MeleeMonk
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Post by MeleeMonk on Mar 18, 2018 18:00:29 GMT
So I recently started playing through Half Life 2 for the first time on PC and I've noticed some things about it that kind of bug me.
-It's a rather easy game. I'm far from the best PC gamer out there, but even on the hard difficulty setting (the highest difficulty setting) Half Life 2 really isn't that much of a challenge for me. I honestly think the easy setting of Far Cry is more challenging than Half Life 2's hard setting.
-Weapons reload on their own when switched out. This is one small aspect of Half Life 2 that I genuinely do not like. Not only does the idea of self-reloading weapons make no sense, but it takes away a sense of urgency, strategy and management that every FPS game should have. It just feels like a cheap way to make the game more accessible to noobies.
-Water Hazard is probably my least favorite chapter in the game. There are some fun parts but overall it just feels like a linear driving simulator.
Does anyone here agree with me about the difficulty? What are your favorite and least favorite chapters in the game?
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Post by Imperial Khador on Mar 18, 2018 18:48:23 GMT
No worries Maestro. I'm 100% sure those things will be addressed in Half-Life 3  |
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MeleeMonk
Cartoon Pony Wrangler
Part-time gamer, full-time environmentalist, and member of PAPO (People Against Palm Oil)
Posts: 3,651
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Post by MeleeMonk on Mar 18, 2018 20:41:56 GMT
No worries Maestro. I'm 100% sure those things will be addressed in Half-Life 3 Half Life 3? When is that coming out again? |
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MeleeMonk
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Part-time gamer, full-time environmentalist, and member of PAPO (People Against Palm Oil)
Posts: 3,651
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Post by MeleeMonk on Mar 18, 2018 23:17:37 GMT
Cervantes You're a Half Life fan, aren't you? What are your thoughts on this? Come on, don't be shy.
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stratogustav
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Post by stratogustav on Mar 18, 2018 23:36:56 GMT
I never played this game, so I have nothing to say about it other than people claim it is one of the most remarkable entries when it comes to Steam's first party catalog.
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MeleeMonk
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Post by MeleeMonk on Mar 18, 2018 23:55:29 GMT
I never played this game, so I have nothing to say about it other than people claim it is one of the most remarkable entries when it comes to Steam's first party catalog. Overall it's an outstanding game. It's just so unique on so many levels (like the revolutionary gravity gun for example) and has by far the best narritive of any action-oriented FPS I've played. Most games of this genre feel like Michael Bay or James Cameron movies in Video game form (AKA dude-bro material), but not Half Life. |
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Cervantes
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Post by Cervantes on Mar 20, 2018 16:02:23 GMT
Cervantes You're a Half Life fan, aren't you? What are your thoughts on this? Come on, don't be shy. I am! However, I do agree with every point you make: the game is indeed easy, especially when compared to Half-Life 1 and its expansions and to Episode 2, and the Water Harzard chapter is definitely too long. Some sections to get harder later, but it is generally an easy game. On the other hand, I would say that Far Cry is too hard to the point of being unfair, so that's not a good example of difficulty either (I swear the developers haven't tested that last section in the volcano). Episode 2 is better in that regard, with more challenging fights: it begins easy, but later on throws some smarter enemies at you. What I like the most about Half-Life 2 is how immersive and well done the entire world is. It just "flows" really well; you meet new characters, reach new areas, discover new enemies and all feels very natural, there's a great sense of progression there. Also, having played it when it was released, I can't overstate how great it was to be in a "reactive" world, the physics engine was absolutely mind-blowing. You just have to put up with Water Harzard, that's the lowest point in the game - it was neat for the time, but even then I remember not liking it. There is another driving section later, but it's much shorter and have many more breaks to exploration/combat. Have you finished the game already? |
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MeleeMonk
Cartoon Pony Wrangler
Part-time gamer, full-time environmentalist, and member of PAPO (People Against Palm Oil)
Posts: 3,651
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Post by MeleeMonk on Mar 20, 2018 17:44:45 GMT
Cervantes You're a Half Life fan, aren't you? What are your thoughts on this? Come on, don't be shy. I am! However, I do agree with every point you make: the game is indeed easy, especially when compared to Half-Life 1 and its expansions and to Episode 2, and the Water Harzard chapter is definitely too long. Some sections to get harder later, but it is generally an easy game. On the other hand, I would say that Far Cry is too hard to the point of being unfair, so that's not a good example of difficulty either (I swear the developers haven't tested that last section in the volcano). Episode 2 is better in that regard, with more challenging fights: it begins easy, but later on throws some smarter enemies at you. What I like the most about Half-Life 2 is how immersive and well done the entire world is. It just "flows" really well; you meet new characters, reach new areas, discover new enemies and all feels very natural, there's a great sense of progression there. Also, having played it when it was released, I can't overstate how great it was to be in a "reactive" world, the physics engine was absolutely