Seriously, the game sucks. The graphics are great, it runs really well, the physics are nice, but the gameplay is right out of the original HL. The gameplay is 6 years old.
Am I alone on this? Am I the only one not seeing the love? Best PC FPS ever? It’s not even the best PC FPS this year. It might be a great experience, but it’s a mediocre game.
I hate the oppressive scripting. I hate the painful linearity. I hate the way enemies swarm you from just out of sight, over and over again. I hate the low ammo limits on the weapons. I hate the way the vehicles control. I hate the way the enemies always know exactly where you are, even through walls. I hate the way Gordon misses when shooting at someone ten feet in front of him. I hate the way all friendlies have an invisible force field protecting them from harm.
I hate the way that it authenticated just fine on my work system in the morning, but won’t do anything on my home computer aside from dump me to an improperly-sized desktop or hang on the loading screen.
Another masterpiece, Valve. Why give your customers a game when you can give them one final kick in the nuts?
Bob is right. See, here is how it works with Bob. Any game he hates (which is most of them) is automatically good. Any game he actually likes you shouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole.
I once had to eat at Morton’s two nights in a row. The second night was just more of the same, no innovation at all. Same red meat menu, same wine list, same polite service. Thank goodness that was the case, I would have been angry if they offered me flapjacks instead.
I guess I can’t figure out what you expected out of it. It’s a story-based FPS, and they hit that square on the head again. I’m happy it has the same gameplay as the first one, since the first one is my favorite FPS of that kind ever.
Pray tell, if HL2 is a mediocre game, what do you consider a good game?
Well, I’m not Bob, but I found HL1 to be mediocre. In the FPS genre, I thought Q3 and Painkiller were better games. I also thought Fallout was pretty meh, so take from that what you will.
I’m a “cutscene in a shooter = escape key” gamer. Half-Life had interactive cutscenes I couldn’t skip. Fuck that.
You’re alone on this one, I think. (Well, besides McBain I guess.)
You’re both, of course, entitled to your opinion but in this case it says more about your taste in games than it does about the quality of the games in question.
And here I thought, after reading the thread title, that the thread was about Steam. No, it’s another one of Bob’s apoplectic rants about how anyone could like this “awful” game.
If I wanted to play the original Half-Life, I would. I was expecting some sort of innovation in the intervening 6 years. Instead there are no substantive improvements.
I don’t care about graphics. I don’t care about story. I don’t care about characters. I don’t want scripting, cutscenes, or boss fights. I just want fun gameplay. So far (just finished the boat sequence, which reminded me of The Library in Halo), HL2 has fallen pitifully short in that regard.
One of my clearest memories of the original HL was the “On the Rails” section (or whatever the name of that was), where occasionally you would come across marine checkpoints. You would have barricades, gun turrets, and marines in fortified positions. Getting past those areas was fun and absolutely the high point of the game for me. So far, HL2 has had nothing remotely as good as those sections.
HL2 is incredible. However the enemies do exibit that “shooting gallery” effect in many encounters. I also found that the level geometry is very simple in some cases. For example in the trainyard in the beginning, the wheels on some of the train models are octagonal, not round, and in some places the terrain is angular and blunt (like HL, not smooth and rolling).
HL2 gaphics though are very impressive due to the photorealistic textures, the amount of clutter (the levels are just full of stuff), the size of the outdoor areas, and the effects (water etc.) The game runs very smooth though, so that’s probably the trade-off.
Sometimes the physics just get real wonky. Also got stuck in the geometry in a couple of places and had to reload a previous save.
The gameplay, pacing, and storey are second to none, however I do feel that Farcry had a much better engine and better AI.
One more thing HL 2 for the most par is very much on rails. Far Cry allowed you open reign on how you attacked a problem . I wish more shooters were like this.
[EDIT] One more minor point but missed by the reviewers. What is the replayability of HL2. Yes there will be mods, but what about the main game??? Many of the “scenes” are awesome the first time through, but I can see them being monotonous on the 2nd or 3rd, or nth playthrough.
What about being released with Co-op, or DM as mentioned above. Sorry,CS Source should not be included in the “package” nor DOD when it comes out.
I think the “I” word should be banned for a while. :wink:
It’s a cinch Half Life 2 is the best single player FPS I have played since Jedi Outcast, but that’s not saying a whole lot, since I haven’t played many good ones. (Note: I do not consider Thief 3 an FPS; if you want to call it one, then I think it is probably going to turn out to have been a better game for me than HL2.) It’s fun, gravity gun is great, some of the new beasties are creepy as hell, graphics are insane (most of the time – a little uneven I have found as I play further – the “low poly counts nice textures & pixel shading” strategy has its weaknesses). The game does err a little too much on the side of “living cutscene” and most of the run-and-gun play is 8 year old quake type fare. I can live with that.
So IMO this game cannot be said to suck in any meaningful way. So far I’m still sticking by my rating of 8/10. It’s not the transcendent, messianic, soul-absorbing gaming experience that Rome: Total War was, but I only expect one of those every few years.
I’ll agree on this point. The rest of it, I can see what you mean, a bit, but this thing is fun as hell to me. Also I wasn’t a big fan of HL 1’s single player.
I’ll agree on this point. The rest of it, I can see what you mean, a bit, but this thing is fun as hell to me. Also I wasn’t a big fan of HL 1’s single player.[/quote]
Oh yeah that annoyed me too. The fun times I had killing scientists in the original HL…
