Half-Life 2 - It's Not a Good Game

I imagine it's probably a lot like Far Cry, just another freaking tech demo.

I think everything you said is true (if a bit harsh) but...I liked HL2 despite all of that. I'm not even sure why.

I really enjoyed playing Half-Life 2 and replayed it a couple of times already. That is the bottom line for me. If a game is fun and makes me want to play it, I consider it to be a good game. Of course Half-Life 2 has flaws, but I think they have been blown all out of proportion by people because of all of the hype HL 2 got before it was released. Although the game could have used some more enemies (I would have liked to see more alien animal things, like the ant lions), your list is very misleading. You left out about half the enemies in the game: three types of zombies, all of which are different and present different challenges, one more type of head crab (the traditional, the spidery, quick ones, and the poisonous ones), ant lion guardians, mines, combine gun ships, combine assault vehicles, and combine transports (although I don't think these can be destroyed, so you can leave them out if you want). It would have been nice if the game allowed one more freedom of choice over play style, but I only really noticed that much when I went to replay it. Even then, I discovered different ways of doing things, so it didn't bother me that much. I don't think Half-Life 2 is the greatest game I ever played (Starcraft, maybe?), but it is a good one. I enjoyed the story, although I was disappointed by how so many questions are created, but almost none are answered. In the end, I had a lot of fun, and kept coming back for more. That is what matters most; anything else is just nit-picking.

I found HL2 annoying for having to sit through the loading of a frickin menu and all the steam bs that takes forever. Farcry got a bit tedious at times (like the story should have ran itself out), and the ending had a bit of a steep curve in difficulty.. but the AI was really impressive. I admit that I don't really play too many games, so I don't wander much beyond those top X lists of games. In regards to the AI, it really was the first time when on higher difficulty I would actually be concerned about guys sneaking up on me. The baddies worked as a team to take you down, even circling wide around you and boxing you in while dudes from the front pinned you down.

But overall, I enjoyed both games..

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Michael Tanczos

My only gripe is that it's unappologetically linear. That goes for a lot of action/adventure games, but it's just blatant with HL2. Halo is my favorite FPS because, even though it's linear, you have these great standoff points and even though the war is the same every time through, the battles can vary.

In my opinion stories are one of gamedev's biggest flaws. Stories are rarely well thought out; I mean "Mutant Virus has bluh - Kill Everything then end boss" need I say more?

What game companies should do is get *real* writers to create the story. I am talking about taking a TV/Movie script and redeveloping it so that instead of watching it on some glass you are the one in control and see it though a first person perspective (even 'third person' views of the character is a first person playback of the story).

Of course not all TV/Movie stories can be turned into games (e.g. love stories) but there are lots that can. Let me give you one example; Battlestar Galatica - New / Current version, it has lots of very rich combat scenes mixed in with a complex political situation. Why not take that story, cut a single character out (Who happens to be 'in the middle' of the story) and make a game?

Please excuse this; but I consider game development a fairly immature medium, it never tries to reflect life too closely (not even The Sims) and not enough thought is given to a lot of it. Even the poorest holywood movies (e.g. Resident Evil) have greater character development and scene setting than even the best games. Further more why is it that movies are able to set a mood and stick with that but yet so many games (admittedly not all) have so much trouble sticking to one? Unless of course that mood is something so simple as "blow shit up!" (see 'Serious Sam').

I was writing a long, detailed reply to your analysis, but I can't be bothered to finish it so I'll just sum it up:

Valve tried to provide something for everyone, so that each different type of gamer out there can have a favourite section within the game. You want them to cut out all the parts that aren't your favourite section, and then expand that favourite section to the full game length.

I can understand that, but it's got nothing to do with it being a good game. If anything, it's a good six or seven short games rolled into one continuous package. You like some of those games and dislike others. Which is fine. I would say I liked the majority of them. (I didn't really go for the 'crossing the ant lion sands' bit).

