, pushing myself to continue.

And as Alan pointed out, those bits of exposition where you’re trapped and can’t advance are PAINFUL. I whiled away the time by picking up room items with the gravity gun and shooting them at Alyx. Also, muttering “c’mon, you nasty octaroon” under my breath.

Nice, wumpus. You could save yourself a few syllables and call her something just as bad.

[Coca_Cola_Zero]

@Bill_Dungsroman

Nice, wumpus. You could save yourself a few syllables and call her something just as bad.

Also, the other word is easier for dumb racist fucks to type. He misspelled octoroon.

[Podunk]

@Matt_Perkins

I had no idea what that meant till someone else pointed it out, wumpus. Really classy of you.

I had to Google it. That is old school.

[wumpus]

I never promised you bitches a rose garden.

Alyx is annoying as hell, so I used a mild epithet. It’s the internet, people. Deal.

Think about it this way-- it’s part of your continuing education. You too can learn about the one-drop rule!

[ProStyle]

It’s the internet, people. Deal.

It seems that we have all dealt quite adequately by collectively referring to your remark as crass, dubious and entirely retarded. I appreciate your earnest suggestion, but it appears as if the healing process has already begun.

[wumpus]

I think you guys can do better than the synthetic outrage of the politically correct over my use of an antique, utterly obsolete epithet in the context of a fictional character in a video game.

I don’t know, maybe you can’t.

[ProStyle]

I think you could do better than to keep reinforcing the idea that we’re too fucking stupid to interpret your application of historically antiquated derision as the colloquial master stroke you know it to be. Possibly apologizing for your gaffe and walking away with some semblance of face.

I don’t know, maybe you can’t.

[Zylon]

[Podunk]

Pure gold.

[Coca_Cola_Zero]

The fact that you’re saying it to a fictional character makes no difference because it isn’t you muttering it at your monitor that will bother people, but rather you feeling you have to share it here on the forum, which you did.

Also, nobody replying to you has been overly PC. Always using “African American” when you’re referring to black people is being overly PC and stupid. Not referring to black people with the n-word and not using words like half-breed or not using words like octoroon with a ‘nasty’ qualifier in front of it to refer to mixed race people (fictional or otherwise) isn’t being PC, it is being civilized, there is a huge difference and anyone who tries to argue otherwise is just as bad as those stupid half-witted people who try to claim that being for “white power” isn’t racist.

[Damien_Neil]

@wumpus

I think you guys can do better than the synthetic outrage of the politically correct over my use of an antique, utterly obsolete epithet in the context of a fictional character in a video game.

Oh, we aren’t outraged. We just think you’re a dick. And not in the entertaining, fun to be around, Bill Dungsroman dickish kind of way.

[gamadict]

Have never been able to play any of the HL games to completion due to boredom. The supposedly revolutionary storytelling or whatever never drew me in and otherwise it seemed like a pretty standard FPS, though with some pretty nice AI in the first one. I dutifully tried to play the first three due to how acclaimed they are, but am probably goona skip this one

Oh, and some of my best friends are black people

[Alan_Au]

I like to think that I was very equal-opportunity about wanting to smack NPC windbags with the crowbar.

• Alan

[Moggraider]

wumpus did at least hit on the intentional racial ambiguity of Alyx, though, which is a way for game and movie designers to be all-inclusive. Other examples include Jade in Beyond Good and Evil, the protagonist they’ve been showing with Mass Effect, and Vin Diesel. It’s just a new way to go for the hip diversity dollar.

[Coca_Cola_Zero]

@Moggraider

racial ambiguity of Alyx, though

Alyx is mostly black (mom and dad’s side) and partially Asian (Korean and Japanese from her mom’s side). Not ambiguous.