It gave a very strong X-Files vibe, so I never even considered for a moment that the story might be going somewhere. And when you know the ending is going to be a deus ex machina where he swoops in at the end to save the day, it cheapens everything you do up to that point.
The memorable part for me was how much detail and thought went into making the levels. They made some of those places feel so real that I’ve had nightmares there.
You go girl!
Nah, at launch I also thought was worse than HL1. Way too basic puzzles (don’t bother me with them if they are so dumb), some badly paced long stretches which tried to remember the HL1 moments of exploration and solitude but they didn’t get right so they were kind of boring, and personally I thought the g-gun was overrated, as the writing felt weird, with people talking and acting you being mute and strangely without agency. In HL1 it worked because you barely found other humans, but here there were more and the talked to you and said to do things and it basically has ‘more’ writing, so it didn’t make sense.
HL2 Ep1 and Ep2 improved over HL2.
Speaking of writing, I don’t really know how people cared so much about what was going to happen next, in Ep 3.
I did play it shortly after launch, and I’ll admit that the train opening was pretty good. And the physics was neat for a while, which was HL2’s biggest step forward(?) But the feeling of being railroaded all the way to a pointless “to be continued…” ending really rubbed me the wrong way.
Had to look back at what other shooters were released before HL2. There’s Deus Ex, Halo, Far cry. I enjoyed all of those more than I did HL2.
HL2 was amazing and is still amazing today due to its atmosphere, music, varied level design and great gameplay. In fact I am chomping at the bit to play the final finished version of Black Mesa so I can then continue with HL2 Update and the two episodes, and finish with reading this conclusion at least. Really looking forward to marathoning this series again. I am glad Marc published this, since it is clear we are never gonna get anything from Valve themselves.
Why couldn’t they at least hire someone like 4A Games to build it for them, dammit.
How about Naughty Dog?
https://twitter.com/neil_druckmann/status/642013726514774016?lang=en
Note - From 2015
Look you guys have read all the stories about Valve’s hierarchy or lack thereof. All someone has to do to get a project going is declare they’re doing it and put together a team. The reason Half Life 3 doesn’t exist is because nobody wants to make it. Half Life is dead and buried.
Sounds like a great place to work if you never want to actually finish a project
I just don’t care about any of that. I kinda stopped caring about the Half-Life story about 1/3 of the way into Half-Life 2.
Nope. It wasn’t. You done been Laidlawed.
(Although, to be clear, I’m not saying HL2 was a bad game per se, just that it wasn’t nearly good as HL1, which is a very high bar. Basically HL2 is wildly overrated.)
The goofball was plainly visible while playing Half-Life 2. Hey, let’s quote me from 2007!
The game came out in 2004. Your “now” was 2007. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you played newer games sometime during that 3 years.
It’s your opinion, so you’re welcome to it, but saying Half-Life 2 didn’t have an influential effect on the industry is crazy talk.
People dissing HL2 are either:
a) beared, gauge-installed hipsters holding up some dull walking simulator as GOTY, or;
b) Telling us that Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
When HL2 came out it was state of the art and a tremendous influence on just about everything. These days, it’s still just fine
Plus I don’t think there’s anything in HL2 that annoyed me nearly as much as Xen did in the first game.
I distinctly remember being very disenchanted with HL2 on my very first playthrough.
This isn’t revisionism, it is a fact.
I’m not saying your opinion isn’t true to you.
I’m saying your denial of Half-Life 2’s importance is revisionism - no wait, it’s not even a revision of history, it’s just nuts.
Unless you just meant the “nope” for my “It was crazy good” in which case, you probably shouldn’t have quoted my whole statement.
They weren’t stereotypical in 2004. Sure, there had been truly “on-rails” sequences (you shot things as the terrain scrolled by) but really nothing like the car or the boat. I mean, who wasn’t a little excited, roaring through a channel, an airship dropping mines in front of you, driving that thing up jumps like a silent Duke boy?
OK so let’s be clear:
is important to the industry? Well, all right, I guess. That is why every first person shooter now has a gravity gun, @telefrog.
(raises hand)
I’m pretty sure there were sequences like this in Duke Nukem Forever, too.
Plus, they’re the opposite of “on rails” in that you have full control of the vehicles. The levels mostly keep you on a limited path, but you can easily fuck up and go the wrong way, go too slow, and there are more open parts that encourage exploration.
Oh for christ’s sake. Seriously?
“It was a corridor but like a SUPER NICE REALLY WIDE CORRIDOR, wumpus!”
wasn’t half-life AI hailed for being new and fresh at time of launch for its flanking?
or was that half life 1?
That was all HL1. HL2 had basically zero enemy AI. The ant-lions you could control a bit, which was neat, but that’s not really AI.
Also there was a fuckin’ robot dog. So yay.