More people probably agree Half-Life is so amazing than actually believe it, and appreciate it.
That happens to all things that are generally agreed to be amazing and, as a result, end up popular.
It's subjective either way, but I'm always suspicious of something very layered and intelligent garnering such wide-spread, worldwide acclaim. The general populace are generally idiots who wouldn't know anything intellectual if it raped them in prison with the Born-Oppenheimer approximation printed on the condom.
Thus, when everyone starts praising it for things you know they probably don't get, you should be suspicious.
That doesn't mean it isn't worthy of certain praises.
Subjective as it is, I'd say to call Half-Life average is crazy.
how do you figure? i know a lot of people say its great but i find that sometimes its hard for them to really explain why.
is it something that you would to had experienced to when it came out, to understand? because i played through it just last year and wasnt impressed aside from the phsyics engine
Yeah, at least for me. HL2 was good fun the first time I played it back in 2004. I tried replaying it a couple of months ago, but had to stop because I was getting bored out of my mind.
__________________ And from the ashes he rose, like a black cloud. The Sin of one became the Sin of many.
Half Life 2 has the finest level design this side of Bioshock. The world feels like a real place, not a series of disperate levels populated with things for you to shoot, as it is in most FPS games. It feels like a place that existed before I put the disc in and turned on the game, and it feels like it continues to exist after turning off the game. When I'm going through City 17, it feels like a living breathing city soaked in bleakness and tragedy. It also juggles large scale firefights with intimate fear based survival horror type gameplay better than any other game, also expertly mixing in little puzzles. I was never that impressed with the physics in Half Life 2, nor the gunplay, this is a series that lives and dies on the world and levels that they create, and they are very special in this game.
The story finds itself in the strange place of being very generic in its most basic premise (aliens invade, shit goes wrong) while being extraordinarily unique in the way it tells said story: Through the world itself. No lazy cutscenes with hamfisted dialogue here, just straight forward environmental storytelling. It's not afraid of being intellectual, it doesn't talk down to the player, it assumes, rather bravely in this day and age, that the person playing the game is not a total idiot, and thus will understand the nuances that can be found in the game. The key to this is forcing you to stay in the eyes of Gordon Freeman 100% of the time, something every FPS game should do now. It is inherently better to stay within the confines of the character you are supposed to be, especially in a genre that lives and dies on immersing you in the world, which is what a good FPS game must do in order to be truly successful in any meaningful way beyond neanderthallic and hollow satisfaction.
It also has the best character development in the history of not just the genre, but I think possibly the entire medium. I came to care for Alyx more so than any other single character in my 24 years of gaming. Sweet, smart, funny and sassy, she personifies what a good female character should be, not a busty bimbo with 36 D's, but someone who you end up caring for as you would a sister. This relationship you form with her is the crux of the game, and the payoff is in the monumentally powerful and haunting ending to Half Life 2 Episode 2, the saddest moment I think gaming has yet achieved. No melodrama here, just very blunt and sad despair. A complex feeling which fits perfectly in what is the most complex and deep FPS game around.
__________________
Last edited by BackFire on Apr 15th, 2010 at 02:31 AM
Gender: Male Location: In Luna's mane, chasing STAAARS!
There are rumors that there's gonna be a level where you can play underwater. Why underwater? Most demands I've been reading from Gears fans was that they wanted to fight in space. Fighting in dark, murky water with a chance to meet monsters (like the giant fish in Gears 2) doesn't seem pleasent.
Gender: Male Location: Northumberland,
United Kingdom
Swamp sort of gameplay sounds far more logical than space (which is what I assume you mean by water, I don't know how they would really implament actual underwater into gears gameplay). Why on earth would they be fighting in space?
for underwater im guessing theyre referring to flooded sewers and/or stations or something, considering that the end of the last game invovled jacinto sinking
i dont know... i hope they dont go the bioshock route and have actual underwater cities and stuff though...
by he way backfire, thanks for that input. i dont really agree with any of it but i appreciate the fact that youre willing to put that out there in the first place.
Gender: Male Location: Northumberland,
United Kingdom
I think you really need to replay HL2. I agree with pretty much everything Backfire said, minus the Alyx stuff probably. I liked her as a character and the end of episode 2 was gutting but I don't think I cared about her that much. I just think Backfire has a little VG crush.
well like i said i played it just last year and i really wasnt impressed with the storyline or the gameplay. i think what really did it for me was how empty everything is all the time in that game... theres no music 90% of the time (if at all, cant remember), and you spend the majority of the time wandering around alone killing dozens and dozens of lifeless no personality clones. there was nothing that really put me into the game..
it does come down to preference though, im just a really big fan of cinematic and linear games. its why i cant play games like fallout. when theres no actual stimulation (wither it be through character interaction or pulse racing music or intense fighting etc) i just get bored... ive never been impressed purely by the aesthetics of a game, like level design. closest ive come so far is to modern warfare 2's storyline, in which the actual levels were at times jaw dropping in terms of impact and implications. i think thats kind of cheating though because the developers just had to tweak and convert real life areas into the game as opposed to creating all new ones.
Did you play the episodes as well? Because that's when the storyline, and more specifically your relationship with Alyx really becomes a powerful drawing force in the series. Really Episode 1 in its entirety is almost purely about developing the relationship with Alyx, and Episode 2 is the payoff of that development.
KMC Community Forums
Apr 15th, 2010 01:16 AM