Why do you consider variety in enemies or weapons to be acceptable, but not variety in gameplay styles? The way that you play against a grunt squad is different to the way you play against a headcrab in HL1; why's that variation in gameplay OK, but the difference between Highway 17 and Follow Freeman is not?

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The gameplay never really got repetitive because it was kept varied through a wide variety of enemies and bosses that were constantly keeping me, as a player, trying to refine my strategy for dealing with them.

Gee...

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The gameplay never really got repetitive because it was kept varied through a wide variety of situations and challenges that were constantly keeping me, as a player, trying to refine my strategy for dealing with them.

You make a lot of good points, but I still thing HL2 is a good game, but certainly not perfect. What makes HL1 better is this (among other things I'm sure): When making HL1 it seems a bunch of guys got together and thought up all the cool things that could happen in it, and then put them all in, and made it work. These were things like the soldier tossing a satchel charge in the tube you were in so you had to run from the fire, bullet holes piercing the vent you were in, letting light shine through, lots of jumpy stuff, cool environments and tons of bosses and puzzles, in all like a 100 cool "scenes". HL2 did the same thing, but instead they just had 5 big ones.

The reason I like HL2 so much is, as you said, it is a great experience. Never before have I played such an immersive game (sans load times), thanks to the physics, sounds, and yes, graphics. Idling under bridges in the hovercraft. Throwing objects over the cliff into the water during the buggy part. The level design, for the most part, was just top notch. During the early parts of City 17 it actually felt and looked like a real city. Out in the middle of nowhere in the buggy actually felt lonely. It may have also helped that for some reason I turned the music off from the beginning, just like I did in HL1, only games I've ever done this in but I think it helps.

Anyway, I'ma go eat supper now, but one more thing, I totally agree that the first 30 or so minutes was the best part, by far.

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Original post by mumpo That is what matters most; anything else is just nit-picking.

Normally I'd agree, but when Valve treats the game as it keeps getting hailed as: The best game ever, the "nitpicking" is necessary. I'd pretty much kill myself before delcaring it one of the best games ever. Much less the best game ever.

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Original post by skittleo Now Half-Life 2 is not my favorite single player FPS. If I had to rate it, I would give it a 7 out of 10. My favorite so far has been Red Faction. It has been called a Half-Life clone, but I consider them very different games. Have you played Red Faction?

I loved Red Faction, and Red Faction 2 (though it was a bit dumbed-down). I also loved Far Cry. Though my favorite FPS would most likely have to be the original Quake.

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Original post by Superpig Valve tried to provide something for everyone, so that each different type of gamer out there can have a favourite section within the game. You want them to cut out all the parts that aren't your favourite section, and then expand that favourite section to the full game length.

No, I don't want an individual game to have "something for everyone." Games aren't movies. When I play a game, I want to play the parts I like. If I want to load-up something fast-paced and frantic, I don't want to have to deal with puzzles. If I want to load up a thought-provoking game, I don't want to load up the frantic one. When I play a game, I generally like to have a rough idea of what I'm getting into, and if I pay $50, I'm okay with what I'm getting: I want lots of it, in fact.

If I'm going to buy a sequel to Max Payne, I don't expect physics-based puzzles to suddenly be the brunt of what I'm forced to do. I expect lots of bullet-time combat and noir storytelling through a comic book. If I'm going to buy Quake, I expect frantic action. If I'm going to buy Final Fantasy, I expect a long, epic storyline.

So, when I buy Half-Life 2, what do I expect? I expect the immersive action, puzzles, and storytelling of Half-Life. I do not expect a mish-mash of experimental game types. Can you criticize me for wanting the good parts of Half-Life 2 to be made into a full game because 99% of the time a sequel is a far refined version of the original?

And that's why, in my opinion, DOOM 3 and Half-Life 2 both failed as sequels. Some people loved the new direction DOOM 3 took (I actually liked it), most people hated it. A lot of people loved the new direction of Half-Life 2 (I hated it). Gamers go into games with expectations due to the franchise, if you want to make something different from the franchise, start a new one.

