Half Life 2 (and 1)

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After years of hearing people heap endless amounts of praise on this game, I finally have to ask: is Half Life 2 really that great? Or, I guess a better question would be, has it aged well? If it's as good as people say, I might just pick up The Orange Box so I can finally play it (not to mention Portal).

And while we're at it, how is Half Life 1? Does it even exist? I've literally never heard anyone even mention it. All they care about is Half Life 2, haha

In 2017? Dude I already played through Half Life 1 and 2 along with the episodes.

Okay, cool... was it good?

Original Half Life is still well worth playing, as is its expansion pack Opposing Force, though they inevitably seem a bit dated (the scripted, repetitive 'dialogue' of the NPCs grates especially). The relatively common incidence of puzzle elements might also prove an irritant if you like heavy duty, uninterrupted combat.

Half Life 2 is about as good as it gets, FPS wise, I'd say. Reasonably straightforward, interesting story, which doesn't fall into the trap of becoming over-complex and unintelligible like Halo 2. Excellent weaponry, combat, pacing and graphics. The expansion packs Episode One and Episode Two are of a similar standard, except for the gravity gun based 'physics puzzles' which drag down the earlier phases of the former.

One thing which lets down both main HL games in my opinion are the poor final levels. Not to give too much away, but the designers clearly felt obliged to provide something 'different' at the end, and as often happens in this situation, only produced frustrating, gimmicky anti-climaxes. Very similar to the 'Icon of Sin' levels which ruin the finale of Doom 2 and many of the megawads which base themselves on it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!!

I tried playing Half-Life once, couldn't really get into it. The difficulty was too much for me.

They're both great games. Have they aged well? Half Life 1 not so much. It's low polygonal 3D graphics with low resolution textures in a first person perspective, after all. There is a Valve endorsed remake of the game called Black Mesa that's almost finished that does a fair bit to update the graphics though.

Half Life 2 is still fairly contemporary in gameplay and graphics. It is still old to be sure and that is clearly evident in its appearance. But it isn't noticeably blocky or low resolution like the original Half Life. The downside is that the episodic parts of the game have famously never been completed. Episode 2 ends gloriously, but on a cliffhanger ending.

I've never liked Half Life 2, as a game. The enemies are bullet sponges, guns feel weak, levels design is generally over-reliant on gimmicks like the gravity gun, explosive barrels and vehicles in combination with the obligatory physics puzzles. Cutscenes weren't separated from the gameplay, but so what? You get to jump around and throw objects while characters participating in the scene pretend that you don't exist. Being able to play with the physics isn't an adequate apology for having to sit through these scenes when you would much rather be playing the game.

The setting was clearly modeled around dystopian fiction but the game failed to have a coherent or meaningful narrative. Even something like Final Fantasy 7, with its absolute nonsense of a setting, presented its themes in such a way that they had an impact, whereas Half Life 2 flirts with the dystopian trappings and nothing more. It says nothing. I'm happy that, as a franchise, it's dead.

Keep in mind that I'm exactly the sort of person who has every reason to love this game. Back in 2004, when it released, a friend invited me over and I watched him play the game on his PC. Compared to the PS2 I had at home, the graphics were incredible, higher resolution than anything I had seen before and I remember being amazed by the appearance of water in the game. It single-handly got me interested in PC gaming, and I'm still massively interested in computer hardware to this day.

I just don't like HL2 and don't think that it holds up. It was a technological advance and an incredible effort but it's not a good game. I'd rate the Riddick game of that year higher in terms of gameplay, to be honest. Then the next year, FEAR came out, and was impressive in both technical and gameplay terms (although less so in terms of the breadth of environmental assets).

Half-Life hasn't aged very well, no. There are some good parts, I like the first half of the game, and some bits of the mission packs. Some parts really just drag, though. And Xen is the worst.

HL2, the last time I played it, graphically holds up well today. Like the first HL, the end isn't that enjoyable...and then Ep1 continues this for a long while...but Ep2 was pretty good. Gameplay is still based on oldschool FPS style though, so there's no regenerating health or iron sights, if that's important at all.

Just keep your eye on the Steam sales, they go for dirt cheap quite often.

BTW, Portal is good, but it's really short. I think it took me maybe an hour to beat, I would definitely wait to get that one on sale.

I'm in the same boat, I have them mostly so I could play Gmod at the time. (so if you want to talk about attaching rockets to Gordon, i'm a little more informed) The story didn't particularly interest me.

Portal and portal 2 though, they are great! I played portal 1, but portal 2 has too much movement for me to play. But I watched playthroughs where i could skip those parts and really enjoyed the story.

I was flabbergasted when I played through 2, not had the opportunity to play 1 more than once a long time ago due to console issues.

We don't go to Ravenholm, legendary section.

I remember playing Half Life and Half Life 2... Those were the good days...

-LegoMaster2149 (Written on September 20, 2017)