Do you understand the difference between “on rails” and a linear level design?
I get it. It was a really nice corridor. And certainly no game had ever put a car or a boat in a corridor in 2004, yes? That was revolutionary. Just straight up game geniuses at work.
I take it then that you do understand the difference, but your silly pride prohibits you from admitting that you went all hyperbolic in an attempt to prop up your argument.
I honestly don’t see much difference between corridor and on rails in terms of experience. Linear is as linear does. Have fun driving that high speed buggy about 400 feet on either side. Serpentine!
This might be the first time in the entirety of recorded history that I’ve ever used a hyperbolic argument. It’s unheard of.
Wait, you think the gravity gun was Half-Life 2’s contribution to the industry? That’s, uh, an interesting idea.
-Tom
It’s just one example. The industry is also full of robot dogs now, so Q.E.D.
I can think of a few more:
- physics!
- death of the silent protagonist
- memes
(I’m mostly being snarky. I liked the game well enough to play EP1 and EP2, just not enough to yearn for EP3)
There’s a huge difference. An on-rails sequence in a shooter typically requires no input from the player other than shooting, or perhaps braking. It’s a moving turret sequence basically. In Half-life 2, much of the gameplay (especially in the boat sections) is based around making the player pilot the craft while dodging the chopper assaults. This involves the full range of control putting the success or failure of the level directly on the player.
That’s not to mention that Water Hazard breaks up the vehicle piloting sections with on-foot exploration and combat.
I just loved the sense of place you got throughout Half Life 2. From a train station in a Eastern European style city, to being in a sewer tunnel when a combine troop wagen pulls up with it’s distinctive siren, to a farm house next to a bridge that spans a great big river, to a city in full resistance against giant tripods straight out of John Christopher’s imagination. Half Life 2 was just chock full of amazing sights and sounds. I absolutely loved it.
I didn’t care for Episode 1 and 2 though. I thought they were very poorly done in many ways. I think having Alyx as your companion was a huge part of that. The way she fawns and preens, and the flaws in the companion AI are brought out. Alyx doesn’t feel like a real person despite their best effort, and Episodes 1 and 2 suffer as a result. And even just the sense of space and sound in being in these kinds of environments is lessened when you’ve constantly got a companion who is urging you from place to place.
And how is this materially different than “if you don’t shoot the incoming projectiles, you fail the mission”? It’s just a different kind of rails, my man.
A fair point, and the transitions are the only real gameplay in there, but if you watch that video, you’ll see that
- when driving the boat, you are nearly always constrained to about 400 feet on each side. It is often a literal corridor with some variation for scenery purposes.
- there are never any opportunities to go in an actual different direction when driving the boat, as in, “choose from these 3 different routes!”
- as a player, your choices are either “forward” or “fix problem so you can go forward”
- when you’re on foot this isn’t a big deal, it’s not like I object to linear FPS shooters in general. But foot travel is slow. When you’re in a high speed buggy or boat this limitation becomes… really arbitrary. Go really fast 400 feet to either side!
At any rate, if you think Half-Life 2 invented the corridor vehicle sequence, then err… no? And if it was “popularized” by HL2, then err… fuck you Half Life 2?
You would have a point if Half-Life 2 was comprised entirely of a gravity gun and a robot dog. By your reasoning, The Godfather was inconsequential because most movies don’t have severed horse heads under the sheets, so Q.E.D.
-Tom
Who argued this?
-Tom
I have a hard time thinking of anything that Half-Life 2 contributed to the industry. It certainly did not contribute Half-Life 3 to the industry, and given the direction the series was going in (and if you’ve forgotten, Episode 2 literally starts you in a set of underground caverns with no weapons, probably one of the crappiest FPS tropes there is), that’s probably a good thing.
@telefrog what FPS can you play today and point to and say “whoo boy this package of super sweet FPS gameplay is TOTES POSSIBLE BECAUSE OF HALF-LIFE 2!” And why, specifically?
I dunno? Crappy physics puzzles? That’s all I got. Oh wait! Controlling the ant-lions? The friendly allies you get on parts of the levels? Carrying a gnome around for a few hours to get an achievement?
No. Check the video for an example of how big a difference it makes. During the helicopter sequence, Water Hazard allows the player to steer into or out of the path of the mines, including driving up on the sides of the canals - an advanced move that I daresay most players did not try their first time through the game - whereas an on rails section would literally be that. A completely game-determined push through the level, with no input from the player.
Do you think racing games are on rails?
Incorrect. The player has input: where to shoot, and deciding what to shoot at. If you choose to shoot at the wrong things, or shoot inaccurately, then you’ll fail. In some rail shooters you can choose your path by shooting!
I guess my broader objection to these vehicle sections is that the actual vehicle gameplay (outside of the “remove the barrier on foot so you can get back in the vehicle and keep going” sections) wasn’t particularly meaningful or interesting. Unlike a racing game, to your point, in HL2 it was really hard to fail the required movements to er… uh… keep going forward. Not like there are multiple vehicle paths through these levels, even – there aren’t! And nobody’s timing your speed, take forever if you want.
These car / boat sequences were borderline cutscenes. Calling them on rails is actually generous.
3 out of 5, I’d concur.
A magic combination of generic weapons, braindead AI and really boring puzzles. Even on the hardest difficulty the firefights are just repetitive and uninvolving and so easy.
Yeah, the review from Dunkey in 2014 is really going to sway me.
Valve made the right choice not making that HL3.
It’s funny because he hated Alyx as much as I did… all the forced exposition.
Forced exposition wasn’t really the problem, though, it was the complete lack of interesting gameplay framing that exposition which makes it a slog. The firefights are straight up boring, which is unforgivable in a First Person Shooter. And we’ve discussed how cough awesome the vehicle sequences were.
But, y’know, there were some physics puzzles and stuff. And a robot dog!!
I think that’s true. Even as someone not terribly fond of HL2 (I’d also agree with a 3/5 rating, for what it’s worth) I expected, when and if it came, something groundbreaking given Valve’s resources and the time elapsed.