Having never played Half-Life 2:

Doesn't the separate sequences make the game more interesting? I mean, take Metal Gear Solid, for example. Remember when they torture you, and you have to button-mash to get past that part? Terrible way to vary gameplay. But take Zelda[x], for example. Shooting, riding, shooting-riding, hacking bushes, racing... All fun diversions, mini-games, or side-quests, and the dungeons are all interesting and different anyway. Perfect way to break it up a little.
If I give you a platformer, and you say "Yeah, I like this game," and I just throw in 9987 more levels, all basically he same, with different variations of block and monster positioning, you won't play through it, because gameplay gets boring. Or maybe you wouldn't, being a Doom and Dungeon Siege fan...

I appreciate game developers putting more variation in their games, if for no other reason than to break up the monotony of it all.

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Original post by Meagermanx Doesn't the separate sequences make the game more interesting? I mean, take Metal Gear Solid, for example. Remember when they torture you, and you have to button-mash to get past that part? Terrible way to vary gameplay. But take Zelda[x], for example. Shooting, riding, shooting-riding, hacking bushes, racing... All fun diversions, mini-games, or side-quests, and the dungeons are all interesting and different anyway. Perfect way to break it up a little. If I give you a platformer, and you say "Yeah, I like this game," and I just throw in 9987 more levels, all basically he same, with different variations of block and monster positioning, you won't play through it, because gameplay gets boring

Well, keep in mind that I'm also greatly enjoying playing through Psychonauts right now. I'm not a mindless gamer. What you're talking about with Zelda and everything are optional mini-games. And even if they're required, they're short. The thing with Half-Life 2 is that when variety takes over, you're required to play that way for another 15-60 minutes of gameplay, and then something new happens. You don't ever return to "standard gameplay."

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Original post by mittens The thing with Half-Life 2 is that when variety takes over, you're required to play that way for another 15-60 minutes of gameplay, and then something new happens. You don't ever return to "standard gameplay."

It's true that the different gameplay types last longer than in most games, and are not optional, but it isn't true that you don't return to the standard gameplay. There are traditional kill-a-bunch-of-badies-with-guns-by-yourself-on-foot sections interspersed throughout the game; I think the first and last chapters are the only ones that lack them.

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Original post by mumpo [...]but it isn't true that you don't return to the standard gameplay. There are traditional kill-a-bunch-of-badies-with-guns-by-yourself-on-foot sections interspersed throughout the game; I think the first and last chapters are the only ones that lack them.

When the 'alternate gameplay' modes are the longest parts of the game, why do you define the 'standard gameplay' to be what is left over?

I wouldn't say the 'standard gameplay' in "Mario Party _" is to choose where on a board your avatar moves, for example. I'd say "it is a game of minigames" because most of the game time is 'alternate gameplay'

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Original post by Extrarius Quote: Original post by mumpo [...]but it isn't true that you don't return to the standard gameplay. There are traditional kill-a-bunch-of-badies-with-guns-by-yourself-on-foot sections interspersed throughout the game; I think the first and last chapters are the only ones that lack them. When the 'alternate gameplay' modes are the longest parts of the game, why do you define the 'standard gameplay' to be what is left over? I wouldn't say the 'standard gameplay' in "Mario Party _" is to choose where on a board your avatar moves, for example. I'd say "it is a game of minigames" because most of the game time is 'alternate gameplay'

I was trying to use what I thought mittens was using for a definition of "standard gameplay". If I'm wrong, oh well. My point was that there is more continuity of gameplay than mittens made it sound like there was.

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Original post by mumpo Quote: Original post by mittens The thing with Half-Life 2 is that when variety takes over, you're required to play that way for another 15-60 minutes of gameplay, and then something new happens. You don't ever return to "standard gameplay." It's true that the different gameplay types last longer than in most games, and are not optional, but it isn't true that you don't return to the standard gameplay. There are traditional kill-a-bunch-of-badies-with-guns-by-yourself-on-foot sections interspersed throughout the game; I think the first and last chapters are the only ones that lack them.