mind-blowing. You just have to put up with Water Harzard, that's the lowest point in the game - it was neat for the time, but even then I remember not liking it. There is another driving section later, but it's much shorter and have many more breaks to exploration/combat. Have you finished the game already?On 360, yes, all episodes. But I'm only halfway through my first PC playthrough of Half Life 2 Episode Zero. Yeah, Valve really went above and beyond in making Half Life 2 and its Episodes feel as cinematic and fluid as possible. Could have sworn I heard Gaben saying in an interview that that was one of his main goals with the Half Life games. Haven't gotten to the Volcano level in Far Cry yet, but I've heard other people say the same. I've also heard people say that Crysis has an extremely unfair final level as well. It's nice to talk to another Half Life fan on these boards. It seems like most people here either haven't played the games or hate/dislike them. I'm guilty of not having played Half Life 1 yet, but hopefully I'll get around to playing it someday. |
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MeleeMonk
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Post by MeleeMonk on Nov 10, 2018 18:04:10 GMT
I kind of take back what I said about HL 2's challenge level. It actually has some extreme difficulty spikes (I made this thread before I beat it on the hardest setting for the first time). The ending to HL 2 episode Zero in particular is so cheap, with those striders being able to kill you in about a second. Its actually very unsatisfying in that regard, a lot like Far Cry, although personally I think Far Cry has much more replay value due to the dynamic, open world nature of the combat compared to Half Life's scripted feel.
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Cervantes
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Post by Cervantes on Nov 10, 2018 23:17:54 GMT
Huh. I didn't remember those later sections being that hard, but it's a long time since I played them, and I think I only went through them in normal mode. If you've played the later levels on the hardest difficulty, then it stands to reason that they would be a bit frustrating - on normal, I remember everything being balanced enough.
Besides that, I do agree on the scripted feel - it's a rollercoaster game, with very impressive setpieces but little replay value from the game itself... But then, it received a great mod support, so there are a lot of them to try out. I remember liking "Minerva" a lot (for a good, short singleplayer campaign) and "The Hidden" for a creative multiplayer experience (one player is an invisible killer, the others are a squadron trying to kill him).
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MeleeMonk
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Part-time gamer, full-time environmentalist, and member of PAPO (People Against Palm Oil)
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Post by MeleeMonk on Nov 12, 2018 13:51:02 GMT
Huh. I didn't remember those later sections being that hard, but it's a long time since I played them, and I think I only went through them in normal mode. If you've played the later levels on the hardest difficulty, then it stands to reason that they would be a bit frustrating - on normal, I remember everything being balanced enough. Besides that, I do agree on the scripted feel - it's a rollercoaster game, with very impressive setpieces but little replay value from the game itself... But then, it received a great mod support, so there are a lot of them to try out. I remember liking "Minerva" a lot (for a good, short singleplayer campaign) and "The Hidden" for a creative multiplayer experience (one player is an invisible killer, the others are a squadron trying to kill him).I've heard that it did. Actually now that I think of it, Garry's Mod itself was originally just a fan-mod of HL2. Ironically I learned about Garry's Mod before I knew HL2 existed (watching my bro's friend playing around with Garry's Mod on a projector in my living room in 2005 was my first ever experience with the Source engine; it blew my mind!). I love Garry's Mod. Can't believe I've never bought it. I dislike Valve nowadays but I do give them credit for supporting fan mods of their games, something that I always wished Nintendo did with Project Melee. Nintendo has such profound animosity towards fan mods that, as you know, they have tried outlawing emulation of their systems altogether! It's fucking ridiculous. |
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MeleeMonk
Cartoon Pony Wrangler
Part-time gamer, full-time environmentalist, and member of PAPO (People Against Palm Oil)
Posts: 3,651
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Post by MeleeMonk on Dec 26, 2018 19:11:12 GMT
You know, I never realized this until very recently, but Half Life 2's physics seemed to unintentionally have had a negative effect on all future physics engines by refining them to the point where there was very little room for improvement and all subsequent physics engines just felt the same. Maybe that's why earlier physics engines are so much more interesting to me, since they have a certain nuance in their movement as well as occasional programming quirks that really make them stand out from post-HL2 first person games. A good example would be games like Deus Ex Invisible War and Jurassic Park Trespasser. I know I mention those games all the time, but they just feel so vastly different from a programming perspective compared to literally any 7th gen game or most late 6th gen games with physics engines (I haven't played Trespasser but I've watched several let's plays of it...is that good enough?)
Just take a look at this bit of Invisible War footage to get an idea of what I mean:
Notice how the bodies clip into inanimate objects and then get launched away super far, almost like some kind of magnetic polarity effect? I find that much more entertaining compared to anything I experienced with HL2's physics (Source) engine. The latter's just feels...too realistic, and gets boring before long.
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