I didn't see any variety in HL2...
I just ran through it from start to finish in what could be described as a veeeee[...]eeeeery boring ride. It was an highly repetitive and shockingly empty universe. Not the slightest bit of story. Events you've seen in a billion movies happening, yes, a few. Story none whatsoever.

It's was that same old FPS with vehicules and that was it. Sure there was a few goodies like controlling the insects but well... imho it's just a cheap trick that doesn't make it for the close to infinite amount of promises the game failed to deliver.

I still can't believe how much this game has been overhyped.

On the playable cutscenes I'm all for it but really not this way... Having the AI stomp on you that "you really need to plug that generator because we're in a hurry" when you're just waiting to see if there's something more to the game than a (barely) nice cover (ie. can you get a gameover by not plugging that damn thing in time? NO! So why did they even bother??!!) just doesn't cut it against a traditional cutscene where drama can be introduced in much more effective ways (predictable synchros, camera work, etc).

And what about all those papers and movies we could download everywhere??? HL2 NEVER looked like that... I mean, that HDRI movie on the roof was damn nice and you could tell the bugs were normal mapped and everything. Same thing in game? PS1 with hires textures on the highest quality levels. Incredible! Lightmapping does look bad compared to D3, indeed.

And so much for the Grand Unified Theory of Physics empowering the Source physics engine... Hu? Since when does that mean: "We're licensing that same old Havok".

The game runs dry of interesting content about 5 minutes after it starts. Sure they designed yet one more gas mask bad guy and you have it spawning again and again for hours long along with a freakin' chopper. All interactions with the world resume to breaking things, killing people and having yourself told very interesting storyline elements like: "Quick!", "Over there!", "Fast!", "Take this, you'll need it!"... Need it for WHAT?
Artists must have known an incredible level of frustration working on this game. Mapping photos all over the place again and again... how interesting.

I bet you can say I didn't like HL2. Probably because after some time taking ads in the face I finally bought some of the hype but damn, wasn't that a crappy game and a waste of time, resources and talents...

I agree with one point you have, Half-Life is the best game EVER made. But I dissagree with the other point. Half-Life 2 is an amazingly spectacullarly awesome game, the second best ever made. I playing through it maybe 10 times already, and it never gets boring. I dissagree with all of your points, but I guess thats just a difference in opinions.

You call the pistol weak, then complain that it takes too few shots to kill combine soldiers. What did you want, to play the game entirely with a crowbar or a super powerful sounding pistol that did no damage? In Half-Life, the pistol was overpowered (you could play the majority of the game using it alone). Also, pistols don't tend to make powerful booming noises and the Half-Life pistol was ugly :P

You say Half-Life "worked" because you felt like you were Gordon Freeman, as if Half-Life 2 doesn't do this even though it uses the exact same first-person format? You can interactive with the environment now, instead of having cheesy static stuff. You can get in vehicles, instead of never being able to do more than click a button on a platform. You have much more lifelike companions who span more than 4 different looks. Yet somehow, after all this, you just aren't Gordon anymore? No, you're just nostalgiac and need to realize that you will never be Gordon the same way you were the first time, no matter what.

There's very little room for player input, as if Half-Life had some? Shotgun for close combat, crossbow for sniping, grenades to toss around obstacles, and a pistol for just about everything else; toss in a few stupidly strong weapons in case you get bored. Sounds pretty similar to me. The only cool weapon that is missing is the hornet shooter, and that was basically just an ammo saver anyways.

Where are all your favourite Half-Life enemies? They're in Half-Life. If I wanted to play the same enemies using the same weapons and same tactics, I would boot up Half-Life. If all they had done was give you new environments, you would have been disappointed, I can gaurantee it. You can remake Dungeon Seige and pass it off as a new game because Dungeon Seige wasn't clever or immersive to begin with.

The story is weak compared to Half-Life? There's just no possible way you can get away with that one. Here is the entire Half-Life story:
Gordon does lab experiment.
Lab gets blown up and monsters appear.
Gordon runs from monsters.
Army comes and tries to kill everyone.
Gordon kills the army and the aliens.
Half-Life didn't have a great story. All it had going for it was that you lived out the story, instead of being told it. The only difference between Half-Life 1 and 2 is that Gordon went from being reactive to proactive ("I need to run away because everything's trying to kill me" to "I need to go and join the resistance and help save them").

I think you're being overly nostalgiac, and critical just because it's socially accepted to be overly spiteful to anything that's popular. "It's Not a Good Game" is overkill; it's typical sensationalist journalism just like the overhyping people you dislike. Who needs integrity, anyways? Hey, I can do it too! Let's title this post: "mittens - He's Not a Good Reviewer."

(Load times do suck and whoever came up with the idea of loading an entire level just to show a menu deserves a severe slapping.)

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I didn't see any variety in HL2...

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I just ran through it from start to finish in what could be described as a veeeee[...]eeeeery boring ride. It was an highly repetitive and shockingly empty universe. Not the slightest bit of story. Events you've seen in a billion movies happening, yes, a few. Story none whatsoever.

If you just ran through it, that would be why you didnt see much variety and possibly why it was a boring ride. I think one of the great things about hl2 was that the details were not blatent (or mostly well blended), there was veriation there if you took time to look and lots of fun to be had with physics and objects.

Of course, you could just run past the details and wonder what you missed. Life is a bit like that ;)

Some games go out of their way to make certain gameplay variations simply for the sake of variation, and it sticks out like a sore thumb killing immerision imo.

It is a linear game for sure, but thats the Half-Life style and despite not liking it in general, i think its easily forgotten.

I quite liked the game to be honest, and i so hate cheesey endings.

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Original post by LockePick You call the pistol weak, then complain that it takes too few shots to kill combine soldiers. What did you want, to play the game entirely with a crowbar or a super powerful sounding pistol that did no damage? In Half-Life, the pistol was overpowered (you could play the majority of the game using it alone). Also, pistols don't tend to make powerful booming noises and the Half-Life pistol was ugly :P

Learn to read before you go off. I never said it was weak, I said the way it handled and sounded made a 9mm baretta look like a rocket launcher. The gun sounds less deadly than a popcap gun, and it just feels like an absolute toy to shoot. No pistol ever created by man has that little power behind it. Hitting a crowbar against a piece of wood made a bigger audible impact than firing a clip of rounds through that piece of crap.

I was, in absolutely no way, shape, or form referring to the in-game effectiveness of the gun.

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You say Half-Life "worked" because you felt like you were Gordon Freeman, as if Half-Life 2 doesn't do this even though it uses the exact same first-person format? You can interactive with the environment now, instead of having cheesy static stuff. You can get in vehicles, instead of never being able to do more than click a button on a platform. You have much more lifelike companions who span more than 4 different looks. Yet somehow, after all this, you just aren't Gordon anymore? No, you're just nostalgiac and need to realize that you will never be Gordon the same way you were the first time, no matter what.

I am nostalgic, that's true, but you're just being ignorant. I generally get very immersed in games, and an increase in technology should just make it more so. I already said that I felt completely absorbed by the introduction and first strider take-down in the game, yet the rest of the game could not do this. Do you know why? Because each situation felt overly contrived within the contents of the game world.

Also, while the companions are very lifelike and realistic, the situations where I actually got to witness the spectacular facial animation and body language they displayed were far and few between. I remember a total of three key scenes where I watched people interact with each other, and they were magical (the first in Kleiner's lab and the last in the office being the best of the bunch), but the rest of the game just didn't take advantage of this wonderful way of telling stories through the interaction of other characters like it could have (or, rather, like I wished it would have).

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There's very little room for player input, as if Half-Life had some? Shotgun for close combat, crossbow for sniping, grenades to toss around obstacles, and a pistol for just about everything else; toss in a few stupidly strong weapons in case you get bored. Sounds pretty similar to me. The only cool weapon that is missing is the hornet shooter, and that was basically just an ammo saver anyways.

That's true, there is very little room for player input in either game, but at least Half-Life let me choose how I dispatched my enemies at all times and by using cool weapons. I mean... SNARKS! Why did the snarks go away? They were so neat. And, and... The charging laser cannon was neat too. And I actually had rocket ammo to use in Half-Life when I felt the need. I had to conserve it for certain spots, whereas Half-Life 2 very obviously only wanted me to use the rocket launcher when an infinite rocket box was near-by; there was no need to really conserve and monitor my resources in Half-Life 2, because they were almost always there exactly when the situation arose.

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Where are all your favourite Half-Life enemies? They're in Half-Life. If I wanted to play the same enemies using the same weapons and same tactics, I would boot up Half-Life.

I'll admit this was just high expecations on my part... But, honestly, when was the last time you got a sequel to a game and it actually had less content than the original game? This was just the result of my disappointment due to high expectations, I'll admit that.

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The story is weak compared to Half-Life? There's just no possible way you can get away with that one. Here is the entire Half-Life story.

The story itself was never the crowning achievement of Half-Life, the way it was presented to the viewer was what made such a stale story seem so "new" to the gamers that were playing it. When I tried describing the story to Half-Life to friends, I always ended up with "Yeah, it sounds lame and standard, but you just have to play it to understand." I said that while I was playing the game, once I had beaten it, and I still tell people that to this day. Nostalgia or not, that's how it was back then.

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I think you're being overly nostalgiac, and critical just because it's socially accepted to be overly spiteful to anything that's popular. "It's Not a Good Game" is overkill; it's typical sensationalist journalism just like the overhyping people you dislike. Who needs integrity, anyways? Hey, I can do it too! Let's title this post: "mittens - He's Not a Good Reviewer."

I'm not being a reviewer, did you see me actually assign the game a good or bad rating? No, I described what I didn't like (and what I did like) about the game, and I left it at that. I hate reviews. I just like to talk about a game, both from a gamer's and a game developer's perspective, and think about what I do like and what I don't like. This is something that every aspiring game developer (and especially aspiring game designers) should be doing whenever they pick up a new game. I try not to let my personal genre preferences get in the way of game analysis. Every game I play, I always have critiques and such, but generally I have an "overall" feeling about what's good and bad, and whether or not the good/bad is strong enough to outweigh the little stuff.

For instance, I have a long list of gripes about the Dungeon Siege 2 demo I just finished playing through this morning, but I still stand by my very positive feeling towards the game because, on the whole, I greatly enjoyed it. The same is true about the upcoming FPS from Monolith called F.E.A.R.

And I'm not just dissing Half-Life 2 because "it's cool to go against the grain." Far from it. I wish I loved Half-Life 2 just like everyone else, but the love just wasn't there for me. Just like the love for Neverwinter Nights was never apparent to me. I do, on the other hand, love a number of recent popular games: Halo 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Resident Evil 4, Psychonauts, Guild Wars, World of Warcraft, etc. Just because I'm picking on your precious Half-Life 2 does not mean I pick on every popular game because I think it's "cool," but rather because I think it's true (from my perspective, anyway). While a number of my criticisms are simply my thoughts, you, as a game developer, should try and consider the merit to these criticisms, and whether or not you think they are valid or not, and then provide a decent reasoning for such ideas. That's all I try to do.

I try not to be a sensationalist at all, and certainly not for the sake of a bigger audience. The only reason I wrote the Half-Life 2 bit is because I made a little quip about Half-Life 2 in my "Gameplay First" article, and I got tired of explaning to people why I dislike Half-Life 2. I generally don't write sensationalist articles, I just write what I feel needs to be written, and I write in a very honest manner. I personally loved Battlefield 2, but there were so many big things wrong with it, that I felt the need to list them. Normally I just write general articles about whatever topic I'm in the mood for, such as "Immersion in Modern Games" or "The Pool of Gaming Familiarity". Sometimes people agree and react well, other times people get annoyed. I'm not out to make friends or piss people off, I'm just out to write and hope my thoughts or ideas might make the slightest impact somewhere in the large world of video games.